Broken Telephone

Poetry is felt
not understood
just like your breasts
feel in my hands
like your kiss
misunderstands my lips
and so, it’s only felt.

Like this love
So strong
sometimes I could swear I could even touch it
and like I still can’t understand why you left
and even though I can feel poetry
I never understood you

Your soft and strong thighs are my poetry
with the minuscule cotton curtain
white, immaculate
as if recently pulled from your drawer

As poetic as a woman
that needs no explanation
that I feel and don’t understand
like that phone that will talk to me no more
now, all that is left is my silly poetry
that I try to understand
day by day.

Insomniac

Dream escapee you
turn into my insomnia
then dawn knocks on the door and wakes me up
with a warm cup of coffee
I wait for you, impatiently
only to later fall asleep once more to find you
and so it goes
the daily story repeats itself
and in this way I play with the ghost of you.

Again, I wake up, I get up
and walk the streets looking for you
In the whimsical stupidity of my days

But it is more
much more
it is a hungry desire for your endless skin
your poisoned lips
your eyes

As the day runs out
and so does the coffee
and the paper
and the ink
and only the dream remains
on your unbearable insomniac nights

Antarctic

Alone again, perhaps
lonely buoy in the open ocean
single penguin, king of its Antarctic shelve
once more I find myself, alone.

Like the only burnt light bulb in the stadium
or the single flashlight in the dark
the homeless beggar’s submissive attitude
I’m here under my rock
with my friend solitude

While I pretend to be fishing for patience
in the rocks of the creek
hiding the pain in my heart
blinded by the smoke
of the fire of my guilt

Something has been taken from me
like an arm, or a lung
old smoker me
have always known
cancer not to be my doom
For my weakness is the heart

As I lay on an empty bed
in silence and alone
I can hear my soul tear
like the breaking of the Antarctic shelves.

Sunday in Tepoztlan (1999)

I wake up, still dizzy
but don't dare open my eyes
not yet...
the procession of my senses slowly returns
and I can almost taste each and one of them coming back
I feel my skin on soft batik sheets
my nose breathes the sandalwood incense
"- is that Salif?" my brain questions...
As Master Keita sings Lony in the living room.
Ah, what a pleasure.
Everything else either hurts or is still numb
but now I know where I am and I open my eyes.
Again? Yes, again I passed out in Super Vero's house
my best friend, my sister, my guru, my semi-goddess.
(sometimes I miss you so much)

My head is pounding, I need a beer
Alpha Blondy means the morning coffee is ready
I reach for my cigarettes
light up a smoke
and turn to greet the girl (how names change in this house)
crazy enough to have followed me last night
she opens her eyes and smiles " - Hola" she says
that rum, that bong, that reggae band...
we just had a bit too much, didn't we?
I leave the bedroom half naked and head towards the kitchen...

Super Vero and the northern girl kiss me and hand me a cup of joe
" - You have no shame" they say, and then giggle
" - neither does the tequila ShotBong, for that matter" I reply
someone please kill me! These hangovers have to stop.
Hot morning coffee
the sun is out, palm trees dance, Salif sings
Miss XX Cancun shows up, then Romeo and Karla
The pool is inviting, blue, crystal and cool
the sun is shining, we bring our djembes by the pool
and make them sing for Keita, and the ShotBong goes around
"...por la derecha" (counter-clockwise)
until the afternoon approaches, and it's time to go home.
Those Sunday mornings in Tepoztlan,
after Xochitenco Saturday nights
I wake up in Super Vero's house
How I miss it
In the Seattleite melancholy
of those Mexican mornings
Only the Mansa of Mali remains
He moved into my ipod, from the living room
and this is what I think about
when Salif Keita sings for me
but then again, how would you know?

Coffee

Coffee was meant to be served hot, black and strong
Strong enough to make a dead man walk
Not this frozen milk shake
Overrated frapuccino
Coffee-mate, vanilla, caramel crap

Coffee is where she dyes her grays
Where we meet by chance
Sit, smoke, and people watch
I mean, what else are we supposed to mix our problems with
if not coffee?

Coffee is the gathering place
where intellectual conversations turn to white noise,
where some pretend to live “La Boehme”
some draw their dreams on napkins
and others wait impatiently for their late lattes
always in a hurry, like hyperactive sheep

Teenage alchemists
blend and roast and serve and watch
while I sit and write
tattooing words with this fountain chisel pen
again, I fall captive to my well know rhetoric, I smoke, and smoke, and smoke

Lovers kiss, people talk
hyperactive sheep run amok
and the world wakes up
to the smell of freshly roasted coffee
coffee served hot, black and strong

Cigarettes

We smoke for the Garbo, we smoke for the Bogart.
We hide behind a smoke screen that portrays intellect, ego
and the world travelers' subtle arrogance.

It's our cosmopolitan watermark.
Charming the smoke like a snake
no, no apple.

We hold our cigarette in a very special and unique manner
an expression of art
and through it we make it our own.

Like a fountain pen in the writer's hand
With it we chisel our life in black ink tears
over rolling paper white.

And for you, dear quitters
post-mortem cough fakers
hovering flies outside of our coffee shops.
You can keep on faking the cough that you so loudly parade
when you run into us, sidewalk smokers
We won't reply or complain on your lack of social adaptation
we can't.
We are too busy flirting with the world
drowned in mouthfulls of that misterious and charming smoke
gray sometimes
like the vapor state of stockings.
Yes, the smoke is all you'll see.

