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Showing posts from February, 2017

Invitation to Dust

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Invitation to Dust Am I poet or sheet of paper, my soul asks in the cruel infinite /night of the sea that is never serene… Manuel Ramos Otero , Invitación al Polvo You, Manuel, the seductive arch of a bay, a drop descending on the half-light, feet circling my suicide hour. We were tangueros* of the same tile, tropical byway, creek mist, and love's insomnia. Dancers with the white silent breeze of despair. *Boleristas take their stilettos for a stroll while you burn your tongue, nail it to your pride. I spit on you, all you neutered men and women frightening children playing in schoolyards. You’re nothing but a simple invitation to dust.  

The key you lost

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The key you lost                            lives like a fugitive on your skin. It is the prelude to our memoirs, a poem fused to nectarines, an exploration through Copper Canyon, visions of Haiti’s angels licking my ears, a hypnotic belly dance on the sand matching the colors that mesh on your hip scarf, an experiment we refuse to put down, an invitation to cross the doorway of the home I no longer occupy. The key you lost is not the manual of a digital camera, or calendar entries for next month’s readings. It is not a Popular Mechanics article you wrote to put food on our table, or a classified add on craigslist. It wants to be the bungee jump into the pangs of a deer in heat, the obituary of bolted doors, a list of all the vacant walls on which we'll scribble our erotic graffiti.

Cheater

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Cheater I gather lilies, set them on the bed where you are absent. Gone. Going up, going down, inside a hotel elevator with a stranger brushing his groin against your hand.  Yes, stuck with another man pushing his arm against your elbow.  You slip away with him into a corridor until you reach a door that he opens.  You enter, let him take off your clothes, while I wander about the house, looking for you in the geometry of our bed, with the fear of one who just arrived to his first unrehearsed death. 

Deadly Mirror

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Deadly Mirror Inconclusive thoughts, what I hear inside my head. My imagination flutters like a swallow, and cries like a hungry baby. I sit and play the saxophone in self-contemplation.  The mirror tells the truth, but not enough to merit constant thought. I am folding inward over and over. Six inches of words and I am betrayed, hypnotized into believing I achieved all there is to achieve in this art form. So, I start a new contemplation of the swallow, and I listen to fragmented phrases, read life studies, and notebooks, of his memoirs, the flowers that sustain all of earth.

A Litany for Survival

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A Litany for Survival An elephant walked into my bedroom reciting a litany for survival.  She spoke about her mother and sister having died too many deaths that were not their own. About winter people taking off their blood masks and monuments for the children of war. About hunger and blind feet trying to find their way to the sun. About a greedy black unicorn captive in Australia. About having two faces and a simmering frying pan ready to cook up her daughters. She spoke about men with stone eyes fucking in the hallway, Said the hall was covered with beggars she couldn’t step over. Perhaps, she wasn't meant to survive after all.

Ghost

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Ghost Looking like a jungle is where I am never myself. I don't want to trip over the sounds of the wilderness’s bewitching hour. Life apart from the pain I conceal from myself is impossible. Come play in the rain. This is not that same winter downpour where December was you. Where the loss of my dead became custom. I counted the dead roses in the garden. I forgot to write my name on the mailbox. You couldn't listen to my dreams. I couldn't question yours. The scars are still there. I don’t know how many years I spent trying to forget, or how many years I’ll spend trying to remember.

On my Bed Thinking about You

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On my Bed Thinking about You You are voiceless, buried in a long-forgotten childhood hideaway, a dark jungle where every tree looks like every other tree. I long for your scent, your knees pushing against my thighs, but what is asked for is often destroyed by the very words that seek it. It is time for me to crack open my skull, invent a new way of looking at you. I know I am dying but why should that make a difference? I will build you a fortress that will stand forever, with a smile folding at the corner of my mouth, and a star sitting on the tip of my tongue, a lit stone around which your body can blossom. My bed will no longer be the fossilized prison where I learned to make love to you forever.

For those days when the lights switch on and off

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For those days when the lights switch on and off by themselves and I hear voice messages from longstanding enemies. For the good old days when I rely on verses I already wrote to keep from slashing my wrists. For the fear of failing that haunts me every December. Will this be the year my planet refuses to forgive me with a blush of green long enough to soothe my heartaches? For the assumptions of next winter’s chill and the quiet days in between. Your face among the poinsettias after every prayer and rainfall. The only image I long for.

Some poems up at Thesongis

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Sorry, but I've been sick and in some pain.  Today I feel a little better.  Anyway,   s ome poems up at Thesongis  

fragile

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fragile you are                    a foul day                              in my lonely life on appeal                the faint green                                   to the south of my border

Mención honorifica en el CERTAMEN LITERARIO INTERNACIONAL HACIA ÍTACA 2017 en Argentina

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  Me acaban de otorgar una mención honorifica en el CERTAMEN LITERARIO INTERNACIONAL HACIA ÍTACA 2017 de Argentina por el poema Carmela

Constrained

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Constrained Your crystal-clear body in the sunlight still in its dream stage. I stop to pick up your breath and hear other songs. You stand by a window and sulk.            I reassure you there is nothing to worry about. Your eyes sink to the ground as I walk away. A tear descends on daybreak. For your benefit forgetfulness and passion remain tattered. I leave you in the middle of your moment and come back to mine. I set aside this fool’s paradise and revert to being a name.

