Traveling Poems

Just found out today that, thanks to my “Scottish” pal Iskandar (whose name is one of the many names of Alexander the Great, in case you were wondering), a fragment of one of my poems in English is being published in Uzbekistan, as part of a book for English learners, with activities and all… how cool is that? Read it below :) (Oh, and I reached 20,000 plays on SoundCloud:)

Acabo de enterarme hoy de que, gracias a mi amigo “escocés” Iskandar (cuyo nombre es uno de los muchos nombres de Alejandro el Grande, por si os lo estabais preguntando), el fragmento de uno de mis poemas en inglés se va a publicar en Uzbekistán, como parte de un libro para estudiantes de inglés, con actividades y todo… ¿qué guay, no? Lo podéis leer aquí... (Ah, y ya tengo 20,000 plays en SoundCloud:)

Hatching

To Borges and Nabokov

Let’s assume from the start a poem can never be a butterfly. After all, butterflies, especially the kind we adored as children, are kooky insects, with lurid wings, of itty-bitty size, whose only purpose in life is to grow, reproduce and die. They are useless. Of little consequence beyond their interaction in an ecosystem or the admiration they inspire in us. Nobody buys the butterfly effect: the flutter of a butterfly bears no relation to a tornado unleashed at the other side of the world. Saying otherwise is nonsense. Consequently, we think: a poem is a poem, a butterfly a butterfly, a snail is… Well, snails are sly little creatures. Hermaphrodites. After copulating they rip their own phallus and penetrate themselves to avoid being impregnated in turn. Butterflies, it turns out, are rather conventional in comparison.

Anyway: a poem couldn’t possibly be a butterfly. After a brief glance at any book anyone can gather that poems, today, are unique artificial graphematic constructions that distance themselves from their author and, through conspicuous language, try to come to terms in meaningful ways with all dimensions of human life, with great pleasure of readers, and they even rhyme, sometimes. It’s ludicrous to point out they are the opposite of what a butterfly should be for, ultimately, butterflies are only of aesthetic value if they are alive and whenever a butterfly dies, naturally stabbed by a pin, it always causes a little unrest in the most unfeeling of hearts. It then becomes an object of scientific value or, at worst, something of great interest to occasional admirers of lifeless butterflies. Over time it so happens that not even lacquer can prevent its frail body from turning into dust.

On the other hand, there is empirical proof that poems are of greatest aesthetic value if they behave like one of those famed Scots who lent themselves, by virtue of ideals, to be disemboweled alive by the English: always with great resistance and never uttering a single cry… Men who would pass out in pain and, eventually, away, but whose implied screeches should still bring joy to all of us and, while the progenitors of these brave souls are almost never to be found, when found they are dumbfounded with prose and put to sleep. Or, better still, shut out, starved to death, piled up, layered and fossilized until they become dark lunar stones some human beings still burn in atavistic rituals meant to keep their limbs warm, without fear of subversion this time around. Besides, the skirt of a Scotsman is nothing like a butterfly...

Moreover, it is well known, male butterflies are more colorful than their female counterparts. Females prefer males with bright iridescent ornamentation [1]. All of which amounts to the innocent fact that a female butterfly landing on a certain leaf of a willow tree, at dawn, will have an entirely different take on a male than another butterfly that happens to land on the trunk of the same tree, at dusk. Quite similarly, those of us who assume the possibility of access to beauty; those who think beauty can only be seized from one leaf; those who deny the existence of beauty, the butterfly or the leaf; and particularly those desperate ones, trapped in the trunk of their car who want us to believe that, whenever they please, they can hack their way out with theory shards have all deeply misunderstood the true nature of poems and butterflies.

And we can already anticipate one inevitable conclusion to such an affair: death. For most people end up becoming traitors to themselves. Children who, after trapping a butterfly, cry when they realize it will never fly away, but take comfort in the fascinating glitter of wing-dust stuck to their palms. Once the insect dies they are off to trap another one, and another, and another more. They are nothing similar and, at the same time, so much like female butterflies who forever seek what is lost whenever they change the position from which they look at the butterfly they love.

In short, a poem could never be mistaken for a butterfly, so why have you fluttered all along those delicate wings that lead the way to your lurid, iridescent, human eyes? Didn’t you realize this is a snail?

[1] J. Kemp, Darrell. “Female butterflies prefer males bearing bright iridescent ornamentation.” Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 274.1613 (2007) 1043-1047.

All Things Considered

Me abandoné a la tesis para luego regresar al punto de partida —es decir, a mi vida española— y, en el proceso, como pasaron tantas cosas —¡cuánto!, que decía mi bisabuela, así, como exclamación y cláusula independiente, obvia— abandoné un poco el blog. Pero si algo nos enseña el famoso tango es que siempre se puede volver y yo, aunque vuelva a la tesis y otros quehaceres, os traigo para resarcirme un poema que presenté —en inglés, en mi vida anterior— en una linda lectura que organizó el Chazen Museum de Madison, en octubre del año pasado, con quince o veinte poetas locales, que escribieron sobre una exhibición de esculturas cerámicas titulada "The Human Condition".