-update 6/11/11 been smoke free for almost 4 years

Light Bulbs

There's nothing wrong with the light bulbs
electric acid fireflies
... I just prefer candles
no, nothing to do with romance
it's more about their clandestine light
which, just like lust, has nothing to do with romance.

Pablo Milanes plays in the background, almost deaf
the last bottle of that stinking German Riesling you gave me
is almost empty now
I drink it slowly
from the bottle, like it should be
I mean, dressing up this cheap wine
(which is one step away from salad dressing)
with a crystal glass, would be imperfect in form.

I rest my weary head on an old Armando Chacon book
tired of the tedious monotony, bored, bored, bored
I wish my "Caffe Ladro" friend was here
but the train has already left.

I light another cigarette
and another
and another
Staring at the smoke in spiral flight
around the flame's dancing tongues
bored in the tired infatuation, like me.

Zombie gipsy,
confused to the point of no return
I find myself pointing at my head with a pen
hostile ink fountain, word chisel
I could swear it looks like a gun sometimes
no, nothing to do with romance
and there's nothing wrong with the light bulbs either.

On these spotlight times
I prefer the light of the candle
because it's clandestine
because it illuminates in secrecy
while having nothing to do with romance
I guess that nasty Riesling didn't turn out so bad after all.

Hurricane

Your whispers
soft silent whistle in the air
distorted reflection of your daily tempest tantrums

Trapped in the madhouse routine
I shall follow your eyes no more
once a castaway spider
caught on the liquid tension of that murky water pond
that you dare call love
an escapee I've become

Now distant winds have come to fill my sail
and the genoa, full like Dali’s plump breasts
roars and drifts me away, to the open ocean

While my cutter swifts by, like a bayonet
Yes, change has come
fast and unexpected
with it’s usual hurricane promptness
just in time
It has come to clean and wash away old wounds
old memories
your typhoon kisses I have forgotten

No more port of call
no more anchors
no more message in a bottle
Just this shipwrecked sailor
stranded in the freedom of the moment
living in the rage of life
once more.

Musik

madredeus
adrian belew
rush
led-zeppelin
peter gabriel
tony levin
king-crimson
bryan ferry
brian eno
roxy music
david byrne
talking-heads
jeff beck
bjork
nirvana

The Discovery of America

She told me the Pacific Northwest was beautiful, and I would love it. I loved her (and forever will) so I packed my world in a suitcase, and boarded a plane (yet again). My friend Jose Luis Casar said I was a conqueror of countries, and I guess he's right, he usually is.  
I was tired of Mexico and Mexico City, I never really felt like I belonged in Mexico anymore, I didn't truly fit in, and I knew that when I moved from Brazil, back in 1989. Don't get me wrong, as much as I love Brazil, specifically Recife and Rio, I always felt like something was missing... not just my Dad, but that crisp cool San Diego breeze in the fall, the big cups of coffee (yes, Rio's cafezinhos at the Cinelandia are incredibly romantic, but I yearned for the "Hollywood" movie coffee shops in the States. Cuzcuz, inhame and papa didn't really cut it, neither did huevos rancheros. I yearned for waffles and bacon, for the state of mind I grew up with as a child, so moving to the US wasn't just an easy decision to make, it was something I always wanted.
Wenatcheewhat? I had to look it up... and I began discovering Mount Rainier, the Puget Sound, the Columbia River Gorge, the forests, and I knew I'd like it here.. I just needed to get a car and a job.
It wasn't easy at first, but she was very supportive, as was her family. I went from being a technical writer in Mexico City, to being a tractor driver in her apple orchard, in Orondo.
Toilet seat covers? yeah, they don't have those down south... it's a wonderful thing when you have a sweaty butt.. cause I never expected summers to be this hot up here.. I thought we had penguins year round. Everything went as life usually goes, with its wonderful challenges and thermobaric cultural shocks. Yup, I was shocked to find life here was as I remembered it, back in Coronado and La Jolla, I was happy, we got married.
The challenges continued, Seattle became more and more my home, and I fell madly in love with the Olympic Mountains and Puget Sound. Seattleites were educated, quirky, standoffish, and worldly. It was perfect. I'm fucking weird, so I fit right in. Divorce came and went like a storm, and I'm still sad about it, I think that's how it is for anyone who goes through it. I was incredibly lucky to have made some amazing friends, and while it wasn't easy at first, I slowly became what I am now, a Seattleite till I die.
"and this is fucking awesome" said Macklemore

Lost

I'm a winged mortal
free as the wind
my salty sweat knows no time
and my bitter blood
with purple tones
just bleeds
it knows nothing else
flavors and experiences
tell me I'm not lost
even when I know not where I am.
I don't know where I'm going
but I know who I am
this map is my treasure
no captain
no crew
just this little boat
and a couple of songs
in my ever changing currents
I sink titanically
and when I come afloat I see
you can no longer stand
my doubtful spirit
adrift in a deserted island
this is my message in a bottle
cause I know no other way
to say goodbye for a second time
I don't want, and can't be what you want me to be
I don't fear
and I shouldn't pretend you don't see it

Carolina

We yearn to be togerher
on different paths
we live in two worlds
which we know are distant
perhaps because we dream
of it all being as before
and sometimes nothing matters
when we're lovers
But you know I think differently
than most
I can't belong to you
or anyone
I am a walking solitude
living only for myself
stuck in my selfishness
egotistical douche
alone, as I've lived my life
alone, I will die
running away from my etceteras
deafend by the noise in my head
and I know I'm extremely lucky
as I know you are as well
my Helena, of salted honey