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THE TRAIL OF TEARS ENDS IN THE WELL OF JOY |
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WITH MY BACK TO THE MIRROR
© 2002 Carlos A. Ledesma Castañeda
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... Only mystery saves, only mystery.
Lorca
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SOLOLOQUIES ON THE WALL
Unlike many people
I still haven’t planted a tree.
Unlike few others
I haven’t said that I’d planted it.
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NAKED, NOT BAREFOOT
I was born from a vessel that knew to resist the gales
of the most famous childbirth of that cosmic second
with disagreement within reach of the eye
and dreaming of talking with the spiders.
Of dismissing crabs
Of trimming beards.
The waters of the vessel knew to wash away my scars,
the spastic doubts,
the memory of my childhood pet.
To them I owe it --to the waters !
Damned be the furrows through where they do not pass!
For them I am jumping through these piercing thorns
For them will be everything I reach
For them I came to this world
Naked, not barefoot.
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COUNTRY
How can we object a caterpillar,
That being a butterfly
Never forgot the branch in which it nested
And continued weaving quilts to protect it?
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THE NUANCES HAVE THE FLOOR
The question is of Sanities and Chances
Of sealing with laces every common gesture
or wearing them new with a fresh uncertainty?
Of towing the ballast of all things usual
Or dreaming enigmas in spite of the arrows
Why fill the pockets with escapes unreturned?
Where to find that root that branches off to the center of rigidity?
Where to find the balance that weights judgment against chances?
Where to find the answer to the reason of existence,
To the wearing and tearing of one crashing journey?
With what eternal scythe shall we hoe the furrows of memory
so that it yields a fragrant orchard of strategies
--one that offers its fruit without being contradictory?
The nuances have the floor.
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OF THE FAMILY TREE (GENEALOGY 101)
Ms. Renée,
grandmother of grandsons
who weren’t my brothers,
was also my grandmother.
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THE GREATEST GOD FITS IN THE PALM OF YOUR HAND
What solitudes bite your translucid tablecloth
In what whale’s stomach did you end up swallowed?
Who dared to hang you?
What quarrel became friends with your shroud, sentencing the light to darkness?
What became of your arch-famous arrogance?
How fragile was immunity?
What cemetery became refuge to your magnificent gales?
How many prisons did they offered?
What torture was your sister and kidnapped your teachings?
What ancient spell was invoked from a sacred pulpit?
Where the error catch you?
Where the dagger?
What suburbs found you?
What city was your exile?
Where is that face you never dared to ask
because the only answer was of sharpened hooves?
To what cloister of cloud should I request the darkness
of an tormented sky that would cover the infamy
of all your executioners?
And later, when the questioning is over,
Who will lend me another Sun, another Enthusiasm,
To fulfill your promise,
your luck,
the unfinished poem.
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GLASS
These eyes
big as magnifying glasses
opened as a stretched sex
deep as unusual abysses
lucid as the logic of time
absent or smiling –it’s up to the beholder—
these eyes
of world wars and revolutions
are forever shut.
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A MODEST PLACE OF REMEMBRANCES
Forgive my hysterias and don’t think that I adorn the words.
It just feels like I’m in labor:
A heart is born from each of my ten fingers
And it’s my way of saying
That the mortal is immortal when it works wonders in your meddle
that the infinite is ageless only when by blows we stretch it.
And it’s painful,
So no wonder I feel like shouting.
I am trying to bribe the world-wide listings
So that your name is written on them
And you’ll be framed, forever,
in a modest place of remembrances.
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DILLEMA
The spiral of life or the life of the spiral?
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DISCOVERY
The Chinese pagoda has mercilessly crumbled
--soft were its foundations--.
The pirate takes shelter it his cape,
sinks the knee and no longer pulls out the sword.
The islands were mirages bigger than the continents.
The treasures… , I could not enjoy them,
the revolver turned useless in my fingers
and in the playground my innocence was kicked.
It’s dawning,
The fairytales are closed.
From her faded picture the Mona Lisa is smiling …
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PREFERENCES (*)
I am from where a river runs…
Silvio Rodriguez
I rather be flower than asphalt,
valley grass rather than thirsty city,
wild bird but never caged man.