"All Things Considered" es un poema ekfrástico, que escribí a partir de una obra de arte, aunque la tomara sólo como punto de partida: "Man and His World", una escultura de la talentosa Viola Frey. El poema trata, como la obra de Frey, de considerar todo: al ser humano y nuestro mundo y acaba, inevitablemente, no entendiendo absolutamente nada, ni de la condición humana ni de los usos de la contingencia, de lo variable, de lo que llamamos suerte, destino, providencia o casualidad, que gobierna nuestras vidas aunque no mande sobre nuestros corazones.

Creo que es uno de los mejores que he escrito, así que, queridos hispanohablantes estrictos, lo siento en el alma: hasta que me presentéis a mi traductora ideal os recomiendo paciencia y mucho té y Roald Dahl y un diccionario...

http://www.chazen.wisc.edu/images/uploads/Files/Bridge_14_11-Neroy.pdf

("All Things Considered" first appeared on the Chazen Museum website, October. 2014 [USA])

* Como dudo que pueda reproducir (legalmente) la escultura de Frey (googleadla), pongo una foto que da impresión de totalidad y tomé yo mismo, hace poco, en la Albufera :)

Cuaderno Americano by Marcos Neroy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Sister

Today I bring you a poem written in English which, as a matter of fact, is one of the many stories my grandmother told me about her harsh childhood in Castile, picking up saffron with her sister in October, walking barefoot and dressed with potato sacks. Laurie Beth Clark was kind enough to include it in her collective project Ossuary, which has been on display at the University of Tennessee Downtown Gallery in Knoxville for the last month.
///
Hoy os traigo hoy un poema en inglés que es, en realidad, una de tantas historias que me contó mi abuela sobre su durísima infancia en Castilla, recogiendo azafrán con su hermana en pleno octubre, descalzas y vestidas con sacos de patatas. Laurie Beth Clark tuvo a bien incluirlo en su proyecto colectivo Ossuary, que lleva un mes expuesto en la University of Tenesse Downtown Gallery de Knoxville.

More on Ossuary here/Más sobre Ossuary aquí:

http://ossuaries.wordpress.com/about/

Here is the poem/Aquí está el poema:

Sister

Barefooted
I said sister are we done yet
not quite she said the basket
despondent on our back
clouds stalking the light
as we bend down to pick flowers
our feet sliced open blood burning
we have been trudging
the land for hours have we not
are we not done sister said I
but she my older sister
who’s six years old
does not answer instead she
takes my lips with her fingers
pinching them shut

only when the light starts
to sink meekly do we carry back
our baskets full of saffron
to huddle together in the barn
dressed with potato sacks
why everything I tell you
of those days is true son
but be careful to always
keep to yourself a little more
than what you tell

(Fotografía de Laurie Beth Clark)

(Fotografía de Laurie Beth Clark)

Cuaderno Americano by Marcos Neroy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Escapist Double-Fugue

Wake to the call of love, lean out, catch its sight
while rain bends into the marsh, wake to the call of love,
I fall to your eyes of laugh, pressing for violet skies
this ache is a gift of truth, I fall to your eyes of laugh,
gliding through foams of eyes, clad in dreams of want,
careened by the vulture, gliding through foams of eyes,
touched by yearns of leaves, ripe like a bitten peach,
blazing with doubt, touched by yearns of leaves,

wake to the call, love, escapist double-fugue,
clad in dreams of want, lean out, catch its sight
gliding through, foams of eyes, touched by yearns of leaves
flee, double-fugue, press on for purple skies,
fall into husks of laugh, ripe, like a bitten peach,
gliding through foams of eyes, fuguist double-fugue,
while rain bends over the marsh, careened by the vulture
wake to the call of love, fall into husks of laugh,
blazing with doubt, touched by yearns, of leaves,
beauty-dose, double-fugue, your ache is a gift of truth,

double-fugue, lust for love, touched by yearns of leaves,
wake to the call, fugue: lust for words
gliding through foams of eyes, fall into husks of laugh,
double-fugue in love.

Cuaderno Americano by Marcos Neroy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

On Artifactual Anarchy: the Word-Spin

Techne is a higher form of art? Art dehumanized becomes mere techne? Today I bring you a poetic exercise in which I try my hand at a synthesis and truce in the war that, one hundred years after the Futurist manifesto, rages on in artistic and humanist circles, lately masked as the utilitarian arguments of those who have the assets and the Kantian counterarguments of those who need the endowments to survive and safeguard what they treasure and believe in.

