modern lady macbeth

we bathe in crispy-white bathrooms,
scrubbed-white bathtubs,
in order to feel clean.

we dine in pretty-white plates,
leaned against very-white tablecloths,
smoked plain-white cigarettes
between sparkly-white teeth.

waiters in washed-white aprons
clean our ashed-white ashtrays
so we can feel clean.

and we do (for a moment).
leaned against painted-white walls,
looking through paned-white windows
hoping for the rain
to wash our not-so-white sins.

but our pale-white hands,
stained with red blood...
they may rest all they want
in bleached-white pillows,
in white-dyed sheets...

those will never, ever
feel a white-cleansing,
water-washing of their sins.

do tempo biológico

não guardo minhas memórias como a maioria das pessoas, por blocos de eventos, como álbuns de fotos. não me lembro se aquele outro dia foi sábado ou domingo, este ano ou o passado. não há ordem cronológica nem linha reta, marcada por traços que dizem se é 1987 ou 2009. lembro-me pouco da minha infância, muito menos do que as outras pessoas conta-me. debulham detalhes de experiências, de momentos. lembro-me de alguns momentos carinhos e de alguns traumas, nada mais além. não foi uma infância infeliz, antes que me falem, foi muito feliz e normal. mas foi no passado. não posso dizer-lhe se troquei carícias íntimas com alguém aos 15 ou 16 anos - pois não foram traumáticas nem memoráveis. apenas foram. não lembro nomes, alguns rostos. mal me lembro de situações trágicas. não recordo emoções senão as de hoje, nenhum ódio em discussão acirrada, nenhum choro de depressão profunda. lembro-me de hoje, de atravessar o sinal. lembro-me do presente de agora e do passado próximo de um minuto atrás. mais provável que lembrarei do próximo minuto que virá assim que este virar passado, esquecendo-me então do minuto que citei a pouco, da emoção que motivava-me a escrever há um minuto atrás. não guardo o tempo em mim.

south-side of nowhere

And then we ran away. We ran away like roaches run away from a large shoe, like insects escaping from rolled newspapers, we ran away, crossing the streets, almost getting hit by buses. Every single one of us had a scared look on their faces. Except, maybe, for Mario. Mario wasn’t one that got desperate looks on his face for such small things.

So we crossed, like a hive of black flies, and scattered around, into the small streets of the city, some of us to the left, some others to the right, inside alleys now starting do darken. I held Mario’s hand in fear and adrenaline, yet, once again, his face did not change. As previously stated, Mario’s face wasn’t one to change for such trivial things.

The streets seemed empty now, no one was after us. The weather wasn’t looking good, with a sky full of grey, heavy clouds, announcing a big downpour on top of our heads. Still, even with the menace of rain just minutes away from us, the heat did not dim a single degree, like the sun burned as hot as usual on our sweaty necks.

The heat was always the same in Mexico City. It wasn’t a pretty city already, see, and the heat made fumes of the garbage like in no other place. The whole placed smell like rotten, sweat, cheap beer, jalapeños and other foods. Yet, I have learned to love the spicy smells of Mexico, the ones that make the other gringos’ noses cringe.

At that exact alley where I was standing, we could only sense the burning vapors of stuffed onions, big large purple onions stuffed with chorizo, peppers, eggs and garlic. And sauce, lot of spicy, thick sauce, like chili. At first, it wasn’t very appealing to the eyes, since it looked like a big pile of brown mush stuffed into a purple-brownish bucket… still, it was good. Very fragrant also, so I was happy to be standing next to it. And it was cheap, most importantly. I bought one to myself, Mario didn’t want any. I guess that, since he is a Mexican, he doesn’t get the exotic, Kerouacist feeling that I get when I eat the street foods. Also, he was much more annoyed by diarrhea than I was.

Still, this little bucket of spices was hard to swallow, and hot, so I decided to wash it down with some cold cheap Mexican beer. And that is what I like the most about Mexico. One could be a total pauper and still not starve nor get sober for a single day while having a few centavos. With a hundred pesos or a few dollars, one could easily eat, drink an sleep like a third world king of everything.

So I entered the closest bar, the crummiest one on that whole street. This wasn’t a bar for the Yankees, a bar with tacos and sombreros. This one was a badly lit, barely clean bar, so small it only fit a few, 5 sitting on high stools over the counter, and others scattered, smoking with their large mustaches, leaned against brick walls.

