Pabellones VI

"K. murió de tuberculosis. Su laringe quedó ocluida y no podía hablar ni comer. Ni, por supuesto, cantar. Tomarse a pecho la cuestión del canto --como le pasó a Josefina-- es contar con una laringe que funciona en cualquier circunstancia. Así de simple. En algún momento K. hizo un gesto para que le habilitasen la mano de escribir. Y ahí fue donde se formó el show (display or exhibit) en el sanatorio. Ver a K. tratando de escribir al mismo nivel de la laringe defectuosa, verlo raspar y raspar, como un pelele, la página en blanco"

Ronaldo Sánchez Mejías, Cálculo de lindes.

Little Green Men

No le gusta esta ciudad y, sin embargo, no se atreve a marcharse. Parece que todas las ciudades sean la misma, una gran carretera, un paso de zebra, un camión blanco como un elefante. No hay que pensar en el elefante blanco.

Camina camino a casa, el caminante no hace camino al andar. Inmediatamente se convierte en algo ajeno a la ciudad, un extraño extraído de allá donde debiera estar, protegido por algo, un coche, un edificio, una oficina, algo. Y yo, yo camino.

Va sola y pega el sol. Piensa en lo de moda que están los melanomas y también se le ocurre que sería un buen nombre para un grupo de rock. Los melanomas. Toma. Toma melanoma. Pero hoy en día, quién escucha rock. Aprieta el botón, ése que también está tan de moda en todos los semáforos de la costa oeste --aunque puede que éste sea ya un fenómeno mundial-- y se para a esperar a que el muñequito cambie de color. Los hombrecitos aquí no son verdes, todo está descolorido a golpe de calor, los hombrecitos californianos que día a día desafían al melanoma son más bien tirando a blanco elefante.

Pita el semáforo para los ciegos (Inciso: jamás he visto un ciego caminando por la calle en California) (Jamás hay más de tres personas a la vista caminando en California, pero eso es condición de vivir en el desierto) (Si estas personas fueran, además, ciegas, jamás se verían) (Pero yo no soy ciega --creo-- y jamás he visto un ciego en el sur de California) (Jamás suena a jamón. Fin del inciso) Cruza la calle sufriendo por el melanoma y por la exposición social, total outcast, what's that girl doing out, where's her car?

Siempre ha tenido la manía de mirar dentro de las cosas, los coches, las casas... hay un edificio también blanco a la derecha, es una especie de urbanización, unos pisos que suelen alquilar estudiantes y jardineros mexicanos pobres con niños a los que visten con pantalón de chandal rosa, calcetines blancos y flip flops. Con el pelo negro largo, despeinado, a media cola de caballo, siempre se los ve jugando al otro lado de la verja. Hay muchas verjas en el desierto de California, nunca se sabe quién va a querer entrar.

Camina rápido fingiendo que sabe a donde va, alguien le dijo que sólo así evitaría a los violadores o secuestradores, vampiros, caníbales, criminales varios que rondan al acecho por estos lares tan soleados del ghetto donde vive. Un ghetto curiosamente universitario. Al otro lado de la verja, fija su mirada en un viejo que la mira aferrado a los barrotes, con boina y bastón. Typical Spanish. Yo creo que es mi abuelo y sostengo la mirada, hasta el punto de afirmar que sí, se trata de él, aunque murió hace ya un año. Sigo caminando, paso de largo: cosas más raras se han visto al sur de California.

A.

Inward voices

"Ever since I was first read to, then started reading to myself, there has never been a line read that I didn’t hear. As my eyes followed the sentence, a voice was saying it silently to me. It isn’t my mother’s voice, or the voice of any person I can identify, certainly not my own. It is human, but inward, and it is inwardly that I listen to it. It is to me the voice of the story or the poem itself. The cadence, whatever it is that asks you to believe, the feeling that resides in the printed word, reaches me through the reader-voice. I have supposed, but never found out, that this is the case with all readers--to read as listeners--and with all writers, to write as listeners" (Eudora Welty)

Wintry Helper

“Give me your hand, child, I’ll tuck it in my pocket.

Close your eyes, child, tight against the snow.”

Eyelashes with little milky dew,

Sealing everything together

With frosty iced glue.

It was a snowstorm,

And you remember it because you had

Never seen anything like it before.

Your hand had been given away in a strange pocket

It was too cold to feel it anymore.

And yet, the bitter wind felt like an ally

A wintry helper took your Californian soul.

A

You are now running on low battery

one wet afternoon

i found myself looking for those few

escapist words

i was soaked to the core by

rivers outside and inside running

dirty thick almost sweet

i searched all around

your name my sweet darling

ain’t paper anymore

remnant of the liquid word

remnant of your liquid tongue

dirty thick flowing rhyming

you'll drink my mouth all

easy rhymes rhyming with

your name

after mine

trapped in books

florescent

white

your image is so bright

your eyes don’t look so blue anymore

A

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