There are works of art that should never see the light and still I put this piece to the test of your patience and criterion. No serious magazine would ever remotely consider publishing it. No serious reader would dare go beyond the second line. And still I root for its outright deformity, knowing that within its lack of proportion there is order, and even bits of poetry to be seen under the naked eye. That’s a good enough definition of contemporary art for me.

So, let’s start with an explanation of the playful nonce form I created, the Word-Spin, in case you ever decide to play with words yourself.

The Word-Spin builds up on the cogent incoherence of Flarf and proposes a return to its surrealist inspiration by imposing an order that, at the same time, enables the writer to communicate freely a unique “frame of mind”. That’s a mouthful…

Destructions

1. Start by giving a title to your poem.

2. Permute the letters of the words in the title in order to arrive at a list of words that will guide your poem: that is your word-spin. The words in the title must be part of the word-spin too. For instance, my word-spin for a poem entitled “EXAMPLE OF TRUTH” would be: EXAMPLE, AMPLE, LAME, EX, AMP, LAMP, MAP, LEX, EXAM, MAX, PAX, LAX, OF, TRUTH, RUTH, HURT, RUT. What is your take, your own unique word-spin? 

3. All you have to do is articulate the poem using the word-spin. Word content between “spinning words” is free.

Rules

1. Any coherent linguistic structure in any language counts as spin-word.

2. Made-up words and neologisms are allowed.

3. Words can only be spun once.

4. Self-censorship is allowed, i.e. words that don’t fit with the poetic project can be disregarded and the order in which you arrange them in the word-spin is also free.

5. The use of technology (Google+) to enhance the capacity to generate unexpected word permutations is encouraged and essential to the form.

Word-Spin to Exhaustion

- This is the case of the poem I’ve posted today, a more radical version of the Word-Spin that will leave you literally exhausted... Absolute obedience to one’s own word permutations is required: words are spun into the list as soon as they are found, no reordering is allowed and no words can be eliminated from the list.

And here is the monstrosity in question:

Human who Permutes Letters to Create Cultural Artifacts Shows Off his Capacity to Flarf and thus Adumbrates a Nonce Form, the Poem by Exhaustion, Hoping to Humor Readers and Convince them that the Bullshit he Fabricates is Worthy of Attention, so much more so than the Ornate Baloney Others Try to Pass as Transcendental Art 

