Friday 29 July 2016

MY FELLOW HUMAN


Do hurt me now!
Please,  
In a way beyond repair, 
So I can rest at last.  

And do not allow me to love, 
Please, 
Do not allow me to love. 



II

What a fun little tune 
That is, Ernesto, 
What a fun little tune! 

Please, somebody!
 Call me an ambulance! 
Please, 
Call an ambulance now. 

Saturday 23 January 2016

ON THE NINTH HOUR

I've been forsaken:

Spare me not
Please, will you do
Spear
Me?





Thursday 21 January 2016

Esperanza

A Hernesto
Qué alegre tonadilla, Ernesto,
Qué alegre tonadilla!

Por favor,
Llama a la ambulancia, por favor,

Llama a la ambulancia.


Mátame Mientras

Entre el dolor individual y
La belleza universal,

Creo en mí, yo creo.

Roedores

A Pavel, con pulgas, otra vez. 

Me he arañado al ir a través
De tí,

Tan pulcra. Tan bella, feísima como siempre,
-Un bello acorde, la imbécil mirada-,
Todo lo que un día quise y ya seré no.

Las ratas tan coloquiales,
Con ése amor que
Tan sólo ellas saben tener.

Dover

Al separarse, en la acción, 
Siempre inunda al alma un miedo, 
Al quizás no volverá, a las piernas 
Rotas, a la muerte. 

Al ver las cosas por última vez, 
Y, ahora sí, decir adiós, 
Como sólo adiós decirse puede, 

Como yo siempre siento, 
Con el dolor que yo siento siempre 
Al separarme de tí. 

Help-me-not

a Pavel
Let's smile and laugh, and laugh.

Now, do, please, call me an ambulance,


Call me an ambulance.



Friday 30 October 2015

Vals

Caminos desiertos que ya nunca
Andaré,
Cuánta soledad he cultivado
Siempre desde niño.

Nunca me ha molestado:
Me cansaba tanto
Estar acompañado.

Ahora, que ya no andaré,
Oscilo como una boya
En el mar.
Y, otra vez,
Os vuelvo a mirar,
Desde aquí

Y ahí seguís caminando,
Tan solos, todos juntos,
Por esos caminos del desierto.

Así os encuentro ahora y,
Unas veces arriba y
Otras abajo,
Nos hacemos ahogadillas y,
Otras, nos salvamos.

Thursday 29 October 2015

El Espíritu de la Tragedia Ática

Bajo los rectos rayos de un sol matemático
Te estoy mirando,
Aunque el ángulo agudo de mármol
Que tus brazos dibujan,
De helena belleza
Sobre los muslos de oro,
No esclarezca la linea, la voluntad, el deseo,
Del alto ser que emanas y, sin embargo,
Propicia un vano oscuro
Que, en rincones avergonzados,
Florece e inquieta
A esta humanidad,
Que adora guillotinas, catecismos y lógica.

Las sombras proyectadas por las
Bellas lineas de Febo Apolo,
Cuando los rosados dedos de la Aurora
Acarician el Pontos infinito,
Encarnan ese oscuro deseo,
Que al final deslumbra,
En el Misterio, en la embriaguez, y en
Lo que, mas allá, responde a
Nombre ninguno,
Sobre esas negras ventanas que inundan
La boca, los ojos, la esperanza.

Iluminan también
El roto gatear de bebés cuando deambulamos
De esos entre nosotros que, un día,
Seremos héroes,

Seremos héroes
Apolíneos,
Con espada y en la playa

Y el cáliz derramado,
Manchados de uva,
De sangre la arena.

Saturday 12 September 2015

LIVING STANDARDS 31/12/2012


The year has ended and multitudes are changing themselves into better definitions of self. You need to use the toilet for first time in two thousand and thirteen and this feels like a momentous time to enjoy and to be remembered.

It is a new bathroom that your friends have designed with a lot of effort and love. You get on with the business of defecation as usual, not without some degree of aprehension, considering the abject diet that you follow.

The surprise is, for once, not related to the consitency, shape, colour, odour, or the organoleptic qualities of your capricious creation. No, this time you feel like wearing somebody else's clothes: there is a distance between toilet seats and the surrounding floor that happens to be identical in the UK, Albania and Ulan Bator, but not this time, you are sure of that.

How to get up every morning in the same bed of yesterday, next to a familiar body, hearing the radio show, the specific noises outside and inside, reproducing carefully studied movements in front of the mirror, your dog, your boss, your croissant, and, at the same time, having actually loved, laughed, listened, cut your chin, hug, spit and been transported to where croissants go when they die.

That's why, when life misses a beat, one has to pay attention. It is a gift, unexpected and free. It fills you with Life.

Sitting on the toilet a little too far from the floor was an exhilarating experience. How can we all use the same (international) standard dimensions on chairs, desks, stairs, the bar height, when my stature (both physical and moral) is so much shorter than other human dimensions in different populations? We live a pret-a-porter existence.

A friend of mine from Logrono, in Spain, told me many years ago (too many for standardisation purposes) that he could not sell windows in France because window holes, door holes and other human practices involving holes had very different standards in Spain and France. (I beg you to consider the implications of growing up in a dictatorship).

What a beautiful profession: window seller. Its substance is Aristotelian  but its essence is Platonic. Window seller!, even better, window maker!!! That is pure and poetic, that is an honourable job that your daughters will love you for. Yes, I am talking to you, amigo mio, send me an email now.

