Pantoum for Futurology

At last, we ask: what is at stake?
Knowledge increases exponentially
Still, our own brain haunts us,
We cannot map it like continental lines.

Knowledge increases, exponentially
The modes of human life shift.
We cannot map it like continental lines,
We chase the future spoils blind.

The modes of human life shift,
Pure intelligence has out grown them.
We chase, the future spoiling blind,
Glancing at the grave of our own evolution.

Pure intelligence has out grown them,
The dynamic systems of natural selection.
Glancing at the grave of our own evolution,
We must wonder if this was truly our fate.

The dynamic systems of natural selection
Busy writing their own destruction.
We must wonder: If this is truly our fate,
Were we just furrows for the droughts?

Busy writing their own destruction,
Engineers toil over their machines.
Were we just furrows for the droughts?
Perhaps it won’t be over so quickly.

Engineers toil over their machines,
The many Gods of a new foundation.
Perhaps it won’t be over so quickly,
Maybe our souls will carry on.

The many Gods of a new foundation,
Still our own brains haunt us.
Maybe our souls will carry on
At last? We ask. What is at stake?

espera

you’re a minimalist

expending only
essential motions
basic slurs
of your ambition

coughing dust, swept
in your absence
collecting I
don’t move enough
while waiting
for you

sleep’s a doll
a daylight companion
passing time spent
on highways, dreaming
buckets of frozen hair
cascaded over rocks
south of him

“it doesn’t smell so sweet
as it tastes,” you smiled
philosophically

as you brought me
lavender
in every form
you could find

Frequencies

Comments on Frequencies

You’d never guess it, but—
All my friends
are throwing their phones off of roofs
these days,

watching the glowworm
drain, a whistle of water sucked
down a concrete straw.
Everyone is trying to shake the
Electro-magnetic.

The charm of this particular age is
There’s no escaping temptation,
or that sense of light-speed
as limitation,
as final as
the sum of our four walls;
That infinity is countable
numbs promise like
topical anesthetics—Yet,

We reach each other on
frequencies we’ll never see,
Empty shivers, waves
white and violet tracing nothing

Except the insomnia
and the feeling that
You are lonelier than before, only
with more people able to watch.

That I Can Refuse Him Nothing

The War never ended,
it just raged on over the putrid
carpeted floor, it’s worrisome
that i can’t say no
or yes, that i can’t say
anything when you tell me
smirking truths, like codes and ciphers
that laugh when they win
and lash out when they lose
like this was World War II
and I was your gun—you
don’t handle me well, baby,
the kick-back dislocated
the guilty in your eye-socket,
the sulfur on your fingers
betrays you—you pulled the trigger,
you pulled every trigger
every lever, pushed every button
in sight, like a toddler
with a brand new toy and
the attention span of a gnat, but
who can deny youth’s delight?

Changing Strings

For my LS

Swift fingers &
loosened steel
dance that greedy
war of contortions
over an ocean of
sun-spilt mahogany
knowing fingers
pulling taut
silver and copper
silken claws
winding my life-strings
on some unknown axis
that neither bends
nor shakes except
to his touch.

The Writer’s Alphabet

My pen is picketing.
It spits at me—
some discharge from an alien basin
oozing viscous tar,
reeking swamp gas.

The pen prompts more rebellion:
Type cuts ties with fibers,
pulling off the pulp
Like senile stickers
their polymer (so aged it stains
your beloved birthday page, of
carefully pasted neon stars,
arranged in squirms and
handshakes)
creating a scene out of an
Old Western Looney Tunes.

The J is first to look suspicious.
It’s hook is smeared underfoot,
Sulfur spilled, unchecked,
Pointing a toe towards escape
At the edge of the page.

The rest start
dissolving their grip.
Letters tattoo my left palm,
fresh ink, still gleaming wet
from the weight of new lungs.

Gradually, they unfold,
bellows of an accordion,
Dancing two-steps and
Slow sambas across my desk,
A blur of alphabetic salvation.

They exhale breaths that unleash
every meaning,
every charge,
every sin
that human hands have buried in their
charcoaled dots and dashes,
Packed so thick for so long that
new freedom feels heavy.

Night at the Orchestra

He’s not playing those keys,
Just over them his fingers fall.
She’s not bowing those strings,
But flinging them around her like a shawl.
And he’s not smacking those toms,
Just tapping his foot along.
And they’re not plucking those uprights,
Just leaning their necks over the song.