I sat at the very last stool, placed mi cebolla on the counter and asked for dos cervezas. Ever since I stepped inside the bar, all eyes turned to me and seemed pinned to my body, like a butterfly to a frame. The thing around here, see, is not that foreigners are not welcome – we are just weird. Of course, some of them had prejudice against our looks, but I was so in rags as most of them were. I was dirty, holding cheap-ass onion in my hand, asking for the cheapest beer possible.

Most of the people inside were bricklayers, from the constructions here and there. Their bosses were rich Americans, white collars that did not care to learn their language. I, myself, could not understand nor communicate much in Spanish, still, I was different – I was poor. Therefore, in the same way, I was just like the others. There were the eventual prostitutes too. So, we didn’t bother each other, and there was peace. That was one other thing I liked about Mexico City: no one seemed to care. Of course, strange looks were thrown here and there, yet no words were spoken, no whispers were heard: you could be white, a beggar, a fag. No one cared, no one bothered.

If one was bothered, he would have his motives. And if he was really bothered, he would not scream – just shoot or stab the hijo de puta in the stomach, let him die on the gutter, melting and amalgamating to the trash, blood to the red dust like the rest of the thing laying on the sidewalks and streets.

I paid for my beer with coins and washed it down. It was so cold so cold, so delicious, it was liquid heaven, as it went down my throat slowly, washing the delicious-yet-cruel pepper sauces and spices. I quickly finished it, and asked for another, asked for a pack of mexican cigarillos and there, gulped down the liquid in one breath, engulfed in the heavy cloud of smoke. Mario didn't look very amused to be among the sweaty masons - indeed, the poverty that emanated from their drunken pores was disconcerting... Still, I was not bothered.

I was in Mexico, I had no home, I had no one. Nothing could bother me.

work is a four letter word

poet,
work
hard
your
word.

bard,
show
them
your
poem,
more
hand,
more
mind.

work
your
word.
word
your
work,
earn
your
song
with
self
work,
self
soul.

dont
drop
down.

the smell of the sea

salty
arms and legs.
tattoos,
like crusts
of rust
on ship's hulls,
that tell stories
of long lost seas
down at the Pacific tides.

oh captain oh captain
so long
since I last saw you.
oh sailor, oh sailor,
where is your anchor at?

At least I had shrimp cocktails

"It's one of those Gatsby parties", she told me with an air of delight that would be cute if she wasn't a little bit too old (as old people tend to be ridiculous when trying to be cute).

"Yeah. Such a pretty house.", I agreed.

And the house was indeed pretty. Very high ceiling for an apartment, a set of cool stairs that would go to the best bathroom and bedroom if the duplex. The apartment belonged to a man of the arts, a painter or some other source of pretentious shit like this - I barely knew who he was, wouldn't even have heard of this man if his name wasn't published on some over hyped, overrated magazine these kids like these days.

So, this article that published his name didn't publish his picture, so I had no fucking idea how this guy looked like. I only knew he was throwing an open-house party and his apartment was cool. Anyway, high ceiling, stairs. the living room was huge, separated in two ambiances by a wall with a humongous fish tank in the middle. The light was good and a dilettante photographer took pictures of everything.

That's why I hate dilettante photographers - living in their misery, they never hang around pretty places on the inside, living forever of the dirty houses that they and their friends live at, the crummy apartments where they share afternoons and the outside world - because it's free. Yeah yeah, damn poor aspiring photographs - always on the outside - we are truly tired of your photos of the city streets and of your macros of every-fucking-thing. Get a real job or starve to death already.

Anyway, the photographer took pictures and I probably wouldn't look good in the blue fishing-tank light, but I sticked around anyway. That was when the old girl made the useless reference that started this report.

See, she wasn't really old, she was just hype. Heavy make-up, sparkling clothes - apparently, all colors are the new black. I just can't understand. Maybe I've been in the house too long, maybe the writers are just tacky - we truly don't know anything about fashion, do we? But fuck this, as a human being, I have the right to my opinion, and all these colors fucking hurt my eyes.

The make-up made her face plastered like cement, and she had that dull eyes of people on coke. I am a little bit drunk too, must say. Free booze, an open house. free food. Free booze. Booze. Why the fuck wouldn't i be drunk? Anyhow, I cringed in the need for a cigarette. Party crasher as I was, I didn't bring any with me. I made a comment to the ridiculous girl:

"I really could use a cig right now, ya know?", while I looked at the sides to see if any smoking was rising from the sofas or the corners of the kitchen.

But then, as I looked at her side, she was handing me a cigarette that she had produced out of thin air. She took the first smoke, in a half-sexy smile, that would have been sexy if she wasn't a little bit bucktoothed. She proceeded talking and talking about crap I didn't care about, and I didn't answer, just nodded, hypnotized by her ugly teeth and all that booze coming up to my brain.

