Probably my favorite Poem in exsistance, yet
Mario Santiago Papasquiaro
Advice from a disciple of Marx to a fan of HeideggerÊ
To Roberto Bolano & Kyra Galvan comrades& poets
for Claudia Kerik & my good fortune at having known herÊ
“…it’s as well at times
To be reminded that nothing is lovely,
Not even in poetry, which is not the case.”Ê
W.H. Auden
The world comes to you in fragments / in splinters:
in a melancholy face you glimpse a brushstroke by DŸrer
in someone happy the grimace of an amateur clown
in a tree: the tremble of birds sucking on its nape
in a flaming summer you catch pieces of the universe licking their faces
the moment in which an indescribable girl
tears her Oaxacan camisole
exactly next to the half-moon sweat of her armpits
& beyond the peel is the pulp / & like a strange gift of the eye
the eyelash
Maybe not even carbon dating will be able to reconstruct
the true facts
These are not the times in which a naturalist painter
ruminates on lunchtime excesses
between Swedish gymnastic movements
& without losing sight of the pinkish-blue hues of flowers he hadn’t
guessed at not even in his sweetest nightmares
We are actors of infinite acts
& not precisely under the blue tongue
of cinematographic lights
for instance today / you see how Antonioni passes by
with his customary camera
observed by those who prefer to bury their heads in the grass
to get drunk on smog or whatever / so they don’t add
to the scandals
that already make public roads impassable
by those who’ve been born to be kissed at length by the sun
& its daily ambassadors
by those who speak of fabulous coitus /of females unbelievable
in this geological age
of vibrations that would’ve made you a tenacious propagandist of Zen
Buddhism
by those who have once been saved
from the kind of accidents that the crime rags call substantial
& who by the way are not—for now—counted among the flowers of the
Absurd
So on this trapeze on the high wire
of this thousand-ring circus
a grandfather tells of the emotion he felt on seeing Gagarin
flitting like a fly in space
& what a pity that the spaceship wasn’t called Icarus I
that Russia is so fiercely anti-Trotskyite
& then his voice dissolves / seems to stagger
amid applause & boos
Reality & Desire roll around / butcher each other
spill over 1 on top of the other
like they’d never do in a Cernuda poem
froth flows from the mouth of the 1 who speaks wonders
& it would seem that he lives inside the clouds
& not in the wastelands of this neighborhood
The humid air of April / the lascivious wind of autumn/
the hailstone of July & August
all present here with their fingerprints
Alcohol
urine / what wonÕt have been used as fertilizer for this grass
how many gardeners earning less than the minimum wage will leave in this trap
their scant proteins?
For now you lie face-down in the shadow
of the long & hairy legs of the parks
where are gathered
the 1 who dreams of revolutions parked too long
in the Caribbean
the 1 who would like to rip out the eyes of the heroes in posters
to strip naked the emptiness of the farce
the girl with cat-like filmic green eyes
although close up they may turn out be blue who knows
the student all adrenaline & rebellious pores
the 1 who doesn’t believe in anyone / not even in the Kantian beauty
of some of Marcuse’s female followers
& explodes screaming that we’re putrefied by fury /
dehydrated by so many volumes of theory
the worthless occasional whore who shares the torrent of her solitude
with strangers
letting the scales of supply & demand be tipped by charm
warmth sudden vibrations
Chance : that other anti-poet & incorruptible vagrant
those who come here to cry / until they carve—as if in wood—
the face of a paranoid martyr
after ripping upÑnot precisely out of enthusiasm—
the seats of movie theaters
the 1 who writes his will or epitaph on a wrinkled napkin
& then blows kisses into the air / —& everyone supposes
he’s celebrating his birthday or the divine hymeneal song of the night before last
& all these hypotheses are too fragile to explain
why he used a pistol & not a paint can
if he seemed capable of seducing to the point of horniness / Giotto’s pulse
& pupil
the 1 who always greets people with an I’m hopeless
& you?