I hate the shiny doors, the high pavilions.
I detest the suit that suffocates in rigid customary labels,
and the smoke that poisons.
I reject the city that steals the sun
and makes me burst in desire
to contemplate the sea and not forget the forest.
I’m terrified of the arrogant skyscrapers,
of the treeless avenues.
I prefer loneliness, with the calm that it implies,
the quiet utterance of what I want from you:
to lean on your nakedness on a rustic Sunday afternoon.
(*) from a Paul Simon’s song
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CONTRADICTORY
Each day I discover myself anew.
Voltaire
I’m carved out of urgencies and of fierce horizons,
of uncertain answers that may never be provided,
Tides filed in maritime drawers bathe my face with their ebbs and flowings.
Through my veins run the stars woven with the thread of cities
I am noisy vice of a speech without an accent
I have a heart in all the precipices,
I feel like a leader of troops without their armors,
Spartan shade that’s lost and frightened,
A furious horde of imperative gesture,
The complement of a pact,
the prescription of all the obstacles.
My hands wave traps at the slightest touch of others,
my feet – feeble presence hard to track to find me
I am Ulysses reaching for the golden fleece,
An island-apparition with its Amazon-women,
The springless prairie that sometimes a nymph visits,
the chosen by the persecution,
the contradictory dwarf,
the unworthy,
the worthy,
the man.
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CONFESSION TO MY FRIENDS
My friends are the suicidal kind:
They love my airs
but don’t know that I am capable of killing
if only to avoid the hurting of their absence,
the unbalance state of not walking in their footsteps.
They know my rages but not my artifices,
the dementia that masks behind my words
which is not “to roll the eyes”
or subdue the tongue a slave of acrobatics.
In some corner of my body lies a tied-up loonie,
A crazy cannon hanging in the wall of my throat,
a gipsy neutralizer of my sanity.
My friends, a spring of eyes that witness my decay,
raise their eyebrows to the ceiling at the slightest attempt of immolation.
The violence that nests in their heartbeats is the echo of my acts yet to be judged.
My friends know to whom to throw the dart!
They are the tangible prism in which my habits are projected,
the support that allows and feeds my arrogance,
the true sustenance ,
the convoluted greeting of each hated morning.
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THE POET
To Nicolas Guillen
O, Nico!
How long have you been trying to leave us!
How feverish the resistance of your grays!
But finally, an eager wind has reclaimed your presence
and you suddenly swam to the farthest shore
--shelter of souls that cared to leave a legacy—;
because something of you has remained in this farewell,
although there are many who proclaim
that you weren’t what you were.
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A PIECE OF FABRIC
The one who travels to the sound of many noises
knows how to pose before a mirror
and sometimes wishes the snow of winters did not melt so dirty.
He does not know that my mother was in labor in the year of the horse,
or that I walked on his footsteps shouting that December is not a month
but a door that never closes.
The forgotten hunter,
charismatic presence never quite a quitter,
feverish collector of unwanted echoes.
He says that the distance is like an accordion,
and you have to learn to put your arms together;
that life is but a pocket with room for filth and tidiness,
where things get lost and things appear unwanted:
unpaid bills,
nameless phone numbers,
someone else’s hand;
but where amidst the debris there’s always a clean corner:
a piece of fabric reserved for a dream.
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ANNOUNCEMENT
Anyone can shine…
Beware the fake light that blinds you.
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STATES
One.
Like knowing yourself fragile, distant,
dreaming the kiss that’s not about to happen;
keeping your hands in hollowed empty pockets ;
To feel like a branch that a storm has torn,
a dew fragrance that is late or never comes,
to sink in the abyss of a withered rose,
like the burial of life.
Two.
Like teaching a small child the basics of reading,
To feed the pigeons in the park in winter,
To help an old lady cross the street.
like working the fields and never more be selfish,
to lend my friends a room for nights of tumble.
To feel like a songbird,
Like a night when comets ran at random,
Mouth of the people that never gossip,
Boyfriend of the sea,
as I prefer it.
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WANTED
Vanity kidnapped a poet who poisoned himself with the habit of his ego.
