This strange enchantment of my tongue is vague and imprecise. I anger the intellectuals. I have no interest in explaining what only I understand. What in the world are we talking about? Shall I tell? Probably not. I rather you read into me, of me, in spite of me and reveal yourself in your own interpretation. I aim to speak of myself in writing this, I aim to learn of you as you read it. I will share with you these thoughts just as they are: unprecise, self-reliant, amorphous and determined. I will confuse you and myself with my transparent ramblings. I break the laws of grammatical civility and decorum. Shush!… No one is allowed to speak without being understood! Understood?!  Nope. 

Ese coraje quieto.
El que espera calladito.
Ese coraje apretado.
El que sale a sollozitos.

Aquí lo tengo guardado.
Esperando y acechando.
Cuidando de no soltarlo
Sin cubrirlo de besitos.

Ese coraje valiente.
Que no le teme a la gente.
Ese coraje latente.
Que nos dura hasta la muerte.

Aquí lo tengo bailando.
En mi tripa y en mis huesos.
Cuidando de no soltarlo
Sin bendecirle la frente.

Ese coraje pequeño.
El que apenas coge vuelo.
Ese coraje bonito.
Con el que yo me desvelo.

Aquí lo tengo realengo.
Dedicándome canciones.
Cuidando de no soltarlo.
Hasta el día en que me muero.

Ese coraje rabioso.
El que parece maldad.
Ese coraje errante.
Que ya no tiene ni edad.

Aquí lo tengo enjaulado.
Escupiéndome en la cara.
Cuidando de no soltarlo.
Porque dice la verdad.

Nada sucede como lo planeamos. Siempre el camino se cruza en nuestros pies. Las noches se hacen cortas cuando deberían ser largas. El día se acaba sin consultarnos. El cielo no llueve cuando lloras y el sol te quema si lo amas. Mi cuerpo me duele y le digo que no hay tiempo para fiebres, que hay mucho que hacer y resolver. El gesto de aquel día ya no tiene sentido y esta soledad que me abraza llega repleta de seres queridos. Cuando te canto una canción no siempre oyes mi voz y cuando te miro a los ojos no siempre te encuentro. Hoy este cuerpo me duele y añoro correr en la playa. Mañana voy a bailar hasta rendirme y reirme del gran plan que yo tenía.

Hoy pensé en Facundo y le régale su canción a un amigo. Pensé en el y el amor inmutable que su poesía y su música siempre me provocaron. Pensé, “Que estará haciendo el Cabral hoy en día? Hace tiempo que no lo busco en las redes”… y de repente me vino el recuerdo, como desde muy lejos, donde lo había guardado en algún baul de cosas terribles… lo sentí en la tripa pero asumí que mi recuerdo era erroneo porque el mundo ya padece de pocos poetas… lo busqué en los documentos y descubrí que mi recuerdo era certero… devastador y sangrante… me lo mataron… como a tantos otros poetas, como a tantos otros cantantes, como a tantos otros atrevidos… me lo mataron sin piedad y sin conciencia… sin importarle el robo que le estaban haciendo a la humanidad… hoy pensé en Facundo y lo lloré de nuevo.

Estoy en el precipicio.

No en el borde, no en la orilla, sino en la caída.

En ese espacio liminal, tan divino y tan infernal.

Y los pies buscan raices pero no hay suelo aún de donde agarrar.

Este salto no fue imprevisto, fue premeditado y conciente.

El acto de fe requerido para echar a volar.

Pero la caída viene primero.

Instantanea y eterna, parece no tener final.

Da trabajo respirar.

Caigo con los ojos abiertos.

En búsqueda de los nuevos vientos que pronto me elevarán.