those who love rabidly like stray dogs
—in their green & ripe years—
& theyÕre called florid lovers
& theyÕre an aphrodisiac not only for Marc Chagall’s sensitivity
those who know death personally
at the hour in which suicide becomes an obsession
some disheveled desires to bite & be bitten
to have had it up to here with so many castles in the sand
that seem indestructible
to invent for a few seconds a Power
that the daily cement mixers destroy in you
as if you were a scrap of paper
& then you understand the 1 who’d like to bury
beneath tons of plants
buildings / black earth
the slightest heartbeat / the tachycardia of his personal story
you’re infected by the nervousness the anxiety
of those who fake their breathing
as if they possessed a certain aftertaste of carnivorous plants
& spend hours waiting for friend Tenderness
that call-girl who rarely comes
those who come escaping from tear gas
& the nightsticks of wide avenues
from the great & small stains that just can’t be removed
by the smell of pine or the caress of a kleenex
those who ignore who they are / nor want to know
when the climate’s reputation worsens daily
the eternal amnesiacs who suck their thumbs from happiness
because the Earthly Paradise is here & not in Miami
those who swear oaths declaring that this free independent island territory
will not degenerate into a scrap-heap supermarket
At the very moment when a hit song
intermingles its rhythm
with the peculiar pitter-patter of rain
& installs a fatally momentary order
so the scene may continue to be dominated
by unkempt hair /
enormous moist eyes
& as if from the same chiaroscuro of the night
a girl appears muddying her fists against her thighs
repeating 1 / 2 / 3 times:
I am not a sex object / I am not that robots/
I am alive / like a eucalyptus forest
here where the norm is to be implacably kind
with 1 another
& this is the least evil
The park trembles / my reflective steps take me
through the streets of a port by a green sea
that the natives call Mezcalina
a sensation until now unfamiliar
like truly knowing what DNA tastes like
after making love
If this isn’t Art I’ll cut my vocal chords
my most precious testicle / I’ll stop talking nonsense
If this isn’t Art
The branch of a tree bends under the weight of a sparrow
or rather a sparrow ends up shattering an already broken branch
WeÕre still alive
somehow or other we have to summon the crystal islands
that with an excess of violence kick the softest parts of your eyes
reality seems like an isinglass on a miniature scale
but also your eyelids your perception & its straightjacket
Matter & Energy/
& the will to stick your tongue between its tongue
This is an unusual day
vibrant ordinary anonymous
couldn’t be more earthling as we tend to say on festive days
or during the ever more frequent searching of houses
fear illuminates your stomach & burns it
THERE IS NO AHISTORICAL ANGST
TO LIVE HERE IS TO HOLD YOUR BREATH
& STRIP NAKED
—Advice from a disciple of Marx to a fan of HeideggerÑ
Poetry: we’re still alive
& with your matches you light my cheap cigarette
& look at me as if I were a single uncombed strand of hair
shivering with cold in the comb of night
We’re still alive
a green-eyed yellow-winged butterfly
has pinned itself to the blue lapel of my jacket
—my denim body
feels like a seducer a human radar a pollen magnet
that at times acquires the conviction of a diminutive galaxy
singing sweet madness between oohÕs of wonderment—
Damn what a moon!
exclaims 1 wealthy in solitude
& wretched in employment
who was fired just yesterday because he wasn’t thrilled
by the short-circuiting of the bureaucratic coffee-maker
What a moon!
like a cut fingernail
like a cluster of sperm
suspended
over the bristling back of night
when you listen to
a crunch of flattened walnuts—crack—
the buzzing whine of an ambulance
that once again arrives late
the murmur of lizards with leopard skin spots
mischievously climbing the vine in search of nourishment
the last sounds of a picnic
where Desolation has been up to her old tricks
& finally announces the proximity of the wind
that stains & gnaws at everything
However you can still walk here like a happy sparrow
like Chaplin on the day he kissed Mary Pickford for the very first time
somebody walks around with a transistor radio
that looks like a second ear
Galileo discovers the law of the pendulum observing
the sweet swinging of these lovers
violently united & half-consumed by fog
the very foolish believing that their bite-mark covered Love
will end up shining in technicolor
& this in the same m2 / at the same moment
in which the north pole & the south pole
the thesis & the antithesis of the world
get to know 1 another
like an incandescent meteorite & a ufo in distress
& inexplicably greet each other:
It was me who engraved on the back of my
denim jacket
the phrase : the core of my solar system is Adventure
that’s my name but I like to be called Kid Protoplasm
You’re the 1 who bites your nails while leafing through
the crime section
with your fingers confused by the stiffness of the newspaper pages
but
is the news /
those who report it /
or those who read it like an indispensable drug?
Who Sherlock Holmes are the murderers?
