El Proyecto de la literatura puertorriqueña

growing

Growing in front of you is time

centimeter by centimeter it flows

overthrowing everything like a hurricane

From your guts to the future

exporting the goods

Into a cosmic battle

transforming your eyes into a pond

where birds may lay their feathers

where coquís sing home

I howl like a beast and repent on my knees

I screech against aging and sin

I explode

because the world keeps growing

turning

burning through human bodies

that are born and collapse

like flowers

thrown

into the sea

I fall silent

 

And whisper these words from within

May the gods forgive our dreams

and row us calmly into perpetual sleep

 

corals

A monument consisting of laughter

Laugher as a sculptural form

Laughter in the sounds of the sea

Inside the sea(s)hells

Laughter

Laughing as they disintegrate

Laughing as they rot

Laughing

Taking us

with them

 

animalic

My kind is threatened in all stages

Predators, diseases, and environmental factor

They say I am two times as big as a Tiger

but I’ve never seen a Tiger,

no one has seen a Tiger

in years.

 

They keep me here

trapped in this cage,

observing the obscure distillations

that travel from myself to the floor

Collecting data in their white clothes.

For what they want my mist

my dew,

is yet to be discovered.

Nonetheless,

they stand there

measuring, counting, and

expecting my divinity to intrude into their earthly bodies.

 

When production ceases well into the night,

they bring me strawberries and balls of candy

to replenish, fattening me

like a bulb

in spring.

 

Tomorrow they will resume their tests.

I have an appetite

unlike these creatures,

with their modest movements,

their soft flows,

I have eaten a couple of hands.

I exist, soft fur, slow pacing,

suspended

in this laboratory

waiting to get old,

waiting for my bones

to play their final song,

like hollow,

porous

flutes.

 

They say in my substance hides a key,

a cure, regenerative therapies,

these creatures,

doomed victims of time.

My song is like an echo:

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Mammalia

Order: Carnivora

 

They found me in the desert.

Through my eyes, arid regions can be sensed, 

studied, lived.

They called me nocturnal,

solitary, timid,

but still, I lick the faces of men,

who then developed worrying symptoms

 as if spores

had infiltrated their minds.

They all jumped off the nearest cliff,

walking patiently, some even smiling.

 

I would jump into clouds,

collapsing this atmosphere,

cutting through this misery

these mirrored days

Hoarding burning comets

in one of my seven stomachs

Getting myself sick with worry,

sick with hope,

sick till my throat starts to melt,

till my eyes burn,

and from within my navel,

a black hole to another galaxy

rips itself open.

These men, what they do to me.

This taste of metal and earth.

All the cathedrals of this world,

Collapsing.

 

island born

Hands trembling through its golden fingers

Banana soft light

Drums banging in the atmosphere

Deep dark holes and the foliage

And the crickets

and the coquís

all sing into your ear

to come

To come inside

To dream

Once

a somber ray of sun

parted the waters,

that’s how islands appeared

each on the opposite end of the other

destined to the millennial secretions of this earth

and the catastrophe

of humans.

All the islands of this world

mirror each other,

connected through an inferior cape

of magnetic pulsations

dancing

Whispering to one another

from within

These Islands,

inhabited by rotting military bases

and other basic human structures,

ghosted with fear.

Abandoned

Overrun by savage horses

and weeds,

plagued

by bombs

that never exploded,

humming

into your ears.

 

Live impact areas

worming with forbidden paths

where fruit-like grenades bloom

close to the sea.

They say if a man walks into an island

he walks into all of them,

They say

don’t walk among the forbidden paths!

there are bombs you can’t see

Waiting, Warm, Sleeping,

war metal rotting on both sides of the world

to the sound of wind chimes.

Barrack life in the atmosphere.

You can mount the island

on either side of the sphere

cautiously awaiting the twin soil to cover your fingers

The soil is thick with blood’s past

and when it rains

the smell of fear

covers them both in a fog

deeper

and darker

than the sea

Some say they are twins

born out of the same temblor

Other people testify

that such islands don’t really exist,

that they are just a mirage,

just a projection

cast into the nothingness

of this earth

by travelers

and pirates

driven mad

by the sea.

