Ode to Strauss

Ode to Strauss

Running my fingers across this new territory,

Each pump in breath and forceful figaro of your figure,

I am lost in the breath of your mouth in my ear. 

My hips set and grind out your leading rhythm, 

each lingering note of time impregnating anticipation, 

the expectation of a dénouement worthy of 

this patient and adolescent foreplay. 

The tendrils of touches, left by your lips

along the valley of my waist - I wait face down

in the blankets as your sound and sweetness 

Fills me like dye in an hourglass of water. 

The mushroom clouds of chemical ecstasy that 

expand 

           and 

                 expand

           and 

                 swell

           and 

                 swell

Until they hang there, the universe's marvel for this

fleeting second of perfection that will soon

absorb back into reality

              

             Oh this! This is the dénouement I was looking for

when I lowered the needle into the groove of your vinyl. 

Your vinyl, oh Strauss. 

Sea-stream of Consciousness with Mary

I think if there is a god (s)he must be the ocean, ya know? this thing you can see and swim in and be fed from but if you fall in or get lost somewhere in its vastness you’ll just die or be eaten by creatures the likes of which are the true sources of the devil and leviathan. i think that god this super conscious all knowing never horny being - i think that we gather at its shores, on the curling back turned wave that laps sapient saline and sour onto our coast and the grains of our universal human conscious if sucking at it down to the bottom but it always runs out back to the big body unknown. partly known, but only partly. how many minds and pens and exploring ships have sought you out pushing ever further the boundaries of the map. your trenches run deep and your sulfuric spews change thermals and currents and the way of things. we as humans gather on the shore of the massive water-mind-machine-god-meta-alpha-omega. we bring our folding chairs and kites, content to just be beside it and hear its echoing surge. God, if the sea, must be share the human tendency to anger for we’ve been chased away, sand castles abandoned and stilted condos vacant. kites folded chairs folded blankets folded and quiet while god makes up his-or-her-who-knows mind. the storms subside and calm draws us back to him like those muses and sirens. Back we crawl across interstates and cheap gas stations and expressways and tollbooths - I fucking hate tollbooths but we come back, and we almost always bring joints and beer cans and liquor bottles so we can slurp ourselves into a primitive enough state to simply walk your morning beaches sit around a sea star night and campfire and look over at the sun kissed and salt stained body beside me, his jaw line sharp and orange as his eyes lose themselves in the fire and lunar lulling lapping of the tides. no shirt and lats defined as his arms hug his knees into his golden chest where flowers bloom with simple safety and our collective conscious knows that time and time again, throughout the history of humankind, man and woman have sat around a fire on the shores of the Infinite and, despite creed or origin, find safety in the warmth and light and limits such a scene can provide, and just breathe warmly into the neck of him, the boy with flowers in his chest and fall asleep at the lowtide and, if we’re lucky, be gently folded into the infite sea of god while we’re sleeping, the high tide our hearse into that which we’ve always sat beside.

Bloody Hammer

Shoved on oak and secured with a spike,

attached with a  purpose to build up a house.

The round of its head crowned with thorns,

halo of abuse, splintered story of beatings and falls.

Strike after strike after strike after strike

reaching resonance of ricocheted reverberations 

that reached my ears like heartbreak with a purpose.

Pow. 

(Pow)

((Pow))

Constructing, chapels, children, chairs, chimneys

whose smoke sings sweet, serpentine in minds and trees,

wrongly righting wrongs 

never wrong in the first place. 

Boarding up windows of introspection and inquiry.

Erecting walls between them and themselves,

hanging up idols, perpetual panopticonic policing.

Pow. 

(Pow)

((Pow))

Fastening the facades of faith fortresses, 

within which to hide from reflection and self.

Pounding, pounding, pounding pious penny nails 

into personality, resounding roars of repression within. 

Age remarkable, endurance imposing,

handle grain worn smooth with frequent use. 

Its head, metal miraculous, a mallet of merciful malice.

Christened by crimson, dried up from the dead

whose selves met its head in a meeting of difference.

Tell me, please, and try not to stammer,

What, make you, of the blood on your hammer?

Pow. 

(Pow)

((Pow))

Pow.

(Pow)

A Silent Rescue

Drinking and surfing all day, our skin

salty and sunned, my chest rubbed raw 

from the surf board and sand – Santa Catalina.

Midnight, leaving the cabana bar of our camp,

walking by the glow of our headlamps 

toward hammocks we hung carelessly 

under coconut trees. We couldn't afford a room.

We’d hung yours above mine, stashing gear, a decoy,

lest anyone know we were tangled underneath. 