I used to hate history in its numeric sense.
Who cares when this happened!, I used to rail silently in my head against my history teachers, Just tell me what happened to those people! I wanted their stories not their numbers.
In much the same way, I’ve also never cared about age. My mothers life followed no typical pattern according to the social norms and so I grew up with the conviction that age was irrelevant.
In my own life I’ve operated from a praxis of constant struggle between present time and nostalgic remembrance but not focusing too much on future except in its immediate and necessary forms. I was a bad planner, as the more practically minded would say.
Mostly, I just don’t understand how to project myself into a non-existent universe that might never exist at all if my luck, or the worlds luck, runs out.
I made the mistake, and still do, of thinking of the past differently. As if its existence in my head made its tangibility real when the truth is my past is just as non-existent as my future. The difference is I have already developed an emotional relationship to it and its codes are embedded in my body. So I guess it does exist in some way.
I don’t know how to do that with the future. Encode it in me. Make it tangible. But I think some people do and I envy them.
I think they are better at making their dreams come true. I’m still working on that.
Which brings me back to my age and this damn number I am identified with. A number which bears no resemblance to the “numbers” in my body and in my mind.
I am told I look younger and I always thought it was just the luck of my genetics that allowed for me to not follow blindly the assignations of my age but I have new theories on this.
I think my body is complicit with my mind in its refusal to acknowledge the numbers that keep being violently hurled at it.
They have formed an alliance of rebellion and made me their more than willing accomplice.
We do have a mortal foe, however, the mirror. The only one who every so often throws a solid punch at our denial.
Lucky for me,  that is  where my genetics have my back.
The result of my resistance to numbers is I still sit like a boy, laugh at simple things, fall asleep in public places, don’t understand sarcasm and trust faces that smile with their eyes.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not scared of time. Time is not the numbers, yet we buy into that myth because it allows for more convenient accounting.
If you want to see those that are truly scared of time you need not go further than Beverly Hills where a facsimile of youth is sold at a price and the result is present everywhere in the botoxed faces, silicone breasts and swollen lips of those who can afford to pay it.
Sadly, as my assigned number gets higher the practicalities of this world are waging a war against my age blindness.
I find myself trying to strike up deals with the mold makers out of the pure need to survive in a world that only loves, embraces and forgives the young.
Suddenly there is a red alert sign everywhere I look that says “Get a plan, make the money or DIE in the gutter bruised and alone!!!”
Panic occasionally bites in. Fear peeks at me from slimy corners.
I negotiate and then fight back. I compromise and then rip up the contracts. I search for loopholes that will allow me to thrive on my own terms and yet pass undetected long enough to get deep enough into the belly of the timekeepers where I can cause some serious harm.
I remain here, only slightly bowed, with a rock in a fist behind my back, still looking for the glass windows of Numbers, Inc.
It is not time itself I fear, nor the changes in my body. It is the predetermined schedules and the numbers assigned to me.
I relish the changes that time brings and I look forward to more. I’m just not interested in the ticking clock or racing with the rats.
I appreciate the beauty of age when done gracefully. With a calm wisdom and no fear of death. A kind of dignified passage through life that I think is readily denied to most.
I want to arrive to my old age on my own terms, with my head held high.
Not bowed down by the yokes of ageism, sexism, racism, classicism, capitalism and, plain old, bullshitism.
Systems that are deeply reliant on our numbers and timetables to execute their agendas.
All of these expect me to conform to their schedule lest I become a nuisance to the format.
How dare I not work 40 hours a week to fuel the turbines of the social contract.
How dare I not be married by 35 and tucked away behind my white picket marriage.
How dare I try to procreate after 40, after the doctors declare my womb dry.
How dare I not retire when “suggested” I should to make way for the young and up and coming.
How dare I not drop dead at 75 so no more money and resources need to be wasted on me.
I’m doing it all wrong, I am told.
Just eat up, I am told.
Soylent Green is made of people and always has been.

______________

Reference.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green

the recipe

a hand, who’s touch upon yours, makes the beast in your head relax
a smile that shows the way to your goodness
a glance that humbles your petulant side
a caress that reminds you that all is not pain
lips that teach you every day how to surrender
teeth that surprise with their unexpected charm
skin that confirms all of your softest desires
hair that tempts you at all the inappropriate times

combine these
and cherish

when I knew Chago
he worked at JCPenney as a salesman for 25 years
he owned 50 gumball machines that only took pennies
he was a deacon at his church
he prayed every day
he was very serious but loved making lame jokes that only he found funny
he loved opera
he loved his wife, especially when she was irritated at him for stealing food off her plate
he liked to work around the house wearing beat up old Hanes t-shirts
he had two daughters and a son
he didn’t talk very much


one day Chago got a brain tumor
it took him a month to die (no more, no less)
and I found out I didn’t know Chago that well
as it turns out, Chago had been a very busy man
he counted his pennies and deposited them in the bank for his Saint Lazarus Foundation, membership of one
he used that money to buy groceries for people who didn’t have money for food
he paid regular visits to senior citizens whose families had forgotten about them
he bought a van in which he drove young kids and elderly to their respective appointments or as needed
he went to the local housing projects on a weekly basis and nobody messed with him because they knew he was “a good man”
he loved his wife, especially when she was irritated at him for being out so long without telling her where or why
he didn’t talk very much

I now all this now
not because he ever told me
for he never spoke of any of this to anyone in his family, not even his wife
I know it because in that one month before he died
all those people showed up on our doorstep
people wanting to say goodbye
people that I had never met
people whose lives he had touched
every day for a month
showed up
and shared their stories

on the day of his funeral
a crowd stood outside the housing projects
and threw flowers
as the funeral procession drove by

I loved Chago
he was my grandfather

I wish I had known him in life

my circadian rhythm has a beat of it’s own
it doesn’t care what the experts might say
it has a mad love affair with the night
it’s in ongoing negotiations with the day

it knows the harmonies of two bodies
as they crescendo with each others ecstasies
it resonates to whispers and laughter
it considers alarm clocks necessary nemeses

it makes me
flutter my eyes
laugh after pleasure
dance all the time
kiss without measure

it makes me
know when to touch
sing in my bed
hear just beyond
see what is said

my circadian rhythm leads me astray every night
but I follow it without reservations
because that very same rhythm
keeps me wiggling my toes
through life’s jumps and peoples machinations