14 September, 2011

Chain Reaction

You give me a hug,
and I’ll give you a smile.

This smile could light up the Sun,
which could make a plant grow.

This plant, fueled by a smiling Sun,
can make air breathe.

This air, feisty and strong and chemical,
will give you energy.

You give me energy, (kinetic, potential, experimental),
and I’ll give you force, certainty, action.

Action, recorded and studied,
could make for a perfect memory.

Sweat

I miss sweating.

I miss my bangs
sticking to my
sticky, broad, flat
forehead.

I miss the salty smell
of salt pouring
down my back
and neck.

I miss claustrophobia,
and waking up
to exhaustive
showers and baths.

I miss the glare of
the Sun, knifing my eyes
and shape-shifting
my weight.

I miss sleep patterns,
not wondering
why it’s so late,
but why it’s so early.

I miss sweating
because it means
my pores are active
and I’m still alive.

Trivial Haiku

Knives on the table,
knowledge spews between two foes.
Smiles and glances reign.

11 September, 2011

Woe

Denial and false truth,
innocently coerced
by love’s good intentions
have come up for air.

Disappointment
rains over the heart,
erasing fond memories
and forces bitterness to smile.

All that is left inside the heart,
are soft aching memories,
empty, elusive sounds,
and shapes of lost care.

And all our yesterdays
echo softly inside our skulls
rhythmically crying,
organically falling apart.

Betrayed by love’s
faithlessness and falsities,
we weaken and pout,
pitying our own memory.

The battle for nostalgia
is ending and the plumes of smoke
engulf all silver linings,
shape-shifting into shadows.

Never again will
disappointment so eloquently
be understood, or cheered on.
Never again.

Denial and false truth, spurned
and championed, have
been finally laid to rest and this
eulogy mourns on.

The Witch

Enticing devilish men
who have white beards and grey souls,
the Witch (la bruja) sends her curses on.

Bewitchingly calm,
she uses trances and tricks to
serenade and seduce all those who combat her.

Her cauldron is carried
on her back, with bubbles spewing
out, sphered and cubed and black.

Her hands are bejeweled;
ancient stones and metals convince
all around her that she is all-powerful.

She walks silently,
slightly hunched but always slender,
looking as loud as a shadow.

The witch (la bruja) makes potions
from cloves and other plants,
pushing love and hate onto innocents.

She has force inside
her weary soul, tattered by wind
and strengthened by newts.

Her seduction is absolute,
with hair like tar and eyes
that burn, frenetic and neon.

This witch is premium,
real, magicked and wicked-
she denies nothing and remembers all.

Death of Summer

Lazy fat flies
batter their way
through heated, city air.

Re-run sit-coms
and lemonade stands
come to an end.

Children school
while adults
finally get some rest.

Hurricanes start
beating on coasts
and blotting out sunlight.

Longer, thicker shirts
matched with thin scarves
come out to comfort.

Lust turns to love
as pencils are sharpened
for letters and lessons.

Wisdom Tooth

I left the tooth
sitting insipidly,
covered in blood,
roasted in enamel,
on the dental tray
as I shook and trembled
my way onto the street.

Though not squeamish,
I thought it rude
to ask to keep it,
even though I had
done just that
for twenty seven years
inside my own head.

The molar was extracted
using physics and forceful
care by a dentist
who used a pair of
non-rusty pliers
and all the force
from her elbow.

She bent over and
twisted, pulled,
and yanked until
finally a loud
craaaaaack
was heard and the
roots were released.

09 September, 2011

Visiting the Household of Gustavo Jaime Lara Kaldaras and Altagracia Ramos Ramos

Setting foot inside
a moving time capsule which is
full of white, off white, beige carpets
and ancient rules, standards and routines,

is strange.

Rooms have changed
their layouts, fung shei, cleaning habits
and the ancient battles about turning lights off
seem to have dimished,

finally!

Though time has shattered the old
identities, it is hard not to fall back into old routines,
comfortable (and uncomfortable) like
worn slippers that don’t have any more

traction.

The house is surrounded by a perimeter
of minute-sized ants, who militantly and
prosperously devour all specks of food
accidentally laid out by unknowing guests.

Gross!

The heads of household seep into their
own neuroses, separate and combined
like soft-serve ice-cream melting in front of
a hydrogened Sun, politely ignoring

each other.

The activity of all life stems from
the kitchen which combines foods from ancient
days with comforts of modern times,
filling the bellies of the young as easily

as ever.

Guests, familial and not, arrive with
nostalgic fumes escaping their lungs,
attacked by these inn-keepers with love,
forceful respect, and wonderous energy.

Time stops.

Agua

Cats and dogs!
Cats and dogs!

The water comes
up to everyone knees

Rain rain,
Go away!

Time shudders and
spits up on itself

Haha!
Haha!

Your umbrella
has a hole in it

Water

Sobres y saz!
Sobres y saz!

La lluvia cae
redonda y fina

Lero lero!
Lero lero!

Tu paraguas
Esta roto

Orale!
Orale!

Sigue lloviendo
(en Macondo)