The owner of the camp told us to move, warned 

prophetically of falling coconuts - I was headstrong.

Laughing over patacones and atún, we tried to forget

that fight on the beach – opening our meager toolbox

again,  patching and plugging sober conflict

with dark, aged rum and cheap, stale pot. 

We left the bar happier than we arrived. 

Perhaps we'll make love, I thought. 

Halfway back to camp, you grabbed me, pulled me from mid-step – 

I hadn't seen them, that exodus, but your attention to life

saved a fragile shell from my bare, drunken foot – before us hundreds 

of tiny turtles, drafted and deployed from egg to sea.

They were crawling toward the lights of huts on the beach,

confused and naive, inching en masse away from the moon.

Their bright siren left them wanting, piled-up, clawing against 

the foundation of the hut - insane survival instincts not adapted

to a world changed - to a coastline of electricity. 

Giddy and united in purpose, we shed our shirts, stuffing

them with turtles, then sprinted toward the foamy surf. 

Whizzing past each other we grinned wildly, shouting 

how many we carried, how many more were left behind.

Wave after wave, swirling saline embraced them like a hug, 

softly whispering – hold on tightly, little ones … here we go.

  

Finally, naked chests heaving seaward, we imagined them making it –

yet – our silence makes me wonder if it ever happened at all.

A Map of Self-in-Progress

Vantage Points of Self

Imagining our psyche as a landscape - full of memory, experience, knowledge, questions, etc. - poetry is the arena we create in which we explore that landscape, searching for different high places from which we might get more information about our selves, our world, and our meaning. This first poem, then, is a rough draft playing with the idea of setting out from the center of our Self and exploring its periphery, which may indeed be more than periphery and more like bedrock or atmosphere.

Map at home, under old letters unused unread,
stick in hand for thick brush and beasts lurking
this new landscape - well, old - mine - my mind - 
stumbled upon, discovered, sections unexplored.

Yesterday stopped by a garden and sat on a straw bale to watch. 
Aged scotch and rain steadily changing the soil, softening crust. 
It's wet with no clouds - that happens, here, I reckon.

Rain rhythm, bull frogs, pond pomp and circumstances 
of not picking beetles off the potatoes, damn things died. 
"Till your fill, stake and fence, but beauty ain't shit
if bugs eat your fruit," I suggested, gently that it may arrive
labeled "Epiphany, General Delivery". Spray spray spray, 
the little monsters come back like every goddamned sin 
casually flicked aside by well-kept fingernails of a vain 
gardener in Spring. Fruit longed for is torture without
patience enough to wait and tend, so get to it, go - 
lest you have no potatoes when winter wanders wither.

Garden fades behind, its keeper keener on those noetic 
effects of beetles. I leave my boots at the front door
of myself - wash dishes, put away notes, redraw map later. 

Potato Bugs & Mommas

I'm afraid of committing. I'm not really sure why but it seems as though any time I come close to an opportunity actualizing itself... I throw a grenade at it and run away. It's frustrating really, the number of times I should have just stuck with something, but it seems to me like there's always a chance of something better being out there. This, of course, can't be a healthy way to approach life or relationships. Thus far it has been my M.O.

My father is the epitome of commitment. That man has been waiting for eighteen years for his lesbian wife to come back and reconcile with him. I'm not sure how much he believes it's actually possible, but he does believe that the "lord can restore the years that the locusts have eaten". I swear, I got so tired of hearing those words as a child. Over and over again, he would tell us about our "situation", how it was all his fault that our family was broken. "But son, the years can restore the years that the locusts have eaten." I surely wonder about this.

I was picking potato bugs off my plants in the garden this evening. Those damn things are reducing my potato plants to bare, green skeletons of disappointment. I pick them off and treat the plant, but they come back like every goddamned sin of my adolescent nightmares. I thought about my dad. Problems can be treated one of two ways, gardening has taught me: organically and chemically. Now, I'm not trying to sprinkle a bunch of highly chemical shit on my food. Consequently, the alternative is a very laborious and time consuming organic battle -- nature against nature, fighting bug with bug and disease with disease.

My dad, he always chose to stay in that church rather than be near us and an active part in our lives. Of course, he was 'praying for us and thinking about us every moment of every day', but damnit if he wasn't around. My mother - she may have made some questionable decisions but she was there. She was there, at the end of a long day covered in coal dust and inverted by a swing shift schedule that taught my sister and I to tip-toe with the stealth of your deepest secret. Somehow she managed to pursue whichever job she took a notion for. Massage therapist, river rafting guide, football player, three branches of the military. She was all over the place, but she was providing for us in the best way she could as a young, single, human mother. I suppose my point is that my momma was around to swat off the potato beetles everyday.