Given the circumstances you distrust even your own eyes
struggles pursuits lawsuits of what caliber
hide under the most ragged clothes
the fearful climb trees
the most agile prefer to walk pointing. their finger
at the exact moment in which the atmosphere rarefies until you say enough
& planes begin to fall as in a sequence from
a silent film
in which the arms of the dying move like blades
without explaining the reason for the fire-slobbered horizon
Though the sky —apparentlyÑlooks sober & clear
like an irreconcilable enemy of the visual arts
& almost nobody notices the pitiful madman who kisses licks bites his watch
that has no hands
while asking if the earth is growing colder
are we leaving its orbit???
certain that in this case even Jerry Lewis would weep with sincerity
In any given moment a poem occurs
for instance
the flapping wings of aphonic flies
over the bundle that nobody has managed to unravel
how much rubbish & how many miracles it contains
for instance these schoolgirls with their books clasped to
their chest
making the head of the gray-haired man with shabby glasses turn
while the—slippery—wind plays beneath their miniskirts
For instance
Laurel & Hardy sleep their siesta
dreaming of the same mischief
in which the custard pie wants to serve as make-up
& 2 feet are foolish enough to enter where only 1 will fit
for instance
the 1 who just yesterday—dressed as a woman—fled
the psychiatric clinic
& hasn’t yet tired of doing handstands & running around like a crazy kangaroo
asking himself for the meaning of life
for tincture of iodine to erase his interior bruises
the scratches from insulin & electric shocks
while singing in ballad style that line by Guido Cavalcanti
Because I donÕt expect IÕll ever return
for instance
this red-headed boy who soaks his feet in the water of
the fountain
feeling like Huckleberry Finn traveling on a wooden raft
/ down the middle of the Mississippi /
or the bearded clochard filling his lungs with Turkish tobacco
on the banks of the Seine
watching his name written on the water : Lord XYZ
while reality navigates like a noisy agitated steamboat
because he knows that life could kill him & revive him
at any given moment
—in time & space
where it doesn’t matter/ neither Euclid nor his babbling geometry—
& in the immediacy the drag of days that fly by
can be seen represented by whatever guy shouting Help!
& who dials the 911 of his conscience
to find out which brand of life or garbage he has to kiss
spit at or view in horror
whatever guy who shouts or who tries to & can’t
while amazement writes (as if with burnt wax)
on his retired workerÕs poker face
that looks like & in what a way
a time bomb
At times / in the spurt in which a second vomits & turns pale
Everything’s a tragedy / even happiness / whatever you want /
Aeschylus & Harold Lloyd play chess with metal
beer bottle tops
but without knowing how the brewer’s yeast to make their leisurely creativity grow
to the size of an earthquake that might truly wipe the slate
clean
when Chaos looks robust even bestial
(the face of a bull & the voice of a queer)
when you don’t have to say that we’re economically in the shit
(You / Me / Us)
in order not to speak of neurosis & anemia made at home
& what’s the use what’s the use of
the cyclone the tombola of things
that strip you naked & invade you like amoebas
what’s the use if you don’t understand for what overpopulation
for what abortions
a pregnant woman smiles at you /
if you don’t kapeesh whether it’s from desperation or contentment
that she pats her belly like the Madonna del Parto by Piero della
Francesca
if all you can do is stammer dilate your pupils
when the skilful pickpocket’s hand begins to move
/ this disciple of Shiva he of the 7 arms: God of
masturbation
& the assault of the delicate deed /
if all you can do is swallow saliva & gesture
when this Ionesco character —perhaps traumatized by
the bald soprano
shocks you with the question: are you sexually politically
life-enhancingly satisfied?
& what’s the use if you know in a heartbeat
like the palm of your hand
the dew squeezing the gardenia
in the early morning mist
like the —delicious— pubis of the girl
who’s the relief of your map
& the compass that keeps your territory upright
what’s the use if there are lives like a car without an engine
desperately sounding their horn
without being able to set off
the life of the 1 who cures his Saturday hangover by wetting his eyes
on the edges of fountains
the life of the high society lady with her Chantilly cream
candy-twist hairstyle
& her unbearable piping voice when she says I smoke my own
all this breed of mummies with sacred gestures
who feel offended
by their increasing contact with plebeians
between the soot & the grumpy sun of cities
& the life of that wanderer (the 1 whom the vox populi says is always around)
whose clarity is broken into pieces / even though his bicycle
might not have chased any light in the Sierra Tarahumara
like his namesake Antonin Artaud
the life of the 1 who spins around in too many circles to kiss a flower
light a cigarette
saying to his lover: let’s go to a hotel / let’s shatter
this white potato face of a moon
the life of the confused bureaucrat / who makes a mistake & more than 2 times
the man who’s going to have the same soap opera face
—looking sorry for itself—
the next time he passes by here
the life of the ex-queen of the spring pageant in the time of Hiroshima
& who’s now a neurotic grandma of Mongoloid triplets
the life of the adolescent broke & ready for anything
& with hips that might have strangled
Oscar Wilde’s pulse
the life of the corny person who says that a park
is like the flowery liver of a city
while dancing about on the tips of his toes
encircling a woman who hasn’t even told him her name
the lives of so many many people who have bathed 5/6 times
in the dark waters of failure
& not from choice (so they say)
unlike the 1 who eats—between smiles—a meringueÊ
absolutely no way
& this is what you always say (You / Me / Us)
while slowly buttoning up your raincoat
—your body & your psychological defenses —
& you leave to go for a walk —there will be more than 1
in the rain
inside & outside
in the rain
& all because you feel the need the urge to loosen up & cry without faking it
with nothing or nobody interrupting you
not even those girls in hot pants
glowing with their bronze thighs
& hugging the golden street lamps
& you’re not the only 1 proclaiming you’re the only passenger
aboard the schizophrenic submarine
while walking (like a loony) with a once-lit cigarette between your lips
& the rain falling grotesquely on you
from eye to chin
Of course you’re not the only 1
facing a rusty umbrella of life
that doesn’t want to spread its wings
you’re not the only 1 for whom the world seems
—in a pessimistic moment—
a ghetto without bridges nor paths
& sometimes you too limp & become gloomy
scratching your nose & the scab of memory
Existence has the body of a policeman
who walks his state-of-the-art nightstick along the length of your face
& still you ask, What’s happening my big bad wolf?
