"Pruebas de fuego"

November

Your mouth pushes me to ecstasy.
I sprinkle petals
over your noble head.

I fall into the abyss
just like the rain
outside the window.
I run two jasmines across your firm back.

You drink my essence.
I die
like the fragile flowers
that I crush against your body.

Thus Far

All right,
this is what I've seen
thus far:

Every body, a stronghold of "what's mine-which will never be
yours nor ours";
uncontrollable fear: blind fear
of opening the door and letting
one another see
that we're naked:
countless processions
running after idealized love, a ghost that always dissolves,
every time,
as it turns the corner;
fruitless inventions of every type and sort
for becoming convinced that happiness can be anything else
but to give oneself to others;
rules, pronouncements, theories and useless credos
(because they do not include the soul,
blessed by its rejection of imprisonments;
because they are the Olympus of the fools who believe in arriving
somewhere by exiling love,
for being undefinable);
multitudes of hypocrites stoning those who show
their empty hands;
pessimists without a motive;
optimists without a motive;
whatever-ists mounting the next available car;
distrust, nourished by the knowledge that the other conceals
the same monsters within;
hate, born from not recognizing the monsters
in ourselves;
the machine which shapes humans in the image and likeness
of a perverse god, vengeful and ignorant;
separation, separation everywhere: this is not that, not the other
nor that which lies beyond (and the painful price
of loneliness);
the dead throwing sterile earth on the divine seed
of childhood in schools;
the impotent and petty glance of the parents
who proclaim themselves owners of the Sons of Life
(Life, which never expects anything from anyone!);
those who want everything to stay as it is
looting with screams, bullets or shame
the gifts of youth;

So vast an ocean of pain
when everything could be so different!

I have also seen
the ones who do not give up:
searching in the dark;
holding on to (or letting go towards) the center in the changing tides;
leaving in the furious winds a tenuous track of the unmistakable perfume;
fighting, every day, the most difficult battle, the only noble one,
the one within;
erasing with their own blood the dark impositions (their own
and those of others);
making mistakes, making mistakes and starting anew;
doubting their own strength yet baring their chests;
knowing that all remains to be done, and will have to be done
every time
by everyone;
testing their courage in the blackness of the darkest night.

Four Jasmines

I pick four jasmines
from the plant my friend gave me.

I fill with clear water
a clay pot that I found
sleeping in the pantry.

I pause, chained to the fragrance,
watching the inconceivable explosion
of white on green
floating, in abandon,
on the tiny sea
of exact calm.

Yet, no,
I discover the faintest pulsing
on the transparent veil.
My arms, leaning on the table
I've been writing on,
transmit to it the rhythm
of my blood.

And thus, I understand:
I, too, am a vessel
made of clay
filled with water destined
to dry out
sometime

My flower is still blossoming

To Mishima

Sink the sword into your womb!
and let the blood gush out,
unruly,
like the first semen
before the beautiful image
of the Christian martyr.

I think I know what you wanted:
the greatness of man,
depicted, undeniably,
on the shoulders of the athlete that you loved
from a distance;
Life
made into a terrifying bright point,
hanging from the transparent thread
of Yasue's desperation,
her nephews swallowed by the sea
before her impotent
guardian eyes;
Love, indomitable,
to kill you seven times:
devoured,
pierced through by swords,
drowned in its turbulent waters,
consumed by its uncontrollable fire,
drunken with poison, bitten by snakes,
crushed by a shower of stones,
till it gave you the immortality
you disdained; and
Death, at last,
as the true orgasm
of liberation.

No other kiss could have satiated
your caste mouth,
hungry of the forgotten taste
of human flesh.

What made you,
crazy Greek,
incarnate in a Samurai?

Demolition

I drove by the demolition, today.
It's almost finished; what's left
is just the foundation (crowned by protecting metal sheets
like thorns) of the five stories that saw almost a century go by,
included you and I.

You were right: on the indifferent shoulder
of the impersonal giant someone planted by its side
(and which seems to have arrived
just in time to escort its death)
remains a trace of the peach color that you chose
for your apartment's corridor.

Ah, the coordinates!
The geometry that flew to my eyes
to calculate that place
we loved!

Now in that spot there's pure space,
virgin sky, vacant glances
waiting for the light,
nothingness.

And you're still there
with me, freezing
watching the stars of the alignment
as if it would really have any effect
on the world.

I'm still there,
in my youthful arrogance;
my eyes nailed to the river,
a knot of silence in my throat.

You're there:
chased away by the magic
that your heart dared not.

I still see myself
leaving you over and over,
always coming back.

There, we were, more than in any other place,
you and me so much,
that maybe we couldn't ever imagine
us,
anywhere else.

That's why
that new point conquered by the void
resembles us so. It is filled with the horror
of being unable to forget.

Istanbul

Veiled faces
Olive skin
Antique eyes

Rivers of people
of wild beauty
I know them all

Sweat, landscape
of grapevines and olives
across the rooftops

Fruit carts
The birds insist
on being the sky

Labyrinth
of deranged light
The stones know

The sea wouldn't lie
Lightning in my head
I've been here before