I pump in ink

I am a poetry chick

I pump in ink.

Like the Egyptians and their papyrus

I tattoo your skin.

My spit

Covers you,

Bathes you,

Warms you,

Conforts you,

Saves you,

Blankets you.

My spit is my word,

My love for you.

I'm a lyric girl as

You know

I am a poetry chick.

You can come with me in

My mouth

Warm and deep

Like three syllable words

Are Moist

And they spit

At you.

Inside of you,

It erupts.

Like a melodic volcano that

Caresses you in a way

Which makes you

UNCOMFORTABLE.

I'm a poetry chick,

Find me a rooster to lay.

Find those eggs full of

WISDOM

And brake the shells.

Slippery,

A zero calorie home,

Transparent and full,

You are a bubble girl, my friend.

There is room for you under my membrane.

A.

Back yard

She decided she wasn't feeling well.

She left.

He left holding her hand and she

Felt the tight grasp was cutting the air.

It was a normal routine,

Choreographed dynamics.

Maybe she had drunk too much

Or maybe that corpse under their bed had

Started to rot

To smell so strong that had

Been all

Inhaled by her. She was breathing in death.

They didn't know who it was, as

They just found the body in their back yard.

She wanted to call the police but

He decided they should keep it.

It'll be safer with us.

Where can we put it?

Under the bed, it's too tall to try to make it sit in a closet

And our clothes will smell.

Late at night, she imagined a soft,

Soft breathing in

And breathing out...

She had stopped sleeping,

It reeks in here, please, let's just throw it away.

You can't just dump a corpse,

Are you crazy?

You are crazy, you are fucking bonkers.

I don't know how we even thought saving a corpse from

Its natural rotting life was ever a good idea.

I like how it smells, it breathes life into me.

Don't you think?

I can't sleep. I'm not feeling well.

I wan't to go.

And there was no going anywhere. She had already gone.

She was lying under the bed. Breathing in

Breathing out.

A

A lyric girl

And then she realized she was part of literature.

Not the history or its theoretical reminiscences, but an actual living part, like a plot or a theme; a central metaphor, a humming bird. A lyric girl.

She was carrying herself as books had told her. She lived in ink.

She could only interpret relationships following Baudelaire's will. She tried to be mysterious and part of the Generation X. She longed for being a savage detective. She was Illuminations and Figures III. She was sick with the Montano malady.

And she had been told before. You are too analytical, my dear. Too cold, too ungrammatical... to much of a linear love. Generation Y.

You make your own speech and reality, those people don't exist. Stop trying to see through the fog, there is only fog out there. And houses, and cars, and street lights and meaningless sex. An awful amount of reflectance beasts. Your heart pumping gas.

She made boys fall in love with her only to write about it. She was that paperful.

Paperless.

She yearned to read love stories and feel identified, mutter love sentences as a remembered speech. She was that powerful.

And she started reading herself, like a short story. Like a fast food menu. She was the millennium burger, the combo #2.

Powerless.

She was an entry at the yellow pages and a Facebook page. And all the graphic sounds, and all the kings men, couldn't put her back together again.

She fell out of love after a good 150 pages and 2 days.

A

Rampant melody

Bright noises,

Boisterous thoughts,

I scream for you,

In my head. It's all about

Me and this rampant melody.

Symphony of

Sighs, and ifs...

Too many sharp notes,

Jumping from site to site,

Twitching the core,

The main core of this

Rampant melody.

When did you start muttering

Biting songs

Inside my mind? Reading in

Between the

Lines of this autobiography?

But there is no you,

You are my honed me.

It's all about

Me and this rampant melody.

A.

Free rein to curiosity

Curiosity

Tends to enjoy a free rein.

A hand is placed on a

Knee. Slightly warm, slightly

Moist.

Lift it and the rim,

Slightly darker,

Like steam, caresses me.

A word is whispered.

Barely breathing, its humid wave

Crisps me.

Bracing... the back of a neck.

Sweating hot and cold.

Soft and starred: white night.

Sleepless cotton hope.

Your breath, like vapor, bounces of

My fervent skin. Slightly shaking,

The wet stain of a kiss.

A temple, that spot under my chin,

Your words bounce back.

Chest, stomach,

That spot behind my knee,

All crisp.

Brisk.

Curiosity.

Now tends to enjoy a free rein.

A.

Aqua-gym

Ladylike in a recreation pool,

I feel myself trying to do push-ups

And underwater crunches.

The water prunes me and shows

My true age. I'm sixty

And

Twelve years old.

Underwater and moist,

Wet and soft;

Tender, like a new born.

Swimming comes natural

To babies and dogs,

You and I had to be trained,

Taught how not to drown.