Torn

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Torn Late winter day, your whining doesn’t sound like you, sounds like a voice living inside other voices. I try to mold you, but you choose your own dream and shatter. I am torn between your body and your eyes. A monologue: Does one divided by nothing equal infinity? Your young face my point of departure, the line I follow to the point of regret.

Cuando ya no quiera contestar tus llamadas

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Cuando ya no quiera contestar tus llamadas Al final del día el cuerpo se deshace de la memoria. De una mente que no existe no hay nada que confiscar.

Cuerpos trazados en la arena

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Cuerpos trazados en la arena Tu y yo dispersos sobre el agua y la arena. Te miro en silencio y recuerdo esa playa, tus ojos color cielo tu piel blanca derramada en mi boca.

Claro de Luna en un Mar Congelado

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Claro de Luna en un Mar Congelado Escarcha que no se desprende de mis manos—logro vivir entre flor y canto, rosa y viento. Existo sonámbulo a ambos lados de una frontera: campanadas al alba en aldea silenciosa. Me halle en el limbo: el murmullo de palabras perdidas y fui aire pesado del pasado que desciende a zonas dolorosas colocando a un lado la ternura y la violencia.

Moonlight on a Frozen Sea Surf

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Moonlight on a Frozen Sea Surf Frost that does not detach from my hands-I manage to live between flower and song, pink and wind. I sleepwalk on both sides of a border: bells ring at dawn in my silent village. I discover myself in limbo: the murmur of cast away words, the heavy air of the past that descends to painful areas putting aside tender  and violent  sea surf.

Bodies Traced on the Sand

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Bodies Traced on the Sand You and I scattered on water and sand. I look at you in silence and remember that beach. Your eyes the color of sky your white skin spilled on my mouth.

When I no Longer Want to Answer your Calls

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When I no Longer Want to Answer your Calls At the end of the day the body gets rid of its memory. There is nothing to confiscate from a mind that does not exist.

Where will Children Play

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Where will Children Play Their names, carved in the keel of the vessel in which they traveled. Their margins, our boundaries pushed to the side in view of what really matters in our fallible, sensitive lives, seek a response from the unknown.  Position yourselves next to the mystery of their music. Is child play the glimmer that does not bond to anything, a mirror of water, the closed curtain in the school of human affections? Gunshot signals the rescue, yet you deny them entry. A growing weakness reminds me that there is no beginning or end in the life of your phosphoric limbo, Mr. President.

Nobility of Blood

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Nobility of Blood Dear Lord, this congressional recess the President's Cabinet promises to thank you for AIDS, though it has not made them transcend into the 21st century. They are still caught up in superficial things like fake news, taxes, bans, the wall. We thank you for these tent evangelists, brothers and sisters alike, breeders of hate crimes, that reject the perfect beauty of homemade remedies and blood transfusions. Lord, forgive their arrogance toward the medical community and appoint faith healers to Obama Care, or whatever Mr. Trump decides to call it. Thank you for allowing me to live on the periphery of society, where nobody asks yet everybody tells.  Thank you for the innocent illusion of my open exhibitions of affection toward Omar. Thank you for not letting in immigrants from Muslim Africa, where water, food, and medical supplies have always been scarce and costly, where rape and viole

Our Wealth

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Our Wealth Is it now illegal to be gay in the USA?   Will we need to join underground to escape the fog of an orange tyrant?  Take off your shirt, tattoo a machine gun and a dove dripping blood from its heart. Join the Resistance. Become a poet. Be a rainbow in the gale of life free of heavily-lidded eyes on the battlefield “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.*” Do not answer the middle-of-the-night-knocking at your door without resistance.  We are no longer children of the half-light. Artless fog man-on-man smithereens in a moment orange-on-orange blemish without a purpose *John F. Kennedy

Lucecita Benitez - Cabalgata

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Letra de Roberto Carlos Cabalgaré toda la noche Por una senda colorida Mis besos te daré en derroche De una manera algo atrevida Me aferraré de tus cabellos Por no caer de ese galope Voy a atender a mis anhelos Antes que el día nos sofoque Me perderé de madrugada Para encontrarte en mi abrazo Después de nuestra cabalgata Me acostaré en tu regazo Sin importarme si en ese instante Soy dominado o si domino Me sentiré como un gigante O tan pequeño como un niño Y las estrellas del lugar Se nos acercan para ver Y aún conservan su brillar Después de nuestro amanecer Y en la grandeza de ese instante Mi amor cabalga sin saber Que en la belleza de esa hora El sol espera por nacer Y las estrellas del lugar Se nos acercan para ver Y aún conservan su brillar Después de nuestro amanecer Y en la grandeza de ese instante Mi amor cabalga sin saber Que en la belleza de esa hora

Lucecita Benitez - Fruta Verde

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Malena

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Eros and his Hidden Lover

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Eros and his Hidden Lover Trapped in my surroundings, my place of birth, a ray of moonlight unfolded, revealing the fragrant lavender petals of a desert flower. I moved closer, desperate to express my longing, and calm the madness in Eros's eyes. I found my way to his tent where voices of distant seas inhabit me, where fear blinks as I learn to die from the multiple definitions of East and West, empty like the cracks in dry desert earth. A needle stitched my tears. Two thousand years in the thorny hands of gods, a bitter pleasure. Two worlds, two discernments. Lost in the distracted indiscretion of time. Stunned and twisted.

