SELFIE

                        

 

Perhaps you should walk                         

In the woods

The narrow path

No one meets

Only then you will see

that you should let me be

It is you right to be

and my right to be

that will save you and me,

that will set us free.

Somewhere down the path

art will meet death

Mark the words, songs, a sonnet 

and colors on a canvas

adding nothing to the banality of a moment.

Perhaps if you build something:

a house, a hotel, an entire row of Floridian homes

monstrosities,

to the altar of Gods  

A path you encounter death

standing there

Do I see pity in your eyes, miss?

Do you see something I don't see?

Generations and generations

of Shakespeare's

desperately trying to be?

Why are you so cruel,

do you see the broken ones,

can you let them be?

Can you carry them free?

A smile, a hug, a gesture, a gentle nudge

are perhaps the only things that can

link us all.

Our eyes are lost in a virtual space,

thumbs moving from place to place

trying to win: the race, the game, the prize, 

trying to get to the end of the line

Where we feel, where we collect the surreal

A posting here, a “like” there

is enough to fill a day

and for life to fade away.

We look online

for what is here

within you and me

poke a man long enough

and he will join the machine 

and take the path to anyplace

he can feel something

fast, something cheap

something that won’t last

A pastime,

and while we pass the time

life 

pass us by.

A Shangri-la

a digital net

where we can join in the world to profess

we are lonely in this mess:

a smile, a hug, a gesture, a gentle nudge 

on the remote

and men can now be a winner at last

He can thrive

For  $19.95

                                                    

The Other Side of the Riverbank

A Bride to Be

In a sunshine morning,

a little flower blossomed.

She played with the wind,

teasing the sunshine

falling over her.

She was happy,

because she had only one day to be.                     

On a wonderful September morning,

she stood there:

proud, beautiful, alive.

Just how it should be.

                                            

White Page

The next page
will be free.
The space
bellow the last words
my heart wrote.

How beautiful
the white is!

In the purity of a white page,
all possibilities are eternal.
I suggest a poem
to make Neruda weep,
to conquer all hearts:
Pessoa, Camus, Cervantes,
and the illustrious english gentleman;
the author ought be you.

The critics will insist
on a structure,
a method.

So,
take a fresh paper
and separate from the others.
Leave it there
being beat by time
everyday,
just like you and I.

As life goes on
hold it from time to time
but write no verses on it
no stories,
a tear or two
that makes its way on it
it’s ok 
just don’t make a habit of it.

Leave the page there
vast with whiteness.
If glory
is what you are after,
before you die,
mail it to someone;
one of those contests
that spread like carcinogenic 
entities everywhere.

Send it to them 
if you must,
your white page,
as old as you
and the tree that made it,
and the page
will be unique,
filled with you.

                                                    

Beyond The Blue Skies

Beyond the blue skies                     

I may find all the reasons why,

so many doubts, so many whys.

There was a time 

I thought I knew...

There was a time 

I thought I knew...

But it was only youth 

exuding from my pores.

Beyond the blue skies

Lie all the answers.

If only I could fly so high.

      

Ashes to Ashes

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Common Fears

The cold air blew outside the house,
inside we shared solitude and distance.
You sat in one corner on the chair I gave you, 
while bricks and stones between us
enhanced the reality of our isolation.

All the facts and reasonable thoughts
hung in the air; heavenly eternal.
All that we screamed at each other
now whispered, continuously, inside our mind: 
reasons, facts, doubts and lies
fused together inseparably.

As real as the cold air outside
we threw words around unconcerned, 
anguishing only to diminish the anger, 
and as sure as if it should have been: 
we, who once were unbreakable,
had already made reality
out of all the fears,
we ironically shared all those years. 

A Brick

Alone

you get to decide

where a brick goes:

you can put it here

you can put it there.

In your hands,

a brick is free

to be anything or nothing.