Still, I cannot work out why it is that both the German and the English need their toilet paper at least 20% wider than the Spanish roll.

Ensoñación y Devenir

A Margarita, diosa del movimiento

Por los largos pasillos sin historia y
Las rojas alfombras del desamparo,
Repartido por la tierra de los hombres
Te he buscado y te encuentro.

Ese movimiento,
Siempre yendo hacia adelante,
Me aparta lévemente.

                                   Brúscamente,
Una caricia, un
Grano de arena que cae
                                       lévemente,
A plomo,

Me hunde en la pluma profunda,
Siempre yendo hacia
Abajo
Y ya sin deseo,

                          surjo,

Dichoso en la otra distancia,

En abandono.

                 

Friday 7 August 2015

Prachtige Natur

The sun strokes the land and Nature shines
In its full beauty. The human soul is carried away
Too. And higher are your thoughts and nobler is
Your heart, in this busy solitude where everything
Is your friend and, benevolently, you are cared for.

And, yet, we live our little lives,
Fraught with uncertainty and fear.


Sombras

A las largas baldosas frías
Que nos sostienen en tu casa
Y que han oído tanto
Como robles inmortales.

A esos hombres que circulan
Líquidos
Entre los quicios de las puertas
Y dinteles y
El vano en las ventanas.

Nunca hemos hablado,
Y yo no tengo prisa.
Vuestra mirada es larga y nada espera.

Y el tiempo es sordo.

Y ya no espero.




Sunday 14 June 2015

BRAVURA

Ya aprendí a no temer a la muerte,
Al dolor del amor, o al amor dichoso.
Un corazón partido en dos,
Por asta de toro,
Me asusta menos que

El moho que día a día
Se deposita sobre las superficies todas,
Que yo, tú, él, nosotros, vosotros, ellos,
Sobre el mundo arrojamos.


Amor Fraterno

Tú, mi más querido, mi prójimo y hermano:
Soy columna ardiente,
Mar dorado, ojos grandes, luna de primavera,
El albor de la mañana
Cuando entre los bosques la niebla se levanta,
Soy el corazón universal, de dolor lleno,
Un San Sebastian, de amor traspasado.

Por eso,

Yo mato, yo mato, yo mato,
Yo mato,
Robo, te humillo, envilezco y me enfango
En el lodo de mi alma de hombre.


Wednesday 19 November 2014

Ventana

Saltan ojos sobre el blanco de
La habitacion,  
Por las paredes todas y 
Yo no puedo yacer más 
Sobre la dulce cama. 

Buscando la muerte o el silencio. 

Cuando el alma se refleja en 
La nada 
Del blanco inmenso, 

No hay paredes o limites 
Y, aun así,
La opresión nos invade.  

Rodeado sólo por tu propio ser, 
Planeas la batalla, heroico guerrero. 


Tuesday 16 September 2014

Portraits

You always smiled
At me from every wall. 
Other people smiled too. 

From the same walls, 
The same old places, 
The same old pictures 
That were mine and now 
They are not.  

Where are the other ones, the 
Ones that were taken 
But not exposed?

Sunday 14 September 2014

La Verdad en la Poesía

La vanidad
Del hombre 
También arrastra al poeta, 
Cuando, después de haber 
Fregado las baldosas, 
A través de la ventana otea el infinito, 
Endereza los hombros, 
Y su trágica pose romana
Es corregida, 
Buscando aprobación. 

Para que el mundo entero le vea 
Con todo ese dolor, 
Con tanta verdad, que él grita. 

Sunday 26 January 2014

Palaeontology

I always wanted to write to
The objects.

Not the ones made of
Stone, wood, bone, skin and mineral
But the plastic ones, the synthetic
Bodies.

There is something impenetrable,
And clean
About you.
I fancy you white, eternal and
Destroying all landscapes,
In landfills everywhere,
Forever, pervasive and more
Intriguing
Than trilobites
Or men.


Saturday 25 January 2014

Debasement

Is it not the highest Life
What floods with Beauty
Our Days?
Is it not the noblest Spirit
What guides us
In this World?

With a true Heart
We walk among our fellow Men
Only to discover
The blessing Nature
Does not penetrate

The Bone, the cold Stone,
The very Fabric of Humanity.
Society and Civilization,
Jericho and the neolithic
Discovery.

Hammurabi's Code
To live together
And very close,
But all that matters
Has been lost. 

O warm Rays of the Sun
That a few of us enjoy!
The Valleys and the crystal Waters!
The highest Thoughts and
The noblest Soul!
To kill to kill to kill to kill to kill
To kill
To kill  you All.

Saturday 9 November 2013

El Poema

A Antonio
Qué vergüenza nuestras voces
Sin dolor. 
Qué dolor tan doméstico 
El nuestro. 

Qué ojeriza de niñito informa 
Nuestras voces, 
Con esas pataletas que 
Nos inflaman, que inflan 
Nuestros orgullosos cuellos de paloma, 
Con gorgoteos.... 
-Sí, nos celebramos!-
Porque somos sensibles y comprometidos... 
La vanidad indulgente. 

