Stones
There is an old man.
Waking, his heart beats fast, someone’s running after someone.
He can’t remember his dreams these days.
He fixes himself for the 25,719th morning.
Well, he tries as much as he could.
He locks the steel gate of his daughter’s house.
He goes to the vacant lot beside.
There are many stones in that lot.
Small, big, rough, smooth stones.
Stones the color of ash, the color of blood, of sun-burnt skin, of young hair.
There comes a point all stones look the same.
There were many stones on the long march to Capaz.
He picks one, he remembers Tonio, dragging his matchstick body, broken by a bayonet.
He picks another, Gorio, he was asking for water, we are not in a desert but on a road,
still he was thirsty, a rifle butt shoved in his mouth.
He picks another, Adong, bitten by malaria, shivering inside an imaginary earthquake,
swallowed by the hungry earth.
He picks another, Ipe was helping this fellow they didn’t know, who coudn’t carry himself anymore, hey, get up, we can do
this, a soldier saw them, got the pistol
on his belt, shot them both.
He picks stones all day.
Each stone, a friend gone.
He picks many stones.
He builds a mound.
When he’s finished, he pushes and kicks it.
The stones fall on the ground like tears from a widow’s eyes.
Then he builds another mound, destroys it again, and makes another one.
Until the sun sets, and his grandson comes to fetch him.
He says goodbye to the stones.
Pantoumas
yes i didn’t have to say
that the past is a bouquet
of plastic flowers
always fresh, never old
always going, never gone
oh this plastic past
flowering continuously
into the future
forth and back, always never
here was there
i misread
continuity
for the present moment
i miss your voice,
that’s not to say
where were you
& the blind judge,
guilty of missing
the dead, the mute
we’re all helpless when asleep
blindness is a virtue
you water every day
when no one’s looking
we’re all really helpless
when asleep, always broken, never complete
this evening when no one’s looking
at your tongue, your lips
i miss your voice,
that’s not to say
where were you
& the blind judge,
guilty of missing
the dead, the mute
we’re all helpless when asleep
you didn’t have to say that
you didn’t have to say that
Dark Sestina
you always ask me how much i love you
if i love you more or less, not or yes
it’s easier to ask than to prove.
how does one weigh things,
describe the metaphysical, hold what can’t be touched?
describe the metaphysical, hold
it’s easy to go on a killing spree,
touch each moment i’m with you, you are here,
the physical is overrated,
thunders yes from a million miles, if things were only like this, like that,
proof will just give birth to more proofs,
you bleed whenever i touch you,
this thing that we value so much,
you never believe, of course
there is more than this,
physics once saved the world then destroyed it
the physique of marble never proves anything
rain comes, says yes then never,
touch of water on your hair, your cheeks
these things that never were, things that never will be,
these things that never were, things that never will be,
get physical when it’s too late baby, you wake up to disprove the news,
ghosts touching their loved ones, it means yes,
this omnipresent no,
yes, at last my lover is here,
nothing can tear us,
we touch each other as if it’s the last physical miracle on this planet,
the approval of lightning comes much later,
you of all beings know this yes,
the physical succumbs to touch,
enough proof that these things do exist,
me and you
me and you
me and you
me and you
Ghazal in the Middle of the Night
they’re humming our song, cicadas in the middle of the night
what makes a song a song in the middle of the night
everyone wants the same thing
nobody wins, everyone loses in the middle of the night
various little beasts have managed to enter our house
it doesn’t bother you at all in the middle of the night
i’m lost, i’m somewhere in the sea
whether to sing or to drown in the middle of the night
sometimes you remember
most of the time you forget in the middle of the night
what has weight? what is solid?
what makes one immortal in the middle of the night
you’re prepared to be ignored
abandoned, orphaned in the middle of the night
gratitude, contentment
these are rare indeed in the middle of the night
the cold reminds you of your mortality
thunder scares you in the middle of the night
and when all this is over, lover, you’ll say
you never heard anything in the middle of the night