Hasta Luego

La plaza grande was abuzz with afternoon comings and goings and, if I remember correctly, it was a Wednesday. One of the things I love most about Latin American culture is la plaza - the main square. Energy funnels into the city center, a nucleus of the human element and daily life - although the more we 'progress' the energy has gained an air of nostalgia and tradition - of date nights and tourism. I am the tourist in this plaza, La Virgen del Pendacillo watching over me as I contemplate the fact that none of the basilica's clocks match. Two clock towers, four clock-faces each, and none of them agree. I think they're all sleeping, actually, as I've never seen them change.
That is the feeling I get here though, that different times are colliding. All this as I do things that tourists are expected to do - as well as some things that they're not expected to do. Try as I might to not look like a tourist, my affinity for photos and penchant to carry to many things (in the event that inspiration hits) leaves me with a camera around my neck and a backpack. It seems like when I have it all with me, I never need it. The minute I deside to leave it in the room - I see the most photo-worthy human moment, and I have nothing.
This, perhaps, is where writing comes in. There are moments that deserve to be remembered. Many of them are small, daily movements that go unnoticed by many people. Today on the bus, for example:
The bus, new-to-me transport in Quito, a familiar beast by genus, but each specie having its own territory and quirks city-to-city. I climb the ramp and it's the wrong side. Walk around, climb the ramp again. Twenty-five cents, barreling down the bus lane. Perdon, perdon, squeezing up to the front of the bus to see where I am. . . look for the park, look for the park, the park - el ejido. No seats open, I'm standing, swaying, hanging by a loop. To my right, in a seat facing the rear, ten year old eyes, biggest I've ever seen, stare at me, curiously I'm sure - I look out of place. Peripherally aware, finally I drop my gaze to meet his - contact and a returned smile of large, gapped teeth. Pure positivity and unafraid. What a kid.
Resuming my looking, for the park, for the park. A tap on my knee and a soft pssstt ". . . you want to sit?" he more mouths than whispers in Spanish, offering me his seat. Moved and smiling, "No, no te preocupes. Está bien," I say. He seems content to have offered. What a kid.
Two seats across from him open up, and I don't realize it. Pssstt! I look, he points, I look, I sit. By the window, I mouth, "Gracias!" What a kid.
He sees me looking, first for the park, now at my guide book. The park! We both stand at the same time. The stop is called Casa de Cultura. Deboarding together he asks, ¨¿Adònde va usted?¨ I tell him I'm going to the park, the parque el ejido. He points and steers me to my left, and I now have a guide. What a kid.
Park entrance, he reaches out his hand. "Hasta luego. . ." he says.
Hasta luego. . . Normally, luego never comes in such a case.
We leave each other, smiling. Several hours in the park and the rain, then even more hours in La Casa de Cultura, where I read every informational plaque in English and in Spanish, completely unware that the museum had closed when security guards escorted me out of the building. Ancient pottery and indigenous, artistic, phallic preoccupations. Second floor, colonial art. Christanity reaches the Andes, and now the preoccupation is santos, la virgen, and bleeding Christs. Walking outside, quite cold, and looking for coffee. I find it two blocks from El Parque el Ejido, north towards La Plaza Foch. Finishing my book, and two cups of coffee, I bawled when Madame Michel died. Always in never. . .
Luego tends to never happen. Running late, quick to the bus, I miss the one that's there already - barely. Waiting, waiting, there is the next one; barreling down the hill from the old city, headed uptown. Bus stops, drops the ramp, and I file in line. There, in front of me, ears plugged with white headphones. What kid? Is that the kid? Luego never happens in these situations. . . yet, and amazingly, luego is unfolding in the middle of rush hour in Ecuador's capital.
On the bus, we're up front again, both facing forward this time. Luego never happens, and it's happening, and I feel like there must be some significance to it. But how do I mark it? How to I take advantage of luego. I dig through my backpack, terribly upset that I don't carry an emergency statuette of Lady Liberty, or a pin of Elvis dancing, for such occasions. (As a proper tourist from the U.S. ought to do.) I wanted a recuerdo for what seemed to be like such a random, chance reconvergence of two completely separate lives. I find a bracelet at the bottom of my bag, twin to the one on my right wrist that I bought from a young, traveling, Otavalo artist on the bus from that city to Quito. He still doesn't see me.
I stepped forward when I saw that my stop was coming, Los Sauces, and I tapped on his hand that was grasping the rail in front of him. He looks at me, eyes realizing and turning to plates. We both smile as I hand him the bracelet. Such a smile, geniune and surreal, I say, "¿Que chance, que nos veamos en el bus y que luego pasara?" What are the chances we would run into each other on the bus, and that luego would happen?
The bus slows to my stop, and I have a sea of people to beg pardon around in order to reach the door. He reaches out his hand to shake mine, and that unrelenting smile gives way to, "Hasta luego."
Luego never comes in such a case, does it?