El bofetón 
Que restalla en la cara, 
Sin piedad, con 
Cristales como la úlcera duodenal, 
Que es la realidad 
Del buen poema,

-Dime: ¿Qué estamos haciendo?!-

Saturday 5 October 2013

Sweet Drunken Stroll

In the street, by the park,
Were the children walking
And so was I. 

-Module to Mars! 
Life beyond ourselves!- 

Geraniums and hortensies
Accompany me
Home. 

Saturday 28 September 2013

Olor de Ano

Entre todos los olores de ano que conozco
Hay uno que embriaga y enamora.
He tratado de descifrar si es la luna, el curry o
Tal vez el amor,

Pero su incidencia es siempre caprichosa y
Bella, tal vez como el amor.

Belleza

Hay un aleteo,
Hermoso,
De alondra que vuela y canta.

Y hay 
Un olor a caca
En el muladar.

Soledad del Soldado

Qué triste se siente uno cuando
Uno quiere matar tanto
Como yo quiero.

En el sacrificio
Nunca se halla
Expiación.

Por eso,
Mata, mata mucho y llora.
Y no rías.

Tomorrow in the battle think on me

He visto muertos y
No me ha gustado.

Me ha sorprendido tanto, a mi,
Que tanto me gusta matar.
Yo, que quise matar tanto, tal vez
Nunca quise los muertos.

Renuncio a reciclar vidrio, plastico y papel,
A mí, que la Naturaleza ennoblece tanto.
Yo, que tanto detrito genero.

Qué heroica es la batalla
Cuando uno desprecia la muerte y
Honor e Ideal
Confieren bravura.
Pero qué vileza es la del militar
Y qué triste su mercancía.

Es más noble y alto el peleida con su cólera heroica
O lo son Abel y el hortelano en su mansedumbre?

A mí, que quiero a los vivos muertos,
Igual nunca me gustó matar?

Friday 6 September 2013

Tu Fiel Argos

Son largos los días y
Fuiste grumete, soldado, capitán y
Tantas veces náufrago
-Siempre polizón!-

Tuviste vientos apacibles y los desapacibles también los tuviste.
Has usado astrolabio, brújula y sextante
Y has llegado a muchas costas,
Ricas y bellas,
Y a las que estaban en guerra también.

A veces te sientes solo. A veces débil.
Quiero que sepas que, en la rosa de los vientos,
Siempre estaba yo. Y

Que en la rosa de los vientos,
Yo te esperaré siempre.

Cometas

Apenas unos dedos se desprenden de la marquesina
Donde tanto has esperado.

Apenas un viento, ensordecedor,
Te arrastra, unos milímetros apenas.

Que harás mañana, tú,
Cuando, ido el miedo y la esperanza rota,
Te arranque el viento de la marquesina?





Thursday 5 September 2013

Solar Plexus

To Emma 

The first drops of the long predicted
Rain started to fall,
Like the soul falls, filters and sediments
In the heart,
Like the tea-leaves
Fall, filter and sediment in your cup of tea,
As soon as her bus started to leave.

Suns shine and go,
Their spinning ferocious,
Madness their will.
And, still, nurtured naked.

Timing, as always, is of the essence.
Some call it Magic.
When the celestial bodies and
A weather's meteors
Mould themselves
To us.

Forests of symbols, 
Answering like mirrors,
The questions that our changing landscapes
Want to find in their reflections.

There was a solar flare
Exactly at 13.23 today.
It follows Maxwell's equation;
It follows the equation of us.

The beauty of elliptic orbits,
Forcing the planets' little dance,
Is the same beauty of
The human paths
And of the love that binds us.

Days and kisses
Rise and more years and kisses.
And suns and more suns rise and fall
And rise.

The description of an asteroid belt
Has been found on textbooks.
Like in a sea without cliffs,
Shooting stars would not explode
In such beautiful surf.

             ***

And, so you hear it,
Such is our love;
And such is
The star system we orbit.

Tuesday 6 August 2013

KISSES

All those kisses that you carefully place
In my toilet bin
Keep me going, still.

Tissues like souvenirs of
All that once
Was The Rose,
Are fetishes of us and
Of a love
That still is a binding force.
A veiled complicity that
I, perhaps, just project
Inside that bin and
Also around
Our lives unpaired.


I would like to see in your flat
where it is that
Your litter bin is hiding
So I can rummage through
Your discarded selves and
My selves,
So I can dive in and find
All the pearls and coral,
And the expensive perfume too.

And, then, adorn you with
All those kisses that
I discarded not.

Thursday 25 July 2013

Juguetes Rotos

Es quizás el amor, que nos vandaliza,
Que al marchar nos deja peleles, 
Marionetas sin titiritero y sin cabeza. 

¡Que la herida sea profunda y 
El sangrar sea intenso! 
Como la lluvia es copiosa, 
Como las llamas pavorosas, 
Las estrellas titilantes, 
La tortilla es de patata. 

Esas figuritas 
Que ordenan las repisas de los coleccionistas
Nunca tendrán la vida
Que tienen
Los juguetes rotos. 



Sunday 14 July 2013

Geometría Esencial

Pronuncio palabras incomprensibles,
No dejo de mover las sillas, en la habitación. 
He estado en el piso de arriba y, también, 
En la azotea. Al de más abajo 
No he querido ir. 

Recuerdo un día, cuando las sillas
Tenían un lugar 
Propio y 
Eran bonitas. También me gustaba 
Esta habitación. 

