{"id":502,"date":"2018-10-07T14:06:25","date_gmt":"2018-10-07T21:06:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alternativepublications.ucmerced.edu\/?p=502"},"modified":"2018-10-08T08:11:59","modified_gmt":"2018-10-08T15:11:59","slug":"colibri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alternativepublications.ucmerced.edu\/?p=502","title":{"rendered":"COLIBR\u00cd"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/h1>\n


\nCOLIBR\u00cd<\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

AMNESIA<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

what are stars but question marks<\/span><\/p>\n

left in grass dew-form hiatuses<\/span><\/p>\n

in the longing the hand has searching<\/span><\/p>\n

for its soul the distant and perfervid<\/span><\/p>\n

traffic of nerve and sinew echoing<\/span><\/p>\n

some archaic rock come to rest<\/span><\/p>\n

on the western edge of water where<\/span><\/p>\n

the likely sun will set its dizzy head<\/span><\/p>\n

what is the cosmos but inches of sand<\/span><\/p>\n

that form the left bank of the stream<\/span><\/p>\n

eddying ever downwards past nymphs<\/span><\/p>\n

transformations of shadow and air<\/span><\/p>\n

in contact with the greater gods who<\/span><\/p>\n

circle the unapproachable heat of time<\/span><\/p>\n

and what are children taking naps<\/span><\/p>\n

but embodiments of\u00a0death and ink<\/span><\/p>\n

small remnants of a memory whose<\/span><\/p>\n

history has long gone lost in the night<\/span><\/p>\n

we it is who are the amnesiacs blank<\/span><\/p>\n

with an aphasia of plundered alphabets<\/span><\/p>\n

myths bereft of a center ever dwindling<\/span><\/p>\n

in stone and grief half-statues carved<\/span><\/p>\n

from atmospheres of lunar serenity<\/span><\/p>\n

not meant to speak right nor to see<\/span><\/p>\n

and hear as marble sculptures can<\/span><\/p>\n

in their infinite dream of light
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