Does repression feel good?
while the marijuana plants tremble
planted like carrots in the subsoil of your mind
& your heart is a crowded neighborhood
with its gutters & roof tumbling down
through pure fear
through pure fear
All in all oxygen & the rhythmic rotation of the stars survive
September winks an eye at us
& it’s better if each 1 hugs their most cherished waist
a honey-colored cocker spaniel continues to be lost in sleep
while a miserable fly uses its nose as a sofa-bed
litter peel papers
fly tangled up in the trouser cuffs of the wind
that today could rip up a flower
then beat it on the ground
but tomorrow /
it’s goodbye carbon dioxide /
apoplexy goddam luck Goodbye
Explain to your occasional friend
that even a failed erection
forms part of the process
this / & the fucking vermillion of dusks
& the flight of magpies that blacken the air for an instant
& the flame of life that disturbs the soft hair on your chest
in decisive times
& with all the appearance of becoming Epic History
Explain this to your occasional friend
clarifying it to yourself
let life continue to be your poetry workshop
& hopefully you’ll electrify the energy of your inner torment
alongside the girl with the nimbleness of a sailboat
whom you’ve chosen as the companion of your future romps
let the love or dementia that inhabits her
live in you / lighten your heels
polish the sparkle of your eyes
Hopefully / hopefully
The aforementioned fragments the splinters
become in hands like those of Houdini
a shout so solid & real
like a breast or an apple
or a desire that turns each body into a transparent prism
The apparently ecstatic & fleeting
turns out to be a valuable piece on the chessboard:
behind an ordinary traveling photographer
once lived someone called Ernesto Che Guevara
& he didn’t seem capable of the least sweat-inducing effort
not to mention ethical feats
The apparently ecstatic & fleeting
turns out to be a valuable piece on the chess board:
the spirit & passion that accompany you
when you cover kilometric avenues
recalling the verses the skin of Sappho
bathed in moonlight
when you stroke your own face
at the moment in which youÕre a rainbow
scratched by the sun & the 4 o-clock afternoon drizzle
when you write on naked tree trunks
poetic devices of this century’s end:
You really got me
You turn me on
You light my fire Ê
How could this be
so beautiful?Ê
—burning with faith
& between waves of pleasureÑ
When you see in this the instinct of the struggle for life
that made Rosa Luxembourg euphoric
the living practice of the heretic Wilhelm Reich’s favorite theorem:
a body learns to read itself alongside another body
& so the University of Tenderness is established
when you learn to say No
with all the energy of a black belt karate expert
or to say Yes / with the certainty
that the stars will soon turn into a color
that we won’t understand until some time afterwards
The apparently ecstatic & fleeting
threatens with setting on fire & with kisses
the hour in which the great political insurrections seem to be buried
(that’s what bourgeois economists say from their anti-aircraft
introspections)
But we still see life
deserving of a hand-drawn tattoo
even though for now we pose for an invisible photograph
that could be the same smoldering climate
Even though for now it only seems
that Beauty becomes emotionally more radical
like multicolored t-shirts stating: Kiss me
from the most erogenous zone of their torsos
like 2 snotty-nosed kids (it’s rumored that they’re hippies or those anarchs)
who promise to meet each other
at such-&-such an hour / at such-&-such a sunset
at Ray Bradbury Port in the canals of Mars
/ by whatever means possible
exactly in that spot /
Under a sky that Van Gogh would be thankful for in 6 languages/
& what whiteness would you add to this whiteness
what spirit / what passion?
Ê
Mario Santiago Papasquiaro
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