I’m a human, nothing more, nothing less than a man, son of Uma. Life is never austere, I say ‘mu’ or ‘moo’ but will always say ‘blue’ whenever a cat says ‘woof’ and you can find an allegory of life, underwear and writing anywhere you like but namaste to you, stranger, don’t walk this land planting salt like a Hun, let it’s music grow and hum like Han Solo would, geez I only wish nu was the measure of… nah, but if it reads like Scottish, walks like a Scottish and drinks like a Scottish, the lad’s probably from Glasgow, all of us have a ma and she once was a lass but all I wanna do is permute and have some fun and all I really wanna say is that ta mère est mon bitch, Frenchie, so mute your flute, life is pay-per-death: ter little monkeys jumping on a bed, one fell off and messed his perm, so ma called the doctor and the doctor said there are only two stupid monkeys left, I’m calling chimp-support but thanks to Buddha the term is over, bells toll and academia metes out punishment to flarfers, stamps out the riotous, but that pert… that pert ain’t gonna ‘cause I don’t wanna, ‘cause I’m an emu: watch me fly out of the window. You can mure yourself up but they’re gonna find out someday and who doesn’t like to read ere taking a shit? Tupac would tup a tup and then rap about it to all of us but he needs a new rep, his wee-wee never gets any gigs, of late. La mer la mer toujours recommencè, si si, vaffanculo Valéry, eppur si muove and who the fuck can ever take a decent shot with a disposable camera. Hereupon I reach REM-phase and am at last at peace. Peru Peru, Tupac-Amaru –not the other Tupac, mind you. But it always depends on your point of view. Rue de l’Odeone was once an accordion of love but Adrienne left Sylvia for another beach. I meant to say beach, really, I promise… you the letters and let them speak I’ll ret in language, plunge into it and smother myself, let my tête roll free, not into the basket, don’t put all your dreams into one basket, let your head wheel down the street but remember that revolutions die and Guillotine faced his invention face up, his head is dust now, an accident of History, res, res de res, on no hi ha no es pot sacar, dialectal tangents but what matters is always the center, Spanish, I mean English, the ser, I mean the self, the self, to ser or not to ser that is the letter and the commonplace and the instance of the letter, forever set or unset and, though I like setters, E.T. really makes my day, that crazy alien flying around on bikes and his (her?) terse sayings, dubbed, of course, “mi casa”, as he points out to the window and the rest is History a rete of organic matter, blood vessels and nerves, être oder not ser, that is the pestering erethism of languaged mammals. Create create that’s the first rule and yes, I must confess I steal a crate or two to store the materials for my own edifice cause the fat one ate it all you see, the tic tac tic tac tic tac acts upon us and we utter disenchantment and consume tea, coffee and mate like we used to climb on trees but there are no proofs of that, you have to belief, ¡Cree! ¡Cree! Drink! Drink! Cultural routes, rote learning and again we’re stuck in a rut so I say a tomar pel cul and read rall. in the score and I tell life to stop, to go easy, and I can see life slowing down, see it whimpering, coming down to a musical halt. Don’t be fooled, the Ural mountains can never separate us. Its us and ur-life, ur-text, ur-sex, wow, everybody wants to try out for that cult, and there are so many artifacts you wouldn’t believe… art is art notwithstanding fact, facts never go far but I’d love to have a cat, cats have a nobler a ring to them, they put the cherry to a writer’s nest, cats are satiric animals who never die, sacred for the Egyptians, they love ham like Iseult loved Tristam. It shows. Effort shows or so they say but shh. Wait for your turn. How? How? - asked the Crow. The Who stinks, though. Sow and you’ll have to harvest and work so much more. Why bother? Better come and go off. And on. Off. And on. Off. And on the capacity to love I will only say: I’ll dress like a matador, walk around holding a capa, take you to the city, buy you a pita, I’ll let you pay the tip, have pity, tap-tap, who’s there? It’s knock-knock, stupid ass. Don’t tap your mouth to the tap you drunkard smitten with flarf, whoever adumbrates first gets the flat rate, the best mate, so don’t be dumb, google it all, google ‘raster’. Doused in mud, like a bum, come as you are little brat, who can find a ram nowadays? We are all marred and scared shitless by political Dumas, our pink stinked skin splurged with serum and while ‘nonce’ means nonce, in Britain some naughty men like brats, but that’s another story, said Moustache, and once upon a time on a no man’s land, non-amorous detached adults took econ, introduction to philosophical discourse and joined clubs. But the form is so much more, the form informs the content, why can’t you see what you’re doing to me? Because I love you too much baby. Cradle of rock. Watch the Roms roam. Don’t be politically incorrect! The poem is me. But it isn’t, it ain’t no mow. I’m the seed, planted to exhaustion, I’m it, I’m in the house, I’m the house, the haute écolier playing a recorder and recording us, us reading under a sky that breaks open while the rage of God whooshes down on Noah, who then became one of the founding father’s of the USA and now works for the private sector, a guy worthy of note hon, unlike you, and there’s no hoping to become, no hopes to hop over and it’s already tough to simply be, so you might as well play ping pong, I used to be a good player, a ping pong player, and I know a ho when I read it, some letters nip life and then life gives itself back to the world, I guess humor is the key and rumor has it that you are looking for readers. Sear. Abrade. Do you dare to speak up? Truth or dare. I choose red. Sed de vida. Dear, have you seen my earring? Dear, have you seen my fear? Dear, where is my coat? But, who am I? I’m a rad, an unabomber, don’t pay attention to what I say. You convince no-one with your dirty rhymes. I saw you once hanging upside down, beneath a poplar tree, beside a vine. Nine. And the first nine ex-cons moved into public housing and lived happily ever after. Travelled to Spain. Went to the cine. Hated Von Neumann’s guts. Signed an armistice with society and received payments of good faith, not the bullshit they were already getting used to. A whole life spent choking with shit while others promenade and discuss and sublime about the bull, the bull that mesmerizes us under the sun the beautiful bull under a moon that lulls the night away. I won’t drop names. Words. Words. Hit and run. If I remember right, the last one to sit down goes to Seville, or did she go to Seville and then loose her chair? Anyway, Seville rhymes with Ull who was a nice chap who apparently was fond of rings, the son of a God… the one with the hammer, what was his name? And you can slit the belly of a goat or slit someone’s throat but bits and pieces and bits, especially bits, dominate the world, the world that in turn fabricates us, and this we know: fabrications will never sate us, we want more, we want more of us, we can get no satisfaction and I try and I try but I can’t get anywhere without a car and don’t have a rite to call my own besides love and that’s fab, really, I’m an atheist, I don’t give a damn, I speak Brit but can paint with watercolors whenever I want to, and all came out of one single rib but I like living in a ribat of logic and pretend I welcome new ideas, I’m welcoming, welcoming, welcome, welcome ladies and gentlemen the taba, the game has begun! You don’t know the game? Neither do I, look it up, taba, google it, learn the rules, play, everything is for play, you’ll need a bone, but wait, here it is, abracadabra! I said: abracadabra! And all the worthy people disappear, thy worth is in the wort before fermentation begins and… Thor! That’s it, Thor. Mythology. I think we should let myths rot. Be playful about it. Go ask any of Roth’s characters: they fuck around a lot. Attention please, turbulence ahead, brace yourself, we’re going down, down, good nite, at ten, I go to sleep at ten, OK, not really, but I do see a ton of infommercials, I find them intellectually stimulating, they set a tone, a particular mood to my writings and my nights before I fall into a net of dreams, the bough of sleep that holds me up against the sky as I hear Nat King Cole and let there be you let there be me let there be love and what not, love is more or less like an Ent, wakes up every now and then from it’s sleep in the Middle Earth, love’s like a tin man, like a good tan, like a tit so ornate you can never catch enough sight of it and earn, earn a wage, earn love, earn respect, man, woman, earn your death it’s all about the ore er… ano? let’s not go there, but Tao is interesting, to have no clue about nothing and be straight about it cause all of us are searching for the center, the middle of, in the middle of my memory thereof is Teo, bless you Violeta Denou, I wish I was Teo, but that’s baloney, infancy, all that’s in store is to be alone, perhaps with a little good luck in Baly I will lay and forget spelling mistakes, I actually like driving on the left lane, I’ll retire to a little island shaped like a leaf, Nal will help me out, give me Yens, play a ney for me, I’ll listen, I’ll be that yon solitary stripper: “noly me tangere”, she said, “how do you spell that?” I asked, and looked up the first word in my bilingual Italian-English dictionary, but it wasn’t there. Others were there too, but they were busy holding a grudge, holding a line. All wanted to be hers. They were dying for it. Yes, I’m being ironic. Iconic. Allegoric. Just go try stop it: life. Life. Life will pass. But I’m fine, really. Sap flushed down the toilet, my blood spilling under the grass. But please, do contact me or my energy a.s.a.p., it feels so lonely here, floating in the middle of the transcendental nothingness, I need a good hot German punch or I’ll go dental but how, how can one transcend? You little rascal. Memory lacerates my heart. I see a Rasta walk by and wish I hadn’t cut my hair: crass error. The scent of liberty is a dent in the earth, a hole bore into this horrid den. Talc. I smell talk. I can only see the crest of the rooster, the cock, the bird, let’s celebrate Thanksgiving! Esta va por San Givin! But the bird, the corpse is lying there, roasted, staring at me, a crescent lantern in the raw sky. Alden! Alden! Your life’s laden with words: nascere nolite Buskirk. It’s just lots of Andes and no dales, you see, a pretty boring scene. A scar… that’s art. The boiling tar we dip our fingers in. Our life going down the drain. The rat that runs under the sheets, bites our toe, wakes us up and scuttles away.

