First Publication

This morning, a package arrived. Given its bulkiness, I still did not give it much thought. Upon opening it, I encountered a 400-plus paged magazine, named Pembroke Magazine. At that very moment, I remembered that I have sent them some of my poems. To my delightful surprise, I found in the magazine 5 of my poems. Who would've thought? Hopefully they are the first of many.

New Poem

Fruta

¡Amorrrr!

It does not matter
if your flesh devours my flesh,
if your blood, chemical blood,
cuts my fresh throat
and the canary of my ear.

I love you as I love
the poisoned branches that children
hide in the wide corduroy of the teacher’s suit.
I love you as I love
the multitude of crickets that knock on silver doors
in search of their long, half-eaten wings.

My love,
we all look for something.

But all we find is water sweetened
by the camel’s white torso,
a young boy who does not know the name of the turtle
and who, knowing only that he bleeds whenever he touches a carnation,
searches for terror in the old city of his dreams,
and we find, in the bright corners and in the pool of transparent shadows,
an old woman who refuses to weep with her eyes open.

The bed is a mouth of steel. Your thighs are tiny scales.
Your mouth is a school of persimmons. Your brows are my tears.
Your head is the silent cries of absinthe and the purple fingers of my forgotten hand.

The agony of your dark and worn forehead
is nothing like death.

Because the dead do not talk without the blood
of the dove that discovers the secrets of our wounds.
Because the dead must cut their throats
in order to decay in the pancreas of the duck.
Because the dead, worn by the silence of the bed
and tired from the movement of eyelids,
desperately think that the moon is an ant,
and the ant a pearl, and the pearl a naked tongue.

This is why it does not matter
if your blood is my blood.

Another Excerpt From Lecture

The poet is never frightened by the image he sees in the mirror because he knows that it is not a reflection of who he is but a singular, shallow representation of what society and basic human instinct deem him to be. And, in many ways, the poet cannot shake loose these bonds because they are the very definition of his existence. As a result, image is often processed first, usurping all other instincts of love and honesty, appreciation and civility – and by doing this the poet wanders through the foreign world, lost, desperate, astonished, unable to find the pleasures of living in people. And so, he turns to imagination as his savior, to give meaning to his travels, to undue those chains that summon the darkest corners – where the newborn woman carries in her teeth the silent ivory and where the young boy who invents the rivers of dreams flees through the dry rain – and imprison the poet who seeks to recreate our faces before the blindness of reason arrived, chisel by chisel, bone by bone, voice by voice.

Another Excerpt

I must not continue any further without mentioning Marylou Lewandowski, who, very early on, gave me the encouragement to keep writing. I remember sitting there, trembling with both fear and anxiety, as she read through some of the poems included in this collection. I still recall, very clearly, the excitement in her voice as she discussed the poetry. Oh, how her hands trembled with art and with the poetry that is hidden in our veins.
I will never forget her marvelous charm and those names which surrounded her, plastered against the walls of feverish anticipation. I remember that we all wept upon hearing the news that her tree had died. In a home so full of passion and love, it is difficult, almost impossible, to believe that death would drape its ponderous cape upon her glass of sparkling apple. That day, Roethke came alive and filled our brimming eyes with passion and shadow and suicide. I would say more but I think that the other things discussed that day should remain private. The following poem would have never come to fruition had it not been for that splendid afternoon.

Disappearance

For Marylou Lewandowski, a heart above the rest.

A little girl
informed me
of your death.

Now,
the poplars spill their blood
on the temples of children.
Rain seeks
the tears.
Horses grieve
in cabinets.
Poets weep
in jars.

My mouth is for sand.
My thigh is for dark needles.
My tongue is for candles of crystal.

The terrible
and eternal sadness
covers the maple
with corduroy.
The grass
pretends to be alive.

Oh,
how it hurts
to remember
the sparkling apples.
Oh,
how lovely
Roethke spoke
under the arch
of photographs.

Outside,
not a pine
in sight.

What does the wind say?

The world is a tiny drop.
The world is a charred feather.
The world is a river of candy.

A little girl
sang in the cradle.

The moon
brings your moaning
of lace.
The moon
throws garlands
at your waist.
And a cape,
protects you from
my dreams
and my imagination.

But your imagination
is my imagination.
My mouth your mouth.
My voice your voice.

I can hear the oranges
talking inside the white leaves.
I can hear the crabs
choking on the sun
that fills their mouths.

Our mouths are filled
with sun and moon.

Roethke!
Roethke!
Roethke is dead
but not his shadow!

With the grey violins,
tears gathered the heads
of dissected ants.

In the corners of cemeteries,
lilies beg for criminals
and saliva,
bulls shout
for handfuls
of ash,
oceans forget
their preserved temples,
stars die of agony,
forming streets
of cold fog
and thirsting strings
of guitar.

It’s true.
It’s true.
Roethke could not be found
in the veins of sparkling water.