07-24-18<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

EVENING THE FADE OF ALL<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

the spine still hot from fever<\/span><\/p>\n

yet already walking barefoot<\/span><\/p>\n

in grasses wet with dew distilled<\/span><\/p>\n

by the sun now an opaque orb<\/span><\/p>\n

declining in the western hills<\/span><\/p>\n

a myth of life and breath and<\/span><\/p>\n

the great and fortuitous guesses<\/span><\/p>\n

about light and the origins of time<\/span><\/p>\n

and given the small space for the<\/span><\/p>\n

soul to escape and the multiple<\/span><\/p>\n

days of water left in the pool<\/span><\/p>\n

with its obsidian reflections and<\/span><\/p>\n

even the Aztecs who have taken<\/span><\/p>\n

quarter on the south-side of legend<\/span><\/p>\n

where the maize fields reach deep<\/span><\/p>\n

into the prospect of another world<\/span><\/p>\n

shadow figures of the many-gone<\/span><\/p>\n

moving in shifts of pearl and<\/span><\/p>\n

agate and the voices too high<\/span><\/p>\n

above in a sky separated from<\/span><\/p>\n

its own surface and the talking<\/span><\/p>\n

going on beneath beds of leaf<\/span><\/p>\n

and coral isn\u2019t it a wonder<\/span><\/p>\n

you declaim in an archaic rhetoric<\/span><\/p>\n

strictly speaking to blackboards<\/span><\/p>\n

and the chalks of pure imagination<\/span><\/p>\n

erecting libraries of untold verse<\/span><\/p>\n

anemones of ocean and spittle<\/span><\/p>\n

yards where unconfirmed children<\/span><\/p>\n

spill over the little abysses shouts<\/span><\/p>\n

that bring twilight to its knees<\/span><\/p>\n

and the overt speculation about<\/span><\/p>\n

madness and the splendors of weed<\/span><\/p>\n

justice of the spoon and the horse<\/span><\/p>\n

noontimes in the bedlam of memory<\/span><\/p>\n

lunching with angels long dead<\/span><\/p>\n

the massive cliffs overnight and<\/span><\/p>\n

trumpets of vowel and diphthong<\/span><\/p>\n

splitting the verger into unequal<\/span><\/p>\n

hemispheres of bucolic and reverie<\/span><\/p>\n

you keep making noises and rust<\/span><\/p>\n

and its train of thought circling<\/span><\/p>\n

mirrors of heat and the abacus<\/span><\/p>\n

that lacks hands to count and<\/span><\/p>\n

all the higher mathematics grown<\/span><\/p>\n

red in the corner of the mind<\/span><\/p>\n

that begins to see backwards into<\/span><\/p>\n

the zero formulated by dying<\/span><\/p>\n

just at the hour when moon and<\/span><\/p>\n

steam conspire to shape the inks<\/span><\/p>\n

of whatever it is that can be read<\/span><\/p>\n

even as layers of silence mount<\/span><\/p>\n

and wall and spool threaten<\/span><\/p>\n

the remains of dust beautiful<\/span><\/p>\n

spirals climbing pedestals of flame<\/span><\/p>\n

into the depths of the galactic sea<\/span><\/p>\n

the mind its portents of lasting<\/span><\/p>\n

a longing to aspire to a dream<\/span><\/p>\n

of the only thing that ever meant<\/span><\/p>\n

to be the hand become inert<\/span><\/p>\n

in its immense digital map<\/span><\/p>\n

syntax and index of the finger<\/span><\/p>\n

pointing to the maze of azure<\/span><\/p>\n

air and its vanishing suburbs<\/span><\/p>\n

fleeing forever into the past<\/span><\/p>\n

you continue to declaim and<\/span><\/p>\n

nothing ever comes back of that<\/span><\/p>\n

passage through the underworld<\/span><\/p>\n

asphodel blooms gone blind in<\/span><\/p>\n

the inextinguishable lamp<\/span><\/p>\n

rose and counter-rose paling<\/span><\/p>\n

in the forever of an afterthought<\/span><\/p>\n

has not been and what else<\/span><\/p>\n

evening the fade of all<\/span><\/p>\n

07-29-18
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

QUESTIONS FOR THE DELPHIC ORACLE<\/strong> <\/span><\/h2>\n

what will the thermometer read tonight ?<\/span><\/p>\n

will the new marble learn to speak by noon ?<\/span><\/p>\n

why is there but one hour to this solemn day ?<\/span><\/p>\n

why were we turned away at the entrance ?<\/span><\/p>\n

why did the gatekeeper cryptically remark<\/span><\/p>\n

that Wednesdays were no longer allowed ?<\/span><\/p>\n

which was the path to the dead language<\/span><\/p>\n

and which the bend in the road to oblivion ?<\/span><\/p>\n

what was the task to finish before daybreak ?<\/span><\/p>\n

why did angels scour the veins of the absent ?<\/span><\/p>\n

who was the one chosen to live in solitude ?<\/span><\/p>\n

are there anemones to be picked for the cure ?<\/span><\/p>\n

do asphodels hold the answer to immortality ?<\/span><\/p>\n

do women mourning the petrified god<\/span><\/p>\n

understand that before and after death<\/span><\/p>\n

there is a light that only sleep can explain ?<\/span><\/p>\n

why are numbers missing from the count ?<\/span><\/p>\n

why is three greater than eight in the fusion ?<\/span><\/p>\n

who is to relay the secret to the missing page ?<\/span><\/p>\n

what is the letter of the alphabet which is the clue ?<\/span><\/p>\n

what is the multiplicand that informs the pyramid ?<\/span><\/p>\n

why do we keep being turned away from the gate ?<\/span><\/p>\n

are there immensities in space that revolve<\/span><\/p>\n

after the last full moon has bled the sky ?<\/span><\/p>\n

why is there a sobbing in the leaves ?<\/span><\/p>\n

who has left his feet behind as a consolation ?<\/span><\/p>\n

who will remember to call home before twilight ?<\/span><\/p>\n

who will tread on the grasses of absence ?<\/span><\/p>\n

who will be elected to shut all the windows ?<\/span><\/p>\n

will the chill of the stars finally invade the mind ?<\/span><\/p>\n

why do we mill around in small groups<\/span><\/p>\n

unknown to one another and expect absolution ?<\/span><\/p>\n

who is the stranger dressed in archaic myth ?<\/span><\/p>\n

which of us by nightfall will be smitten by Apollo ?<\/span><\/p>\n

why has the gate been removed from sight ?<\/span><\/p>\n

who will hold the sacred branch trembling with fear ?<\/span><\/p>\n

which of the heavens will open up unexpectedly<\/span><\/p>\n

raining down a silence of many eternities ?<\/span><\/p>\n

will the one smitten by Apollo learn to die ?<\/span><\/p>\n

will the statues that have sprung up overnight<\/span><\/p>\n

offer us the enigma and punctuation of their being ?<\/span><\/p>\n

why are there so many signs written in dust ?<\/span><\/p>\n

which is the urn and which is the pedestal ?<\/span><\/p>\n

why is the city we left behind burning ?<\/span><\/p>\n

why is the city we left behind reduced to smoke ?<\/span><\/p>\n

is there a single memory we can share before<\/span><\/p>\n

passing on to the world of the unbegotten ?<\/span><\/p>\n

are the minutes remaining the same as the ones<\/span><\/p>\n

we experienced this morning before setting out ?<\/span><\/p>\n

is there dew in the tumult of the galaxies ?<\/span><\/p>\n

is there anywhere we can go after this ?<\/span><\/p>\n

will the one smitten by Apollo learn to die ?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

08-01-18<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

AWAKE BUT NOT AWAKE<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

in a wheelbarrow they brought us<\/span><\/p>\n

the remains of memory a pair of sleeves<\/span><\/p>\n

some shoes without soles and buttonholes<\/span><\/p>\n

overhead light rolled in waves like glass<\/span><\/p>\n

in the field crickets were sewing a song<\/span><\/p>\n

out of heat monotony and oblivion<\/span><\/p>\n

it was the year without a face the month<\/span><\/p>\n

called eternity and days like small cups<\/span><\/p>\n

cracked and waiting on shelves of dust<\/span><\/p>\n

the women who emerged from a myth<\/span><\/p>\n

of trees and stone were heavy with names<\/span><\/p>\n

like Daphne Persephone and Echo mirages<\/span><\/p>\n

beautiful as a reminiscence of water in the hills<\/span><\/p>\n

winds stopped to repair the chasm of noon<\/span><\/p>\n

the sun with its enormous whetstone<\/span><\/p>\n

seemed to be charged like an open wound<\/span><\/p>\n

slowly removing its shadow from the sky<\/span><\/p>\n

and voices of rock and sand like elves<\/span><\/p>\n

that populate the ear of something dead<\/span><\/p>\n

found by the side of the road resounded<\/span><\/p>\n

incoherent with distance and longing<\/span><\/p>\n

girls too without age pretty as amaryllis<\/span><\/p>\n

growing in the crevices of earth approached<\/span><\/p>\n

hands full of dirt clods & insect skeletons<\/span><\/p>\n

chanting the miasma of an archaic trope<\/span><\/p>\n

listening carefully to their rounded vowels<\/span><\/p>\n

we ascertained nothing of their history<\/span><\/p>\n

only the enormous and blank spaces<\/span><\/p>\n

left behind by the syntax of moonlight<\/span><\/p>\n

grief and mourning grass and shade<\/span><\/p>\n

was there anything else to the Hour ?<\/span><\/p>\n

we looked again into the wheelbarrow<\/span><\/p>\n

smaller than we recalled hands folded<\/span><\/p>\n

over his breast fragile as a hummingbird<\/span><\/p>\n

sleeves shoes and buttonholes the remains<\/span><\/p>\n

of memory a face emphasized by silence<\/span><\/p>\n

and the hair as ever wonderfully unkempt<\/span><\/p>\n

08-04-18<\/span><\/p>\n


\n<\/span><\/p>\n

LA REGI\u00d3N M\u00c1S TRANSPARENTE<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