Mi Obra Maestra

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Mi Obra Maestra es un holograma de cerezos en flor derramando los pétalos de mis pesares en un rayo de luz. El olvido es el laberinto de lo desechado, lo imperfecto. La geografía de mi memoria es mi colección de versos arrebatados a la noche donde un soñador me salvo del desespero camuflado de arco iris.

tiene sangre en las manos

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tiene sangre en las manos y vidrio soplado en los pulmones el corredor del narcotráfico donde mi isla muere tiene sangre en la cara y vidrio molido en sus fosas nasales el corredor de la justicia donde mi isla muere tiene sangre en su pene y vidrio cortado en su colon el corredor de partidos políticos corruptos donde mi isla muere sangra  sangra  sangra iniquidad por la cabeza por los pezones por los pies por la nariz por el pene y aun así   es capaz de salir absuelto

I Refuse to Lose You

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I Refuse to Lose You I follow you to the street where best regards forms a corner wall with the breeze. Where my body fights to enter the overflow of mist in your cloisters. Where clouds move inside a space beyond grief or understanding, and memory, my scandalous mirror, always tells a lie. Filled with longing I came to you prepared for ghosts and found whispers.

The Pianist

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The Pianist We buried him yesterday. Night finds little, if any consolation in embellished stars, and although I’ve stopped crying, I still sigh. I listen to music when there's nothing but the luscious scent of emptiness. You were my fallen flower, my one thousand gifts of heavenly abundance, my banquet of endings.

The Storm - new version

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The Storm A dog seeks a place to sleep. Listen to it growl at the boulevard; its broken sidewalks, weeds in every crack. Feel the rain and cool your sweaty flesh like a snuffed candle. Forget your name, the snare that gathers in the mist of night. Imagine someone sleeping in a row-boat tied to a mangrove root undisturbed by the rain or the dog.

We should Rehearse

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We should Rehearse  for the day when we are blind We should all learn to read with our fingers the braille of scars on arms and sperm of melted candles. Remove for one night, every fortnight, the white bulb in our bedroom. Because before death comes blindness. And Charon will not accept our fear as payment to cross the river Styx. For a winged birth the steel must cut the meat and throw away the body. It's not the sky that grants us flight. It's the fall.

Alicia Keys & Maren Morris The 59th Grammys Awards 2017

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Just Published at CommunicatorsLeague

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CommunicatorsLeague just published 6 of my photographs

VALENTINE ROAD, HBO Documentary with Dir. Marta Cunningham

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MARCAPIEL publica tres de mis poemas

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MARCAPIEL acaba de publica tres de mis poemas en español: Nosotros los Chicos Invisibles Carmela Xilografía

Valentine Road

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Valentine Road Larry Fobes King “Leticia”, January 13, 1993 – February 13, 2008 Invisible, given to roughhousing, Brandon, white boy supremacist. What planet do you live on? You love the hunt, the power of, “No,” you can’t be Leticia in a green dress, “No” knee-high boots for you, Larry. The women of this seaside town cannot be the night behind the mirrors. There are faces, there are organs, there are white ferocious animals that look at Leticia with hate. To make sweetness a job is a reactionary act, and anger a swan impregnated by dust unable to comprehend pain, the scent of flowers in the unnamed garden of sin.

Leticia was a Less-Dead Ghost

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Leticia was a Less-Dead Ghost Larry Fobes King “Leticia”, January 13, 1993 – February 13, 2008 Larry’s heart rate was stable, but Leticia could not open her eyes, he was struggling to breath as the veladoras began to bunch up on the sidewalk in front of the school. Leticia suffered a stroke, veiled infinity opened. Her body was zipped into a body-bag, his donated organs took off on a helicopter the day before Valentine’s Day. I asked God for a different street, another leprosy in a glass of wine. Everyone says goodbye to the world as best they can. I prefer silence so as not to embarrass myself for not facing the eyes of so many who hate or love me. When I start to die, God makes a lot of noise and it wakes me up.

Shooting in Realistic Environments

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Shooting in Realistic Environments       Lawrence "Larry" Fobes King,         January 13, 1993 – February 13, 2008 Children with torches and crosses, sleepwalkers looking for their mother beyond the shadow. Women searching for their children scattered in the river; offspring’s, fragments of a letter of despair. Those that were going to die saw her proceed without recognizing her child. She bid her kid farewell with her hand and hummed until she sank into the horizon.