"I was trying to think about women packing ice cream in the Gaza Strip...."

Juliana Spahr.

CONTAMINATION

Lemons in the bowl
Petroleum-jelly on them
Green fruits of Libya

I TURNED & LOOKED

I am on the chair
I hear a giggling young voice
She shows me her smile

INTELLIGENT

My child seems hypnotized
By what he sees
I look towards the direction
Of his field of vision
And the only thing that captures
My attention is the sign
On the back of a woman
That’s says “bebe”

Some meters back
There was another sign
In another woman’s back
That said “perfect”

What are you seeing son?
I asked him
He remains silent
Glassy-eyed

What are you seeing son?
More silence

I look at the woman
And then look at him
He smiles at me
And runs away towards
His classroom

TREK


The best way to travel
Is inside tears
Specially tears
That can not be identified

Secret tears of love
Stealthy tears of rapture

Tears that lay the
Route for journeys
That only truthfulness
Can generate

Tears that wash away
The ungratefulness
Of a harmful world

After all
If you follow your tears
You will arrive
To the place where
Water gathers

AIR WHISTLE


The helicopters outside
Fly on my night
And you have made
Of your mind an airport

I am sorry
For not being sorry
When everybody
Began to suffer

I believe it is less dramatic
When it happens in a monitor
In real life
I always like to
Home in beauty

It is better for the heart
For the mind
For the soul

I did not meant to give life
To your disguises
But I felt them
And touched them
And now that they are alive
I love them too

In creation
There’s no accidents
Only art

We love
The work
Of our spirits

It remind us
Where we come from
And where are we going

WELCOME TO HER SMILE


There was a lot of wine
I told him it was a noble thing
A good cause
A good mix

When they fed us
They became more relaxed
More comfortable

They were close when
They said the place looked
Like an Egyptian structure

The feeling was foreign enough
But it was just a feeling
Because the guy serving the pork
Spoke Serbian

The girl dispensing
The water bottles
Spoke Spanish
We had a good understanding
She even gave me thumbs up
With a beautiful smile

WALK

The girls
In the German car
Looked up & smiled

Their eyes trembled
Like cartoon characters
Like bouncing marbles

Like shooting stars
Trying to escape
From inside their
Eye sockets

The guys next to them
Looked away
And took a deep breath
Yoga breathing by accident
On a sidewalk of hyperventilation

And the afternoon was
Not cold anymore

I almost stopped
But movement is better
And my destination
Was getting closer anyways

SCREEN

Dough you are a bomb
A cry for help in the night
A humble servant

DEFAULT


When I take my glasses off
I see the world as God
Wants me to see it
Peaceful and malleable
And the beauty is always
In the hidden details
This is not my fault
If I can see more
While seeing less
If I can find the softness
In human nature
The goodness of human beings
Ready to be deployed

BUREAUCRAT

Thank you beloved
Take care of my sweetest heart
My magical day

SCHOOL

In the past I saw your future
You were older & even more beautiful
Smiling with the children

OUR DREAMS

I try to hold your beauty in my arms
When I direct-dream towards you

Towards your world of metaphors
Every each one of them
A dream itself

A dream like you
That slowly slips away
Towards the blue ocean

You turned me into
An amphibious dreamer
When I direct-follow you
Under water

I have never seen a swimmer
As beautiful as you

ONDAS

Papá mira
El agua corre
Como si fuera río

CAMINATA

El perro nos ladra
Le contestamos con carcajadas
Con la luz del sol

MEXICAN BUS

The guitarist plays
With Willy Nelson’s guitar
Storm inside my heart

THE BUS

The girl & her mother
Are riding on the bus
I like riding the bus too
Because the bus driver
Was nice to me
Like in a 1950’s movie

I like the girl’s eye glasses
And her dreamy demeanor
The way she would sigh
Once in awhile
Leaning against her mother
Against that suspicious look

When I ride the bus
I like how you can see
The people walking on the sidewalks
The shops with their esoteric numbers
And their symbolic names

I like the way I can see
Through the windows
Without worrying about
Crashing & dying

I like the way the girl
Was looking at me
With glassy eyes
A peaceful face
A tender presence
Just how I would imagine
My own daughter

I like being on top of the bus
Sitting on the bus
Standing on the bus
Walking away from the bus
Walking towards the bus

The bus tried to kill me and it failed
And your eyes my frail miracle
Make for the beauty of
All the world’s children

Tell you mother to lighten up
Tell her that you love her
Tell her to love you back
Tell her how you feel
Teach her to feel like you do

At the end of the day
As I sat in the taxi
In a different country
With different people
And stronger feelings and
I saw you & your mother
Walking towards the east

LESION

The sofá has stopped
The healing of my right side
Firm dreams are better

WINTER

Lime ice-cream is good
With salt in the afternoons
Flavors of summer

“Game laws should be drawn primarily in the interest of the whole people, keeping steadily in mind certain facts that ought to be self evident to everyone above the intellectual level of those well-meaning persons who apparently think that all shooting is wrong and that man could continue to exist if all animals were allowed to increased unchecked”

T. Roosevelt. 1910