Randomly Ray

My Flash Fiction

2012-01-24T10:19:00.000-08:00

Clever Magazine online has just published three of my flash fiction pieces:
4th Arrondisement
Petals
and Freddie

Enjoy!

New Story

2012-01-14T19:23:00.000-08:00

A new story loosely based on Truman Capote's "A Christmas Memory:"

We go through life carrying 2 bags: Time and Money
—Mona Howard, quoted by Jeanette Winterson

The keeper of the time is blind
-Stevie Nicks

I used to dream that
You were an angel
You were an angel
And I was a starving child
-Stevie Nicks

Pierrot
There are three things in life you can never have enough of:
Money…
Time…
And love.

Money is earned.
Time is lost
And love?
You have to give it away.

It was the first snowfall. One week before Christmas on my sister’s birthday. I sent a text to wish her well.

It was the first snowfall—just three inches, but it covered the ground. White like hope, white like death. I watched from our window—the Advent calendar right before me on the credenza. I opened the new window. It was Melik, the monk and juggler who made the Christ child laugh.

My sister responded: “I’m going 2 be a grandma again! How’s that 4 a birthday present? Luv U.”

Then grandma called. It was her weekly appointment at the beauty shop and she needed to pick up a few last things besides. “Your Uncle David really needs a razor,” she said, “He really needs a shave. Which reminds me. You need a haircut while we’re at the beauty shop. Ruby always does such a nice job with your hair. And you be sure and tip her.”

“Yes, Grandma.”

I walked into the kitchen, passed the end table lined with bottles of pills—pills for pain, pills for sleep, pills for her heart. Passed the table lined with family photos—my aunt and uncle in a family portrait; my cousin’s baby picture the day she was born; Pop and Nan, who I never knew except from the picture that was always there. The picture was taken on the day they married. Pop was a soldier and Nan was a soldier’s girl and the great-grandma I never knew. Just like Grandpa was a soldier and Grandma was a soldier’s girl.

Next to that was a picture of my uncle and his wife on their wedding day.
Funny how the pictures all look the same.

I passed the stereo that has always been there and those old 45’s that have always been there and had dust on them that was older than I am.
Grandma was standing at the stove, stirring a pot of chili. “It needs something,” she said, handing me a spoon.
I tasted. “Tomato….onions….pepper,” I suggested.
“Smart ass,” she said, “You wanna make it yourself?”
“I’m just sayin’” I said, “And you asked.”
“I didn’t ask anything,” she said, “I just said it needed something. If I wanted your opinion, I would’ve asked.”

We ate bowels of piping hot chili. With ketchup added in for flavor.
“It’ll do,” she said.

Then I took her to the beauty shop.
“Lord,” she said,” they must’ve followed a snake when they paved this road.”
We drove her car—a rusted, dilapidated old grey Ford. I got out and shut the door which was about to fall off.
“Well, lock it,” she said, “I wouldn’t anybody to steal this jewel.”

I let Ruby cut my hair like Grandma said. “You know your grandma gave my Rudy his first job?” Ruby asked again, “She did,” she said, “She kept that boy on the straight and narrow.”

I listened to the ladies gossip as Ruby cut my hair. There was one woman—Emmy Something-or-Other—who the women in the beauty shop despised for no other apparent reason than her youth and opportunity.
“That woman is so full of shit,” Grandma confided in a whisper, “It’s a miracle she can walk.”

I tipped Miss Ruby (with pleasure) and we went on our way, Christmas shopping. Leather wallets for the boys, perfume for the girls, a pair of gloves and a book for me.
“You don’t have to get me anything,” I told her every year. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
But she did.

It was Christmas Eve. Just before Midnight Mass. Grandma was making more fudge in the kitchen. She couldn’t afford presents that year, not that she ever could—Christmas was always on credit. Leather wallets for the boys, perfume for the girls, a pair of gloves and a book for me.

She made hot chocolate, “The way my mom used to make it,” she told me every year. It’s a Wonderful Life on the T.V.
She bought a few last things at the corner drugstore where I used to work. Promised Stefanie chicken and greens for dinner the next day.
I gave her a present—a clown dressed all in black and white. “You didn’t have to get me anything,” she told me every year, but I did. “You don’t have to worry about me,” she said.
But I did.

The year passed, days filled with school and work, learning and teaching and making something of myself.
“What is that you read, sir?”
“Words, words, words.”
The year passed and she was gone and you were gone.
“What is it you read, sir?”
“Words, words, words.”

There were days when she couldn’t remember my name. When my aunt arrived from California she introduced me to her as if we were strangers. There days when she couldn’t forget.

On the night she died her nails were done, her hair was combed and brushed, she wore a silk gown and had a diamond ring on her finger. If she was going to meet her maker, she was going to be dressed for the occasion.

Her things were scattered among us. Jewelry with stones more precious now than ever. Dishes, dolls and family photos. That stereo and those dusty 45’s. I took that clown dressed all in black. And there are other things. A ticket stub from a movie we saw. A necklace she had made for me. A photo of her with her head piled high and dyed red to hide the grey. A photo of her in the kitchen dressed in green standing beside the aunt she forgot I knew. A photo of her sleeping, hair done, nails polished, diamond ring on her finger on the night the took her away to meet her maker.

She was a piece of my heart.
Like you…
And you…
And you....

In A Lover's Heart

2011-12-08T21:15:00.000-08:00

(9 of 30 Villanelles Inspired by Enya's song, "Hope Has A Place")

Buried within a lover's heart,
A whisper weaves a sigh.
Nothing animated is apart.

Humankind is made to chart
The Atlas of the sky
Buried within a lover's heart.

Souls ripen into Works of Art.
All spirits are made to fly.
Nothing animated is apart.

A simple word may stop or start
A hearth glowing bright,
Buried within a lover's heart.

The Beloved is invariably smart.
Sweethearts are in ample supply.
Nothing animated is apart.

If love should depart,
There's no such thing as goodbye
For concealed within a lover's heart,
Nothing animated is apart.

P.D. Gourlais

New Prose Poem

2011-11-29T13:37:00.000-08:00

Three Chords and the Truth

I used to dance alone in an empty room. Just me and three chords and the truth. Songs I sang at seventeen. When all I wanted was to run away. Dance with a stranger. Lose my name. Shed my skin. Jump in the river.

I tried it once. Hitch-hiked southbound. Down 65. Across the Ohio River. Across the Kennedy Bridge. We stopped at King’s Record Shop. Found Elvis sitting in the corner strumming a guitar. Johnny Cash behind the counter. Dylan smoking in the doorway. Cohen rambling about some girl in the Chelsea Hotel. I bought a copy of “Double Fantasy,” and wandered off down Fourth Street.

