With the Luxury of a Flophouse

City Poem

2010-09-10T06:27:00.000-07:00

I walk a city
Where my steps leave no trace,
A city whose nights are birds
Picking on the breadcrumbs of its memory.

I walk by trees anointed
With smells heirs of urine and rain,
By obese nurses in pastel gowns
Vomited by glass doors of emergency rooms,
By produce stands
Suspended as minuscule tropical jungles
Above the asphalt,
By old widows
Who have replaced their dead soul-mates
With Chihuahuas,
By iron trees
With fruits of traffic lights,
By bums
With eyes withdrawn by meth and ancient sorrow,
By obsessive doves
As scavengers of any meager charity,

But my legs fall out of tune
And I stop and lean beneath
A hedge of tile
That lies as the toenail of a skyscraper,
But I don’t attempt to scrape the sky anymore,
For my reach has found
The same destiny as the Tower of Babel.
And the sun comes out
From behind a cloud
Shaped as a broken dragon
And I continue to chase my shadow
In a city
Where my steps
Leave no trace.

Enrique Pallares H.

NYC 2010

Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second Before...

2010-08-05T07:32:00.000-07:00

We sat facing each other, like lotuses, bare mind and bare feet. Every floating particle of dust gleamed its meager contour against the frugal sun, cocooning us in evident, candid air. Your mouth spoke silent words and grinned. Your eyes shone, quivered and shrank at their ends. You broke your bread and gave me the bigger half. A bee then ceased her quick flight on a flower-top and you took it by the wings with your swift and gentle hands. You put her beating body (too heavy for flight) against the sunlight, examined it with fisting eyes and glanced at me one more time. Your hand like a dove carried the bee to meet with your piece of bread. The bee stretched its convex black and yellow abdomen, reached (I don’t know if in fury, joy or resignation) and stung the bread, leaving her stinger buried in the dough and ripping her entrails with its hook. There was something very particular about this sacrifice, for instead of poison, it coated the bread with golden honey. You set the bee free and it flew to die alone, unseen. Immediately another bee hesitated on a white chrysanthemum, you took it by its wings and repeated the ritual with my bread. That bee too flew away to die in some distant hideout. We sat facing each other, holding our food with both hands, our eyes drifting from dilated pupil to dilated pupil, our golden bread anointed with the fresh sacrifice of the bees and their minuscule thorns still stabbing the dough as silver slivers. With your grace and your fingers, more immaculate and clever than those who didn’t know the spindle, you gently picked out both stingers. Your mouth with lips like two full slices of pomegranate opened and your teeth dug deep into the bread, and me, with my lips sliced by the crevices of memory followed your example. It was then, a second before the void conquered our bucolic empire that I closed my eyes at the image of your kind smile and your vulnerable glance, and all the tender delight of honey filled my mouth, one second before I awoke to the immeasurable weight of an empty bed and the sweetest aftertaste of the most tangible of premonitions.

Granada, March 23, 2010

On Beauty (beyond man´s finger)

2010-04-14T03:11:00.000-07:00

And the entire world vibrates. The world behind the walls shakes emulating the heart of man (or the other way around). I cannot see or touch the fins of glory, yet glory shines its iridescence on the eyes of the young: Here is New York! Here is New York! The poet reaches for the unreachable sky and the idle wrestles a defeated romance in the lower shadows. And although the poet cannot say that a Technicolor leaf quivers its way down from the tree to the vibrations that flutter in the throat of the nightingale; and although they don’t let the muses in at the door and beauty is slapped around and whored; and although Christ is not born again for fear of a more brutal sentence; the world vibrates, indifferent to man.