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RAIN
To Eliseo Diego, for naming things
Suddenly
without a slightest omen
the rain
violent and shameless
whipping the backs of every passer-by.
darkening one face
breaking the gravity of another.
unexpected
stopping traffic in all the four corners
cold and pure
vertical result of struggling clouds
no more glass or bell-like sound
simply
and in all its virtue
the rain.
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SIDEREAL STONE
My life is a compendium of false steps an commendable acts;
an old man with shoulders fallen under a weight of predecessors;
a sheep from a flock guided by “infinite virtues”
of parents self-proclaimed “modern” who make fun of any initiative,
who avoid proposals and believe infallible their conquests
who do not know that all their “discoveries” had already were written
in the most Hegelian sidereal stone.
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MIGRATORY BIRDS
Dear Pythagoras:
One more time your calculations failed you:
one mouth plus another is not two
but a kiss that explodes in the humble shelter
where the light hinders with a new found fire.
In the exact site where a hermit died
are found and broken the persecuted gifts
they arrive but were already there
and the disasters they leave are but the restlessness of the wild dream,
the restlessness of the dream that shall again return...
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PYROMANIA
this fire is love rescued from shrapnel,
powder that never scatters in the winds of consequence,
accessory in the virtue of not being petulant ,
or over-philosophical in the face of sex,
neither naïve receiver of the prophet,
a log that pierces the eye and takes us back to the stone age.
this fire --prophet made from iron melted from the mirrors
empty from not knowing what a face can be--
has as mansy tongues as the world has fools,
and no magic hose can put it out.
this fire --spokesman of the calm, sustainer of the balance--
is the flame that burns the surreptitious serpent,
the unspoiled hurdle that frustrates the dangers.
this fire is the last sanctuary.
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# 5
Let’s journey through love forever naked,
For he loathes the soul that wraps in costumes.
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TWO NEW WAYS TO WAKE UP
.I. EUPHORIA
As I lay awake and glimpse at you I see no intention to deny me.
I discover your mole, your bitten nails the previous night failed revealing.
I ask your name in a gargle and you answer without thinking:
love has long since lost its identity.
you propose to go out, to look for it and rescue it.
So I take my tapered pen,
make myself comfortable in the landing of your hair
and taking you for a giant tranquilizer
I write my word of the day.
.II THE CONSPIRING HARMONY OF YOUR VOICE
You hang among my teeth,
conquering my yawn, wake me up.
Your eyebrows are Amazonian fists,
lanterns that illuminate the steps.
Sometimes the bile entwines in soliloquies
promises to burst but doesn’t follow.
For there it is: the ship-rescue in my backwaters
the conspiring harmony of your voice
requesting love like a maniac.
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SHIPWRECK
The most in-transcendent shipwreck of history
was the one of your north star in my throat:
there was no dolphin nor table adrift that could rescue you from drowning.
But behind your mask your eyes took off its agony
and you mocked all who believed in your lethargy.
You then deliver a boy from your pocket,
set him swimming in the waters of your hands
and in the land you hoed,
away from modern spy games
you sentenced us to settle down.
and a country was born out of that shipwreck
the most in-transcendent one in history.
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DOUBLY HAPPY FINDING
I got lost in a forest where each tree was a root that pierced the universe.
I found roses that reminded me of your potions
and a scent of corner, pure and friendly
sent me singing among a foam of waves that I knew to guess in your hair.
your talk was a breeze, and was a gale
and your skin got lost between my teeth –you porcelain sparrow--
you were the sun that a boy follows,
danced with his books of near and far,
with his compass gasping for directions,
tossing, turning.
And I knew that I wasn’t lost,
that the forest wasn’t frightening
for your were each leaf
and I was all the lips of the world,
I laughed,
I called to you,
I was homeward bound.
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CHINESE SYNDROME
For Alina
I cover my chest with your eyelid
and it figures that it’s cold if you’re awake
With an unspeakable thinness
incongruous but clear
turning me from my head to my toes
along came you
claiming to be perfect soothing to my grudges.
You
my warm Aquarius,
inspiring singer with a timid throat
the flame of my talent
the Chinese syndrome of my childhood
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SHE WAS ... (EVE?) ...