A poet,

from the baltic sea,

found grandiose desires

in each brick he saw,

and when he parted this life,

he had not a brick to show;

yet his structures

will outlast us all.

If you have

all that you small soul desires,

you can place a brick

behind your front door,

to prevent someone

from taking your possessions.

I wish

that bricks were free

to be anything they desire,

God,

made it eternal,                                                                                                       

and cursed man with free will 

and infinite crossroads

with no undergrowth;

only plenitude.

With so many roads ahead,

man despairs,

and in doubt,

grabs a brick

and set his roots 

here, there,

anywhere:

creates a village, meets a girl

makes other men

to sacrifice for.

Nothing makes a man prouder

than sacrificing for a new generation:

among all the species,

man is the only one

that can exude heroism

while in full retreat.

The bible

talks about man

but it says nothing about bricks:

man was created

at God’s own image;

but man perishes

in a well of uncertainty,

bricks are everywhere:

solid, determined, eternal.

At the end of his life  

every man should have one brick

to leave behind,

somewhere,

for a child to find.

CARLOS

My child asked me today,

what a poem was

and I told him.

Perhaps,

in a state of happiness

for his interest

in such an important art form,

I betrayed thousands of years of verse,

and killed so many poets.

So I went searching

and found it all too confusing.

Why, I ask, does the poet

make his verses so impenetrable,

why does he make it so elusive?

I felt sad and small,

that my child waited,

while ignorance wrapped me tight,

like a heavy visible cloak.

And I did what others do

when they don’t know:

I told him of how busy I was.

My child became a teenager:

resilient, smart and unable

to allow a parent

a safe retreat anywhere.

When he met a poet,

he called me at once:

a poem, Carlos told him,

is nothing but a beautiful box,

with life inside.

Trains

I will go by train

it doesn’t matter

where

the tracks will sing

the tick tack of time

passing

rivers, mountains,

small villages,

and lonely houses,

kissing the tracks

at precise distances.

I will go by train

it doesn’t matter

where

as long as it’s not here

where you know me

and I know you

and all is so common

place

we eat,

we sleep

we see the years mounting.

On these tracks,

I will go far from here,

where you are

where I am

where we share

the desire to forget

ourselves

in landscapes,

running alongside the tracks. 

I’ll wave

goodbye

I promise to write

to send a gift,

a token of the ones who left,

right or wrong

in the pursuit of happiness.

                                                  

Ernest

Ernestly tell me,
how do you ride a bull
in these days of dying virtues?
When every boy is taught to be a girl,
and every girl is forgotten
in her sexuality.

A day
when we no longer make any noise,
a day of peace.
A day
when the structures around us
squeeze us into a shapeless form.

We are building men
who acquiesce to all,
tongues tied to every dime
they will ever make.

Bullfighters
inside a ring,
timidly holding their white cape,
reasoning with the beast.

Sunset

It is necessary to remember.... 

to remember the sorrows,

to remember the victories,

to remember the deceased...

In our short walk

through this world,

every single memory

confirms our existence.

They say that 

knowledge

is the only thing

that can’t be taken away from us:

rubbish.

I don’t know who they are,

but they are all unimportant:

the bankers, the judges, the royals,

hiding behind walls,

ears pressed against 

exquisite wallpapers

pretending desperately not to hear 

the footsteps approaching,

full of fears, full of despair

forged into majestic cufflinks. 

She will come for you,

she will come for me,

and this knowledge 

we ought not to remember.

Our memories

will only be preserved

by our imagination

in the buildings we leave behind;

the necessary windmills,

the parks, the bike paths,

a simple pencil.....

and let’s not forget

to plant a tree.                                                                                                           

Our legacy

is all the tangible and material;

not the love we once had,

not even the love in our hearts.

Love is the blessing,

a gift we must possess

to allow us to hold hands,

to walk on the beach,

to watch sunsets,

and not see ourselves

witnessing darkness come,

rehearsing the inevitable,

full of contentment, full of joy, full of life.