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Strange Bedfellows, Part I: Racism & Urination

The ayudante in charge of collecting fares and distributing tickets on our bus to Cuenca, from Quito, was not immediately friendly. We do, in fact, have a very special relationship that I'm sure will endure the inevitable waning of memory. This connection, strong and deep as it runs, centers around public urination and horses. Not the public urination of horses, mind you. . . no. These are two, distinct bonding moments that he (let's call him Don Quixote) and I share.

Hat on, book in tow, and eager to once again greet the Andes on my own, great metal-horse (hat-tip to Old Iron Ass) we boarded the bus in Quito and steeled ourselves for a ten-hour trip to Cuenca. Different, perhaps even lacking, emission standards ensured that for the first hour or so, getting out of the urban area, I would be granted dark wafts of exhaust and fumes. The street-art so popular in the city extends out of the city and into the afueras:

"Favor prohido orinar

Multa $200"

(Note, urinating prohibited. $200 fine.)

Not even thirty minutes after passing this thoughtful, public advisory, I had to pee. Very well acquainted with the anatomy of buses, I turn and look for a small door in the back, left part of the bus. It's there. Wonderful. I tap on the door separating us from the conductor y ayudante, and after a few frustrating minutes, he decided to see what I wanted.

¨Por favor, que usted abra la puerta del baño,¨ I say, asking him to unlock the door to the bathroom.

He looks at me for a few seconds, unenthused and considering his options. I didn´t realize we needed to consider our options, but hey, I´m patient.

¨To pee?" he asks.

"Yes. . . to pee," I respond. Come on, I'm a pro, dude - don't poop on buses, I've got this.

"Just wait. . . we'll be stopping in a bit," he decidedly responds, seeming pleased with this plan.

I return to my seat by Alexander. For anyone who might not know, Alexander is my former Spanish professor, otherwise known as Dr. Steffanell. My travel partner is intelligent, a master of well-timed responses, and quite clearly latino. Colombian, specifically. I recount my exchange with Don Quixote to him and he laughs.

Ten painful minutes later, our bus slows as we approach a checkpoint, leaving one province and entering another (or something similar). Once cleared, we pull forward through the toll-booth-like obstacle and over on the right side of the road, directly between the aforementioned checkpoint and a small roadside market. Each are about 20 meters from our bus, and traffic is buzzing by on four lanes of well-paved expressway. A hiss of air alerts me that the door is opening, and Don Quixote opens the door of his cabin, looks at me, and alerts me that if I need to pee I should deboard and do it on the side of the road. Really?

Never one to turn down a good whizz in nature, I'm nevertheless taken aback that there's a toilet on the bus, that he has a key for it, and that we're now stopping the entire vehicle to let me out on the road to pee. Not my culture, not my country, not my bus. . . I assent and stand on the side of the road with absolutely no cover, exposed to Ecuador in all my gringo-glory.

Now, you know those long, urinal-troughs at stadiums and arenas? The ones that are often filled with ice, and always with a long line of waiting bladders that have been pushed to the point of eruption for the sake of one more song? Or the game-winning goal at the buzzer? Well, I always freeze up at those things and can never actually achieve the relief I waited so long for. I always end up faking it, shaking it, and walking away with my head down - defeated.

This happened on the side of the road. I return to the bus, the only one who knows the truth, and still having to pee worse than ever before. I tell Alexander what happened, and he, fulfilling his duty as friend and travel companion, bursts into laughter. He has to pee soon, and now that we're moving again, he knocks on the door in front of us.

Don Quixote opens the door, looks at me, thinking I was the one who knocked. His expression was a bit salty, until he realized that Alexander was He-Who-Knocked.

"Me das la llave para el baño, por favor?" Alexander asks, requesting the key for the bathroom.

"Claro, caballero, te lo abro," Don Quixote replies.

What? Did he just. . .

"Of course, sir, I'll open it for you." I can't believe this. I'm right there, he knows I speak Spanish, and he had, mere minutes before, put me in quite an uncomfortable and unhelpful situation. Alexander looks at me, an infuriating blend of surprise and entertainment dripping from his grin.