And here is the key to the maze:

Human: man Uma mu an nam hun hum Han nu na ma um

Permutes: mere mute per ter perm term metes pert emu mure ere tup put rep mer rem Peru rue.

Letters: Ret let tete res ser letter set setter E.T. terse rest rete etre eret(hism)

Create: Crate ate eat tac act tea tree are cree

Cultural: Rut cul rall. Ural ur- cult

Artifacts: Art if fact far cat satiric trista(m)

Shows: sh how who sow

Off

Capacity: capa city pita tip pity tap

Flarf

Adumbrates: rate mate muda dumb raster mud bum brat ram mar Duma serum

Nonce: once on no non econ

Form:

Poem: me

Exhaustion: it house haute us Noah USA note hon

Hoping: ping pong ho nip

Humour: rumour

Readers: sear dare red sed dear ear rad

Convince: vine nine con cine von

Bullshit: shit bull lull hit sit Ull slit but bit

Fabricates: sate car rite fab Brit bar rib ribat taba abra

Worthy: thy worth wort Thor rot Roth

Attention: nite at ten tonne tone net Nat not Ent tin tan tit

Ornate: earn ore er ano Tao Teo

Baloney: alone Baly lay lane Nal Yen ney one yon noly

Others: hers

Try

Pass: sap a.s.a.p

Trascendental: dental trascend rascal lacerate rasta crass scent dent den talc crest crescent Lantern: Alden laden nascere Andes dale scene scar

Art: tar rat

Cuaderno Americano by Marcos Neroy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Give us a Dead Poet

We dislike poets
because they perpetuate their frivolous soul
and perform a parade of riffs with our words,
wear tweed jackets under a steaming sun,
chase with a red pen lads who don’t cite Burns,
and trample our streets back to their high ceilinged cubicles
to feed from the fetor of confiture
and vagrancy.

We hate poets...
because they exact from the universe
our love when it’s ripe, and inscribe with their stylus
a false order and decry they’ve hearkened our blunt anecdotes,
only to rape them on top of their razor strops,
and still make it their cause
to prevent us from speaking
naturally.

And yet... we would’ve pardoned you if only our life
hadn’t gone amiss in your stirring,
because you’ve never loved,
have not loved,
will not love,
ever.

Our words, our streets, our love, our life, your stirring...
See?
We dislike poets,
we hate poets,
but give us a dead poet,
an extinct poet,
someone who doesn’t write anymore:
dead poets are the only good poets for us.

Cuaderno Americano by Marcos Neroy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Cubalibre

Hurgo, escarbo con el dedo en la angostura,

me pregunto por qué el sifón

se parece hoy más que nunca a la mar,

procelosa y estereotipada.

