the Play

[original pic here]

My poetry
became a stripper.
every word's a spin,
every line's a show.

I gave it a $10.
then a $20.
then nothing at all...
the gentleman
next to me then gave it a $100.

My poetry
became a prostitute.
every metaphor's a moan
every rhyme's an extra charge.

I visited it once.
Then twice.
Then never again...
The bi-curious lady took a picture of it and left it by the night stand as she was getting dressed.

My poetry

became a photographer.
every theme's an angle,
every poem's a reflecting moment.

I let look at me it once.
I opened myself to it twice.
Then always:
conceptual shots
were always my thing.

My poetry
became an artist.
every change's meant to be,
every full stop's a comma.

I wrote like that often.
I felt it all even more often.
Then I collected
pieces thinking they made myself
whole.

Still Untitled

{pic here}
[find poem video in the end]

I've been meaning
to write a poem that
starts like this:
the best orgasms
I've ever had,
I gave them myself.

And another one that
somewhere in between this line
and that one
it would talk about how
wood can bend and how much of
Tolerance you've deforested

I've been really meaning
to edify such beautiful

sky-scrapper-poem

fearless and just... Real.

That would make
You
wonder things like
why do you abbreviate
such meaningful terms as
public display of affection
into something equivalent to
ASAP?

Seriously... how can you treat
love
like
Chinese food?

What I've been really
meaning to do is
come up on stage
and have you look
at me,
like you wanted
to find out why my poetry
is coming out of my mouth
like this.

so rare.

like I wanted you
to eat it, to digest
these uncooked emotions.

Speaking of rare emotions,
I've been really meaning
to finish that piece
that went this far:
"From a steamy window
I watch singular
couples
Open & Close their mouths
to Eat.

I hear what they say,
the clinking of silverware,
I feel what they feel,
Medium Rare Emotions.

Cloud Generator

I feel this massive...
this massive massiveness.

I slept for 9 point 30 hours.
I feel so insomniac.

I looked at myself in
the mirror when I slept walk
and swore to myself I would
not be like that anymore.
I swore to myself like
that actress
from that commercial.

I got 1/5 things
done today.
I'm assuming I should I include
1 as being alive.

A man in the subway
played the harmonica.
it reminded me of old days of
Alanis Morisette
but nobody gave a fuck.
and quite frankly,
neither did I.

I skipped Trance on my iPod.

I fantasized and I fantasized,
about her telling me over and
over again "you are so childish,
you are so immature..."

I swore when she said
"they are gonna pick you.
You and your design"

I felt this
massive...
massiveness of being
exactly who I had always
dreamed of.

So I dreamed about
about how my
poster saved the world and
about naked men that looked
and felt like women,
and it made me wonder...

when did you diverge?

when did you choose?

when did you stop choosing?

when did the massive become so massive
to the point that I don't feel it anymore?
to the point that I choose
to make it

so light

to make it

everything

to make it

myself.

aquela

[Sessão Baú - Revisitada]

Às vezes ela vestia regata pensando em camisa, mas mesmo assim a vestia. Assim, por comodidade. Inúmeras vezes comia sorvete pensando que deveria comer comida. Certamente era mais saudável! Ouvia rock quando o momento pedia clássica... e é aquela clássica História de que nem sequer escutamos a nos mesmos. Perdeu as contas de quantas vezes tocou bateria como se fosse piano e digo-lhes, não se pode bater nas teclas e nem sequer tocar as pontas dos dedos na caixa, nos tons, no bumbo e no surdo, acho que ela deveria mesmo ter ficado surda, pois jé não era a primeira vez que ouvia essa mesma historia e via os padrões se repetirem e fazia exatamente n-a-d-a para impedir...
eh... o problema eh quando beija os lábios alheios como se fossem os dela, dela, da ela, daquela... mulher.


[Picture by complejo ]

In finity

Libra

My hands are heavy
and tire-skin.

I carry that weight like
a Northeastern Brazilian woman:
strong to the very end, why?
I don't know, she doesn't either,
but we both are.

We accept the inevitable.
Nothing is permanent.
We accept it so well I start to wonder
if we have become
too wise
or too cold.

I carry that petulant pose of
a Paulistana who knows better
than fuckin' Wasteland Northeast:
overachiever, the way to be.