Window like a Funnel on a Little House on the Hill

2010-04-14T03:09:00.000-07:00

Barbados, February 2009

My window leads to one thousand flickering lights who vacillate like little fireflies on the verge of summer. The music comes up, from beach bars through the dark prairies full of sleeping monkeys and gloomy streets with weak light posts, to my retreat. The longing for the city whispers again to my solitude. The longing for my previous life comes galloping like a stampede through the glassless windows, invisibly breaching the mosquito nets and carelessly stabbing my pupils with one hundred neon daggers of excess. I sit on top of the island like some sort of ghostly control tower; and the Caribbean charges against the hotels and the rocks as young girls bounce in the distance from white rum, to rum rum, to laughter, to beauty dance, to explosion and to freedom. From my hermitage, I cynically grin at my reputation of party animal. Then I take a look at my naked body in the mirror, at that I grin again. I wonder over and over what do all those insignificant windows hide in them; and again, I come to a conclusion of some tragic, trivial or romantic scene, for the shuffle seems to draw its results towards those states more often than to any others.

Many things have been mine. I have tried to posses experiences like precious stones, and all that is really left is a perception, certainly affected by all those nights, dives and scents, but no touch from them I have tonight.It is three twenty two in the morning and a very eloquent cello sings lazily in the arms of some dead French man. I am trapped between the crepuscular silence and a broken bone. I ran away, through hallways of dust, through massive stands of dour judgments, through unconsciousness, through bitter words of wisdom, and through a long road of gravel and contempt. I ran away to art. Then in art I found all the same deception condensed into ancient maroon stalactites with serpentines of black humor vaguely surrounding some of them. I found, in art, the spitting essence of the human condition. But I do feel restless, for I forget these primal truths at times. I hesitate. At this time of night, when the brutal lawn mower sleeps like a child, it all seems clear. This cosmic silence is sung by jazz crickets, whose scale sounds so infinite now for my meager human ears. And all the spiders respect my solitude like no brilliant man ever has before. And all concepts are entwined in mere acceptance. As the day comes though, and an insolent sun comes barking at the choir of creatures of the night, I again hesitate.

A Pleasant Stroll

2009-10-05T09:32:00.000-07:00

New York, October, 2009

The subway wails under the asphalt
pushing out all the rancid air of the underground
through the metal grates.

Outside, lovers,
taut with their limbs and organs,
velvet each other under the vigilance of a lamppost.

The city
fumes everyone’s vehemence and loneliness
into the high gray infinite.

Skyscrapers aim sharp hornets
at the same constant, unreachable sky,
who hangs heavy like a manatee.

The lion licks his paw
and the pigeon punk-dances in frenetic semicircles
pretending to be a dove.

My entrails as an empty commercial tumble dryer,
and I walk carefully on the checkered patterns, too carefully...

Petrified angels watch the city from the tips of fancy buildings with no balconies,
and ships vomit the smoke
that unused fireplaces long to flutter in their throat.

A carnal doubt pinches my fathom
and millions of empty suits dance the grind.

I look at my selfish clock and time rolls steady:
My cave is darker, my retreat sharper
and I hide in a third floor,
behind a windowpane and a wooden door,
between the pigeons, the angels and the lions.

On Vulnerability

2009-06-21T15:42:00.000-07:00

Okotoks, Canada, June 2009

Remember you were always most beautiful when vulnerable. And I don’t just say it for the green eyes, like once upon a time in a little attic with a little French lamp. Neither do I say it for the veil or for the Yellow Flowered Dress, who ended up impregnating all of my life with yellow. Neither do I say it for the rope marks on your wrists, or for the decadent afternoon chasing us all the way into your room. I say it because you were simply more beautiful and powerful when you wore your debility so blatantly. When you could paint the whole room of scarlet and silver with just a twitch of your weakest finger. There, given, surrendered to nothing but the tide of my meager mood, which you thought so mighty. When I was both a child and your master… There, given, with three thorns and a little drop of poison…

I am lost. I am lost, yet I am still vulnerable. I wonder if you are too or if the idle has taken command of you. I hear many have taken pleasure in your erratic search; you go dropping gifts like breadcrumbs, and then you sit on your window scrubbing tongue-strokes from your skin with a silver sponge, and you look outside, into the mirage of some garden of some Eden. And you moisten your lips obsessively as your flesh turns to stone. And you coil around the comfort of vanity and pride. Remember you? So beautiful when vulnerable, and so vulnerable the way I remember you…

Suburbia Sinfonica: Ode to Wellington, Florida

2009-06-13T22:44:00.000-07:00

...and our twenty first century sits there, in front of the mirror, baffled at it's phony gleam.