para mi hermana Laurita<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

between Sanskrit and Greek and the homophones<\/span><\/p>\n

of sun moon and pyramids the Mexico of a vast<\/span><\/p>\n

nostalgia and indifference infancies of grammar<\/span><\/p>\n

soundings of lyre and petroglyph in the memory<\/span><\/p>\n

of parks too vast to enter the looming sword aflame<\/span><\/p>\n

proscriptions in the history of ants and bees and<\/span><\/p>\n

the trembling edifice of water forty two stories high<\/span><\/p>\n

from which the feathered ancestors leap fearless<\/span><\/p>\n

and the mound and heaven of garbage at the bottom<\/span><\/p>\n

people in miniature talking the fast dialect of puppets<\/span><\/p>\n

painted to resemble the totem god of crocodile and<\/span><\/p>\n

fossil and eventually the big language of despair<\/span><\/p>\n

surging down avenues of pure advance and intellect<\/span><\/p>\n

the hieroglyphic novels of the conquistadores red<\/span><\/p>\n

and ochre and yellow and basalt inches of carving<\/span><\/p>\n

the nursemaid Chabela in her uniform of starch<\/span><\/p>\n

and ivory crying because the rope doesn\u2019t go far<\/span><\/p>\n

enough nor the interior clothing of Baby Krishna<\/span><\/p>\n

twelve sizes larger than the ink it takes to write<\/span><\/p>\n

his hagiography and the imposing latitudes of<\/span><\/p>\n

the tropics museum and nightclub alike where stoned<\/span><\/p>\n

pianists rival the conga drummer for supremacy<\/span><\/p>\n

Moctezuma and Cuauhtemoc in black face dancing<\/span><\/p>\n

the irrigated walk of the illegal immigrants sent<\/span><\/p>\n

north for imitating living versions of Europeans<\/span><\/p>\n

claxon and fire-horn and Siren filling the ear<\/span><\/p>\n

with a lasting impression of trumpet and syllable<\/span><\/p>\n

bringing down the insurance industry and fraud<\/span><\/p>\n

to a single violent vowel on Avenida Insurgentes<\/span><\/p>\n

such was the infancy and childhood and recollection<\/span><\/p>\n

of flowers and waters floating in mid-air haze<\/span><\/p>\n

of late twentieth century Infierno of world coming<\/span><\/p>\n

to its Berlitz lesson too late and the clamor and iron<\/span><\/p>\n

at the gates and the Polic\u00eda who forgot to dress<\/span><\/p>\n

charging a riot of shadows and ampersands loudly<\/span><\/p>\n

inflicting their empty suitcases on the swarming<\/span><\/p>\n

at the head of an Antillean revolution and distance<\/span><\/p>\n

created by megaphones and the phonograph records<\/span><\/p>\n

that repeat Perfidia way past midnight in the woven<\/span><\/p>\n

skyscraper of mental aberration sleepless and yearning<\/span><\/p>\n

for a weather of silent catastrophes deep in the jungle<\/span><\/p>\n

sylvan emotions lunations of circular heat enormous<\/span><\/p>\n

with the fictions of Valum Votan space traveler twin<\/span><\/p>\n

of an orient that cannot be translated and to come home<\/span><\/p>\n

and simply regress to a small cosmos of maps imagined<\/span><\/p>\n

or otherwise spread out on the living-room floor nowhere<\/span><\/p>\n

outside the boundaries of stellar dialogue and loss<\/span><\/p>\n

me and you, Joe<\/span><\/p>\n

08-05-18<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

ARIZONA<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

the last voices of the day faint echoes<\/span><\/p>\n

on the failing stairway that goes nowhere<\/span><\/p>\n

now the smoking edifice of recollection<\/span><\/p>\n

lingering under the glazed stare of a god<\/span><\/p>\n

whose immortality is circumscribed<\/span><\/p>\n

in a distant childhood of petrified thunder<\/span><\/p>\n

and horizontal rains the now vanished<\/span><\/p>\n

summers of rock palaces and grass domes<\/span><\/p>\n

the subterfuge of life and breath a distance<\/span><\/p>\n

that consists of lost sunlight and hills<\/span><\/p>\n

and when twilight with its umber curtains<\/span><\/p>\n

begins to descend and the mind too starts<\/span><\/p>\n

to shut down its effervescence and bright<\/span><\/p>\n

the numinous entities of a vast and unknown<\/span><\/p>\n

Night seem to ignite perilous lamps unspoken<\/span><\/p>\n

markers of a voyage around the bend<\/span><\/p>\n

from the familiar to the dusky entrails<\/span><\/p>\n

of a labyrinth of no-return and yet<\/span><\/p>\n

the lingering voices the faltering echoes<\/span><\/p>\n

of a final day of an hour in a parking lot<\/span><\/p>\n

waiting for the chandelier of salvation<\/span><\/p>\n

to somehow turn its candles into beacons<\/span><\/p>\n

that will light the way out of the impossibilities<\/span><\/p>\n

the unavoidable truths the stagnation of hope<\/span><\/p>\n

does nothing resolve the knot of existence ?<\/span><\/p>\n

footsteps traces of passing spheres red and green<\/span><\/p>\n

a pharmacopeia of illusion and glassware<\/span><\/p>\n

mirrors that turn on their own axis slowly<\/span><\/p>\n

revealing then hiding the shadows of reflection<\/span><\/p>\n

how far does sound travel in the beyond ?<\/span><\/p>\n

where will the body released of its tensions<\/span><\/p>\n

find itself when the next day dawns unseen ?<\/span><\/p>\n

in the transformation of shards and ash<\/span><\/p>\n

the outlines of a missing spirit and logos<\/span><\/p>\n

seem to beckon us towards canyons awesome<\/span><\/p>\n

with geological attitudes massive and remote<\/span><\/p>\n

impersonality of a final reckoning ricocheting<\/span><\/p>\n

through stone and liquid alike the voices<\/span><\/p>\n

the last ones heard in the province of memory<\/span><\/p>\n

long unwinding sinuous disorientations<\/span><\/p>\n

like footprints in the dissolving air<\/span><\/p>\n

beneath a sky of everlasting heat and light<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a008-15-18<\/span><\/p>\n