I made it down to the water tower. Down on River Road. There was reggae, blues and barbeque. Then the sun went down and it was time to go home. Across the Kennedy Bridge. Across the Ohio River. The same river, but never the same river twice. The River City in my rearview at last. I returned home to find that nothing changed. I have discovered that nothing is lost. That everything that was, is, and ever will be.

My First Villanelle

2011-11-28T23:18:00.000-08:00

Written as a radical revision of another poem, here is my first vilanelle

There is more to life than life
More to love than loving too
There’s more to time than time passing by

Daddy said miracles were my birthright
He told me, I’m telling you,
”There is more to life than life,”

he used to say, “As sure as day turns into night
you’ll work your life away, but remember too:
There’s more to time than time passing by.”

Daddy drank himself to sleep at night
Paying dues was more than he could do
”There is more to life than life,”

he said. It was me he loved on the day he died,
passing on as we all must do.
There’s more to time than time passing by

I sat at his bedside late at night
And watched the sun rise—violet and blue
There is more to life than life
There’s more to time than time passing by.

More Flash Fiction

2011-11-27T02:15:00.000-08:00

Freddie
What becomes a legend most?
Crowns and jewels and leather pants. A new name, a stage presence and rumors of indiscretion. An operatic style and a four octave range. One man with a future and another with a past.
There were many as becomes a legend. Countless without names. Some without faces. Just dirges in the dark. But there was one. His name was Marc, or Mike, or something like that. The man with the backstage pass and the strange eyes—one blue, one green. An image of his icon sewn onto the back of his jacket. He said he was an actor—community theatre—but was really a sales clerk at a local bookstore.
“I don’t read,” the Icon said, “What a bloody waste of time.” He walked to the window and stared out. He recalled the Five Hills and the streets of Bombay and his first crush (he never told her or anyone else). He remembered Barcelona and the first time he kissed another man.
“Are you all right,” Marc or Mike or something like that asked.
“Yes, I’m fine,” the Icon answered. Another man, another room. There had to be more to life than life. “Champagne?” he asked.
Champagne and cocaine and a game of Scrabble. Then a confession when all was said and done. A death sentence and an autograph.
“Love, Freddie,” it read.

Michael
He told me his name years ago, but I’ve since forgotten it. So I called him Michael after Michael Toliver because I still have his copy of Tales of the City. I suppose he thought that giving me the book—his phone number scrawled on the inside cover—would ensure my return, but he was wrong.

I never saw him again after that weekend.

What was his name? Martin, Marvin, Mark. Something with an M. Michael will do.
I remember his lips and the dimple on his chin. I remember those strange eyes—one blue and one green. I remember him because it was the first time I heard Leonard Cohen. He told me the girl in “Chelsea Hotel,” was Janis Joplin.
“I love Janis,” I confessed.
Big mistake.
He started singing “Mercedes Benz.” Badly.
“God gave me a voice for a reason,” he said.
“He made you tone-deaf for a reason, too,” I teased.

He laughed. He kissed me. He took my hand and led me down the narrow hallway to his room. There was a poster of Dylan on the wall above the unmade bed. “Do you know Dylan?” he asked.
“No, we’ve never met,” I answered.
“I love Blood on the Tracks.”
“Beg your pardon?”
“His divorce album,” he explained.

I have it here—that Dylan CD. Of all the CD’s I’ve taken from ex-lovers it’s my favorite. Except maybe that Ani Difranco I stole from David.
Just call me shameless.

He piayed Joan Baez as we made love. “Love Song to a Stranger.” I suppose he thought it was apropos. He told me about “Diamonds and Rust”—her ode to Bobby Baby. He told me about “Amsterdam,”—the song, not the city. And now whenever I hear it, I think of him. I suppose that makes it our song.
What was his name? Marcel, Marcello, Marco? Michael will do.

“So… John…”
“Jake.”
“Jake. Sorry,” he said, “Can I see you again?”
“Not if I see you first,” I said.

Weeks later, I consulted a doctor.
He said, “I condemn you to life.”
I consulted a priest.
He said, “The wages of sin are death.”
I consulted a poet.
She said, “Although only breath, words which I command are immortal.”
I consulted a painter.
She said, “The keeper of the time is blind.”

A year later I saw him. In a corner, at a bar.
“We had something special,” he said.
“Did we?”
“It’s water under the bridge,” he said.
“More like blood on the tracks.”

Rosa
Rosa walked into the vacant room and sat on the bed; she brushed out the crease in the black skirt she wore and slipped out of her muddied black shoes, staring at them as they slid from her feet to the floor. She listened to Martin in the kitchen below—the tap water running as he filled the kettle to make tea for her; the sound of the running water echoed up the stairs and down the hall and then stopped suddenly and silence filled the empty space where she sat.

Rosa ran her hand along the blue cover of the bed, the cover she had knitted for Rafa just last winter; the soft wool grating her skin. Beads of sweat gathered at her brow and on the back of her neck as she tried hard to breathe. The heat of late August in mid-afternoon and the scent of cheap after shave that lingered in the room overwhelmed her; made bitter by Rafa’s absence.
And look—the window had been left open while they were gone. What if someone had broken in, taken his things? She glanced quickly around the room—everything seemed to be in place.
Would she even know if something—some small thing, like a comb he might have kept in his pocket or a stone he carried for luck and kept to himself telling no one about—went missing? How would she even know?

Rafa had left his shirt lying on the floor and his ball sitting in the chair, leather jacket hung over the back. Wasn’t that just like the boy, to leave things thrown about?

She picked up the shirt, folded it neatly and laid it on the bed beside her; her hand—a bit shaky—rested on top of it. Perhaps the shirt needed washing—it was grass-stained where he had played. She looked over and now saw the shorts hanging over the clothes bin where he’d tossed them so carelessly. Rosa stood up to peer inside—yes, she’d need to do the wash…but not today.
Still, she gathered up the clothes her son had discarded and turned towards the door to his room.

She stopped.
And started to cry.

Jake climbed the stairs, his hand gripping the rail. He looked around the house—this house he had passed a hundred times, never caring what went on inside; the lives lived there.

The silence wrapped around him. He looked at the pictures along the wall as he walked up the stairs. He recognized Raphael—that boy he had seen in the halls at school, in the cafeteria where he often ate alone. Didn’t he work in the drugstore on the corner of Tenth and Gibson one summer?

He played baseball? Jake was surprised, seeing the photo of Raphael in his uniform with a ball and bat. Had they ever played against each other? Jake couldn’t remember.