Indago en la angostura,

en la estrechez de nuestra ceguera,

en el comedido flair del camarero

que arroja

espuma

de

¡Cuba

Libre!

sobre

la

barra

americana.

Y al volver, devuelto a mí,

trasteo con todos esos objetos vivificados,

intelectualizados,

de la habitación que cerramos

porque deseábamos mantenerla intacta,

por si y para cuando volviera…

El ideal,

hozando en lo que significaba,

siempre en lo que significa,

la vida,

la angostura,

la vida,

la vida,

la mar,

la vida,

hozando.

("Cubalibre" first appeared in Vulture Magazine, Sept. 2010 [Spain])

Cuaderno Americano by Marcos Neroy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Onírico

El último sueño

me ha dejado horrorizado.

Con el agua hasta las rodillas,

a mi alrededor, mis compañeros,

sufrían los primeros indicios de hipotermia,

sacudían con vehemencia su cuerpo…

Propinando patadas desesperadas a los machetes de hielo

parecemos arañas crepusculares defendiéndonos de la escoba.

Yo les grito no os mováis, cerrad los ojos, les digo,

pero no pueden controlar los espasmos,

cercados por el agua,

nuestro cuerpo pierde calor con una rapidez pasmosa,

yo les hablo: no os mováis, manteneos vivos.

El único salvavidas fue para la niña,

esto no puede durar más de media hora.

Frente a mí, en el lado opuesto de la balsa,

un viejo se apoya sobre el costado,

con la cara mirando hacia el cielo eutanásico

que nos llueve y desborda de licor su boca.

El choque de temperatura le causó un infarto,

en su estertor boqueaba como un pez en un cubo de playa,

hasta que emitió un gemido ronco y grave

y su última tos hizo estallar nuestros tímpanos.

Un hombre lo lanza ahora al agua

y con una mueca de asco

se lame los dedos azules.

Azules porque hemos practicado durante horas

la papiroflexia de formar una copa

con las palmas de nuestras manos

para dar de beber al gigante Pacífico

el agua que sobra en esta balsa;

eso le he dicho a la niña.

Ella llora y asiente a ratitos.

Yo tomo a cada poco sus manos

y las froto, como hacía mi padre;

pero no, yo no soy su padre.

Nos hemos alejado lo suficiente como para no ser

arrastrados por la corriente hacia el fondo:

vemos hundirse el acorazado mastodóntico que nos protegía.

Nuestra balsa de plástico, empática,

va hundiéndose reposadamente bajo nuestros pies

hasta que el amanecer nos encuentra flotando

y yo aflojo los músculos,

exhalo una parrafada de aire.

Me hundo mientras veo a mis compañeros

pataleando en la superficie como crisálidas,

inmensamente bellos.

Desciendo hacia la oscuridad más absoluta,

respirando agua con normalidad

y trato de apartar las algas que se enredan en mis tobillos,

pensando:

“Si al llegar al fondo sigues enredado

estarás perdido…no podrás caminar”.

Cuaderno Americano by Marcos Neroy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Ya no juego

Dedos rosados

raspando corteza

mientras en el centro

crecían los espesos anillos

por esas otras veces cuando

por años nos amábamos en otros;

era un juego amable,

era bello lanzar piedras de ayes y olvido,

¿no es cierto?

Pero ah, mi rayuela es otra,

sin tierra a la que arrostrarme,

sin casillas numeradas,

sin un itinerario que me mande a morir al cielo;

antes de ti no tengo destino.

Era bello lanzar

prótesis de nuestro cuerpo,

comer pato laqueado

todos los días

y desparramar cápsulas brownoideas

sobre páginas de papel en blanco,

cuando hace años,

recordarás,

empezamos a jugar

reciennacidos

con piedras del solsticio.

El tiempo sigue siendo

la trayectoria descrita por la piedrecita

cuando cae sobre la primera casilla,

tábula rasa,

como tu pelo ahuecado por mis

bramidos de animal herido,

mientras respiro por última vez.

No puedo decir que no hubiera

benevolencia

o premeditación

en su trayectoria,

en esa piedrecita

que me precipitó hacia ti

con los ojos ardiendo aún

por el verdor del torno.

Hasta ese día habría asegurado

que el agua tenía el sabor

y la consistencia de una espuma pretérita,

un rastro de coníferas y agua de Valencia,

un brillo afrutado por más de dos estrellas.

Recordamos nuestro sabor

el primer día que nos besamos…

tú sólo sigue contando anillos.

("Ya no juego" first appeared in Revista Anonimato nº4 (http://www.revistaanonimato.es), July 2014, [Spain])

Cuaderno Americano by Marcos Neroy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Poema de la muerte

Un poema que hable de la muerte

es un toro dando cornadas contra un charco.

Es nada, absurdo.