\n<\/span><\/p>\n

THE DANCE OF IMMOBILITY<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

it wasn\u2019t just the hand that lacked gravity<\/span><\/p>\n

but the plenitude and aura and print information<\/span><\/p>\n

about thought and gyrating icons losing shape<\/span><\/p>\n

and color and the insects at the barrier wanting in<\/span><\/p>\n

the walls no longer visible the seas at the window<\/span><\/p>\n

with their gravel of nocturnal longing and<\/span><\/p>\n

passing by the phantom automobiles with their<\/span><\/p>\n

wet tires sleek against the concrete leaving<\/span><\/p>\n

behind traces of possible worlds of mountains<\/span><\/p>\n

beneath the poetry of air and light and why go on<\/span><\/p>\n

the body remained in its ineffable posture<\/span><\/p>\n

as if asking questions no one could ever answer<\/span><\/p>\n

expecting oracular lamps to shine on the enigma<\/span><\/p>\n

enveloping the husk of breath swiftly departing<\/span><\/p>\n

and what was there to say and listening carefully<\/span><\/p>\n

to the weeping among the flowers without name<\/span><\/p>\n

in the corridors and doors opening and closing<\/span><\/p>\n

of their own and always the distant drone of a soul<\/span><\/p>\n

testing its wings in an aleatory attempt at flight<\/span><\/p>\n

whatever there was of weight and consequence<\/span><\/p>\n

was of no moment now only the cracks in space<\/span><\/p>\n

widening to let childhood out to vanish somewhere<\/span><\/p>\n

in the greater horizon before time and grass and ink<\/span><\/p>\n

the last yearning traces of an unremembered dream<\/span><\/p>\n

invoked the elusive dance of immobility<\/span><\/p>\n

08-16-18<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

JAZZ SOLO<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

for Will Alexander<\/span><\/p>\n

by what bullet of the imagination does it take<\/span><\/p>\n

to comprehend these unforgettable pages<\/span><\/p>\n

pronominal structures carved out of ozone<\/span><\/p>\n

decibels of ego-free echo threading through<\/span><\/p>\n

planet X just before sunrise a mass of rock<\/span><\/p>\n

silhouetted against the third ear of tomorrow<\/span><\/p>\n

and sub-molecular implosions waking the Self<\/span><\/p>\n

to its hydrated energy of baroque syncopation<\/span><\/p>\n

basso profundo mirror syntax and snaking<\/span><\/p>\n

vertebral chakras up the solar panel outside<\/span><\/p>\n

the first of five hundred verb systems meant<\/span><\/p>\n

to obliterate pre-historic mythography a writ<\/span><\/p>\n

in spoiled red staining the epidermis of Venus<\/span><\/p>\n

with an indo-european tattoo horse cult and<\/span><\/p>\n

magnet drawing from terrestrial ores a<\/span><\/p>\n

configuration of metallic noun declensions<\/span><\/p>\n

wild as nebulae out of control mentally speaking<\/span><\/p>\n

the talk of the sub-continent the Dravidian iso-<\/span><\/p>\n

lation of the dreamer in his stoned arm of tense<\/span><\/p>\n

articulation bound to the air by satellites of water<\/span><\/p>\n

vast and cycling lunations that halve the head<\/span><\/p>\n

into thirds by dawn and the stellar speculation<\/span><\/p>\n

about the origins of space the fecund and orbiting<\/span><\/p>\n

adjective that gives birth to pyramids of sound<\/span><\/p>\n

homophones of sphinx and delta the vast suns<\/span><\/p>\n

that formulate chemical psychologies into round<\/span><\/p>\n

formulae second only to the gassed outer horizons<\/span><\/p>\n

that encapsulate pre-natal experiences nostalgic<\/span><\/p>\n

with ritual deaths totem animals liberated from<\/span><\/p>\n

a lore of deity and demon a whole savanna of winds<\/span><\/p>\n

detritus of space travel in the ear of Dionysus<\/span><\/p>\n

oozing from a Sicily of augury and divination<\/span><\/p>\n

volcanic substance of memory at last cataloged<\/span><\/p>\n

by eons of buried cities of seas that do not travel<\/span><\/p>\n

of entire languages buried in sand and magma<\/span><\/p>\n

the lava of time ! the lava of time ! the lava of time !<\/span><\/p>\n

frozen yet circulating through Amazon liana<\/span><\/p>\n

ivy and grass and weed growths in the ocular zone<\/span><\/p>\n

just beneath the fever of temporal accidents<\/span><\/p>\n

free-wheeling sapphire in its cluster of phonemes<\/span><\/p>\n

becoming and not being undefined as existence<\/span><\/p>\n

plural in its singularity like woman who has<\/span><\/p>\n

risen from the empyrean of dew rock-crystal<\/span><\/p>\n

and longing the outer firmament of thought<\/span><\/p>\n

which concludes the lesson of oblivion skin<\/span><\/p>\n

and song of dying unto the soul mineral verse<\/span><\/p>\n

of the Phlegethon burning its centuries of liquid<\/span><\/p>\n

the small trembling and vitreous thimble of jazz<\/span><\/p>\n

Coletrane redivivus !<\/span><\/p>\n

08-24-18<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

COLIBR\u00cd<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

d\u00f3nde los jotos de las cabezas rotas<\/span><\/p>\n

pasando entre humo y humo aun m\u00e1s<\/span><\/p>\n

delicados que las abejas de nieve de<\/span><\/p>\n

los inviernos piramidales sujetos a las<\/span><\/p>\n

leyes lunares de las noches fuera del a\u00f1o<\/span><\/p>\n

me encuentro tambi\u00e9n ni\u00f1o de pantalones<\/span><\/p>\n

de sue\u00f1o corto al llegar al umbral fantasmal<\/span><\/p>\n

pidiendo limosna de miel y calaveras tontas<\/span><\/p>\n

hermano sin hemisferio de todos los ahogados<\/span><\/p>\n

en la pantalla oscura de la muerte repentina<\/span><\/p>\n

qui\u00e9n me pregunta si soy \u00e1ngel o colibr\u00ed ?<\/span><\/p>\n

como puedo saber si el n\u00famero preciso<\/span><\/p>\n

de las hormigas que van entrando la nube<\/span><\/p>\n

que llena mi alma es cien o cien mil ? abajo !<\/span><\/p>\n

pongo el pie izquierdo en cima de una latitud<\/span><\/p>\n

de mares solares sin espina dorsal sin ojos<\/span><\/p>\n

nom\u00e1s pescados el\u00e9ctricos nadando en busca<\/span><\/p>\n

de la oreja cicl\u00f3pica que existe al otro lado<\/span><\/p>\n

del planeta rayo-X y todav\u00eda estoy aqu\u00ed en<\/span><\/p>\n

el mero centro de Xochimilco abuelo de mi<\/span><\/p>\n

abuelo hijo de hueso y colibr\u00ed volando<\/span><\/p>\n

con hembras que no han visto la luz<\/span><\/p>\n

entre los metales redondos de los cielos<\/span><\/p>\n

neol\u00edticos hablando con las letras indescifrables<\/span><\/p>\n

de Micenas un dialecto enterrado por las hierbas<\/span><\/p>\n

de las rodillas de los conquistadores turcos<\/span><\/p>\n

en su marcha hacia la alucinaci\u00f3n europea<\/span><\/p>\n

pero nada puede ser hoy ! ni tampoco ayer !<\/span><\/p>\n

porque nadie sabe hablar como las luci\u00e9rnagas<\/span><\/p>\n

perdidas entre los matorrales de las afueras<\/span><\/p>\n

de la ciudad a\u00fan no descubierta de Moctezuma<\/span><\/p>\n

trueno blanco ! rel\u00e1mpago ciego del norte mudo !<\/span><\/p>\n

caminos revueltos en su lecho de cero y alfa<\/span><\/p>\n

lumbre de azafr\u00e1n que crece como el \u00e1rbol<\/span><\/p>\n

del olvido \u00fanica oposici\u00f3n a las hojas sangrantes<\/span><\/p>\n

esas cosas nimias derramadas por un dios<\/span><\/p>\n

desconocido sobre las aguas infernales<\/span><\/p>\n

que suben pie tras pie el polvo muerto<\/span><\/p>\n

de la bruja Circe y yo atravesando su isla<\/span><\/p>\n

yo ! colibr\u00ed loco del pasado de la piedra pelada<\/span><\/p>\n

colibr\u00ed enamorado ! colibr\u00ed est\u00fapido !<\/span><\/p>\n

donde est\u00e1n tus alas ?<\/span><\/p>\n

08-24-18<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

MICRONAUT II<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

the year more than half gone since you went<\/span><\/p>\n

back into the invisible mountain to flower<\/span><\/p>\n

again to renew the direction of your compass<\/span><\/p>\n

to turn in your arms for elastic wings<\/span><\/p>\n

more than half gone since you subtracted yourself<\/span><\/p>\n

from the x-ray and the multiple prescriptions<\/span><\/p>\n

from the puzzle of remaking yourself daily<\/span><\/p>\n

attached to machines that recorded vital signs<\/span><\/p>\n

what need had you of those artifacts anymore ?<\/span><\/p>\n

the cosmos in a blink offered you the thrill<\/span><\/p>\n

of flight interminable wonders of starry light<\/span><\/p>\n

in all the hues imaginable and time itself<\/span><\/p>\n

wound itself around the shape of your hand<\/span><\/p>\n

and aloft you went cruising like a hummingbird<\/span><\/p>\n

collecting the pollens of ecstasy and memory<\/span><\/p>\n

inevitabilities of oblivion and space travel<\/span><\/p>\n

such as you once imagined on Montague street<\/span><\/p>\n

on a bicycle as if floating through clouds<\/span><\/p>\n

over the demesne of the roiling bay waters<\/span><\/p>\n

of the metropolis where you earned your life<\/span><\/p>\n

as a pilot of plastic space-craft legitimacy<\/span><\/p>\n

pivoting higher and higher over skyscrapers<\/span><\/p>\n

and libraries the kite of your own fabrication<\/span><\/p>\n

unraveling labyrinthine threads as you soared<\/span><\/p>\n

master of the azure keeper of secret thunders<\/span><\/p>\n

your eye on the fast winds that govern air<\/span><\/p>\n

and the moon in its many phases where you<\/span><\/p>\n

can land and observe distant earth revolving<\/span><\/p>\n

far from the confusion it had once created when<\/span><\/p>\n

your mind took a turn around the unexpected<\/span><\/p>\n

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++<\/span><\/p>\n

more than six months now since you decided<\/span><\/p>\n

yes the body is only weight and shadows can<\/span><\/p>\n

be left behind to determine their own fates<\/span><\/p>\n

you had learned and taught what you learned<\/span><\/p>\n

to those too inept to figure it all out<\/span><\/p>\n

you have become sleek a streaking flash<\/span><\/p>\n

in the night heavens which we scour looking<\/span><\/p>\n

for the brilliant dust of your swift passage<\/span><\/p>\n

into eternity a micronaut at last<\/span><\/p>\n

09-01-18<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

AMNESIA (THE BRIDE)<\/em>
\n<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