No así, 
Los hombres son más bonitos 
Airados y de pie. 
Los hombres sin esquinas ni sillas 
Me gustan más. 

Y yo sigo con el idiota afán 
De encontrar un lugar para mi silla. 

Saturday 6 July 2013

I Looked at the Horizon Immensely

Gemaess der Menschheit so des Lebens Welt betrachten
Und hohen Sinn als hoeheres Leben achten. 


With a defiant stare
At the parting landscape,
The winds swirling impetuously over my face,
Heroic I'm standing on my very own rock,
High above the wilderness of the valley.

The most beautiful surf splashes the rocks,
And, so, a nobler, higher life
Your spirit demands.

I turn my head back, only for a moment,
But three feet away, beyond myself,
Just desolation and a vast, dumb hollow I find.
Terrified by the deafening silence,
I fall, and banished in exile,
The impetuous winds cannot find my stare,
And no wild landscapes confront my face.


Saturday 1 June 2013

Mirror

The rain was arranged
In the long white corridor you walked.
Pieces of you travelled alongside you
In the long white corridor.

Children, outside, played to play
Being nurses, bullfighters and astronauts
And I was just
A slight coda in the distance.

Audience to the great symphony,
I got wet, and enjoyed looking at the movement
Of you, while the scheduled rain
Defined an ambit where
The correspondence between
You, the corridor and me
Was taking place.

Friday 31 May 2013

The Print of Time



It is not sand that filters
Through the fingers.
It is pieces with identity, that
Scratch your fingers,
With irregular and convex edges, uncomfortably sized and
An unavoidable
Presence.

It is not a flow of time that
Parmenides or Heraclitus
Would have approved of.
In which Penelope could knit,
In which Ariadne could weave.

It is a brutal time, like Asturian fabada;
It is a reality like the Pyrex of your Ikea glass when it explodes,
Like the blood I spilled together with you,
Spat out with each ventricular systole.
Like the indifference that brutally happens, with ventricular precision,
Exactly like that instant in which
Daisies rain around me
And I lay, lacerated, feeling an
Infinite hunger.

And beat by bit, with a tremendous shovel or, else,
Like the hourglass,
Life falls and stumbles,
Leaving in its track
Bruises, cathedrals, petals and rubble. 




Fellow Man

Because I have been with you;
Because my skin was torn off
And my blood has fed you;
Because I have loved

You always,

I will kill you now,
I will bleed again with you,
I will forget you

And I will cease to exist,
Always with you.


Diogenes

I have been to the doldrums of life
-Travel mates!-. 
I've found gold and mother-of-pearl and coral. 

I have been there where you 
Didn't want to go 
And I am none the wiser.  

I have tried to be
- Are you listening?- 
On the highest pinnacle of humanity
And I could not find us.   

I debased myself to find a human, 
And humans could not find me
Either.

I still go and go
And go and I do not find you

And you can't find me, still.



Friday 22 March 2013

Wind

Persistently walking
The walk.
Incessantly, the days.

The sand in my eye was part
Of a rock in a
Distant landscape.

I am the wind that blows,
Tirelessly, sleepy
And so my love goes
On and beyond

Death.

Stranded, on calmer shores.

Fetiches del Tiempo


Son retazos. La vida.
Es la lluvia en la cara,
Las memorias que lo hicieron.

Pinceladas como islas,
Leves, en la bruma.
Parcelados recuerdos en
Mi memoria y la colectiva.

Es Tú y Yo
Y los otros pronombres
Y es los verbos que los unian.

Y es también
Ese verbo
que nos une todavía.



Time Fetiches

It is the odds and ends. Life is. 
It is the rain on your face, 
The memories that made it. 

Brushstrokes like islands, 
Slight, in the mist. 
Parceled mementoes in 
My memory and the collective one. 

It is You and Me
And the other pronouns 
And it's the verbs that linked them. 

And it also is 
That verb
Thaat still links us. 


Saturday 2 March 2013

LA PERGOLA Y EL TENIS

A Polilla y Alcanfor, por haber abierto la puerta. Gracias, hermano. 

Yo naci, perdonadme, en la era de los albumes y  despues
De aquel tiempo cuando la musica se vendia en singles.
Cuando la musica tenia cara A y cara B, y uno se tumbaba,
A oscuras, a escuchar un disco en silencio.

Yo creci en aquel claroscuro de La Transicion, cuando
Mis hermanos mayores se encerraban en misterioso
Culto ritual "a escuchar musica" que era a la vez
Descubrimiento y transgresion, sociedad y faro.

Para ser admitidos a la estricta y hermetica ceremonia
Mi padre era requerido a transformase, con habito
De marroqui chilaba, en aquel dulce e inquisitivo duende
Encapuchado que yo recuerdo, con su bella sonrisa,
El candor en la mirada, y el pacharan en el alma.

Y yo, como mi padre, tras golpear con los nudillos en
La puerta, ganaba acceso al secreto. Mearse
De risa era parte de la ceremonia. Y la experiencia

Del rock en la cara y en los corazones, la ensonacion,
El miedo y el conocimiento de que estabamos siendo
Testigos de un momento irrepetible, intenso e irreparable.

La declaracion de una realidad
Que transforma el mundo,
A sabiendas de que eramos complices en un acto intimo, profundo y bello.
A sabiendas de que habiamos creado un mundo nuevo.