We accept nothing less than
perfection.
And when you deliver less,
well it's time for you to leave.

My hands are white
and porcelain-skin:
I doubt anyone's worth
of holding them.

Literary Asthma

.

.

.

.

[original pic here http://browse.deviantart.com/?q=choke&order=9&offset=168#/d2d462v - a little manipulated by me].

Death to the poet.

Half words in between

ashes of strangers'

sweat,

there,

lies her tomb.

The crumbling

cultured posed

falling off

a white horse,

its hair fluttering

with the breeze.

The poet has no air,

cum

Pale & in Absolute

porcelain.

The poet is dead.

Blood

until the color red

read finally dead.

One less poetential.

What's the use of sun

when it's always covered

on clouds?

Bulletproof

Start of conversations,
industrial beat,
words,
Gothic cathedrals
scrapping my dignity.

the strings are loosened
and tightened up
to my neck.

And I don't expect to feel regret from this.

My taste,
better,
your queers,
cheap imitation of reality.
My scream,
My cream,
better.

I don't expect to feel regret from this.

Your walk so pop,
your studded tongue,
your skin breaking leather,
where haven't you been?

Don't expect to feel regret from this.

My hair,
pulled,
you,
quenching and starving
twisting and knotting.

Expect to feel regret from this.

Down the throat
two or three pills,
full pupils = bulletproof.

Regret from this?

Criticisms burning
on the same pace as
your cigarette
and you're
careless with
the ash.

It's everywhere
regret.

The Corner Table: The Less Lonely

From a steamy window
I watch
singular couples
open & close their mouths.
To eat.

I hear what they say:
the clinking of silverware.
I feel what they feel:
medium rare emotions.

about a poet

it's said that a poet during abstinence periods embodies the persona of a blind. It's swallowing adrenaline from shot glasses when you're clearly not a drinker.

Nausea.

Dizziness.

Altered state.

Arrhythmia.

Control. And a new form of art is born.

Shuttle Bus

@ Grand Central

Where it's impossible
to avoid
time.
The cloth covers
a mini newsstand,
time for that
Indian to return to
Palace-High
(in the Bronx)

Why am I laughing?
I'm the one killing
time
side by side
hand in hand
with a forlorn
instead
of bed
(the officer: NO SLEEPING!)
(the bum, jumpy: yes, SIR!)
(me, I just looked up: I'm clearly NOT a bum, pig!).

I could have been,
in the last minutes
of a New York
to be missed
in bed.

But time's implacable.
The clock keeps
chopping.

I also had better to do:
I listened to music,
with no lights on.

She had better to do:
she was in bed.

Road Accident

My relation
. s h i p s.
to a one-way
highway
and I'm
driving to a
dead end.

My feelings
the pedal
at full speed,
your responses
the rusty
break
failing
corroding
any chance
of airbag.

Flat tire
a couple of
swerves
and two round
white lights:
C.r.A.Sh.

Love and Communication

My girlfriend:
Your next poem is this poem.

You’re selfish.
You’re incredulous.
You’re everything I wish I didn’t understand.
You’re everything I should run from and you inhabit my space.


Get the fuck out of my osmotic bubble flesh eating virus.


Selfish.



So selfish.


Start your poem. The last words to the end of mine.


I am dried up in the gaze that slashed and cripples my skin beneath this down comforter.




Fucking parasite.



AND WHEN YOU YOU YOU READ THIS….

It's not you.


It's not the form in which was meant for you YOU.

You are all of this and non of this because the problem…Watson.


It's this.

Im the mirror.

Myself:
I am the mirror.

But the reflection to it is shattered and makes me nervous.

The glass? You broke it yourself and you’re asking ME, ME to pick them up?
Darling, pick them up yourself, then we’ll talk.

Then I’ll really be incredulous to the idea that you cannot see.
Then I’ll be an atheist amongst all these people who can only follow and follow and numb and numb and run run run…

I ask myself if you don’t ever get tired of running… ‘cause I’m here looking around and I don’t see any medals, or trophies. But hey, it’s your high.


Poem

written in one fine punch in the stomach.

And I vomit nothing.

Too High to Title This

I dreamed that
I was high
and never woke up.