was it a cloud we fought for an empty blouse<\/span><\/p>\n

lineaments of blue air and the big hair<\/span><\/p>\n

that belongs to the goddess of distance come<\/span><\/p>\n

all undone combs pins ribbons and all<\/span><\/p>\n

the battlements on which we saw her walking<\/span><\/p>\n

the ditch and trophy and randy dogs sniffing<\/span><\/p>\n

phantom footsteps the very din of battle<\/span><\/p>\n

dusting the noon of eternity in her dark eyes<\/span><\/p>\n

we never looked deep enough into the pockets<\/span><\/p>\n

where she hid her valuables nor spoke once<\/span><\/p>\n

with her in the dressing room nor touched<\/span><\/p>\n

the illusion of her powdered skin as she<\/span><\/p>\n

flitted by in organdy and tulle and a wisp<\/span><\/p>\n

of swan wings the door that shut on memory<\/span><\/p>\n

the fluid device at the center of the poem<\/span><\/p>\n

that could turn either way moon-rise or<\/span><\/p>\n

toward the sun setting in the ochre Tuscan hill<\/span><\/p>\n

a mass of versions of beauty at its prime<\/span><\/p>\n

girls who turn mirrors into antiseptic weapons<\/span><\/p>\n

the mature woman at the top of the marble steps<\/span><\/p>\n

the mad priestess raving in her honeyed cups<\/span><\/p>\n

mistress of bees the divergent shadow in<\/span><\/p>\n

search of its body the spool and increment<\/span><\/p>\n

of rumor spooking the dry wells and baths<\/span><\/p>\n

how many the rushing waters of a sleep<\/span><\/p>\n

engendered by a vanishing desire to hold just<\/span><\/p>\n

once with arms of substance the ghost woven<\/span><\/p>\n

from the thin threads of myth the primordial<\/span><\/p>\n

lesson of stone learning to move and talk<\/span><\/p>\n

a statue and nothing more borne on a ship<\/span><\/p>\n

bound for Asia Minor and the wheeling birds<\/span><\/p>\n

above fog and surf and dim mirage of land<\/span><\/p>\n

sighted by the primitive eye for the first time cliffs<\/span><\/p>\n

promontories of white clay absences of grammar<\/span><\/p>\n

shipwreck and victory of ants on the shoreline<\/span><\/p>\n

darkening like an evening looking for stars<\/span><\/p>\n

what a lack of trust in the fleeting bodice<\/span><\/p>\n

the sweep of the unfurling dress skimming<\/span><\/p>\n

the threshing floors of Phrygia the eye-liner<\/span><\/p>\n

blacker than the Nile\u2019s deposits and lip-gloss<\/span><\/p>\n

disappearing in the glass of irreversible thought<\/span><\/p>\n

minds blown up ! the spear aimed at the stag<\/span><\/p>\n

leaping mountain peaks of pure longing<\/span><\/p>\n

sign and delusion tooth set on the fine hide<\/span><\/p>\n

hands from nowhere taking ink from its shape<\/span><\/p>\n

shuddering because she has been nowhere<\/span><\/p>\n

if not in the disappearing lines recited by the bard<\/span><\/p>\n

silences without echo margins without space<\/span><\/p>\n

what is in between the gods ? typography<\/span><\/p>\n

and punctuation of the hieroglyphs of time<\/span><\/p>\n

reductions of sand and flame lies of the pyramids<\/span><\/p>\n

let her bed alone in the vast abyss leave her<\/span><\/p>\n

to the imaginary lions of chalk and brush<\/span><\/p>\n

a painted ivy a sequence of embroidered leaf<\/span><\/p>\n

platinum and aura detritus and ebbing tide<\/span><\/p>\n

flimsy breeze and vowel ricocheting in rock<\/span><\/p>\n

the named and the unnamed bride amnesia !<\/span><\/p>\n

08-05-18<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

M\u00c1S ALL\u00c1 DE LA VIDA<\/span><\/h2>\n

if it\u2019s not the shadow it\u2019s the mirror<\/span><\/p>\n

that defines the soul\u2019s miscomprehension<\/span><\/p>\n

about the body and all that lies beyond<\/span><\/p>\n

the hand extended toward its shape<\/span><\/p>\n

somewhere in the infinite azure of sleep<\/span><\/p>\n

the possibilities of a chance encounter<\/span><\/p>\n

with the other in this labyrinth remain<\/span><\/p>\n

as minimal as the deciphering of hieroglyphs<\/span><\/p>\n

buried in the sands of pharaonic oblivion<\/span><\/p>\n

be we as midges or fireflies lost in this<\/span><\/p>\n

nocturnal maelstrom where is the hole<\/span><\/p>\n

though which we may though wounded<\/span><\/p>\n

flutter away into the abyss of the heavens ?<\/span><\/p>\n

09-09-18<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

TERREMOTO<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201ctutti li termini de la beatitudine\u201d <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Dante\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