Wednesday 27 February 2013

Petition

For a desert island
Please load me a gun;
And the merciful vultures
And Eve of Genesis
(Before the shame and vine leaves, that is)
Give me too.

To make a poem
A pinch of plutonium,
Of heavy metals a whiff,
A spoonful of cod liver oil
And please, doctor, your most painful
Injection I need.

To be human,
Doktor Frankenstein I'd like.
To make me a dog and
Not to - please, please!-
Give me a heart.


La Huella del Tiempo

No es arena la que se escapa
Entre los dedos.
Son trozos con identidad, que
Arañan los dedos,
De perfiles convexos e irregulares, de un tamaño incómodo y
Una presencia inevitable.

No es un fluir del tiempo
Que Parménides o Heráclito
Hubieran aprobado.
Tampoco ese tiempo
En el que Penélope puede coser,
En el que Ariadna pueda tejer.

Es un tiempo brutal, como la fabada asturiana;
Es una realidad como el pyrex de tu vaso de Ikea cuando estalla,
Como la sangre derramada con vosotros,
Escupida con cada sístole ventricular.
Como la desgana que acontece brutalmente, con precisión ventricular,
Exactamente como ese momento en que
Llueven margaritas en derredor
Y yo me tumbo, salpicado de llagas y
Sintiendo un hambre infinita.

Y a golpes y grano a grano y con tremendas paletadas y, otras,
Como el reloj de arena,
La vida fluye a trompicones,
Dejando a su paso cardenales, catedrales, pétalos y socavones.


Sunday 3 February 2013

Paternóster

Pater Noster apiádate.
De los largos ojos humo,
De las cuencas sin órbitas,
De los hombres sin perro,
Apiádate.

Apiádate también
Cuando el rostro fallece y, sin embargo, somos aplaudidos,
Cuando, victoriosos, vamos a tí,
Cuando, victoriosos, somos fallidos y,
Celebrados, recogemos las flores,

Marchitas, sin haber fallado.

Pater Noster, ayúdame.
Y dame perros y ojos y dame hombres y
Déjame orbitar en linea recta.

Dame hombres, Pater Noster, dame hombres
Y, Pater Noster, déjanos en paz.

Tuesday 22 January 2013

"I am not a vegetarian because I love animals; I am a vegetarian because I hate plants!"
A Whitney Brown

Saturday 12 January 2013

Undressing for You

I showed you all that I was.
You liked me too.

I am still taking off my clothes, I do it on Wednesdays.
Please knit me a jumper,
One of those that will be worn never.

I do not like being at the agora,
Just show me now all that I was not.

Oz

Torbellino, Maelstrom,
Calma
Chicha. 

Hay un viento
De fondo, 
Profundo. 

Dejame ir contigo, madre, 
No tengo miedo tampoco. 

Sigo
Y hay UFOs, nubes, rayos gamma, y un feo gesto que devalúa tu precio.
Sí, sí he estado, 
Y también ibas tú. 

Madre, déjame ir, 
Que no tengo miedo. 

Madre, donde estamos? 

BEING AND YOGHURT

I'm popping out for yoghourt
The Hairdresser's Husband

Come with me.
We will go towards (rabid mammals, frantically biting loving strangulating) 
You. 

Have you been here yet? 
Do not be afraid, if being here means 
Strangulating loving and, most of all, 
Not being. 

Ontologically, 
Strangulation is always (and only) ontical. 

Mother, have you been?

Friday 28 December 2012

Cielito Lindo

That place you have, angel of heaven,
Between your legs
Is a commonplace.

A commonplace because it is
On everybody's lips.

A Gonzalez

Sweetheart

Los puntos del azucar son
Como las cosas del querer.

102 hebra fuerte, un dos un dos
110 a 115 bola floja, aaaarrr!
22 a 24 almibar flojo, formacion!
Espejuelo, hebra fina, hebra regular,
Veintiocho a treinta y dos, treinta y dos a treinta y cuatro, treinta y seis a treinta y ocho.

Perla o perlita, gran perla o pompas, AUUUUUU!

Los  puntos del caramelo...
Fahrenheit, Celsius, Beaume.
El calor arrecia y ya huele a carbon.

Sigue con impetu, brotan diamantes!

Osmio Iridio Platino
Tecnecio Rutenio Paladio!

Del almibar al caramelo
Vaya puntos tiene el azucar!

Y es que estas buenisima.


Nota del Editor: todas las temperaturas en Celsius

Life's Worth

It is a commonplace, when somebody dies in tragic circumstances while practising a hobby, rock climbing, paragliding, extreme whatever, that their close relatives seem to justify the deadman's life (or, perhaps death) by expressing how meaningful it was taking up those activities: "... but he died doing what he liked best".

It always strikes me how nobody says of a clubbing victim, of any recreational drug user: "... but she died doing what she liked best". I am not talking here of somebody with an addiction that made them slaves to to their 'sport' but, still, shouldn't we too?

Donde Habite el Olvido

Querida Adela:

Tu, la de los ojos pelagicos,
La del alma insondable y misteriosa.
Tu, con tu humanidad como los perros,
Con tu dolor de ideales platonicos y filantropicos.

Esa que todos amamos con admiracion
Querria tener los ojos de ojo,
El alma de alma,
La humanidad como los perros
Y un ideal sin dolores.