Raphael had been an altar boy a photo revealed—Jake wondered which Parish they attended.
Jake made his way up the stairs; a wedding picture sat atop a table in the hall on the second floor; a faded black and white photo. Raphael’s grandparents? Were they still alive, Jake wondered.
Jake felt like a thief.

Why had he come here? What was he thinking? He looked back down the stairs. He should leave, he thought. Just go. What difference did it make? What was he going to say? “I’m sorry…?”

What an idiot!
And then he heard crying.

He walked slowly to where the door stood open and the low sound of sobbing from within echoed in the hall.

A thief—he felt like a thief. Taking what wasn’t his; breaking in where he didn’t belong; intruding where he had no right.

He stood in the open door and watched the woman standing in front of the window—her back turned to him.

He had turned his back on Raphael—turned his back to him when Raphael needed him. And Jake left him there…alone.

He should leave now…

Rosa turned to him, wiping the tears with the back of her hand; unmoved to find him standing in her son’s room.

Jake moved closer, taking her hand in his; wanting to comfort her—if only he knew how. He thought the truth might console her—give her a reason; an answer for Raphael’s suicide. The illness had become too much. His sanity slipped; he failed to recognize friends. Friends—including Jake—failed him, unable to withstand the rage that often overcame Benny over things of little significance. And there were the lovers—like Jake—who felt betrayed by Benny’s silence once they learned the truth. His silence equaled death.
But now—what difference did the truth make?

Many months later, sitting in a crowded bar watching young men as they danced with each other or drunkenly groped for the fleeting company of a twin soul; or sitting in the pews of yet another church at yet another funeral he would think how right he’d been to spare Rosa; how lucky Raphael was to be gone and not have to endure the living death of perpetual adolescence; his soul wasting in the idolatry of stunted pubescence. He would watch his elders—gray-haired men spending their money on men half their age abandoned at three A.M. and leaving the bar alone with their pockets emptied and he would think how fortunate Raphael had been to escape. Many things would make him think of Raphael over the years—not least of which the few men who resembled Raphael and found their way into Jake’s arms and then discarded him carelessly. But he tried hard to always love them; even as he let them go; even after they were long gone.

“I’m so sorry,” he said to Rosa; for what else could he say? On the back of the chair was his own jacket—the one he had given Raphael the night that Raphael died.

On the street outside the open window, a car drove by. Children played. The mailman carried the mail: advertisements, bills to pay.
Life went on.
And on….
And on…

New Short Story-- More Flash Fiction

2011-09-27T21:20:00.000-07:00

4th Arrondissement

L'Imprévu is a quirky bar on the Right Bank, owned by two American boys. And I used to see you there, chatting with Martin or Buck, the American owners, talking about America and Chicago and debating which was better, American football or soccer. The three of you complained about the froggies so much I wondered why you stayed in Paris.

To be in Paris, I suppose.

I saw you at Raidd, watching the shower boys. I watched you at L'enchanteur. Karaoke is bad enough in English; in French it’s a little taste of Hell. But at least you noticed me. Or so I thought. I got up to sing and I think it scared you off. Maybe “Son of a Preacher Man,” was a bad choice.

One night, watching a mime at Pompidou, I saw you again. A bottle of Bollinger in your hand. “Would you like to join me?” you finally asked.
“Sure.”
We walked along the Quai de Seine. You asked my name.
“Alex. What’s your name?”
“Serge,” you said as you sat beside me. “So, what brings you to Paris?”
“Paris.”
You laughed. You told me that you wrote a play and that I should come and see it.
“What’s it about?”

Love, of course. Stories compiled from interviews you filmed in bars and cafes. You asked couples—women and men, men and men, women and women—how they met and they told you. And you made up the rest. You called it, Chagriner et la possibilité. One young American boy was homeless his first night in Paris. He missed the train to the town where he was working and had to sleep in the train station. There he met a man and they started talking. They walked through Paris and eventually went to L'Open Café. The American was tired and planned to return to the train station, but the froggie insisted on getting him a room. They agreed to meet the next day beneath the Eiffel Tower before the boy left. But the bottom of the Eiffel Tower is huge and he couldn’t find the froggie so he gave up. He never saw the froggie again.

“So you’ll come tomorrow?” you asked.
“Sure,” I promised.

I spent the morning sleeping late and eating the last of the eggs for breakfast, which was actually lunch. I spent the afternoon at Les Mots à la Bouche listening to some British writer talking about his novel that wasn’t a novel because the novel is dead.

We met at La Curieux for spaghetti, but we were asked to leave when you kissed me. It was an impulse, it was desire, it was possibility and pain.
“Pas ici,” the waiter told us as he pushed us out the door.
“Not here,” you translated.
“Not anywhere, I guess.”
“Here,” you said and kissed me again, there on the street for everyone to see. It was an impulse. It was desire. It was possibility and pain

New Short Story: 6/69:The Stonewall

2011-09-22T23:34:00.001-07:00

Stephen (A Typical Night)
You can dance at the Stonewall. Not like at the Candlelight. Or Keller’s. Or Mona’s. There’s the Snakepit but the name says it all. I dance at the Stonewall. Liquor watered down. Boys dressed up. Tequilla Mockingbird, onstage looking regal. Sweet William at the door looking out. And me on the dance floor. Denim-clad, keys to the left. Dancing around like some jewelry box ballerina. Diamonds at her feet.

Tequilla Mockingbird (A Typical Raid)
The lights come on so they don’t catch you kissing. Sweet William gives the signal and everything stops. Too late to change so you go along. Heels clicking. I never cry. It messes up my mascara. I sing. It really pisses them off. Better than being pissed on, Lily Law. Betty Badge, pistol in hand. The lights come on and they take you. Singing, heels clicking. Fags don’t fight back.

Tommy (The Motivation…Maybe)
There’s no music tonight. Judy’s dead. There’s no cruising, there’s the void. There’s no laughter, there’s the empty chair. Judy’s dead. No one wants to dance anyway. Keys put in pockets, not out where you can see. And know. Judy’s dead. We went to see her laid to rest. And then we looked. And then we saw. And understood. So many of us. Judy’s dead but we are here.

Maxine (That Night: The Uprising)
The Stonewall boys were in their element. Wrists were limp, hair was primped. Have you seen Maxine? From the car to the door to the car again, anything could happen. Limp wrists forgotten, beer cans and bottles heaved; rain of coins on the cops. From nowhere came an uprooted parking meter. A blaze of flame in the window, a fire hose; cavort in the spray. Have you seen Maxine?