You can walk into a hole and never come back.

If you are buried on one island

you are reborn in the next

They say that one is forever possessed by an island

unable to escape,

carrying within the spirit of the land,

like a glass chain, a sirens’ whisper,

former garrison islands

bleeding people into the sea

People like sea urchins

people like windmills

people that fight death

or carry death

in each eye,

smiling,

humming,

disappearing

into

thin air.

 

prayer

tsunami mountain submerge me

hurricane wind deploy me

earthquake

powder me

turn me

into

Nothing

 

inheritance

No

you cannot tame

this beast

I will eat you

and your shambled dreams

your soft limbs

your marsh hallowed eyes

I will destroy you

I have survived beyond you

I will survive amidst you

my people have crossed these seas

laughing at the wind

my people have roamed these lands

and willed my weeded body

with the pinnacle of their desires

I am made of breeze

I am the mountain in the hurricane

I am the sea

the broken dam

the healed limb

I am all the brujas

you cannot

colonize

Me

 

mermaids

Mother fucking sailors

White pants on deck

and beady eyes

waiting to catch the day.

With their bright lights

and long waxed fingers,

howling,

spitting nets into the atmosphere

Sereno thick fog

a young conglomeration of cells

a sunset color blob

that floats and expands

beyond ourselves.

Encasing us, encircling us

like a waterspout

plunging us deep

For a sacrifice in a song, you cannot miss.

There’s a riddle here, you see?

Anything draws these fleshed stiffs,

from wobbling fireflies

to bioluminescent dreams

Seagulls,

whispering promises out of their beaks

Sailors,

Their teeth falling into the sea

becoming pearls

on the dangling lobes of beasts

Precious stones

like treasures

or treats

that men exchange

to forget

and to forgive

 

I sing all-day

I coo like a baby

and I make them weep.

 

Then dawn creeps

and everything breaks and all is silent

Sereno on top of a hill

down to the single deepest point of the sea

I struggle to keep up

Sailors chanting in and out of themselves

their hands tied to their ropes

their prayers full like a feast

Closer, closer,

warmer, warmer. Faster.

Dormant volcanoes

mumbling into the sea

Trees shivering all the way

into the lumber of their fleet.

 

And my mouth trembles,

and it widens

and it shrieks.

Till the children of men

with their voices of sleep

come tangling down

with glee.

 

ashes

Walking down this mush

I hunt, I shed a tear

for my father, for his past,

for his future

And my promise

to carry him up fogged mountains

hidden under ‘no trespassing’ signs

where secret military bases pop champagne,

and dress monkeys with electric suits

heating up the place

till it can no more,

till the whole area

evaporates.

 

arrival

Blood grows in spring

Fattening bulbs pumping

Multiplying technicolor lights

Glistening, widening smile

Bright coral veins

awoken

Pushing red lips on a trumpet

Arriving at carnival, cats purring

And buds that swell

And a promise

To stay put

And stay well

 

remembering

Viole(n)t limbs like fins

espuma en la boca, espuma

siren heels that swirl like wheels

(And all the feels)

While the women

disappear

in the wind

 

Blows, more blows

down to the ground

not a dancer

but a stone turner

a salt licker

a whisper tamer

from this corner of the earth

that’s so beautiful and so rotten

it bleeds people into the sea

 

I am its keeper and its ghost

keeping its limbs tight, closed

salitre smell of the sea

you open your eyes and then close

you’ll never go back

(we never went back)

and the circles of this earth

confound you

till there was no more

but this song

hidden

in a broken door

and in everything

You touch

 

swan flesh

Like the devil, probably, born into madness,

into the howling night, through screeching tongues,

a woman weeps, and thus there I am,

in the wilderness,

all is black, all is silent,

I am one

with the world.

 

The time was ripe, as they say, no surprise,

no fufú, no broom behind a door

would break this wind,

the time was now.

Stone, copper, crosses,

my grandmother’s beads,

and the coquís.