Incluso no tener ideal, simplemente
No tener
O ser.




NB Click here to translate: 

WHERE OBLIVION DWELLS

Dear Adela,

You, of the pelagic eyes,
You, of the unfathomable and mysterious soul.
You, with your humanity like dogs,
With your pain of platonic and philanthropic ideals.

That one that we all love in admiration
Would like to have her eyes made of eye,
Her soul of soul,
Her humanity like dogs
And  ideals with no pain.

Even not to have an ideal, simply
Not to have
Or be.

Saturday 24 November 2012

To Antonio Alfaro Sanchez

...

And I remember quiet evenings
Trembling close to you

Tom Waits

Saturday 3 November 2012

ONE SECOND

(Eros completes Thanatos) 


-PROPOSAL FOR INSTALLATION-

Background: 

  • The male fish Photocorynus spiniceps swims inside the female's vagina and stays there forever in aeternal copulatio until, eventually, some years later,  the female dies and so does he. Parasitic love does not know any deeper paradigm. 
  • Vandellia sp comprehends a number of amazonian fish species that share the notable feeding behaviour of, following the urea trail that mammals leave behind, leaking out in their urine, manage to locate themselves inside the urethra of unsuspecting swimmers, that will thoroughly regret their whimsical fondnes of going swimming in unfamiliar waters. 


Materials and Design: In a glass tank, 2.5 m high, 3.5 m across and 2 m deep full of water, a perforated septum divides and at the same time communicates two chambers. 

The orifices are 0.50 cm in diameter so the female P. spiniceps is contained in one of the chambers. However, Vandellia sp is small enough to cross to either side. Indeed it is small enough to swim inside the urethras of both myself and Nigella Lawson, who innocently live naked on either chamber. It is extremely unpleasant and the tiny spiny fins allow him to swim up your urinary tract and to lock inside like a harpoon if trying to go down. 

Also, on the side that the female P spiniceps is not present, an electric manta ray inhabits the benthos. I love Nigella and Nigella loves me back. The male P spiniceps live not only inside their partners but also swim everywhere throughout the tank, populating not only their counterpart's vaginas but also our corneas, tympani, gums and, possibly, rectums.  Vandellia sp too. The ominous presence of the manta ray reminds you that Damien Hirst was once good. 

It is up to the curator to decide whether hundreds of praying mantis enjoy their mating rituals and a nutritious prospect while they fly about in the same room where the audience admires LOVE. 

Nigella and I always contemplate one another. 

My skin is getting very wrinkly. 

Charles Saatchi please help. 

Saturday 22 September 2012

Against Antonio Alfaro Sanchez 

El momento poetico o
La sensibilidad poetica
No son capaces de
Hacer el poema.

Death is death,
The beauty in your gaze
Is just myopia -desire!-
Everything we love
Only responds to ourselves.

You are not vain but
Why did you?

Desgrana topicos, si asi lo deseas,
Que, mientras, yo
Me hare pajas.


Friday 21 September 2012




SMELL AND COLOUR

Sideways, it is caramel
And dust.
An ominous sun
Shatters all life.

Ancient winds blow
Never to the North,
The red sands building

The unending Empire
Of Dunes.




-A rock under my feet!-

I only flow
In quicksand.



HERMANO


I have found in my eyes
Sand from the beach
But I did not cry.

Jellyfish populated my veins
But I did not bleed.

I have looked at you
And, still, I could not
Cry.


TRAVEL

I, that cannot drive,
Go in cars all the time.

Maps, that I can't read,
Direct me to
Marvelous places.

Where am I taken by
Trains, planes, spirits,
That I wasn't there yet?

I have also loved.

That Ancient Wound



The lost skin, the gained
Blood,
Humans always
The humans.

This coffee, the spirit, a beach,
Unending,

The days.

Scared You Off


I opened my eyes to see you:
I fell in love.

I opened my mouth
To talk to you: You loved me then.

I have opened it wider
And then, wider and then, bled.
And I have stretched my soul
And then, wider, until it was torn.

I have called your name.

Now, I open my eyes
And then wider, but
I cannot see you. Not any more.


ACHILLES 

Let me see a man
That shines!

Beyond Morality,
Where the blood,
The steel exist
And a little candle

Does not have a place.


CELORIO, 8 SEPTEMBER 2012

There was dry sand and there was wet sand. All was pitch black. I had to make my way around some cliffs now that the tide was out and it was frightening, wet, exciting and beautiful.

When I did arrive there and then I saw it, it wasn't fear, it was the supernatural realisation of my surroundings of cosmic proportions: moon, a barely imaginable horizon line and the ominous RED.

Big, red and definitive. In the early hours of this my newly started 44th year.

Saturday 1 September 2012

EULOGY TO THE HORIZON


Here I am again,
Down King Kong's toilet.

On the other side of this
Always another sea,

Another you again happens
As I do.

TIME

Because i keep finding myself running and out of breath in stupid alleyways I have become obsessed with optimising my time. I have read much about the merits and disadvantages of being either male or female regarding what they keep calling "multi-tasking".

So I have decided to try myself.

My achievements have been irregular, unlike my determination. I have tried (I now always do) to sleep with my glasses on. While I put out the alarm I am already scratching my buttocks and when, subsequently, I inspect the fragrance on my fingers I am already switching on off lights the hob kettle air extraction fan and my perception of you.