I feel no inspiration in this horrid town. Everything is made out of plastic, and I am not very fond of that material. Palm trees have a certain gay hue of light blue or pink to them, and sprinklers rise from the depths of the green leaves of grass like nipples vomiting swamp water, like some sort of zit erecting from the earth to exhale sulphuric flatulence with the sole purpose of keeping the lawn greener. There is the worse demonic plague of police officers ever seen in humanity; it might even exceed the Key Biscayne plague in the turn of the century. In fact in just one block you are in the grave risk of getting several tickets for your mere existence, and Fun lays behind the cells of some damp dungeon for attempting to be free. For instance, Flamenco singing is absolutely prohibited, especially after two. There is nothing interesting, funny or even sexy in this forsaken town. I have resolved for not leaving my bunker. I will stay indoors to avoid the pernicious existence of my surroundings; I will apply all the immeasurable weight of my indifference to this despicable place. I do not even have money for cigarettes, so that takes all the romance away from any trace of nostalgia that might be left. Last night I realized that I have a hair stuck to my throat, a long woman’s hair; a never-ending hair, that if I pull out, it keeps extending and teasing my throat like a battalion of ants. So I have resolved for trying to swallow it, and I keep it back there and pretend it does not exist, but I know it is there, I can feel it slightly caressing my throat every time I breathe. My balls truly bother my existence these days. I have thought about cutting them off, in fact at times I feel that they have already been cut off; they have gone away without honor. This is the kind of thing that must be done blatantly. If they are going to leave me, they should leave me for good to let me rest in peace on top of my ball-less throne, but they go and then they strike back from ambush when I least expect it. They grab my entrails and shake me to dementia. Then I wonder if there could ever be a castrated bullfighter. Not that I plan to become one, but I like to think of myself as one. I like to stare at my dark ceiling at night and think I am a great bullfighter, a legend, and that instead of sitting among these cardboard walls, the burning sand lays under my thin canvas shoes and that blood and art are my everyday meal.

Thoughts on Canada

2009-06-06T23:31:00.000-07:00

I flew from the epicenter of the tropics to the Californian desert. Planes are horrendous creatures, yet they have enough freedom in their purpose to make us, rudimentary bucolics, board them wearing carelessly our lack of understanding of their mad mechanics. So I did, climbed onto the disgusting seat and submitted to a turbulence beyond my comprehension.

Upon arrival, with coyotes howling (not at me) in the rearview mirror, I drove a big white truck with a twelve horse trailer in the back for three days. I drove through the blue Rocky Mountains; through blue mornings, and through towns of Country Stores and drugless meth addicts. Then I arrived to a Canadian town, somewhere in Alberta, where the Iraquois have not left a trace, and a provident healthcare treats frostbites: June 06, 2009 - My mother’s birthday- 1:01 am. And yes, as I was saying, snow falls on the green summer hills and breaks cat’s ears like little flakes of woodchips. This though makes them more loving, much less spoiled than cats in the United States, these cats in fact, do not bite or scratch, yet their nails are far from clipped. I suppose it is the inclement suffering that treats their humility with so much care… But I'll come back to cats latter...

The dirt keeps sucking the melting snow through it’s pores and a copper moon has now appeared wearing her yellow, hepatitic face. I’m back in the surgical solitude of a Saturday night, and again, my company depends solely on the mercy of night creatures and sleep. There are plenty of horses and women, which is far more than what any man could ever want, and yes I declare myself happy: Hypochondriacally happy. Yes, incurably happy… Maybe I'll be back tomorrow.