I could slap them both, I swear.

 

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Juxtaposition in La Plaza Foch

For every viejita y chico walking around the plaza, I am ashamed to have been one more rejection in their entrepenureal pursuits. The reality is, however, that I don't always need gum, shoe shines, and cigarettes.

Several nights ago in the plaza Foch, one of the hip, trendy areas of Quito with great nightlife, I saw a small, hunched, indigenous woman laden with wares. In her right hand was a shoe-shining box, draped around her neck was a large tray filled with gum, cigarettes, and candies, and on her small, busy feet were shoes, the soles of which made her steps uneven and leaning. Her traditional attire was in sharp juxtaposition with the bustle of millenials surrounding her - happy hours and mochileros climbing out of taxis, adventure-appetites whetted for the pulse of a new place.

I find juxtaposition in many places, and the contrast between the hands that humans are dealt can be overwhelming to the point of wanting to crawl into a cave where I can forget my royal flush and use the cards for kindling instead. But this, of course, helps absolutely no one.

Yesterday I watched a mother, sitting and leaning on a lamp post in the plaza, send her daughter, who could not have been older than four years old, over to the patio of a cafe with cigarettes and gum. The girl was stubborn, a good sales-child, not taking the first five "no gracias" for an answer. Heatbreaking, absolutely, but a daily occurence here and one I'm completely inept and unsure about handling. Not my culture, not my country, not my city, but damnit. . .in a global family she is my hermanita.

I´m sorry, sister, but I´m not entirely sure what to do. . .¨no gracias, mi vida.. . no gracias.¨

 

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Madame Michou

The woman beside me in seat 27D stared with no sense of intrusion at my book, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, as I underlined a line I quite liked concerning tea and the ability of small, simple things to create large, transcendental moments. As I underlined these four lines, her head tilted more to one side and leaned in a bit, as though I had invited her to do this. Invite her I had not, and we hadn't even spoken, but I'm not one to interrupt a bit of meddling, and so I went on reading. Sometimes, her dark eyes would be shooting right angles into the side of my head as she blatantly stared at my profile.

Within moments of taking off (this particular plane's landing gear was shrill and loud, like a giant fly rod under far too much pressure, some behemoth running away and maxing out the drag) the red-eyed flight attendants handed us the necessary paperwork to enter Ecuador. Do you have more than 10,000 in goods? Are you carrying any livestock, plants, or other organic materials? I personally had two chickens and a bonsai tree, plus $10,001 in dollar bills. Customs was a nightmare.

Anyway, back to my curious, voyeuristic neighbor, who I had deduced must have some affinity for gringos in fisherman pants who read new-philosphy. I realized after a few minutes of filling in my passport number, my date of birth, my length of stay, etc., that neither of my neighbors were filling anything out. The attendants hadn't given anyone a pen, but anyone who knows me also knows that I carry 6 or 7 at all times. I hand one to the man on my right, at the window, who was quite upset that his tv monitor wasn't working. He took it and with a gracias. Madame Miradora, however, did not take the pen I offered her. Instead, in somewhat broken Spanish, she told me that she "didn't know". Didn't know that she had to fill it out? Didn't know that she needed a pen?

She didn't know how read.

I offered to fill out her information for her, and she humbly (far more humbly than I wish she had to) assented. I asked for her passport and began filling out the three forms - all of which ask mostly the same questions. Her Haitian passport gave me all I needed to fill it out, and when asking her if she too was carrying chickens and a bonsai tree, I tried to be quiet so as to not draw the attention of anyone arround us. After a few minutes, I marked an X on each spot she needed to sign, and she slowly and methodically traced Floresno Michou.

I didn't like the rest of the flight after that. She seemed uncomfortable and quit staring at me, which I would have preferred to the way she sunk into herself. It occurred to me all at once that I - as well as anyone reading this - ought to thank every star above (and by star I mean mothers, fathers, teachers, siblings, neighbors, or Mr. Frickin' Rogers) for our ability to maneuver in a world where letters open doors - sometimes doors to other countries. I have plenty of family who didn't read, or still doesn't read, and they're far smarter than I am in many, many ways. The pleasure and solace that I find, however, in stories, histories, and narratives is far too valuable to take for granted. This experience further cemented my desire to teach letters, literature, and writing. As well as my desire to write.

I bid Madame Michou adieu, and hope that she, too, enjoys her time in this new place - and that there might be someone beside her on her return flight for her to stare at, who might help her fill in the necessary blanks.

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