Bliss. At all times.
This dude walks up
to me, his facial
expressions are of
pure apathy:
“Raffaella, your
best friend died”.

I laughed.
Not because I thought
he was joking,
but just because.

I walked away
and cooked myself
scrambled eggs
on a 2-week
dirty pan.
Amusing is how
eggs fry and
have these tiny
little explosions
within.
It’s tragic but
inevitable, and
let’s be honest:
what’s tragic
is usually very,
very funny.

So I laughed
one more time.

As I sat down
to eat, while
pushing aside
piles of clothes
I barely recognized,
perhaps because
I’d forgotten to
do laundry or
because they were
strangers’, I stopped
to think if I hadn’t
to be somewhere
important, like work.
Not work, dumbass,
you’re dreaming,
you don’t work in
your dreams.

So I smiled because
I did not have to
work and I laughed
until my lower back
cramped at those who had
to work.

Ha.
Amazing.

I questioned,
like a good follower
of Descartes , if
I was dreaming or
was high or wishing so
bad I was high that
I had made myself believe it.
If the later, then I could
turn my thought into a religion!
Picture this slogan:
“Work your mind in
such high degree of
meditation to
reach the state of
Cannabiska”,
which would just be a
fancy Indian word for
“being high”.
Incredible.
I would be the
modern messiah.

So I laughed again,
and spent the rest
of what you people call time
laughing until I slept
and it all started again.

Emergency

Diagnosis:
Severe inexistence of any existence aggravated by chronic osmotic lethargy.

Prognosis:
Metastatic and illogical repetition of circular patterns.

Cause:
Death by caffeinated heart.

Resurrection:
Attempt #1: Corporal heating through human touch. Failed.
Attempt #2: Manual blood pumping on heart. Failed.
Attempt #3: Verbal encouragement by masking a shitty life with empty promises and hope. Failed.

Hour:
6:06 pm.

The Magician

keys
to my own
prison.

heavy,
in my pocket,
lethal,
to the definition
of home
on that book,
sitting on the
top
shelf.

the trashcan
gobbled them up.
(I starved for air)

repeating verbatim
of my broken years:
It’s anywhere
and everywhere
and I found it
nowhere.

Mrs. LockSmith
across the street
was touched,
she said she never met
someone who could break
into so many locks like me:
with no particular
Key.

I lacked in keys,
I lacked in better references,
I lacked in height to reach
still I entered
still I understood
still I looked from above.

Hairdresser

I combed my
twisted hair,
hoping to
unknot
my thoughts.

But my image
reflected on the
mirror
had never
been this dead before.

Religion Class, Fall, 2009

The strangest of the strange's eyes. Pure mystery. Do you feel? What's so small in my day? Should I excommunicate it? When the lady at the coffee shop asks me with

l••••••••o•••••n•••••g

pauses

how am I doing? I see tired in the mirror of her eyes, is it her or me? Her night job is piercing artist. Her words, gage 6 in the drums of my ears, please. Wake me up to the real question, and that is "How am I doing?" I take

l••••••••o•••••n•••••g

pauses

as well. To breathe.

Her hands were light, I barely felt them through my skin. I am bleeding. Normal. I smile. A monochromatic type of smile, followed by some nodding "How are you, dear?". She doesn't hesitate, her answer was not automated although she held a Glock to my head and shot me: "as good as only I want to be". Seriously... is it just me or are you all also noticing the message she has just delivered to me?! Was she also a mailman?

Then I gulp down my hot coffee. Shot of reality (stop overthinking). A brownish stream of artificial sugar mingled with (can you just drink your coffee??!) soy that is transformed into milk (oh my God, this is FASCINATING) swimming in my stomach?

Remember when I put 5 packs of sweetener in your coffee and you nearly spitted the whole thing at me? But you contained yourself (I need to contain myself). I had that jacket on that you love and you praise my looks a lot. You would never dare to stain my clothes. You become what you look like, no shit your eyeliner always looked perfect. Take me for a ride? You're an excellent rider. You pull back on the reins of intensity and shift your weight to the back of the saddle so we can both just be.