Allen (The Next Night)
Allen, who never missed a revolution, went with me. This downtown dive he’d never seen before. Allen, who was father of us all, stood in astonishment. A bold beginning. Allen, who held Whitman in his pocket, told the world to fuck off that night. He stood beside those men; their wounded looks lost now. He chanted, “OM.” Allen, who cried real tears, knew a moment when he saw one.

Alex (Assimilation Doesn’t Mean Acceptance: 2007)
Love is possibility and pain. Love is marriage and happy-ever-after. So they tell me. But it didn’t happen that way. Love was a black-haired boy. Two condoms, one mint we shared with a kiss. The dog barking downstairs. Love was a craving for ice cream he gratified at two in the morning. Love was before he left for Paris. And sent pictures of Paris Pride. The Stonewall ever present.

New Pantoum

2011-09-01T09:29:00.000-07:00

The Daily Miracle

I’m a child of God.
Miracles are my birthright.
I’m a phoenix from the ashes
I cannot rise this time

Miracles are my birthright
The miracle that you were and you are
I cannot rise this time
Fallen too far

The miracle that you were and you are
Undeserving as I was and I am
Fallen too far
Too far from grace

Undeserving as I was and am
I’m a phoenix from the ashes
Too far from grace
I’m a child of God.

My Bi Beats-- Queer Music Friday

2011-08-26T23:04:00.000-07:00

A few years ago a friend burned a CD (sort of a mix tape) called "My Bi Beats.: Here are a few of her selections (plus a few of my own).

New Short Story: The Keeper of Time

2011-07-30T07:08:00.000-07:00

Now that my work is done, how am I to live?
I have taught my lessons, as planned (though they never went as planned). Given out marks and sent countless on their way to their careers and their marriages and their lives. Some may even recall me vaguely. Reading some story to their children they may recall that they read it first with me but how likely is that? They will more likely rent the movie and place their children on the floor, seen and not heard, forgotten as they pick up their mobile phones and check up on the latest. They would know better if I had taught them better but I was too busy doing my job.

But that is not the story that matters.

I boarded the train. Took my seat.
There was a book.
Discarded.

I was not in the mood for happy endings. Or easy resolutions you only find between the covers of a book.
Life just doesn’t work that way.

This is my story.
Not some myth or fairy tale.
Written.
Read.
And re-written.
This is me.
And this is you.

You were the first thing I saw.
There were trees, there were stars, there was a new moon and there was you.
And nothing else mattered.
There were trees, there were stars, there was a new moon.
You touched me. You kissed me. You pressed me hard against the trunk of a tree.
You were inside me. The agony and the ecstasy. You were inside me.
This is you.
And this is me.
“Tell me you love me,” you said, “Look at me and tell me you love me.”
I told you I loved you, but it was a lie.
A fiction.
A story.
Like this one…

Ameinias loved Narcissus. He wasn’t alone. Narcissus had his pick of lovers and picked none. Narcissus loved Narcissus. He sent Ameinias a sword and walked down to the river never thinking about the blood on his own hands.
And this is what happened.

He would come to me each morning. The sun would rise behind him casting his shadow before me. He would lean over me and smile down into my face, then touch me with the tips of his fingers. Each time I was reborn. My old self discarded like a pebble. My body was no longer my own. My vision no longer crystalline or pristine as it was before. His eyes were my anchor, his voice my compass. Through the forest, he called me back to him. Where? Where? Here. Here. When he would leave me, there were no levies strong enough to hold back my tears.
There have been others who have come and gone. Most return with the summer suns. I recognise their voices. Their laughter disturbs the monotony of my days. Still, I lye unmoved beside them. Their words are words in a bottle, dying inside their mirrored prison.
Then one day he returned, blood on his hands. I wept, myself, to see him cry. He opened his arms and leaned down to kiss me. And, like a good wife, I welcomed him home at last.

We were not in a forest crying “Where?”
“Where?”
“Here.”
“Here.”
That was a fantasy.
That was a dream.
That was a myth.
That was a story.
But this is you.
And this is me.

We did not pray to Nemesis
I lay in your bed (Should I stop here, like some Victorian novelist, and describe the room, the furniture, the music playing in the background, the view from the window before he shut the curtains? If you must know, dear reader, it was the red brick wall of the house next door, and a woman through the window, eating chips and watching television). Or should I tell you what you want to hear (“Dear reader, I married him.”).

But no.
It didn’t happen that way.
This is you.
And this is me.
“You know you’re getting fucked, right?” you asked.
Yes, I knew.
Yes, I wanted it at the time.
Little did I know all time is eternal.
That I would be in this room with you the rest of my days.
And see the look in your eyes.
And the taste of your skin.
And feel you inside me every time another man touched me.
Not to mention that you sentenced me to death..

This is 21st Century love.
Or something like it.
Fuck the pain away.
Fuck them and forget them.

Weeks later, I consulted a doctor.
He said, “I condemn you to life.”
I consulted a priest.
He said, “The wages of sin are death.”
I consulted a poet.
She said, “Although only breath, words which I command are immortal.”
I consulted a painter.
She said, “The keeper of the time is blind.”

You will be you. Or at least a semblance of you.
And I will be me. The only one there is.
To survive you have to know how to play the game. And I don’t know how to play the game
But I know this….
There is nothing that a river and won't fix.

Monday Shorts

2011-07-04T09:27:00.000-07:00

The Keeper of Time

All the things that the sea does is not what the sea is.
Now that my work is done, how am I to live?
Part broken, part whole you begin again.

I boarded the train. Took my seat.
There was a book.
Discarded.
This book had not been finished, but unfinished by whom the reader or the writer?

I was not in the mood for happy endings. Or easy resolutions you only find between the covers of a book.
Life just doesn’t work that way.

This is my story.
Not some fairy tale.
Written.
Read.
And re-written.
This is me.
And this is you.

We were not in a forest crying “Where?”
“Where?”
“Here.”
“Here.”
We did not pray to Nemesis
I lay in your bed
“You know you’re getting fucked?”
Yes, I knew.
Yes, I wanted it at the time.
Little did I know all time is eternal.

This is 21st Century love.
Or something like it.

Weeks later, I consulted a doctor.
He said, “I condemn you to life.”
I consulted a priest.
He said, “The wages of sin are death.”
I consulted a poet.
She said, “Although only breath, words which I command are immortal.”
I consulted a painter. She said, “The keeper of the time is blind.”

To survive you have to know how to play the game. And I don’t know how to play the game
But I know this….

There is nothing that a river and a rock won’t fix.

