I was late to my good-bye party,
and when I looked at you looking at me
I saw your hurt, and shame, and sadness
mixed with the confusion of the night,
the people drinking, looking at us,
looking at her, who walked in with me.
She might as well have been a cyborg terrorist,
or a goddess climbing down the ladders of the heavens,
or a murder scene.
Everybody was terrified;
I made a cocktail.
Eros Station
Remember when I bought that old copy
of Haroun and the Sea of Stories
from a Muslim clerk
at the Super Antique Shoppe?
The poor girl kept looking at me
like it was five more minutes
to twenty credits an hour
or the end of the world.
Of course, she took her chances
with the apocalypse.
Who wouldn't those days?
I'm thinking that, perhaps,
I did the same thing
she did
the day I left you waiting
in the hangar
with your mouth open.
But, in retrospect,
it was really too late for us.
It had gone to shit
too many times,
and the biblical ending
was more romantic
than a thank you blow.
I was selfish,
but I thought it was my turn to be,
and it turned out not one of us
was willing to sacrifice
the extra shuttle fee
for an uncomfortable seat
back to Eros Station.
of Haroun and the Sea of Stories
from a Muslim clerk
at the Super Antique Shoppe?
The poor girl kept looking at me
like it was five more minutes
to twenty credits an hour
or the end of the world.
Of course, she took her chances
with the apocalypse.
Who wouldn't those days?
I'm thinking that, perhaps,
I did the same thing
she did
the day I left you waiting
in the hangar
with your mouth open.
But, in retrospect,
it was really too late for us.
It had gone to shit
too many times,
and the biblical ending
was more romantic
than a thank you blow.
I was selfish,
but I thought it was my turn to be,
and it turned out not one of us
was willing to sacrifice
the extra shuttle fee
for an uncomfortable seat
back to Eros Station.
Windowed eyes
Sometimes I dream that I
can draw your likeness
on the window pane
as I stare at Ligeia Mare
and you come alive
softly through the glass.
When in the dreams I trace
these almond shapes upon your face
I feel a bridge between
my broken chest and Titan.
Just then,
your stare is like a poem
reading my own eyes.
You wink and we float down
with wing-like lashes
to surf the methane lakes.
Nothing is said,
your irises whisper.
But in the waking hours
when I really draw your eyes
looking at me,
my reflection breaks
and the canyon-cracked moon
badly compliments your outline.
And, nothing is said
upon reaching the dark side
when the humidity
streaks your pupils
in a cry,
until all I can see
is my breath
and then the
blurring, dark
vacuum of space.
can draw your likeness
on the window pane
as I stare at Ligeia Mare
and you come alive
softly through the glass.
When in the dreams I trace
these almond shapes upon your face
I feel a bridge between
my broken chest and Titan.
Just then,
your stare is like a poem
reading my own eyes.
You wink and we float down
with wing-like lashes
to surf the methane lakes.
Nothing is said,
your irises whisper.
But in the waking hours
when I really draw your eyes
looking at me,
my reflection breaks
and the canyon-cracked moon
badly compliments your outline.
And, nothing is said
upon reaching the dark side
when the humidity
streaks your pupils
in a cry,
until all I can see
is my breath
and then the
blurring, dark
vacuum of space.
Our first revolution
When space was giving birth
to the stars for the first time
I saw you there, playing with
a fireball that glowed
in a color yet to be defined
by a spectrum.
You looked at me looking at you
and you fumbled the orb
into the darkness;
it zipped out the spiral
with the rest,
a simulacrum.
You made an effort to smile
without a mouth,
without a body, really,
without mass,
but I understood your energy
like I had before and after.
I extended my arm without an arm,
without the muscles needed to extend an arm,
and with what I thought was a reflection
of your smile;
I asked you to dance
with me
as the beginning was beginning
in an orchestra of light.
You told me shyly
that you didn't know how to,
and I understood
because the explosions had no sound.
But, you didn't let go of me
and I thought that was the first sign,
before language and love.
I pulled you into my gravity,
and our dance was
the first revolution
around the point
where everything was,
where everything again will be.
And as the dance floor
was clearing and expanding
you smiled again that smile
and you became comets
and planets,
satellites and stars...
and, before I too transformed,
I knew I would dance
with you again
at the end like the beginning.
to the stars for the first time
I saw you there, playing with
a fireball that glowed
in a color yet to be defined
by a spectrum.
You looked at me looking at you
and you fumbled the orb
into the darkness;
it zipped out the spiral
with the rest,
a simulacrum.
You made an effort to smile
without a mouth,
without a body, really,
without mass,
but I understood your energy
like I had before and after.
I extended my arm without an arm,
without the muscles needed to extend an arm,
and with what I thought was a reflection
of your smile;
I asked you to dance
with me
as the beginning was beginning
in an orchestra of light.
You told me shyly
that you didn't know how to,
and I understood
because the explosions had no sound.
But, you didn't let go of me
and I thought that was the first sign,
before language and love.
I pulled you into my gravity,
and our dance was
the first revolution
around the point
where everything was,
where everything again will be.
And as the dance floor
was clearing and expanding
you smiled again that smile
and you became comets
and planets,
satellites and stars...
and, before I too transformed,
I knew I would dance
with you again
at the end like the beginning.
Poetherapy
Doc says it should be genuine,
like a confession
before death.
But, I tell him I got no one,
and the walls are inspiration
for hospital gowns
and crazy fucks
that rant about voices,
resurrections,
grandiose escape plans,
and innocence.