The smell of coffee with soy milk invaded my nostrils (another hit of reality), like some Mexican bastard trying to break into the border. I don't know Mexican boy if I can let you in. I'm Argentinean, I know I should, I understand how decadent you are, but I know nothing of brotherhood. I was the only child. Plus, my remote French descent despises your lack of refinement.

A kid is swinging her feet across from me. Kids always want to know and kids always ask why but they never overthink. When I was a kid there was no overthinking about how coffee smelled like. My mom made me the best coffee yeah, my underdeveloped childhood was great. I went to bed craving to wake up and have that coffee in the morning with bacon and eggs I don't know why I love so much when the train is rocking left and right, left and right. I don't know why my mom stopped making such good coffee. I don't know why she always left me 4 or 5 extras packs of sweetener (did she think I grew bitter?). Incredible, there used to be an appetite for breakfast living in my belly. Nowadays I can't take much more than just coffee. Abortion of appetite.

STOP.

The train is pregnant of me.

I need to be born.

Was I ready for it?

Would it love me?

Would it just abort me...?

People in the waiting room might just leave. This labor has been lingering. I haven't worn a watch for years and years but I understand time. Whenever I dare to look at the clock it challenges me with peculiar times like 10:10 or 5:05 or 3:33, 7:07... numbers are so cold but these ones grinned at me. They wanted to fuck with me, that's for sure. I always miss 11:11 though. That was her favorite time. And I always missed it. Guess it means I will always miss her. I have always missed her.

You tell me again, what's so small in my life? Should I excommunicate it?!

Would you?

Ignore God?

You believe in something big. I believe in the small and I'm his biggest devotee.

Stand Clear of the Closing Doors

The ambience

is muted,

the vision is

perplexed,

there is no

blinking

on this rocking train.

It does it feather-softly,

it dances a

false

valse,

and I remain,

muted,

perplexed,

unblinked.

Lead my way blinding trust...

Bring me my voice

fuckin' falsetto.

A piano in the

background

where you have

neither my

back nor my

g r o u n d.

A childish melody,

solo piece,

a frustrated

symphony

from finger-long hands.

And that's all you have:

long fingers,

lack of talent.

On the rocking train

we forget

and fall asleep on

one another

(so against the rules).

A blink from me

and you're gone

(just following the rules).

Prozaic Poetry

[Yes, prozaic with "z" ;)]

Why do I keep

coming to these

open mic poetry nights thing?

It's pathetic

how lonely my poems

feel laying down on the

yellowish ruled pages of my Moleskine.

It's just pathetic

how the ink wants

to bleed its way out

of these

yellowish ruled pages of my Moleskine.

Is it really just

my poetry,

product of the void

eating my little humanity alive?

Or is it its author

laying bare naked

on top of these

cold lines from the

yellowish ruled pages of my Moleskine?

Do you really

want to know

why

I keep

coming to these

open mic poetry nights thing?

Dear?

God?

You know how people

go to bars, get a little drunk,

expect a beautiful, tall,

blond, blue-eyed, intelligent,

complex but not complicated,

very affectionate,

wild but not crazy girl,

between the age of

24 and 30,

preferably Aries, Aquarius,

Leo or Sagittarius

to sit next to them,

be in the same wavelength,

talk, laugh, challenge,

perhaps slightly touch,

pretend that it's too loud,

she can't hear them, so she

has to get closer.

And all of this in the

amount of time it takes you

to finish your favorite drink?

Well, that's what I do at

open mic poetry nights thing.

I drink poetry,

I get girls drunk

with my poems,

I talk, I make them laugh,

I challenge them,

I touch them, and it's not

just slightly touch.

I pretend like nobody else does

that it's-too-loud-I-can't-hear-you deal,

so I have

to get closer, I have to

make them feel the warm

air coming out of my

poetic mouth:

I take them home,

I make love, this is why

I'm a poet;

they fuck, this is why

they are just girls.

I feel metaphors

crawling up and down my

spine, there are rhymes

coming in, coming out,

in and out.

In. Out.

Beautiful.

The last stanza

and the climax.

That's what I tell myself.

That it was poetic...

how I turned the lamp off,

how all that remained was

the dull light of a cheap neon

sign reflected on my window.

And you dare to fuckin'

ask me why I keep coming to these

open mic poetry nights thing??

You fuckin' heartless prick,

I keep coming back

because I have not yet found love.