I have been thinking for a while of brushing my teeth and smoking at the same time and only the other day I finally tried it. Outstanding. One of my finest moments. It is long since I already shave and smoke at the same time but the logistics of foaming in my mouth, flossing and rinsing together with smoking has required a perfecting technique that I can, precisely, follow in the right sequence and order.

Merely expanding on the same idea I have tried having a shower and smoking at the same time. And this, my friends, is exhilarating fun! It is actually much easier than you would think, do try it.

Disappointingly, I cannot manage to arrive at the tube station any earlier.




Saturday 25 August 2012

HOEHERES LEBEN

[,,,]
Und hohen Sinn als hoehres Leben achten.

Scardanelli 




Omnia Praeclara Rara

To Antonio Alfaro Sanchez

Ven, Fabulo, a mi cena,
Que yo te dare vino y, embriagado, podrás yacer
A mi lado.
Trae también a tu Cloris y juntos reiremos
Hasta las alta horas,
Con los faunos y las aves ligeras en su paso.

Contigo, Fabulo, hasta que Febo también vaya.



Why Not Rubies

 To Antonio Alfaro Sanchez
I go past the window with the world outside,
Shining rubies, mother of pearl and coral.

The same blood dribbling,
The old identities,
The grey, the rough rain marks, the hatred lost in oblivion,
The same TV, and how we never did

Sihning rubies
It is.


Saturday 18 August 2012

Is the Pontos wine-dark or is my shirt?
Did Achilles have athlete's foot?
Is Scott of the antarctic a hero or is Odysseus a cheat?
Was Charon at the helm inebriated?
How many times did Tiresias come as a woman?
Have I loved you?



LOVE CONSTANT BEYOND DEATH

Perhaps whatever final shadow that 
the shining day may bring could close my eyes, 
and this my soul may well be set aflight
by time responding to its longing sighs;

but it will not, there on the farther shore
its memory leave behind, where once it burned:
my flame the icy current yet can swim, 
and so severe a law can surely spurn. 

Soul by no less than a god confined, 
veins that such a blazing fire have fueled, 
marrow to its glorious flames consigned: 

the body will abandon, not its woes; 
will soon be ash, but ash that is aware; 
dust will be, but dust whose love still grows. 

Francisco de Quevedo
(©Alix Ingber, 1995)

Saturday 11 August 2012


THE PROPHET

It wasn't either hot or cold the day I, finally, came to learn that Mattheus Ibrahim, the local busker at my tube station, had written a book. It was zero degrees and, taking into account the auspicious winds that were blowing that evening, it felt like zero degrees. It wasn't without apprehension that I agreed to inspect the mysterious manuscript and, as you all know by now, that was the beginning of my demise and ulterior debasement.

Much has been said about the strange sequence of events that followed and that, eventually, would place me in the navel of public opinion and the Federation Scrutinisers.

Fellow Humans, forget it all, if, at last, some enlightenment do your intellects desire! I do not deny the human lives lost or the assassination plot, but by the time you finish reading this account, you will agree with me that the inexorable burden upon me and the waxing and waning of Fortuna (Providence you may say) did not allow any other way out - Out! What an irony! if only there had been a way out! -

We will never know who Mattheus Ibrahim really was. Or where (or what!) did he come from. His intoxicating demeanour, the filthiness in his choice of nouns and adjectives will (God have Mercy!) never be retrievable again. When  I opened Mattheus Ibrahim's manuscript, at random, and saw the unnameable dirt of these words (please, God forgive me for reproducing this distillate of abjection and putrescence!):


I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.


You cannot even begin to conceive how I felt as The Sacrilege became manifest! The horror, the horror of reading the exquisite Wordsworth's lines savaged, brutalised,and forever unclean in Mattheus Ibrahim's unmentionable speak, in the intolerable stench of his version. Ah, the immaculate, ah, the pure, angelic lines of Divine William:


I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.


Ah, merciful reader, compare if you dare, if you still count yourself amongst the living:

When Wordsworth says, impeccably,  "I wandered lonely as a cloud", the sublimity, the delicacy, of these words. Pure. White and Gold. A being of Light, a compassionate Gabriel, if you agree.

And, now, oh please, please spare my soul:

"I wandered lonely as a cloud", in the infamous, rotting, viscous tongue of the Unnameable!!!! Nauseating swamps and miasmas. The contagious lustful poison of damnation!

Can you see the decomposing detritus that obscenely licks and drips down the word "I"?!!! Decomposing and contaminating its neighbouring "wandered"?! Can you feel how all hope is gone? Do you realise now that all that rests is Death and Silence? That we must die.

As the text follows, the pervading rot grows geometrically, the uncanny plan reveals itself, the most profound degradation of anything that once could be called human, the unspeakable, tormenting and eternal realisation of the ontological despair, the unbearable immensity of the darkest slime reigning over Eternity! The last words in this verse cannot even be read, let alone pronounced. Oh, Heavens, can you even start to imagine the quality of that "breeze"? Ahhhhhhh! Please, please, oh no, no, no!

It has been long since I lost my mind and am grateful for it because the inconceivable incomprehension that such horror causes in your mind cannot be endured but by a fraction of a second, and now here I am, waiting and praying that life may be short.