Objects are Oriental: Racism in the Gay Community

2011-05-13T18:43:00.000-07:00

Put aside the elitist, racist implications of Prop 8-- that the (white) gay activists laid the blame for failure squarely at the feet of blacks and Latinos rather than their own political (dis)organization. Not to mention the eliticism of the seemingly singular political struggle for so-called marriage equality (read as "We REALLY want to assimilate") that has been our sole focus these past few years.

The presumption that gays would be less prone to racism is elitist in itself.

As I was doing some research for this piece, most of the articles I found insisted that blacks and Latinos are more likely to be closeted, more likely to promiscuous, more likely to engage in risky behavior and therefore more likely to have STD's and HIV.

The racial bias in these studies was unbelievable.

I recently had the experience of a man in a chat room on another site IMing me to ask if he could ask a question about Latinos. I said,"Sure," and he asked me, "Is it true they don't bathe?" He proceeded to spew racist stereotypes about Latinos and informed me that no decent man would touch me after I (and I quote him) "Fucked those dirty spics."

I put him on ignore and I haven't seen him since.

My ex is a well-known blogger on a now-well-known LGBT blog. Shortly after we met he wrote a piece about me, about being in an interracial relationship, about his experience dating what he called a "Latino chaser."

Well....

I read the piece and my initial response was, "Oh I guess this an interracial relationship, isn't it?" Ironically, I hadn't given the issue of race a thought much less considered it an issue. According to my ex, who was in fact of mixed race (his mother was Latina, his father was white) my "racial fetish," was tantamount to racism.

Well....

In my defense, I pointed out to my ex and to his readers that every Latin man I'd been with said that he liked or preferred or was exclusively attracted to white men. So if this was a racial fetish it went both ways.

The piece he wrote was, in fact, more about racial porn-- things like Flavaworks or Bang Bang Boys, or Papi Cock and the racial stereotypes perpetuated by porn.

Point taken.

In fact, I find some that stuff offensive myself. I mentioned this recently to the Brazilian friend. "I hate some of the Latin porn," I said, "It's always Puerto Rican thugz or Brazilians having sex in the rain forest. I mean really. When was the last time you had sex in the rain forest?"

"Actually," he told me, "I lost my virginity in the rain forest."

Well....

As I pointed out to my ex and his readers, the Latin men I met, particularly the ones I met online, seemed compelled to satisfy some fantasy of the hot Latin lover they presumed I had. One man who seemed to relish my indulgence later told me he was annoyed when I called him papi and seemed to want him to "play the role." Honestly, when I started to explore my attraction to Latin men I was completely unaware of any of the stereotypes about them. The first Latino I slept with, for example, asked me why I liked Latinos.

"Well," I explained, "I like the dark hair and the dark eyes and if they have an accent I think that's sexy."

"Yeah," he said, "And we're hot in bed, too."

"I dunno. I haven't been with one yet."

Later that night he warned me-- before picking me up and literally carrying me off to his bed-- that he was not uncut (if that's what I was looking for) and that he had (as he put it) "The Mexican dick."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I'm not very big," he almost apologized, "We're not all hung."

Well....

One of the things I love about Lain men, in fact, is the fact that they defy the stereotypes. One of the things I love about Latin men is that theirs is such a rich and diverse people and culture.

Still, I don't consider this a "racial fetish." A racial fetish is defined as:"a fixation on other races being not different, but lesser or "mutilated" versions of the white male." And I do not in any way view Latin men as less than me or some mutilated version of me.

On the contrary: I think Latin men are simply beautiful and the sexiest men on the planet. But not only that: I love the way the seem to look at life differently. I was discussing this with a woman-- a Latina--who teaches Spanish literature at a local college. We were discussing Picasso and Gertrude Stein's assertion that Cubism was only possible because of Picasso and his uniquely Hispanic perspective. The same was true of Frida Kahlo, who rejected the term Surrealism because she said that what she painted was her reality as she saw it. Similarly, Gabriel Garcia Marquez rejected the term Magic Realism because, again, he said that what he wrote was his reality.

Beauty is one thing.

Sex is another.

But what I love most about Latin men is this way that they see life: to be lived and enjoyed and seen for the miracle that it is.

Recently, a friend of mine on Lifeout-- a social network site for gay men similar to Facebook-- was telling me that he had often been blocked by guys because he's Latino.

I was stunned.

While we're on the subject of racism (no, I'm not calling Gaga a racist) let's give Lady Gaga a lesson in grammar & etymology:

Objects are Oriental

People are Asian.

Afghans are rugs, not people.

"Cholo" was historically and is currently a derogatory word used to refer to Latinos, particularly those involved in gang or drug culture. It is derived from the Aztec word, "xolotl," which means "dog," particularly a dog of mixed, inferior breeding (what we would now call a "mut") and historically was used to refer to people of mixed race thought less pure than mulatos or mistizos.

As blogger Aria noted, "this is not to suggest that Lady Gaga is racist...it is a call to understand the ways in which racism pervades normal American life so much, that even our most mainstream and popular of artists are susceptible to promulgating it...Just because someone is a staunch advocate for one marginalized group does not mean that they have proven themselves to be an advocate for other groups and get a free pass for ignorance."

The late E. Lynn Harris, author of the The Invisible Life trilogy, was quoted in MetroWeekly as saying this on the subject: "The gay community is just an extension of the larger world. If there’s racism in the world, there will be racism in gay society. It works both ways, too. There are black pockets of the gay community where whites feel uncomfortable...I say we can’t afford to discard anyone. Just like the racism in the gay world—we can’t really afford that either."

Secret Love: The Found Pantoum

2011-05-11T18:07:00.000-07:00

I am not asking salvation
from you
I’m just asking to be safe
for a while

From you
For love that might work
For a while
My secret love

For love that might work
In a timeless search
My secret love
We’ve already paid the price

In a timeless search
I’m just asking to be safe
We’ve already paid the price
I’m not asking for salvation

Stand Back! Stevie Nicks Returns

2011-05-11T17:34:00.000-07:00

Stevie Nicks is back and with a vengance!

""Dave and I ...promised each other that we would defy the music business and bring into the world a record that would make people remember why we love it so..'back in the day'..but also we would gather the young ones and surround them in music...inspired by this music to go back to the old ways and start over."
-- Stevie Nicks, "Letter to Fans," on her new CD In Your Dreams

Oprah did a show on "Rock Goddesses," pairing up comtemporary rockers with icons from the 80's. Stevie Nicks was paired, of course, with Sheryl Crow. Pat Benatar (paired, rather oddly, with Avril Lavigne) and Joan Jett (paired with Mylie Cyrus who actually did a great job with "Cherry Bomb") were also on.
Here's Stevie:

She has embarked on a tour with Rod Stewart

And released a new single:

Not to mention a recent visit to the set of GLEE:

Where Gwyneth Paltrow performed "Landslide:"

Kate Chaplin's New Blog

2011-01-21T09:05:00.000-08:00

You may recall that Kate Chaplin wrote a a great piece on censorship for me awhile back. She has recently reposted the piece on her new blog. Check it out and get all the latest on Kate, her writing and her new films.