¿Cómo afrontarla?

Escupiendo sobre su busto de silencio,

preguntándome porqué se veda la plática de los que se difuminan pluscuamperfectamente.

Me importas poco, che.

Yo seguiré de energía y recuerdo

y también olvido.

Serás el descanso perfecto

en un fumadero de opio.

Sólo espero poder mirarte,

frente a frente,

saber que llegas,

implacable.

Yo quiero una muerte estúpida,

nada solemne,

un fundido de plomos que me reste importancia,

una maceta que caiga silbando de una cornisa,

y poder mirarte,

frente a frente.

¿Me escuchas? ¿Quién te teme?

¿Quién teme a la muerte?

Cuaderno Americano by Marcos Neroy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

QWERTY

Poseo un cuerpo:

piernas redondeadas por capas sucesivas de grasa,

glóbulos oculares con un alma atorada en la pupila oscura,

muñecas y dedos hipertrofiados de teclista.

Poseo recuerdos:

un polvorín de amantes supurando,

y letras impresas que zigzaguean por canaletas que gotean

de cuando en cuando

impelido por mi propia voluntad.

¿Qué materia demencial

compone la entropía de mi deseo?

desenamorado de la tierra y aún aún

despierto, abro los párpados, rasco las legañas y me yergo.

Felicidad.

Polisémica homófona de remembranza hiperrealista porque

Sol las mismas listas

Agua arden hoy en el hogar

Tabaco y caen gotas de zinc sobre

Amanecer la estufa en el centro del salón

Hilanderas muertas y parecen piélagos de hielo suicidándose

Determinismo contra el alquitrán en un éxodo

Cáncer de energía cinética tal que

Ante Alguien se vio

Dios obligado

Sol a

Polisémicas homógrafas de intervenir.

Finitud:

palabra escrita mediante

unos bloquecitos fijados a una terminal que leen

"QWERTY",

bloquecitos que suenan como un clave bien temperado,

como el nombre de un poblado moscovita.

Cuaderno Americano by Marcos Neroy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

El mundo feliz

Estado de Bienestar

Amor libre

Democracia directa

Psicopatología y otros incunables

Libertad

Armas de destrucción masiva

Hombre-masa

Falansterio

Darwin

Soma

Autoerotismo Teocracias y demás filantropías

Unicidad del hombre Dictadura Real Decreto

Seda vaporosa Combustible nuclear Cerveza sin alcohol

Diuréticos analgésicos y tranquilizantes Ojo por ojo

Mecenas y gerifaltes de Repúblicas Bananeras

Homme comme il faut Resurrección de la carne Soma

La dicta blanda del tiempo Verborrea universitaria

Pica Mercenarios a sueldo Reediciones y recopilatorios

Altruismo Legionarios de Cristo Comunismo Regeneracionismo

Muerte plácida ¿Instigado o seducido? Oropeles o andrajos

Nadie es perfecto Soma Desarrollo sostenible Creacionismo

Soma Viajes con Encanto Menosválidos Te quiero

Desgravaciones y gravamen ético Gran Hermano

Nazi Tribunal de Justicia Internacional Postura conciliadora

Libertad igualdad legalidad Soma Ismo Utopía y otras astillas del alma

Caminar solo por la ciudad Inyección letal

Cohorte consorte o enlace Aprehender a vivir solo

Condonación de la deuda estipendio o inanición

¿Ministerio de la Guerra? Laissez faire laissez passer

Ron añejo Quantum poético La verdad os hará libres

Insomnio provocado Posición irreconciliable Status quo Soma Soma

Estrellas del balón Estrellas del cinematógrafo Estrellas del firmamento

Soma Sueños Yihad Ridículas pretensiones

Capital social Telón de acero Decadencia del Viejo Continente

Direcciones cardinales Alá es misericordioso Cristo es misericordioso

Involución retroceso y retroactivo Feedback

Evanescencia y espiritismo Soma Neo-Colonialismo

Gladiadores a sueldo OVNI Mitos urbanos Swingers Familia nuclear

Acupuntura y medicina natural No hay vagabundas

Tratados de No Proliferación Nuclear

Encíclicas Dios juega a los dados con el Universo Soma

Guerra preventiva Derecho inalienable a la vida

Soma Verdad Soma Mentira Soma Relativismo

Soma Soma Soma El mundo feliz Tres palabras.

Cuaderno Americano by Marcos Neroy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

19

Este viaje nuestro es una tristeza que no sabría decir.

Las avenidas permutadas en concierto de luces,

El claxon del auto que enfila hacia lugares desconocidos,

La sala del cinematógrafo en silencio.

Ni yo mismo soy libre al fluir.

Lento. Cambiante.

Es una tristeza que confabula,

un tambor en una sala vacía,

un túnel transparente y el ascensor que se eleva,

asciende

y sube

hacia lo más hondo para proferir palabras que cristalizan

sobre la palma de tu mano,

cristales que podrás

archivar

clasificar

recuperar

destruir.