we are waiting for the echo of the sun<\/span><\/p>\n

for the great bipartite wound of the hand<\/span><\/p>\n

unable to recognize its day has come and<\/span><\/p>\n

clouds as ancient as the first star motionless<\/span><\/p>\n

in the molecular distance of the late sky<\/span><\/p>\n

come down to earth ! fossil angels spanning<\/span><\/p>\n

the vast and remote literatures of water<\/span><\/p>\n

and time and pure mountains erupting<\/span><\/p>\n

in the silent violence of their own rebirth<\/span><\/p>\n

can dust and the opaque bruised and ochre<\/span><\/p>\n

hills and the dense occidental shadows ?<\/span><\/p>\n

it is dawn in the heart\u2019s upper chamber<\/span><\/p>\n

fleeting counsels of love and nostalgia<\/span><\/p>\n

moments when mortals fixed in a trance<\/span><\/p>\n

spend their breath masquerading as owls<\/span><\/p>\n

or bees hovering in the accident of air<\/span><\/p>\n

from afar tremors announce an end<\/span><\/p>\n

vacuities of thought perils of language<\/span><\/p>\n

unholy oaths trembling on the stoned lip<\/span><\/p>\n

we are on Columbus Avenue looking<\/span><\/p>\n

for glassware and hoodoo of the zodiac<\/span><\/p>\n

minstrels singing in 13th<\/sup> century Italian<\/span><\/p>\n

arrest us searching our pockets for signs<\/span><\/p>\n

of the earthquake the Big One the lesson<\/span><\/p>\n

the forest of vitreous skyscrapers begins to<\/span><\/p>\n

shake prepared to take the sun from its orbit<\/span><\/p>\n

everyone knows the heavens are quantum physics<\/span><\/p>\n

in reverse and stars archaic Neolithic letters<\/span><\/p>\n

set to burn in the unresolved orient of a Buddha<\/span><\/p>\n

convicted for distributing alms on pier 19<\/span><\/p>\n

inevitable quaking of the elements ! RED !<\/span><\/p>\n

storefronts collide in confession of capitalism<\/span><\/p>\n

neon and anthracite and silicon ! when is it ?<\/span><\/p>\n

the hours mount within their stop-watch<\/span><\/p>\n

planet Mercury addresses the virgin Beatrice<\/span><\/p>\n

at the nexus of Broadway and the Sacred<\/span><\/p>\n

minutes defenestrate the weeks it takes<\/span><\/p>\n

for the second light year to collapse !<\/span><\/p>\n

Beatitudes ! heliotrope and infinity<\/span><\/p>\n

in every window the selfsame Devotion<\/span><\/p>\n

quivering minutely irrepressibly beautiful<\/span><\/p>\n

her hands lifted to the origins of Space<\/span><\/p>\n

Annunziata ! temblor and echo-chamber<\/span><\/p>\n

the sun divided into its five thousand parts<\/span><\/p>\n

explodes in ecstasy of the Cyclops\u2019 eye<\/span><\/p>\n

SHANTI\u00a0\u00a0 SHANTI\u00a0\u00a0 SHANTI<\/span><\/p>\n

09-13-18<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

CHAOS , THE<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Oh great the bright and happy the<\/em> , poetry<\/span><\/p>\n

for we only live this once this one , day<\/span><\/p>\n

and spring has flowered and sung its green<\/span><\/p>\n

and to summer much did heat in cycles grieve<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018til now finds us at autumn\u2019s pastel hearth<\/span><\/p>\n

a burning leaf a loss of every kind , the Oh<\/span><\/p>\n

famous poetry of license and fervent nerve<\/span><\/p>\n

was love at once , a time ago and now forlorn<\/span><\/p>\n

echo of the past it sings a chaos a splendid<\/span><\/p>\n

music a radio-wave a blue fountain a , for<\/span><\/p>\n

a day a king and crossed in verse a thousand<\/span><\/p>\n

years and dared to wage and fling an arm<\/span><\/p>\n

high into the empyrean and sing ! the still<\/span><\/p>\n

and hush the marmoreal silence stolen<\/span><\/p>\n

kisses from the bier and hair a tousle and<\/span><\/p>\n

wings forged from grass to fly ! sing ! die !<\/span><\/p>\n

archaic always rock beneath and footsteps<\/span><\/p>\n

and velvet the crosiers and flaming flutters<\/span><\/p>\n

a banner flagged in frozen air and Memory<\/span><\/p>\n

the chaos of the brain a song to sing a lyre<\/span><\/p>\n

to bend a wire to snap in the ungodly hour ,<\/span><\/p>\n

an air , wind soughing through branches wild<\/span><\/p>\n

a tangle of insomniac measures and aphasia<\/span><\/p>\n

the diphthongs unstrung and the class photo !<\/span><\/p>\n

live only once and we do so this is a day a single<\/span><\/p>\n

one to joy and sorrow both aligned a steep<\/span><\/p>\n

wall to climb some stones to hurl and water<\/span><\/p>\n

too a passage into the darkened rivulet and<\/span><\/p>\n

face down call out to , the<\/em> , O mighty it is<\/span><\/p>\n

poetry the vacuum and the stars a fringe<\/span><\/p>\n

of little spangles asterisks commas a deluge<\/span><\/p>\n

when chaos to articulate this black hole the<\/span><\/p>\n

unwinding of the reverie the dream I dreamt<\/span><\/p>\n

and did you, O pronoun of the second person ,<\/span><\/p>\n

come high this very time this instant reversed<\/span><\/p>\n

and once only we live you and I this day is<\/span><\/p>\n

only and never again embraced like moss<\/span><\/p>\n

to bark and swoon come evening and the hills<\/span><\/p>\n

come rolling from their bed and the child<\/span><\/p>\n

who in his blanket of never will again and<\/span><\/p>\n

so much else with alpha and zed the unread<\/span><\/p>\n

page the lost chapter the amazing chaos rent<\/span><\/p>\n

in two the very syllable of once upon a , the<\/span><\/p>\n

endings are in the head the dice like eyes<\/span><\/p>\n

tossed on the ivory shield and come ! late<\/span><\/p>\n

is the sky full blown and dazzled the daisies<\/span><\/p>\n

in their small yellow heaven and finally the<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

and the<\/em> again which never a place to find<\/span><\/p>\n

this day of once lived , you and the first<\/span><\/p>\n

person pronoun , I , chaos to navigate and<\/span><\/p>\n

poetry erased by its own desire to sing<\/span><\/p>\n

the song of the<\/em> , chaos the broken light<\/span><\/p>\n

the distance and the endless swarming<\/span><\/p>\n

09-15-18<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

HYMN TO COATLICUE<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

when does it stop making sense ?<\/span><\/p>\n

light in a wide swath over mountains<\/span><\/p>\n

and distances devouring the all visible<\/span><\/p>\n

to make of a year this dark plaint<\/span><\/p>\n

that spreads its Mexico over the past<\/span><\/p>\n

glyph and lip and protruding tongue<\/span><\/p>\n

when does it cease to matter ?<\/span><\/p>\n

each single day but a moment erased<\/span><\/p>\n

by an Aztec hand fingering dead texts<\/span><\/p>\n

why circle again this non-existent now<\/span><\/p>\n

this wild red dot full of the bright ones<\/span><\/p>\n

dwelling in their thought of eternity<\/span><\/p>\n

yet crash the skies in their thimble<\/span><\/p>\n

full of ruin rust and waste to burn<\/span><\/p>\n

and pyramids by some divinity built<\/span><\/p>\n

erected to pierce the language-heaven<\/span><\/p>\n

but illusion and mockery of feathers<\/span><\/p>\n

what need to plant again the lyric seed<\/span><\/p>\n

the root that grapples with earth below<\/span><\/p>\n

summoning crazed shades of Coatlicue<\/span><\/p>\n

lament and lachrymose her sad vowels<\/span><\/p>\n

threnody that visits all before day is done<\/span><\/p>\n

crepitation of wheel spoke and axle<\/span><\/p>\n

clouds done up in blazing raiment<\/span><\/p>\n

to remind that behind unruly space<\/span><\/p>\n

nothing but nothing exists to contemplate<\/span><\/p>\n

why proceed into the future dense<\/span><\/p>\n

with shadows disconsolate and confused<\/span><\/p>\n

to none offered the syllable of grace<\/span><\/p>\n

the weeping shoulder the unfixed planet<\/span><\/p>\n

gyrating in the consonant of sleep<\/span><\/p>\n

the endless series of calendar events<\/span><\/p>\n

it never happened it never was the stone<\/span><\/p>\n

the spool of things the names and suns<\/span><\/p>\n

histories of uncarved stone and sand<\/span><\/p>\n

routines of myth the glamorous<\/span><\/p>\n

speaking parts and statues of the Half<\/span><\/p>\n

it is but once and once is forever gone<\/span><\/p>\n

tick and tock the whirling universe<\/span><\/p>\n

manifest troubling galaxies of the eye<\/span><\/p>\n

song that poured into the restless ear<\/span><\/p>\n

a tone a dim bell ringing echo of dust<\/span><\/p>\n

what else to give to the vacant heart<\/span><\/p>\n

but hieorglyphs of eternal silence<\/span><\/p>\n

when does it stop making sense ?<\/span><\/p>\n

09-19-18<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

ON THE LEFT CALLE TULA<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cvas a morir como 1 ganglio de luz\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Mario Santiago Papasquiaro<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

