The Puerto Rican Literature Project

always alone 

with your decorated smile, reconstructed

on the sidewalks

 with the numbers of almanacs

 falling all over

 your hair

 daily

 weekly

 every year comrade every year and

you couldn’t bear the shadow of buildings lengthen 

from one side 

of the street

to the other

you wouldn’t even dare to look through the eyes

      of its windows

you couldn’t bear

your cemeteries of empty coffins

nor your alcoholic magazines

nor your books

nor your newspapers

discredited

by the mouth of your own

murderers

and your hair

hung

like a towel on a towel rack

      like curtains on their cornices

      like a beadless collar

      around

      your neck

your hands

still are still placed over your face

     for looking through the cracks

     between your fingers

     still

and there remains your silhouette like smelled poppies

    searching for you

    at the headquarters

    of mirrors

still

still

still there lacks the courage of rifles

because you keep yourself

in the shell

of an egg

because you hide yourself in ashtrays

because you wrap yourself in beers and

in the yellowish color of your

old

cigars

you need something comrade

you don’t even have the strength of pouring rain

the strength

of currents

the strength

of heavy swells

the strength 

of hammers

the strength

of engines and of mechanic

monsters

still

still 

still your melody sounds inside sea shells

sounds in the resin of tree barks

sounds in the bolts and

    in the scales of fish

   sounding

   like marbles

   like pocket change

   like billiard balls

   sounding

   like paper towels

   like matches as they spark to light

   like teeth as they cringe

   like prey as they fry over a hot pan

   sounding

   sounding

   sounding

   yet

   this time

   your structures made of ivory

and frozen sand

crumble down like entire

ashes

from your cigarettes and

your chest is naked so that everyone can see themselves in your melted

body

in your figure

hanging

in your remains of pollen and

germs

yet

this time

you don’t dress as a priest nor a small child

you don’t dress as a samaritan nor a priest

     nor a prophet

     nor an office clerk

     nor a walker

     nor a poet

and you don’t call yourself a liqueur taster

this time

the sheets of sex stand in your way and

you keep yourself in the furnitureless

residence

of your handkerchiefs

cornered

by the sentences in your books

    broken down

    occult

at the bottom of your old shoes

certainly

you are overpopulated by dull loneliness

you smell of unsettled bowels

evicted

between the earth and the sky

you

have nothing left

but

a word for erecting your temples

    you

    don’t have

    even

    a plaster smile for your murdered

statues

nor a face

nor a hair where you can wind

your bursts of laughter

round

and it’s just that there are traces of your dusks all over the surface 

of old

walls

and it’s just that you can’t bear your fingers upholstered in nicotine

and it’s just that you can’t deal with your empty oysters

     you can’t stand your uniforms of 100 clowns

     you can’t live with your naked and raped moon

  in a million and two nights

you cant’ bear your prostitute

hotels

your wanked

wine cellars

your cardboard

bells

your shredded rugs

your unidirectional doors

you can’t comrade

you can’t

you can’t

you can’t bear the long eyeshadows of your elephants

you can’t bear the triangle nails with which your enemies

scratch your

you can’t bear your elven shoes

you can’t bear the blow breaking your forehead

    the blow breaking eyebrows

   breaking your face

breaking your face

breaking your face