Esta tristeza...

yo no sabría decir qué, o cómo,

pero sí, esta tristeza revienta

en las cuencas de los faros de los autobuses,

se encarama sobre los carteles pragmáticos:

Compra

Vende

Tristeza.

En el humo ensordecedor

o en la vereda de grifos que barbotan amor por la Montería.

En la plaza desapacible, armada de lápices gigantescos,

en la estría que conduce a mi habitación,

el lento ascenso de tres pisos de tristeza

para después aclarar mi cara con ella,

secarme con ella,

abrirla y meterme y cubrirme con ella

y dormirme hasta despertar.

Cuaderno Americano by Marcos Neroy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

18

La lengua divierte,
vuelta jorguín:
se piensa,
te repiensa,
pondera,
lo pesa a uno
para ver si casa
consigo misma.

Esa puta lívida antropófaga del ser
se arracima en hechizos,
te abraza, se relame a fondo,
que sí, que le apeteces,
te vislumbra cuchifrito o castaña asada,
sabe que no importa cuánto hagas
por enajenarla,
para ganar la libertad de los tuyos,
porque va a hacer que todo parezca
el retorno al preámbulo del siguiente viaje,
que en realidad,
y eso siempre lo has sabido,
somos bruma:
isópatas que la recordamos
para así mejor poder olvidarla.

Cuaderno Americano by Marcos Neroy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

17

Lluvia: acometida de ojos

libres al fin de hombre
que invocan la sustancia 

de tardes que se detienen
en el bálsamo preciso 

en que va a morir la hora.

Cuaderno Americano by Marcos Neroy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

16

El no saber y
disfrutar la incógnita,

pinzar primero el cigarro con los párpados grises,
luego con los brazos en jarras,

imaginarlo
y extender la mano,
una muñeca,
con el vello erizado,
que indica cuanto deseamos
el humo acre antes de que llegue
a la boca.

El no saber y
despertar con la violácea luz
que incide como un acontecimiento
sobre la tarde sedienta,
desesperando
por beber café de todas las tazas a un tiempo,
pero eso sí,
contigo.

Cuaderno Americano by Marcos Neroy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

15

No vine aquí porque
exigieras mi presencia,
ausencia de todo lo
que no es ahora yo
y precede a mi entidad.

Para mí,
frente a mí,
sólo hay verdor
perfilando la sombra
de todos los transeúntes deletéreos;
verdor de las células
cuando gangrenan el aire
que creíamos puro,
mientras nos desflocamos
y convertimos en rastros tubulares,
puentes de Einstein-Rosen
cuya materia incierta nos persigue
y ha de permanecer
frente a la Plaza del Emperador y todas las plazas
donde ya no estamos nosotros
donde sí
siniestramente ocultos
de nuestra conciencia,
verdes a nuestros ojos,
hay estos rastros-manzanas,
que no nos atrevemos a morder.

("15" first appeared with the title "Puentes de Einstein-Rosen" in Vulture Magazine, Sept. 2010 [Spain])

Cuaderno Americano by Marcos Neroy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

14

                               Hemingway in memoriam 

Triángulo áureo,
enfoca la cámara
y clic, dispara.

Arrasa el limo que define lo que eres.

Nada es definitivo,
y ya no soy el mismo
que escribe estas palabras,
mi alma se pierde
en el transcurso de la fotografía,
“me voy… me voy…”
masculló también, el viejo,
cuando poco antes
en alguna tasca acre de la capital,
se emponzoñaba de tinto,
buscando alguna frase verdadera
para empezar otro cuento.

Aquí, ahora, 

en el lugar en que él fue siendo yo otro
escucho el doblar de las campanas
y recuerdo la advertencia. ¿Será cierto?

Cuaderno Americano by Marcos Neroy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

13

Como a una sublimación del deseo
yo te miro, sentada con tu falda de leche,
tus tobillos oscilando como galápagos
que reptan por la arena negra para desovar.

Yo te miro
desde este ojo de buey,
bebiendo ginebra en el camarote,
pensando por qué
has tenido que
rozar mi dedo índice
distraídamente,

por error,
con tus manitas de
broma.

Supongo que entonces lo supe:
es imposible no mirar
tu boca quebrándose
hasta tus dientes blancos.

Cuaderno Americano by Marcos Neroy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

12

Huyo de ella,
en la mar hay algo
que hace de mí un detestable.

Yo, a su lado,
soy un disímil seco,
un ser tironeado por venas de agua,
encarado hacia el cielo
soy una casa a la deriva
inundada hasta la cintura
¡Y yo con mis manos demasiado pequeñas para achicarme!

Así me hundo más en la arruga,
en un desmadre terroso,
siempre arrodillado,
sobre el fango.

Cuaderno Americano by Marcos Neroy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.