We love some Kate Chaplin!

Remembering King

2011-01-17T12:21:00.000-08:00

A found poem:
A man can't ride your back
unless it's bent.
A man who won't die for something
is not fit to live.

A right delayed
is a right denied.
A riot
is the language of the unheard.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness;
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate;
only love can do that

Everything that we see
is a shadow cast
by that which
we do not see.

Faith
is taking the first step
even when
you don't see the whole staircase.

The time
is always right
to do
what is right.

In the End,
we will remember not the words of our enemies,
but the silence
of our friends.

New Stevie Song & New Pantoum

2011-01-16T16:08:00.000-08:00

Stevie Nicks has a new CD coming out this spring called In Your Dreams. The first single is "Secret Love:"

And here's a new poem-- a found pantoum made from the lyrics:
I am not asking salvation
from you
I’m just asking to be safe
for a while

From you
For love that might work
For a while
My secret love

For love that might work
In a timeless search
My secret love
We’ve already paid the price

In a timeless search
I’m just asking to be safe
We’ve already paid the price
I’m not asking for salvation

All I've Ever Wanted Is You by P.D. Gourlais

2010-12-23T09:24:00.000-08:00

This is my first attempt at writing a pantoum like Ray! Enjoy. P.D.G.

All I've ever wanted is you
My Muse with mystical powers.
I would sail the oceans
To prove my love is true.

My Muse with mystical powers,
Your eyes are flaming darts.
To prove a love is true
One look is all it took.

Your eyes are flaming darts-
My soul showered in blue.
One look is all it took,
I am your one and only Poet.

My soul showered in blue-
Believe the words I write.
I am your one and only poet.
All I ever wanted is you.

P.D. Gourlais

The Heavens by P.D. Gourlais

2010-12-21T18:06:00.001-08:00

"With this written, it is my greatest hope that there is golf in heaven. P.D.G."

The atmosphere is beyond bliss.
I am dressed in an azure dreamland.
In ecstasy, I follow enchantment.
There is eternity there where
rest is infinite.
In a fairyland of felicity,
I embrace glory unknown
where harmony and happiness
take me to heights hereafter.
Life is immortality
as it is married to the Master
of Death. Now is Kingdom Come.

This is life everlasting;
a place of Nirvana
and paradise poetry.

Rapture ruptures the sky
as light transports us
upstairs.

What a wonderland!

Walk with me and transcend Hell.
Write on the walls of glistening
Celestial bricks.
Go ahead!
Make your marks in the garden
of Hesperides.

Resurrect your unearthly selves
and bask in the Eden of beauty!

There's a Great Universe
at the altar of the Stars.

Open your eyes
and witness the magic
before you.

We shall wait just a moment longer
to pick up supernal souls.

P.D. Gourlais

The Prodigal Daughter: R.I.P. John

2010-12-08T00:00:00.000-08:00

In memory of John Lennon

"Life is what happens to you
While you're busy making other plans."
-John Lennon, Beautiful Boy

In Slaughterhouse Five, the Tralfamadorians tell Billy Pilgrim that what Earthlings don't realize is that every moment you live is permanent. Sort of like a photograph, I guess; a series of snapshots.

Pick one.

It was early December. If we had not been heathen it would have been a feast day. The Immaculate Conception of Mary, to be precise. We might have lit candles, taken up our beads and said our prayers, gone to mass in the early morning before school or late evening after supper. We might have opened a new window on the Advent calendar and eaten a piece of chocolate with our coffee and donuts. Being heathen, however, we did none of these things. We watched Good Morning, America on T.V. The day passed like any other. I went down to the corner and bought donuts from the old man who'd owned the corner bakery since after the war--which war he never said, it was always just "the war," as if all wars were the same. He talked, as always, about the past--always the past--which was always with him though the neighborhood, he said, had changed. Gone downhill, he said. A shame, he said. He hardly recognized it anymore. He only stayed, he said, because he had nowhere else to go. The time for going, he said, had come and gone. He filled my bag with yeast donuts--a baker's dozen--and two cups of steaming hot coffee and sent me on my way.

We cleaned the apartment--mopped the wood floors, polished the used furniture, did the dishes handed down by my great-grandmother-- music playing on the stereo to keep the baby quiet. My aunt stopped long enough to watch her "stories," on T.V. as the baby slept in the swing nearby, then we gathered the dirty cloths and the baby and went to do the laundry.

That night, my aunt insisted on buying a Christmas tree and hauling it up the three flights of stairs, baby in tow, to the tiny apartment she shared with her lover and child. We drank peppermint schnapps and decorated the tree with ornaments and lights and sprinkled it with tinsel as the baby watched, giggling and drooling, and my aunt's lover finished the Chinese take-out left over from dinner. The tree finished, the schnapps gone, her lover decided it was time for bed. But my aunt couldn't sleep. It was her first Christmas with her first child. We went downstairs and outside, stood by the fountain in the middle of the street. There were tears in her eyes, though she said they were snowflakes.

Each moment you live is permanent.
Pick one.

My grandparents lived in a house on the corner of a dead end road. A small white house where my grandmother planted flowers and a garden in spring and in the fall the kitchen was filled with the smell of apple butter she made and canned for winter. There were three dogs and any number of cats and rabbits in a cage in the garage where we used to play school. There was a smaller house next door where my parents lived when they were married and where my aunt and uncle lived when they were married and where strangers live now.

There was a big tree in the corner of the front yard where we used to run to for safety when we played hide and seek or danced around when we sang ring-around-the-rosey.

Ashes
Ashes
We all
Fall
Down.

In the living room, there was a piano that my aunt used to play and my grandfather's La-Z-boy chair where he fell asleep each night watching the eleven o'clock news. There were two bedrooms--one for him and one for her--and a cellar where we used to hide during summer storms, dancing to the songs they played on the radio. There was the kitchen where they used to sit up late at night putting together jigsaw puzzles at the kitchen table or where my grandmother would serve hot oatmeal for breakfast each morning with instant coffee and cinnamon toast as my grandfather read the paper before going to work. There was the long, threadbare sofa where my grandmother would nap each day after cleaning the house as her "stories" played on the T.V. while we played cards or Monopoly on the floor. There were photos of vacations taken over the years and family members both near and far and those long since gone. There was a Bible and issues of the Watchtower magazine scattered across the coffee table and a stack of old country and western records, words my grandmother lived by.

