Interactive Reading

Love and transformation
Souls of the unborn
pressing hips
Whispering
Hippolytus
Hippolytus
What have you become?

For Jacques Derrida, With Apologies

Every wall is made of bricks, even you.

It is simpler this way:
give everything an opposite.
Make every answer into a question.

When you are a monument, I hope you mock the air.
Use your words like a pistol.
Wear your hopeless clock like a slipper.

How else to explain concrete and satin?
Love and loyalty? Men and other men?

Before long you will be immune to daylight.

Veteran's Day

I totally respect the people who serve, and today we honor them with Veteran's day. With all our jingoism, I am still stuck on the isolationist, pre-emptive striking, arrogant mentality of Bush. I am shamed by his arrogance, as is every man and woman wearing the uniform. WE DO NOT BELONG IN IRAQ. These are my convictions. I want the backward “Jesus-will-solve-your-crap,” “My God is more entitled than your God” politics out of my body and my country.

Jesus said, “Those without sin throw the first stone,” which is a doctrine of peace, self reflection and diplomacy. He did not preach hatred, close-mindedness, gay bashing and gender bias, which is what Bush is preaching. Religion is ruining government. The startling thing is that one can search the web and find many religious sites that say separation of church and state was never written and doesn’t exist, because the exact words “separate” and “state” didn’t occur. It doesn’t matter what is the content or intent. Yikes, now we have the Christian reinterpretation of the very foundation of our country. They think they are entitled to reinterpret the Constitution to suit their needs. Be afraid!

Picture the men and women in uniform. Do you see their pride and glory? Can you also see the agonizing moments before death when they ask "Why?" and they are alone in the silence of a country without an answer. The world isn't safer, it is more dangerous, fear-laden and hate laden. It's too bad we can’t send the people of the red states to European countries to see a greater historic view and the true mirror of international perspective.

I wish they could see a painting in Spain's Prado Museum painted by Goya in his last years, called “The Dog on the Leash.” It looks like a dog’s head drowning in sand. Goya’s last years were plagued by the subjugation of Napolean, then Ferdinand VII, whose wanton excesses and violence paved the way for a civil war. Arrogance led Ferdinand and Napolean, how much has changed? The dog’s head drowning in sand is a great metaphor for where we have been led by arrogance, but who is holding the leash?
Jesse

Parallel

I change in and out
of you like clothes

we live the same life
concurrently, mine is amber
and yours maroon, cold as velvet

but you don’t understand that
you are my jazz,
my dark chocolate and black coffee,

my bus pulling up to the curb
exactly on time

_________

by the way, everyone, please check out my new web column at www.nycgirl.com (not to be confused with www.nycgirls.com, which is an escort service). It's called "Pedestrian on Seventh Avenue." The more hits I get, the more ad money we get, the more money I get... you see the vicious cycle. At the very least you can enjoy mocking the bad pictures of me. Tell your friends.

Pan de Muerto

Pan de Muerto
For Cesar Vallejo


Grease a cookie sheet
Mix vigorously, then divide
Mold the skull and crossbones to your delight
Serve warm
Eat sugared skulls with anise and milk.

El Dia de Todos Los Muertos
Four years of Tuesdays
Eating the sugared skull
Formed at home.

Angelitos, souls of the children who have died
Viejas, souls of the old who have died
Bombs dropped like cascarones
Break bread with the dead
Who wait at the door.