on the alert , alive , to fix , to die , alight<\/span><\/p>\n

in Teotihuacan the old , dust engravings ,<\/span><\/p>\n

peacock feathers , Aztec stone hatchets ,<\/span><\/p>\n

the lake in which submerged the light<\/span><\/p>\n

will turn to rock , erase the etchings ,<\/span><\/p>\n

fill the veins with paroxysms , Greek<\/span><\/p>\n

annotations in the sewers of DF , to rise<\/span><\/p>\n

to the bucolic and skewer the air , sing !<\/span><\/p>\n

at no other time in this history , boulevards<\/span><\/p>\n

that only go the other way , symptoms<\/span><\/p>\n

of cardiac arrest , allegations of child mole-<\/span><\/p>\n

station , of the cross and the flower , the<\/span><\/p>\n

dead garden , fuchsias of pure bone , com<\/span><\/p>\n

-munism , murals that cover a volcano ,<\/span><\/p>\n

myth of beards and paraplegia , hospitals<\/span><\/p>\n

without beds , beds without deaths , the whole<\/span><\/p>\n

in atavistic corruption , claxons , outhouses ,<\/span><\/p>\n

the junkie on the corner of Hate and Derision ,<\/span><\/p>\n

pouring anthracite into his veins , president<\/span><\/p>\n

of the Roman empire shouting in Toltec ,<\/span><\/p>\n

slogans of painted winds , asbestos storms ,<\/span><\/p>\n

Mercury ! , patina of red and cuprous , a<\/span><\/p>\n

solution for water , a debacle in the sardine ,<\/span><\/p>\n

here will we stop to memorize , here will we<\/span><\/p>\n

cease to function , living matter in excess ,<\/span><\/p>\n

on the left Calle Tula , sardonic apses , lists<\/span><\/p>\n

of alphanumeric planets , disregard for art ,<\/span><\/p>\n

singled out for its hair-piece , the ice-pick and<\/span><\/p>\n

the police button , on their knees the shoulders ,<\/span><\/p>\n

how do we find refuge in poetry ? shibboleth ,<\/span><\/p>\n

anarchosyndicalism on the rise , 110 storey<\/span><\/p>\n

structures wobbling like tin , furious to know ,<\/span><\/p>\n

the next visit to the Intensive Care Unit , will<\/span><\/p>\n

be the last , paragraphs of medical lies , cell<\/span><\/p>\n

counts disturbed , mourning and misery ,<\/span><\/p>\n

sad and tender , this was the hand that held ,<\/span><\/p>\n

these the feet , couldn\u2019t stay put , couldn\u2019t<\/span><\/p>\n

find direction , and so it goes
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

09-22-18<\/span><\/p>\n


\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\u0398\u03ad\u03c4\u03b9\u03c2<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

your voice tender and tragic addressed<\/span><\/p>\n

each of the ambulances parked in front<\/span><\/p>\n

asking if they had your soft Achilles<\/span><\/p>\n

wounded an ankle at a time on the shore<\/span><\/p>\n

where were the traveling bed and sheets<\/span><\/p>\n

wrapped around the phantom figure ?<\/span><\/p>\n

how did the deities transport him from<\/span><\/p>\n

the lonesome strand to solitary con-<\/span><\/p>\n

finement in the illusory Phrygian uplands ?<\/span><\/p>\n

your syllables riveted with anguish and<\/span><\/p>\n

foreboding while the invisible wheel of fate<\/span><\/p>\n

blotted out the sun in its slow gyration<\/span><\/p>\n

that<\/em> afternoon ! how many times would<\/span><\/p>\n

it remain engraved in monumental silence<\/span><\/p>\n

granite and marmoreal forever distant<\/span><\/p>\n

who was to pick up the trail outward<\/span><\/p>\n

to the planet where the Sisters weave<\/span><\/p>\n

mortal limits on the plangent loom<\/span><\/p>\n

beyond boundaries of ink and sand<\/span><\/p>\n

that define what memory is to the gods<\/span><\/p>\n

a mere reflection in running mercury<\/span><\/p>\n

puerperal fever and syntax of loss<\/span><\/p>\n

catastrophic ruin nerve of black tears<\/span><\/p>\n

yet there they stood the impassive vehicles<\/span><\/p>\n

that transport the mortally wounded<\/span><\/p>\n

to an Elysium of benediction and grief<\/span><\/p>\n

and the unseen fists of your anguish<\/span><\/p>\n

pounding on the irreversible metal<\/span><\/p>\n

come back ! don\u2019t go ! be visible !<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

your cries sea-swept in the tumult that<\/span><\/p>\n

bears away echoes of heat and sorrow<\/span><\/p>\n

you stood on the threshold of infinity<\/span><\/p>\n

not comprehending yet knowing always<\/span><\/p>\n

there are waters mountains and mysteries<\/span><\/p>\n

and deep within these the seed of light<\/span><\/p>\n

the immemorial child the brevity
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

09-26-18
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

BEATRICE : THE NUMBER<\/span><\/h2>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 for Cassandra, the pre-Raphaelite<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

the three and the nine and all they multiply<\/span><\/p>\n

threshold of the stars or a blank paper<\/span><\/p>\n

void of eternity divided by zero !<\/span><\/p>\n

Cocytus and Lethe wailing and oblivion<\/span><\/p>\n

and even further down to the south of the dead<\/span><\/p>\n

where waste and detritus of mind pile up<\/span><\/p>\n

shines in raiment manifold hues of bright<\/span><\/p>\n

in every shade misty the distant Beatrice<\/span><\/p>\n

who has seen and held forth in verse and file<\/span><\/p>\n

triptych of the heavenly and untouchable<\/span><\/p>\n

painted face of neo-platonic reverie a lily<\/span><\/p>\n

blooming in the upheld hand to the clouds<\/span><\/p>\n

and their seed and flux all shaking a vast<\/span><\/p>\n

summer of elements unnamed and never<\/span><\/p>\n

to be ascertained the finger that sketches<\/span><\/p>\n

fog and dew of the afterlife and the lip<\/span><\/p>\n

trembling that aspires to the blessings<\/span><\/p>\n

accorded to the innocent and undefiled<\/span><\/p>\n

the artist unconscious of his sentient skin<\/span><\/p>\n

deep at work in unfathomable night brings<\/span><\/p>\n

to life the absent one the profile and outline<\/span><\/p>\n

of light the numerology of the ancient poet<\/span><\/p>\n

adding dividing multiplying subtracting<\/span><\/p>\n

mystical apparatus of the number of words<\/span><\/p>\n

it takes to define the emptiness of space<\/span><\/p>\n

the grounded rule of time left in her eyes<\/span><\/p>\n

quivering sensibilities of flowers ablaze<\/span><\/p>\n

sensuous at the root and ready to be devoured<\/span><\/p>\n

by the Sun in his constant turning flame<\/span><\/p>\n

how doth the animal in the brain Sleep ?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

in the temple of stone and incense prayers<\/span><\/p>\n

radiate their somnolence to the unspoken<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

rustle of silks and waters somewhere a music<\/span><\/p>\n

wrapped in Damascus cloths and porphyry<\/span><\/p>\n

mosaics she leaves beneath her waking feet<\/span><\/p>\n

ciphers hieroglyphs of incumbent Beauty<\/span><\/p>\n

at one with the nothing that comes before<\/span><\/p>\n

birth and the divining grace of invisibility<\/span><\/p>\n

aloft can she be lifted by soft atmospheres<\/span><\/p>\n

legends of the heart and resin of intellect<\/span><\/p>\n

given over to devotion and contemplation<\/span><\/p>\n

her one body no body at all adolescence<\/span><\/p>\n

of angels descending on the endless Thread<\/span><\/p>\n

to take in her very absence the Whole<\/span><\/p>\n

setting above it the Rose and dissolving<\/span><\/p>\n

it over and over in adamantine silence
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