When my grandparents moved down the street my aunt and uncle moved into that house. My uncle went to work as a machinist and my aunt worked odd jobs as a waitress or in the bakery at a grocery store on the other side of town.

They were happy for awhile.

Then one day my aunt ran away from home telling no one where she was. Months went by with no word as far as I knew. Maybe she hitch hiked across the country. Maybe she swam across the Ohio River. Maybe, somehow, she learned to fly and would never be seen again.

My uncle carried on, certain she would be back. Everyone, including my uncle, acted as if nothing had changed. That life was normal or at least as normal as it ever was. Sometimes people just disappear, that's all. These things happen.

The months came and went and the year came to an end. One night my uncle, who had grown spontaneous in my aunt's absence, took my sisters and I to a toy store and told us we could have whatever we wanted. We wanted bicycles. My uncle, sadly, was not prepared for that. My sisters settled for Barbies and a few of Barbie's accoutrement and I made due with a replica of the spaceship from Star Wars. We were bored within hours, but my uncle was quite pleased with himself, as he served us pizza and promised to take us to a matinee the next day.

That's the last time I remember being in that house, sleeping in the room where my grandmother used to sleep.

Christmas Day, my mother called us into the kitchen. Our uncle was sitting at the table, shaven with his hair trimmed, a sight we had never seen. There were three bicycles wrapped in ribbons lined across the kitchen floor. My uncle smiled as he hugged each of us and whispered, "I love you," words we had never heard from him before.

After New Year, my aunt came home. My aunt came home only to say to my uncle that she was not coming home. This, too, must pass. They had gone to dinner to work things out and came home to find the house in flames. Nothing could be done. Nothing could be saved.

The next Saturday I walked down the hill and down the street to see the remains. I sifted through the ash that was once my grandparent's home, the home where we ate meals and watched T.V. and played Monopoly or rummy or Crazy 8's for hours. The home where my Grandfather woke at four in the morning and came home at six in the evening everyday and on weekends spent the day in the yard fixing some beat up old car he bought just to restore and sell again. The home where my Grandmother cooked and canned the things she grew in the garden and filled vases with the flowers she grew in the yard. The home where my aunt played old records and 45's dancing around the living room singing along, making up the words if she didn't remember them. I sifted through the ash and found charred furniture and burnt photos now unrecognizable. Broken glass and melted 45's and a copy of the Beatle's, Let It Be, and Janis Joplin's, Pearl and sang along to the echo that remained just out of habit.

These things happen.
This, too, must pass.

There's a new house there now and strangers live there. And strangers live there in the little house beside it. The house where my parents lived when they were married. And where my aunt and uncle lived when there were married. And there's that tree in the corner of the yard where we used to run to for safety when we played hide and seek or danced around when we sang ring-around-the-rosey.

Ashes
Ashes
We all
Fall
Down.

Every moment you live is permanent.
Pick one.

My aunt came home. Several months later, around Christmas time, she discovered she was pregnant. She had waited a long time to have a child and now the time had finally come. If one can be said to be over-joyed--how can there be such a thing?--then my grandmother was overjoyed. She picked out a name: Joshua, meaning God saves.

Every moment you live is permanent.
Pick one.

It was early December a year later. I woke to the sound of crying. The Christmas tree we'd bought and decorated the night before was still lit. The sun was rising, the sky was violet and blue. The baby was in his swing taking a bottle and my aunt was watching the T.V. "John Lennon died last night," she said.

I had no idea who John Lennon was. So I watched. On the T.V. crowds of people were gathered, lighting candles, singing songs, leaving flowers. I watched and then it came to me: all those songs she used to sing. Those songs that said something about hope, and peace and change and love. People were singing those songs on T.V. that early December morning as they laid flowers and lit candles and clung to each other in disbelief. "How could this happen?" my aunt asked. She lit candles and placed them in the windows. The baby started to cry. I lifted him up and carried him to the sofa, holding him and singing what I could remember of Strawberry Fields, and Golden Slumbers, until finally he went to sleep, safe and certain as only a child can be in a world of uncertainty.

For days, there was a feeling of devastation and loss. A certain hush had fallen over the festivities that had only begun. Almost everywhere there were tributes on the front pages of newspapers and magazines, on the radio and the T.V. There were moments of silence. And then it passed. Everyone, including my aunt, acted as if nothing had changed. That life was normal or at least as normal as it ever was.

These things happen.
This, too, must pass.

Each moment you live is permanent.
Pick one.

The days passed like any others. Days before Christmas we stayed with our Grandparents who were leaving soon for Florida where the escaped the season every winter. But for now there were pies and cookies to bake and fudge dark and bubbling cooking on the stove. We were ushered out from underfoot and into the snow given money to go see a show and told not come back till lunchtime. We came home to hot chocolate made the way Grandma's mother made it and gingerbread we ate as Grandma worked her crossword puzzle. We played cards on the floor while she watched her stories, falling asleep on the threadbare sofa, her Pomeranian ever watchful beside her. The day passed and night came and we fell asleep on the floor on the palette Grandma made us while watching It's a Wonderful Life again. People arrived first thing in the morning--aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors--devouring biscuits and gravy and slices of ham. The smell of coffee and the taste of apple butter made from the apples picked the last summer when the pain in her throat began and she slept more and more leaving the garden and the flowers for Grandpa to tend. They talked about the past which was always with them. Though things had changed. People had come and gone. The neighborhood was not the same. Gone downhill, Grandma said. A shame, she said. She hardly recognized it anymore.

And then came the knock at the door. And there she stood dressed forever in blue jeans and a red sweater, the baby squirming in her arms, her lover standing behind her obscured by the pile of gifts he carried. He left them there beside the door and went on his way before my Grandmother could get a despairing word out. My grandmother took the baby and my grandfather pulled out a chair where my aunt sat at the table filling her plate with food. My grandmother sat in a chair across from her, holding the baby and bouncing him on her knees singing the same song she had sang to all of us so many times: "Cry baby buntin'/Daddy's gone a-huntin'/ Catch a rabbit to get the skin..." Everyone acted as if nothing had changed. That life was normal or at least as normal as it ever was.

The day passed. The gifts were exchanged. The food sent home and put away. Once everyone was gone my grandfather sat in his Lay-Z-Boy reading his paper and my aunt sat at the piano and sang, making up the lyrics that she forgot. My grandmother went outside to feed scraps to the dogs. She stood a moment there on the back porch staring up at star-filled sky and the crescent moon, her breath appearing and disappearing into the frigid air. I walked out and stood beside her. There were tears in her eyes though she said they were snowflakes.