She was of a slenderness bordering perfection
of a perfection reaching the sublime
of a sublimity neighboring a Goddess.
She was a deity near the miraculous
miraculously tight to the highest
highly similar to a shooting star
of fine outline and airs of a comet
of a splendor re-definer of Beauty.
She was so beautiful that when she opened her mouth
It made you think …
Boy, if she were mute!
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POEM
The moon is the favorite target for my lances.
My lances are unequivocally lunar.
But the sun scorned them again this morning,
it got lost in the Earth’ rotations
and predicted the holocaust of night.
But night arrived
Innocent
offering shelter in its lap of light.
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EQUATION
When euphoria reaches paroxysm
Lust is a jail without bars
and it’s time to look for shelter
because the desire-feeling equation
can give us misleading solutions.
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ONE MORE UTOPIA
I have cried on the ninth of September.
I’ve spilled tears in a May day parade.
A missing comrade was another aching
And two grandmothers that left me with no warning.
Could flowers bloom in the waters of my weakness
and my purity of a newly born man ?
a negative answer would be a death sentence
and hope … just one more utopia.
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SECOND-HAND GHOSTS AT LARGE IN THE ATTIC
They are alive.
They are kicking.
Their tails kick me as whiplashes of fire
And I bleed through the eye that watches what it loses.
They enhance the torture of laying down powerless,
Spilling over me the putrid smell of false Gods without an altar.
They invalidate the Hope and seduce the Pride.
They have poisoned the Power.
They degenerate the Attempt and terminate the Dialogue.
Thy are my perpetual praetorian sentinels.
They rule the nights of losing myself to the moon
Turning me into a rabbit
--weak outline with no contours for the knowledge of their being.
They are my assassins.
They are terrible tangible tyrants.
They are.
They exist.
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IT’S NOT ALWAYS DAYBREAK WHEN IT DAWNS
Monday dawns all gross and sleepy
breaking the enchantments of a witch.
the head crashes when being sprightly
and the shoulder blades visit the ribcages
semen stales between the genitals
the bodies rest on sharp and rusty needles
and a fountain pen gets clogged between a pair of unnamable phalanges.
a dog catches a cold from an insult
and another trinket is sold in the market
where they offer a cycle of electrical tickles.
a butcher runs for senator while cheating his way through the grapevine.
suicide is forbidden for the homeless
and the UN letter gets lost in the mail
the gangs takes the blame off each other
and cries the lover for the grass to woo his lady
Christ is astonished at an apostle’s blackmail
while all the Martians, after a lazy Sunday,
prepare themselves to fulfill their experiment.
Monday dawns all gross and sleepy …
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ORDINARY DISGUST
The fly in the balcony raises its eyebrows...
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911: AT THE WORLD TRADE CENTER
WTC 1999
New York City. An ordinary day. An ordinary tourist.
From the Statue of Liberty to the World Trade Center
So much to see, so little time. So I haste my pace...
I'm on Top of the World now,
overlooking the city, realizing a dream.
Now I'm down at the square.
My back on a bench, my feet are swollen - what a day !
As I devour a hot dog over small talk
My hand, held high, plays with the Twin Towers.
Under a clear blue sky ... I feel happy.
WTC 2001
Noise. Darkness. Chaos. Silence.
Steel tumbles as the rage builds up.
Now I wish my hands could stop the Towers from falling.
But all I can do is raise my voice
To pray for the victims
To denounce the cowards.
I must be calm, but I'm angry
I must be confident, but I'm frightened.
I will not take justice in my hand
But I will hope for justice till the end of times
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INTERRUPTION
. . .
with the last drops came thirst
thirst brought despair
despair caused death
death provided bones
the bones became vessel
the vessel filled up slowly
water started to drip
. . .
with the last drops thirst was overcome.
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WITH MY BACK TO THE MIRROR
With my back to the mirror
without a trace of useless doubt
I watch my face
the race of my belonging
I see a mortal man that claims to own the universe.
At the same time
with their backs to all the mirrors
all the men of the world watch themselves
repeat the brilliant procedure
no one is left unsatisfied.
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