Everything sings when the world starts to collapse, 

buzzing motorbikes, cucubanos from your childhood, 

the Halley comet will never come back, 

our eyes eternally rolling till the time is right, 

till the spell is broken.

 

You walk out the door and realize Sisyphus’ Mountain 

might as well be a kitchen, a harbor, a distant planet

The wind keeps pouring, the voices all held together 

like that song inside a seashell 

from those islands that now sleep 

under the sea. 

(An immense blast 

behind you.)

You were once a human 

building a life,

now

any raft is a safe place to go.

Now, now is all you got.

As you sweat,

as sweat pours,

we roll, and life rolls, 

(stay put) you think, 

no one can see you smile now, 

but people have learned to read your eyes. 

People smile more now that they are frocked

So you smile back and you sing, 

and again, 

nothing 

Nothing can stop you, 

the bread is freshly baked, 

the children are back in school 

and as the sun sets 

you remember, 

it has been 

11 months, 3 weeks, and 2 days since they closed 

all borders. 

Perhaps if you sweat enough

you'll melt, perhaps you’ll transpire 

and blend into the atmosphere and reach that place 

far behind, that forgotten orb, 

that primordial sphere. 

I always wanted to be an astronaut. 

The sharp haircuts, 

pristine lab coats, 

I’ve never sweated so much in my life. 

What was it that drew you away 

from your childhood home and into a galaxy 

of con-artists and observatories, 

lonely people look at the sea, madmen look at the sky. 

Pineapples here taste like plastic. 

Silence. 

It was silence that brought you here. 

In outer space, there is no sickness, 

every step is carefully calculated. 

Waiting for blastoff, coming in and out of the vessel, 

there are problems with the engine, there are problems with the papers, 

there are problems everywhere. 

Another day goes by as you walk through the canals 

you see little boats, floating bodies, that swing, and sing, and float. 

The canal is disgusting

-how can they manage? 

Scabies, hives, dermatitis, you name it, 

they want it, 

they just don’t know it yet. 

The canal is infected, a mirage, 

a turn of the century spectacle 

with jugglers and swimmers, ducks, and swans. 

It’s illegal to eat swan flesh. 

Unlike horses, 

which are obviously delicious, 

swans are plump and pompous 

making their flesh even redder and wetter,

like a pomegranate, 

like biting a pomegranate in the middle of summer;

while the juices plow down your chin. 

A succulent treat available only to the wondrously wild,;

to the feral beings that inhabit this part of the galaxy.

 

There has been death here?

Oh yeah, there has been.

By the millions you say?

yes, by the millions. 

Quazillions, blasting bodies,

exploding cathedrals,

the canals were filled with blood.

But no one ate the swans?

Funny.

I would have made myself a cape of swan feathers,

oh yes, 

and silk, 

fine translucent silk, 

adorned to the core! 

Baroque dreams will never abandon this humble body, baby!

 

Is the machine ready yet? 

All this talking about birds has gotten me hungry. 

At least flesh is still possible in this world, 

albeit not for me. 

But the thought, 

the idea

is still mine: 

the sumptuous penetration of your canine fangs

into dormant, fragrant, blustering flesh. 

The subsequent dilation of pupils, 

a pupillary response used back in the day 

to identify those who dared eat 

the noble beasts, 

the soft thighs 

of saints.

 

Surprisingly to many of you, 

cosmic travel is not aided by heavy machinery any longer, 

loud explosions are a thing of the past. 

Now your body just floats 

right up to the heavens. 

Previous to the assumption 

one must undergo strenuous training,

diving,

Swimming,

a strict fruit-based diet, 

and an almost unbearable amount of chanting

prepares the human subject. 

Before blast off, 

touching 

is absolutely forbidden, 

I guess that’s the hardest part for me.

But it doesn’t matter, 

because 

nothing compares to absolute assumption.;

For the people observing,

it seems as if one is suspended

as if nothing is happening at all,

but let me tell you, 

your body is a rocket,

it is a ship, 

it is a star, 

baby, 

it is a comet!