Untitled Poem of Freedom

2009-04-23T17:00:00.000-07:00

Glad, the fire ants perform their gaiety tasks
such as hunting for giant creatures
or polishing shoes for surgeons and moths.
Blind all creatures who cheer for their lifetime
of self inflicted industrialism.
Especially frightened warriors and gods
when a child stares up close
into the window of love.
All secrets must be kept
by the king’s lips of stone.
A world of light waits in ambush
for truth to run free,
like a rich whore on new years eve.

Fragment on Deviance

2009-04-14T09:55:00.000-07:00

This is a reflexion on the road of sin. It is a fragment from the second chapter of the novel I have been working on for the past couple of months. It is still just a mirage and who knows if it will ever take a substancial form, for I have a love-hate relationship with long story lines. Here it is, a comment on that deviant road which seems also so seducing.

It was much later, when I started meddling with other sort of matters, when I realized how wide is the array of concupiscence and how tight is the essence of all dark acts. Regardless of the action itself, there is something intrinsically intimate in all depravation. There is a long road that people take, sometimes for eternity, sometimes briefly or even sporadically. It is a road ornamented by curiosity and beauty, but with mere lecherous gratification as its primal purpose, a road were the flesh is the master and freedom the anthem. It is a road that crosses all the world infinite amount times. It goes from Africa to the Americas zigzagging hundreds of times through the oceans and the poles; it goes to Europe and the Middle East. It is also a timeless and time traveling road. It passes through opium smoking dents in ancient China, through Russian roulette leagues in Vietnam. It travels from Oceania to Atlantis and to a wild orgy in Ancient Greece. It passes through a corner in Sodom where merchants sell virginities, and rounds a plaza in Babylon on an August afternoon. It takes a turn in Tangiers, right after Casablanca and crosses Gibraltar on a raft with a bunch of sad eyed Mores in disguise. It goes parallel to the Road of Santiago, only it passes through one thousand Spanish Tascas with gypsy cokeheads sweating flamenco over the nylon strings of their guitars. It passes right through Lacoste and enters through the main gates of the majestic castle of Marquis de Sade in the very moment that he is ravishing Justine. It loops around in circles three times in the heart of Montmartre with a newborn twentieth century, and a million bizarre wenches and syphilitic midgets that swing wild bottles of absinthe and chatter over art. It is a road that passes through the door of a house in the slums of Mexico City where there are cockfights every night, while Chabela Vargas sings haggardly and a man gets beaten to death outside over a twenty seven dollar debt. It goes from a dogfight in Tijuana to Rio de Janeiro, passes through a whorehouse in Buenos Aires and shoots all the way back to a dozen Caribbean islands and to Moscow. It is a road of constant pleasure and thirst. It is a road walked by all humanity, to a certain extent. It is a road where once Saint Augustine and Bukowski could have walked holding hands. It is a road that tiptoes on the verge of madness. It is a road beyond a road. It is a constant place out of time and space that we all hold like a flower of ice in our warm hands, but if we hold it for too long our hands freeze. It is a beast that must be tamed, a sentence that must be stripped and then dressed again with full understanding and avid observance. It is what makes this world worldly and the flesh carnal, and an undeniable part of us...

The Little Hopeless Poem from a Typewriter in Times of Touchscreens

2009-04-12T14:12:00.000-07:00

Friday the 13th, Florida, March 2009
10th day of fasting, new typewriter...

A halo of mischief, as on a throne,
sits on this world.

And We
let out decrepit laughter
on the verge of weariness.

I hear glorious misintentioned words
Pronounced and wrapped in felp.

I weave my dreams carefully
Sporadically!
In desperate search for ease.

There is an epidemic, demagogic!
Hunger for hunger.

And keys slouch:
from appearing on a screen
to wildly, mechanically! flying
through the air and slapping the paper
through the ribbons of technicolor ink
like wild hammers.

But I am sure none of this matters
to the frigid functionaries
in this everlasting drought of might and romance.