She walked back inside the house and announced that she was going to bed. My aunt stopped her playing and singing and stood to her feet and walked over to her mother who put her arms around her and whispered something in her ear before saying good night.

The time for going, it seemed, had come and gone.

That year for Christmas my aunt bought me a copy of John Lennon's Double Fantasy and we stayed up late that night drinking peppermint schnapps and listening. Songs of love and patience and peace.

And starting over.

It's Coming on Christmas: Music

2010-11-26T14:45:00.000-08:00

River

Silent Night

Nividad

Little Drummer Boy

Rudoplh

RuPaul's Santa Baby

The Christmas Song

Happy X-mas/War is Over

Go Tell It on the Mountain

I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Clause

Ricky Martin on Oprah

2010-11-04T06:06:00.000-07:00

Ricky Martin-- who as everyone is aware came out earlier this year on his website-- has a new memoir coming out this week. He turned to Oprah to promote the book.

I'm proud of him, of course, but have mixed feelings about this interview.

He seems happy though and I admire his honesty about how he felt in the past--how many times did he say, "I hated myself?" It was interesting to me that he says he came out to his family in his early 20's and yet....

I recently had a conversation with someone who insisted that Ricky has been out for years...every place in the world except the US. Maybe the US is the "conservative culture" he is actually referring to here. And yet...notice that here again the picture of the 21-century happy gay man is one who is a loving dad in a stable relationship.

I agree with his views on outing, though. I have always been appalled by the practice and I remember being uncomfortable myself during the Barbara Walters interview. I can only imagine how he felt.

I'm almost tempted to buy the book.

Le Mot Juste: National Poetry Day

2010-10-07T19:39:00.000-07:00

Today, October 7th is National Poetry Day in the UK. I thought I would share a few of my favorites.

Willem dafoe reading Little Gidding:

Carol Ann Duffy reading "Last Post:"

And, of course, my teacher David Shumate.

Le Mot Juste: Lorca

2010-09-30T21:59:00.000-07:00

In honor of Latin Heritage Month, here is Lorca's "Ode to Salvador Dali:"

A rose in the high garden you desire.
A wheel in the pure syntax of steel.
The mountain stripped bare of Impressionist fog,
The grays watching over the last balustrades.

The modern painters in their white ateliers
clip the square root's sterilized flower.
In the waters of the Seine a marble iceberg
chills the windows and scatters the ivy.

Man treads firmly on the cobbled streets.
Crystals hide from the magic of reflections.
The Government has closed the perfume stores.
The machine perpetuates its binary beat.

An absence of forests and screens and brows
roams across the roofs of the old houses.
The air polishes its prism on the sea
and the horizon rises like a great aqueduct.

Soldiers who know no wine and no penumbra
behead the sirens on the seas of lead.
Night, black statue of prudence, holds
the moon's round mirror in her hand.

A desire for forms and limits overwhelms us.
Here comes the man who sees with a yellow ruler.
Venus is a white still life
and the butterfly collectors run away.

*

Cadaqués, at the fulcrum of water and hill,
lifts flights of stairs and hides seashells.
Wooden flutes pacify the air.
An ancient woodland god gives the children fruit.

Her fishermen sleep dreamless on the sand.
On the high sea a rose is their compass.
The horizon, virgin of wounded handkerchiefs,
links the great crystals of fish and moon.

A hard diadem of white brigantines
encircles bitter foreheads and hair of sand.
The sirens convince, but they don't beguile,
and they come if we show a glass of fresh water.

*

Oh Salvador Dali, of the olive-colored voice!
I do not praise your halting adolescent brush
or your pigments that flirt with the pigment of your times,
but I laud your longing for eternity with limits.

Sanitary soul, you live upon new marble.
You run from the dark jungle of improbable forms.
Your fancy reaches only as far as your hands,
and you enjoy the sonnet of the sea in your window.

The world is dull penumbra and disorder
in the foreground where man is found.
But now the stars, concealing landscapes,
reveal the perfect schema of their courses.

The current of time pools and gains order
in the numbered forms of century after century.
And conquered Death takes refuge trembling
in the tight circle of the present instant.

When you take up your palette, a bullet hole in its wing,
you call on the light that brings the olive tree to life.
The broad light of Minerva, builder of scaffolds,
where there is no room for dream or its hazy flower.

You call on the old light that stays on the brow,
not descending to the mouth or the heart of man.
A light feared by the loving vines of Bacchus
and the chaotic force of curving water.

You do well when you post warning flags
along the dark limit that shines in the night.
As a painter, you refuse to have your forms softened
by the shifting cotton of an unexpected cloud.

The fish in the fishbowl and the bird in the cage.
You refuse to invent them in the sea or the air.
You stylize or copy once you have seen
their small, agile bodies with your honest eyes.

You love a matter definite and exact,
where the toadstool cannot pitch its camp.
You love the architecture that builds on the absent
and admit the flag simply as a joke.

The steel compass tells its short, elastic verse.
Unknown clouds rise to deny the sphere exists.
The straight line tells of its upward struggle
and the learned crystals sing their geometries.

*

But also the rose of the garden where you live.
Always the rose, always, our north and south!
Calm and ingathered like an eyeless statue,
not knowing the buried struggle it provokes.

Pure rose, clean of artifice and rough sketches,
opening for us the slender wings of the smile.
(Pinned butterfly that ponders its flight.)
Rose of balance, with no self-inflicted pains.
Always the rose!

*

Oh Salvador Dali, of the olive-colored voice!
I speak of what your person and your paintings tell me.
I do not praise your halting adolescent brush,
but I sing the steady aim of your arrows.

I sing your fair struggle of Catalan lights,
your love of what might be made clear.
I sing your astronomical and tender heart,
a never-wounded deck of French cards.

I sing your restless longing for the statue,
your fear of the feelings that await you in the street.
I sing the small sea siren who sings to you,
riding her bicycle of corals and conches.

But above all I sing a common thought
that joins us in the dark and golden hours.
The light that blinds our eyes is not art.
Rather it is love, friendship, crossed swords.

Not the picture you patiently trace,
but the breast of Theresa, she of sleepless skin,
the tight-wound curls of Mathilde the ungrateful,
our friendship, painted bright as a game board.

May fingerprints of blood on gold
streak the heart of eternal Catalunya.
May stars like falconless fists shine on you,
while your painting and your life break into flower.

Don't watch the water clock with its membraned wings
or the hard scythe of the allegory.
Always in the air, dress and undress your brush
before the sea peopled with sailors and ships.