What is this being?

A lazy extension of the limbs?
A burning improvisation of
brain waves?
A weave of clothes to warm
the night?

Listen,
All I know is
The piano player’s not playing
That parchment or those keys
His fingers fall, just fall,
over each other
like the spring breeze

over each other
into air
and ivory.

Comments on Frequencies

Re-updated. Final version:

Comments on Frequencies

You’d never guess it, but—
All my friends
are throwing their phones off of roofs,
these days,

Watching the pulsating glow
trickle, a whistle of water sucked
down a concrete straw.
Everyone is trying to shake the
Electro-magnetic.

The beauty of this age is that
There’s no escaping temptation,
or that sense of lightspeed
as limitation, as finality, as
the sum of our confinements;
That infinity is countable
numbs promise like
acupuncture needles—Yet,

We can reach each other on
frequencies we’ll never see,
Empty shivers, waves white and violet,
that add up to nothing

Except the insomnia, and the feeling that
You are lonelier than before, only
With more people able to watch.

______________________

Old version:

The beauty of this age is that there is no escaping temptations.
There are always bright lights at night
And memories that no longer apply.

I must remember to one day thank his Memory
For pulling words out of me—
It seems they come much faster when
Challenged to be matched, in semi-
simultaneous games of freeing the past…

You’d never guess it, but
All my friends are
Throwing their phones off of roofs, anymore.
Everyone is trying to shake off the
Electro-magnetic hold.
And they are left useless, attempting to
Strangle-hold that pulsating glow.

Yet—
We can reach each other on frequencies we’ll never behold,
empty oscillations that add up to nothing
Except the insomnia, and the feeling that
You are lonelier than before, only
With more people able to watch.

Oldies but Goodies

Cerca 2006. (Revised 2009).

The Red Canyons Have All Turned Brown

the first bite is Remorseless-
all after wanders out from there.
That first peek
that first
defeat.

I like you firm and
I like you Crisp…
I dangle your pristine ruby
in front of my marauding eyes.
and i twirl carefully
casually
aiming eagle-eye at
sheer conquer

You’re bigger than most and
lean a little to the left but-
i don’t mind,
i want to pick you up, you
beg to be touched.

…you don’t last long, oh no-
i can’t wait and you don’t last…
turned brown in the company of my eyes but—
I won’t save you.

i’m busy digging Canyons through your core.

________________________________

Vandalists
(or 1925: The Wall That Spoke America)

It was a Throw Back.
It was romantic cut-outs.
It was oranged comics
scribbled and
18th Century Angels-
a black Dalí
or a study in elementary sketches;
an inverted cradle and bear, a fire-haired
lady-on-a-shell
and bluefaced scratchedout World War
women with
pinned-perfect hair;
red-soaking
penciled bodies or
a 4 year old ladybug
on his back;
a Solitary mosquito
or maybe just a
lonely
wasted flower.

It is a spectrum,
straight through the
off-center.
It is blues, yellows-
dirty & indecent-
black, teal striped
white.
It is
Angry Colored Pencils,
and vindictive bristles or
frantic gashes on a
smeared canvas.

It is tarnished Passion
of the 20s/50s/60s/

It has soul and it is seething;
a scribed SUN masquerading in a filthy yellow,
screaming.

And yet…
it is as if it is still Wet
‘cause it is also bleeding.
The Reds are running,
seemingly
the only things that can
escape it.
but I can’t escape it.

Back from a Hiatus with Haikus

It’s not that I haven’t been writing. It’s that I haven’t been writing online. Getting back to your roots is a nice feeling. As is being in Spain and traveling the world.

Haikus Sevillanos
(Sevillian Haikus)

1.
Calles sevillanas, tras
la tormenta, muchísimas
naranjas muertas.

Sevillian streets, after
the storm, so many
dead oranges.

2.
Cristal y café.
Brisas primaveras se filtran
a través de las ventanas.

Glass and Coffee.
Spring breezes seep
through the windows.

3.
Paraguas engreídos miran
Palmeras empapadas
hasta los huesos.

Smug umbrellas watch
palm trees soaked
to the bone.

4.
Botellas en manos,
Gente glotón, insectos a
la luz líquida.

Bottles in hands,
Greedy lips, insects to
the liquid light.