I tell Doc I don't need therapy,
unlike them I know I'm guilty.
I know I'm here because it's right,
I meant to kill you that night.
Still, Doc says a poem is 1 of 10,000 roads to run away...
...and I told him that just made me think he's never
judged as wrong as I,
nor sentenced as right
for all his crimes.
He was confused.
I said, "You see, I want to be here,
because in this reality she's dead
and I have pulled the trigger,
and there are no escape pods to run to,
no rhyme that can unmake it,
no pardon,
just regret and empty space,
a moon with toxic methane."
He said to write you anyway,
like you would write a ghost one day.
So, I dedicate this to the wind
that was left after you left
with the smell
of blood and flesh
tangled in your perfume,
and to the chlorine
the guards use to clean
this haunted cell.
like a confession
before death.
But, I tell him I got no one,
and the walls are inspiration
for hospital gowns
and crazy fucks
that rant about voices,
resurrections,
grandiose escape plans,
and innocence.
I tell Doc I don't need therapy,
unlike them I know I'm guilty.
I know I'm here because it's right,
I meant to kill you that night.
Still, Doc says a poem is 1 of 10,000 roads to run away...
...and I told him that just made me think he's never
judged as wrong as I,
nor sentenced as right
for all his crimes.
He was confused.
I said, "You see, I want to be here,
because in this reality she's dead
and I have pulled the trigger,
and there are no escape pods to run to,
no rhyme that can unmake it,
no pardon,
just regret and empty space,
a moon with toxic methane."
He said to write you anyway,
like you would write a ghost one day.
So, I dedicate this to the wind
that was left after you left
with the smell
of blood and flesh
tangled in your perfume,
and to the chlorine
the guards use to clean
this haunted cell.
The lonely planet
I remember still when you said to me that Saturn was a lonely planet.
I had found an old digital telescope in my grandfather's apartment,
it was an excuse to invite you to walk with me the desert night,
and to wish upon the stars like actors do in holo-vision.
I didn't know then you knew more about the future
than those mythical time bandits
in permanent lockdown
the old timers talk about
in the commons.
The truth, some rumors say, is that they're really cyborg-terrorists.
You know, the ones that bombed the memorial
at the Lunar landing.
Such an unsignificant crime
and such an inhumane punishment.
They say they disassembled
all their robot parts
and placed the rest in cryogenic chambers,
after performing the memscans
that involved them in future acts of terror.
If you ask me,
pre-emptive profiling
is the only error,
the only time crime.
Anyway, yes, I feel terribly alone
as we go around this salty ice-ball.
But I'm still whole,
and my spirit still remembers
as I gaze upon that planet
with a strangely joyful sadness.
Soneto de amor #1
Amo cada gramo de esa estrella azul
que te compone el brillo de tus ojos
y que nutre el calcio de tus huesos
y dientes coqueteando en tu sonrisa.
Otra estrella celosa se imagina
ser parte de tu cuerpo, de tu luz
que vela en esta celda blanca y fría,
semejar los recuerdos de tus besos.
Sin embargo, veo en todas partes tu belleza:
a través de la transparencia, los anillos
como tus piernas formando curvas místicas
de un polvo fino y suave, excitado por dedos
gravitacionales de estas lunas que orbitamos.
Y así, palpo el fuego de tu forma en fantasías.
que te compone el brillo de tus ojos
y que nutre el calcio de tus huesos
y dientes coqueteando en tu sonrisa.
Otra estrella celosa se imagina
ser parte de tu cuerpo, de tu luz
que vela en esta celda blanca y fría,
semejar los recuerdos de tus besos.
Sin embargo, veo en todas partes tu belleza:
a través de la transparencia, los anillos
como tus piernas formando curvas místicas
de un polvo fino y suave, excitado por dedos
gravitacionales de estas lunas que orbitamos.
Y así, palpo el fuego de tu forma en fantasías.
Your fading projection
The first few days I sat, clicked-on-and-off
the holo lens,
and stared at the ticker
on the short wall
opposite the door,
which was adjusted
to countdown the seconds
of my sentence in Earth time.
You appeared and disappeared;
a lovely apparition,
an intermittent phantom of delight
flickering with the draining battery.
It was a day at a Summer
Michigan lake beach,
of frolicking bare feet
splashing muddled foam,
and running dogs,
and a wedding at a distance.
Dancing shapes carried slices
of watermelon under the Sun,
and sandpipers pecked
by a trash can.
Sometimes I shed tears
in sadness,
that would be unexpectedly mixed
with the transient sorrows
of hunger and lack of sleep.
Now, I see with eye serene
the pulse of the machine
as it struggles to flash
the empty charge warning.
Your image nobly travels
to the place of ghosts.
the holo lens,
and stared at the ticker
on the short wall
opposite the door,
which was adjusted
to countdown the seconds
of my sentence in Earth time.
You appeared and disappeared;
a lovely apparition,
an intermittent phantom of delight
flickering with the draining battery.
It was a day at a Summer
Michigan lake beach,
of frolicking bare feet
splashing muddled foam,
and running dogs,
and a wedding at a distance.
Dancing shapes carried slices
of watermelon under the Sun,
and sandpipers pecked
by a trash can.
Sometimes I shed tears
in sadness,
that would be unexpectedly mixed
with the transient sorrows
of hunger and lack of sleep.
Now, I see with eye serene
the pulse of the machine
as it struggles to flash
the empty charge warning.
Your image nobly travels
to the place of ghosts.
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