And that Humankind is aborted forever.

NOTE TO YESTERDAY'S EXCERPT:
Prolix, as it may be, I strongly advise reading the unabridged and much anticipated edition of If We Were Here, Would There Be?, W.B. Copernicus et Copernicus, Z.Z., Ed. Peng. Mod. Clas. (2012), pp iv-mdcclxxxix, as an illuminating interpretation and formal reply to the aforementioned Suliman et al (2012) seminal work that so much has developed heuristics and hermeneutics in these exciting times that we are living. (See below).

Friday 10 August 2012

There is nothing incongruous in being inconsistent or, even, contradictory.

It seems that people, (the media!), expect you to disseminate a solid body of opinion that, somehow, reflects your identity, values, soul and persona. If you, suddenly, grow a moustache, all your acquaintances will demand an explanation and your closest family will worry that you are going through some unspeakable crisis. Not many decisions are so damaging to our rulers than the mockable U-turn, and, generally speaking, it is perceived as a sign of weakness and definite confusion.

However, I think that confused is not being able to re-examine a situation because you already made a previous decision, particularly if you made it public. Having a credo is, as the Latin root implies, a matter of belief. And there is a degree of slavery in that, not just imposed by an external body or the need of belonging to any of the current social groups, but, more worryingly, by oneself. When posed with the question again one will not allow oneself to have an interior dialogue only for the benefit of being consistent and because you already said it, dare they not to question your integrity! Aha! You've won the battle!

Obviously, there is also a pragmatical reason for us to conduct ourselves in such a way: it is so much easier.

Now, the question is why would anybody want it easy? Being contented is the most confused aspiration. I want to be happy, ecstatic, doomed, in hell, in heaven, I want to be every single second, I cherish my pain and my joy, I respect your abyss, your beauty, your nobility, the chasm between us, our common ground.

But, my friends, I am rather confused. Or so it seems. Every time I look at something I (or the Dice) decide my positioning towards it. In a matter of seconds I adore mushrooms and then detest them, I loooove you and then drop you in the most callous way conceivable to humanity. I will cry my heart out because on a TV advert Marmaduke Isambard won the lottery and, then, I will feel nothing when you confide in me and tell me that you never got around to say goodbye to your father, who waited for weeks, in vain, to bless you before dying alone. And, you see? I am other now, because - I realise - these last lines I have just written I completely and thoroughly disagree with...

Was I lying? No. Am I now? No. Both versions of me were truthful while I was them. Do you like that t-shirt in the shop-window? Yes, you say. Do you now? Erm....  How many times, insecure at an exhibition, you asked yourself, puzzled, do I like that? You could have chosen either, it is irrelevant, but don't contradict yourself! Brush your teeth in the morning, today you are beautiful, even happy! Twenty four hours later you weigh at least three stone more, says the individual looking at you, with the toothbrush in their mouth.

I am capable of grand gestures, of true, philanthropic acts, of murder, of betrayal, my thoughts are the noblest, are debased, I really, really love you (do you believe me now?), I have denied you three times.

You wonder, is that not tiring? Say, are you feeling ok?, concerned.

I say to you, no, it is not tiring, it is exciting! It is a bit like travelling - forgive my being so prosaic - you learn not to panic. You learn so many other lives that you have lived, that you will never live, lives that lasted a raindrop's life, terrifying lives. Is it uncomfortable never knowing anything? It is actually liberating, it is fun, there is no construct that holds you like a scaffolding, you are free. Do not be afraid, you will be all right.

But now you are going to ask the difficult question. Well, yes. I think I can actually make sense of it all. I suppose there is a thread that ties all my selves together. And that is my ethical convictions. I know I could kill, spit, soil my underwear, execute mosquitoes with my pestilent breath, but I never found one of mine feeling comfortable with these choices.

Ideologies are abject, I cultivate Ideas. And my ethical values are strong, are solid and do not require any Credo.

AMEN

[...]

All the readers go now together and travel across and along the earth to captivate humans with The One's teachings, written on marble. In Suliman, A.M., Schiettecatte, K.J. and Swaminathan, O.O. (2012). Where we would be if we were not here. Int J Div Ecc 42: 175-176.

Friday 22 June 2012

"I am not a vegetarian because I love animals; I am a vegetarian because I hate plants!"
A Whitney Brown

Raping a fellow human is a violent act and, indeed, illegal in most societies. I intuitively feel, and so most cultures reflect, that killing and eating humans is an even more detrimental activity for the harmonious life in society. At least if they belong to your tribe.

However, killing and eating animals is not only unremarkable but also encouraged by most. Interestingly having sex with animals tends to be illegal and generally frowned upon.
William shakespeare was not Philip Marlowe. He died (and was born) the same date Miguel de Cervantes died. There is no coincidence, it is obvious:

There are two verbs in Castillian that translate 'to be': ser and estar. Neither their meaning, nor their usage, overlap. Both are distinctly different words. When Hamlet says his first 'to be' he means an essentially different action than he means when he says 'to be' in the second half of the dilemma.

Hamlet says: 'To ser, or to estar? that is the question: / Wether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer [...]' 

And then, clear, you hear Cervantes' voice...








Monday 26 March 2012

Pobre Segismundo,
De la vida estaba harto.

Fin del Acto IV

Sunday 25 March 2012

Hijo mio, pero donde estas?