And we jump,

Lift our left

Leg up.

Torso tight,

Tight hold.

Tight grasp,

To tight breathe,

Breathing in,

Don't breathe in or

You'll sink.

My every day is like aqua-gym.

A.

Enduring Girth

(published in The Main Street Journal, Spring 09)

It's a cumbersome love and I do not know where to put it.

I found it on my doorstep one gusty day at

The beginning of fall.

Someone must have rung the bell and run away.

Hit and run,

I understand now

Why that's considered a criminal offense.

The wind chilled my skin like a martini

Should be served and the light was crisp. My hands

Were a little stiff because of my congealed blood,

Running in clots.

Sandpaper wrapped my knuckles as I tried to pick up

My new unwieldy love. Slippery.

Sharp corners and brittle signs.

I surrounded it with both arms as if hugging a box. As if

Lifting a keg of love.

Enduring girth.

My back bent as I pretended to be a vise and I prepared

To pull.

A coterie of leaves were the only witnesses of my effort.

Nothing moved.

I first thought I could leave it there; let it be

A new addition to

My porch

Decoration.

True,

It got in my way.

Grocery bags, cat hair and a wild

List of knickknack junk

Kept being kept in its mucky web. Rain and autumn

Had done their scurrilous job and

My love

Looked forgotten, in its quiescent wait.

A remnant of my failure to

Bring it indoors.

Its wrapping started tearing away but I did

Nothing about it.

I tried to frighten it away. It simply wouldn't move.

My stagnant love.

I thought of selling the house but

Who would want such cumbersome

Devotion?

Deciduous fall passed and the deceiving keg stayed.

What willpower, may I say!

Piecemeal, I began to accept it. Good

Morning and have a nice day when leaving the house,

Welcome back at my return.

Yes, sometimes my coat would get caught by one of its

Sharp corners.

Yet, I didn't mind anymore.

A brackish kiss in the mornings,

An awkward hug at night.

A cup of coffee sitting on my porch,

Protecting my love from the cold. Like a spawning hen.

A cigarette, reading a book.

I started missing it when I went to work and I

Would rush back home

To tether it in hasty caresses and kind words.

Tight against its girth I would imagine a heart beat.

A

Certezas empíricas

Alexandra Saum Pascual, Madrid 1985, estaba leyendo un libro que había tomado prestado de la biblioteca esa misma mañana cuando, sin previo aviso, se encontró con tres caracteres chinos bajo la palabra "entraña". Tal descubrimiento le hizo preguntarse qué tipo de persona habría leído a Octavio Paz antes que ella. Qué tipo de persona habría sentido la necesidad de buscar, quizás, la palabra "entraña" en su diccionario de chino. O habría sentido el gatillo del bolígrafo dispararse tras leer "la abertura de nuestro ser entraña una dimensión de toda nuestra hombría" e, inevitablemente, había escrito aquello que esos tres caracteres significaban.

Mientras su mente cavilaba sobre las ilimitadas posibilidades de leer a Octavio Paz en chino, Alexandra tomó un sorbo de su café. Había ido a una cafetería a matar un poco el tiempo entre clase y clase y descubrió que el líquido que bebía estaba aún más caliente que cuando se lo sirvieron. Tamaña revelación le hizo preguntarse si las leyes de la física estarían invirtiéndose hoy para ella. ¿Qué pasaría si las hipótesis y certezas empíricas que gobiernan nuestra vida hubieran sido invertidas por un día? El café se calentaría cada vez más en vez de enfriarse, siendo imposible beberlo sin quemarse la punta de la lengua y seríamos, quizás, un día más jóvenes al acostarnos.

Alexandra pensó que no habría ninguna diferencia entre ir hacia adelante o hacia atrás, mientras sólo fuera por un día. Quién sabe, quizás estos tres caracteres en chino fueran una consecuencia alucinógena del café que se calentaba mágicamente o puede que siempre hubieran sido parte del laberinto de Paz. O quizás, un hombre en Lanzhou esté leyendo ahora esto mismo que Alexandra pensaba mientras creía leer un artículo digital, justo después de quemarse la lengua con su té de la mañana.

Newark 2009
A.

Perlas de la lengua

Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio decía así hoy en el País.com en una sección de apuntes titulada Precios. El Mal es un comodín ideológico:

Se encuentran a veces en los textos más modestos como aquel de Las hijas de un sevillano que cantan las niñas saltando a la comba: "Un día a la más pequeña / le tiró la inclinación / de irse a servir al rey / vestidita de varón". ¡Pero qué maravilla es esa de "le tiró la inclinación"!

Perlas de la lengua española, sí, señor.