She looked less ridiculous as I kept drinking, so, why the fuck not? I drank more. up to one point, I didn't even nod anymore. And, apparently, not nodding an being in half-comatose state makes you a good listener, what makes the women talk even more. The more she talked, the more I drank and vice-versa, so it was a never ending roller coaster.

Up to one moment in the night - I can't clearly remember when - bucktoothed girl was gone, talking to some wannabe beatnik tall skinny guy. Gosh, he is so skinny he is completely vertical. There is nothing horizontal on this guy, like a skyscraper.

And the dilettante photographer was in the background, evidently too gay to function, taking pictures of the table with food, beer cans, and cigarette fags on coffee cups. Damn poor starved motherfucker, taking more uninteresting pictures of macros of food, probably because he can't really eat.

Anyway, I hadn't seen the host yet. i came to this guy house, drank his beer, ate his food and would probably steal something to take back as a memento (that would probably end up smashed against a trashcan in a corner or other) and still haven't seen the guy's face. I remember someone saying he was German, and that if you talked to a hole on the wall next to the sofa, the sound would come to his ears on his study room.

Bullshit. if that indeed happened, the German bullshitter would already be death. This alleged hole was one of his artistic creations. The whole apartment was. It was pretty, i couldn't deny, but he ruined this with the excess of people and artsy-art crap.

But who am i to say? I am eating shrimp like there is no tomorrow, in my Nike sneakers and gray sweater, for free. Yet, I want to see the German's face, maybe smash a beer bottle on his head and call him bullshitting-bullshitter for all this crap he calls art - I am feeling a little violent because of the beer.

But instead, nature calls. I go to the upstairs bathroom because the downstairs one had become a conference room where two alternative girls are kissing for an uninterested audience too high on marijuana at a narguilé, sitting as Indians - all this with the fucking closed doors. I don't understand why... they don't want us to see them, disturb them? Shame, since we can all see through the barely tinted windows they are calling doors.

So, I go upstairs. the bathroom is indeed a paradise. I kick a guy asleep to the outside, I sit by the toilet - no fucking way I could get the piss into the bowl because of how drunk I am - since I am too cool of a guy to eat and drink for free and still piss all over the German bullshitter's bathroom. It is pretty sweet up here. I relax on the toilet, letting the yellow warm lights sink in... Then, startled by laughter, I end up jumping from my throne and pissing the rug anyway.

I open the shower curtains and there is a fag and a dyke lying against each other, laughing of the scare they gave me. f-u-c-k-i-n-g assholes. I grab the cigarette on one of their hands - I can't really tell one from the other, since they both look like boys that look like girls, wasup with these haircuts? - and take a long drag. And then out it out on one of their heads full of hairs - once again can't tell one from the other, since they both screamed like boys that sound like girls. The injured one opened the shower, making the bathtub a pool of cigarette fags and ashes.

The poor white rug is now a filthy ashtray. Fucking nasty. the other thing goes down the stairs, screaming that there is a lunatic on the bathroom, a pyromaniac, these sort of shit. I am still laughing, these was really good. A troglodyte comes up to take me downstairs and throw me out on the street.

As we pass the poolside, people look at me weird. The troglodyte had the decency to put me down on the floor,Ii grab another cocktail from a plastic cup on someone's hand and drink it, replace it with a stolen beer bottle - if I am going, then man, gotta enjoy those last minutes - and the guy dislikes it.

He pushes me around, reclaiming his beer back.

*CRASH*

Bottle to the head.

*SPLASH*

Body in the pool. Open head in the pool.

The water becomes red. Such a shame the German bullshitter isn't down here to see it. I hope he is observing from upstairs because, holy mother of god, isn't this looking fucking artsy?

I hope the asshole doesn't steal my idea. Fucking Gatsby party.

na falta do que fazer, vá para o kongregate

tem pontos lá. pontos imaginários, mas que ajudam a auto-estima. provavelmente, agora, estou lá. (ps. isso é um link)

uneasy angels

i slept with my heavy clothes on so i would believe that the sweat would clean me; soul cleanser, the smell of sinful skin on the sheets, like somebody laid a hot brick on top of the pillow, like i could, by some sort of ancient medicine, have cured my ill-tempered soul, like a prosaic technique would have freed me from my sorrow and despair, of my disappointment, like i would sweat it all away, and leave it stuck on the heavy cotton, wash them away on the washing machine like all the mundane dirtiness. like it would have made me feel better.

it didn't.