09-30-18<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

CHILD-OF-MY-HEART<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

which was the hieroglyph that interpreted you ?<\/span><\/p>\n

was it the leaf learning to read the light<\/span><\/p>\n

and what it has to say descending on its ladder<\/span><\/p>\n

of invisible floral patterns and moon thoughts ?<\/span><\/p>\n

you reached out for a handful of air<\/span><\/p>\n

to define your true being the essential inner you<\/span><\/p>\n

great internal blossoming of sand and rock<\/span><\/p>\n

imprinted with the hearsay of the archaic<\/span><\/p>\n

enormous unfolding waves of letters<\/span><\/p>\n

missives from secret gods hidden in liquid gold<\/span><\/p>\n

what their mouths were telling you in a language<\/span><\/p>\n

of fever and ancient fingerprints HOIL<\/span><\/p>\n

which you wrote in your mysterious passage<\/span><\/p>\n

to the underworld riding the enigmatic thunder<\/span><\/p>\n

deep into the recesses far beyond the cathode ray<\/span><\/p>\n

where lightning bugs and fairy princes toiled<\/span><\/p>\n

to remove the blister from the mind<\/span><\/p>\n

intelligence of a higher order spatial careening<\/span><\/p>\n

within the thumb and its aureole you held aloft<\/span><\/p>\n

staring at times for an eon into the miasma<\/span><\/p>\n

and corolla of the bedside plant emerging<\/span><\/p>\n

from the souls of the Philipino or Nigerian nurses<\/span><\/p>\n

who helped you turn from one hemisphere to the other<\/span><\/p>\n

blazing ingots of midnight spheres swirling<\/span><\/p>\n

in the forever of your crabbed Egyptian handwriting<\/span><\/p>\n

Child-of-my-Heart ! how could I know that to<\/span><\/p>\n

pick you up and address your frail weight<\/span><\/p>\n

was an error a millimeter of breath and truth<\/span><\/p>\n

misunderstanding of the hundred thousand isotopes<\/span><\/p>\n

that converged to remove your body from its<\/span><\/p>\n

burning and naked shadow the one and the two<\/span><\/p>\n

that summed you up between the galaxies<\/span><\/p>\n

that were either coming to a sublime end<\/span><\/p>\n

or that were just being born again
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

10-02-18<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

AUBADE<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cVaya noche antiBu\u00f1uel \/ antiDal\u00ed\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Mario Santiago Papasquiaro<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

conduct of the black sun rising<\/span><\/p>\n

more ephemeral than the mountains<\/span><\/p>\n

he destroys and the shocking white steeds<\/span><\/p>\n

that draw his cart shaking their atrocious heads<\/span><\/p>\n

earth drenched in the infernal dream of air<\/span><\/p>\n

turns ever so slowly on its illusory equator<\/span><\/p>\n

Brazilians in epic of drowning manatee\/nymphs<\/span><\/p>\n

Peruvians stoned on antediluvian heights<\/span><\/p>\n

and mostly Toltecs wardens of holy Peyotl<\/span><\/p>\n

day bright lyric of all the dead troubadours<\/span><\/p>\n

aroused from their Provenzal tombstone dialect<\/span><\/p>\n

sing the thousand and ten Muses of dereliction<\/span><\/p>\n

ominous bird springs of Etruscan augurs<\/span><\/p>\n

lesser still the ocean lifting his hoary head<\/span><\/p>\n

above archipelagos of petrified byzantine saints<\/span><\/p>\n

waking to insane ululation of an unseen muezzin<\/span><\/p>\n

all of the Libyan sands that still mourn Dido<\/span><\/p>\n

moaning in the crystallized ear of the Nile<\/span><\/p>\n

we are borne on frigates of moon-rock across<\/span><\/p>\n

Scylla and Charybdis reciting pentameters<\/span><\/p>\n

of the Mort d\u2019Arthur to the hallowed winds<\/span><\/p>\n

that govern gods of Dawn and deathless time<\/span><\/p>\n

to be cast on the spent mutilation of statues<\/span><\/p>\n

waiting for dread Phrygian taxis to haul<\/span><\/p>\n

them back to the monumental quarries of Pluto<\/span><\/p>\n

Alba ! sounds of wet traffic and trolley cars<\/span><\/p>\n

through the labyrinthine Medina of the soul<\/span><\/p>\n

held captive to beds of irreconcilable nostalgia<\/span><\/p>\n

our ghost bodies permeated with alcohol<\/span><\/p>\n

and sandalwood struggle to remember exactly<\/span><\/p>\n

what–names and identities remain locked<\/span><\/p>\n

behind vast panes of vibrating refulgent glass<\/span><\/p>\n

flimsy partitions between infinite tidal waves<\/span><\/p>\n

junk of the fading stars falling like confetti<\/span><\/p>\n

Pegasus narcotic spoon-fed delivery to the brain<\/span><\/p>\n

suffused animus of infernal to be the once and<\/span><\/p>\n

only blues bringing its funereal saxophone loud<\/span><\/p>\n

to this world of ours which has lost its center<\/span><\/p>\n

the child replica of the holiest sacrifice the mind<\/span><\/p>\n

bifurcations of infra-red and tumult of breath<\/span><\/p>\n

alone and away on surges of oneiric miasma<\/span><\/p>\n

waters of burning errata and oblivion<\/span><\/p>\n

of a demonic morning text<\/span><\/p>\n

buenos dias , compa\u00f1eros !
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

10-06-18<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

COLIBR\u00cd   AMNESIA what are stars but question marks left in grass dew-form hiatuses in the longing the hand has searching for its soul the distant and perfervid traffic of nerve and sinew echoing some archaic rock come to rest on the western edge of water where the likely sun will set its dizzy head […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14,6,5,1],"tags":[49,8,9,30,48,47,45],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alternativepublications.ucmerced.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alternativepublications.ucmerced.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alternativepublications.ucmerced.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alternativepublications.ucmerced.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alternativepublications.ucmerced.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=502"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/alternativepublications.ucmerced.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":524,"href":"https:\/\/alternativepublications.ucmerced.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions\/524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alternativepublications.ucmerced.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alternativepublications.ucmerced.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alternativepublications.ucmerced.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}