Friday, March 5, 2010

Achy Obejas was Here

Achy Obejas was here




Achy Obejas, Cuban-American writer, translator, and journalist just recently visited El Paso and UTEP for Women's History Month.

As a journalist, she has received awards for several of her freelance stories written in the Chicago Tribune. In addition, she has earned the Lambda Literary Award for her novels Memory Mambo (1997) and Days of Awe (2002).

After meeting her in person this past Tuesday, I have to say that she has a wonderful and refreshing personality. If you have the opportunity, check out some of her novels.

Bibliography:

* "Havana Luna (novel)" (2009) Akashic Books
* Ruins (novel) (2009) Akashic Books
* Havana Noir (editor) (2007)
* This is What Happened In Our Other Life (poetry) (2007)
* Days of Awe (2001)
* Memory Mambo (1996)
* We Came All the Way from Cuba So You Could Dress Like This? (1994)


On Tuesday, she signed several copies of her books for me; during which we had a small conversation. I noticed that in my copy of days of Awe she wrote: "Send me a Poem" with her e-mail. I found it very flattering; yet as soon as she had written this, I felt as though every thing I had ever written in my life was suddenly crap. Of course, I'll follow up though, I just wanted to share.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

New Night




(Part I: Philosophical Treatise)
[scene: the mind; allegro, ryhtmic]

Oftentimes I feel misplaced,
torn apart, rearranged and retraced

So I sit late nights by a starry fire
And seek thoughts of which to inspire

So this must be what it feels like when a flower blooms
The simultaneous collision of a thousand heartshaped moons

Blurring the division between dream and reality
In a single daydream spent eternity.

***

(Part II: Invocation)

Humanity, Humanity,
You’re a muttering bum.
Sitting there, complacent
Under a stuttering sun.

Goodbye, Halcyon days
Golden goodness, will not end.
Human kind and our desperate ways.
Hello, darkness my old friend

But I’ve had enough of this
Dreary, desolate, way of living.


We have to do something!
So we may stay up late at night and write new stories for the stars.

***

(Part III: Wandering Poet)

Sometimes.
When the time is late and images of contemporary society are sprayed upon the canvas of earth.
Faceless masks and empty words, makes pens mightier than swords.

Although.
The images flicker, rapidly and enigmatic, shadows upon the wall. Shape-shifters roam the earth in nomadic tribes, extinguishing the flame of whim.

WOOSH! was the sound of moonlight breaking into millions of particles
which gently lay down in a blanket of dim fog upon the eclectic city night.
A snow globe of misty light; both lunar and electric are the sounds of the still dark flood as tragic faces move along like yellowed leaves crumbling in the wind.

The leafless trees outside the library stand like red giants, rustling and dancing to the beat of seismic samba as they anxiously wait for the final explosion.

An unknown HOWL darts throughout the fragmented universe as angel-headed hipsters grab their bongos and travel to the promised land -- seeking music lessons from god; the best improviser this side of the imagination.

An island onto ourselves; we build bridges to connect and shout: enough!
And sprawled across the wall. Across the canyon wall; the sacred word: LOVE!!!!

Trapped in the amber of the moment and with no "why," we prepare to be cremated upon our death that way so we may go on as lightly as we wanted to have lived.

And when the wind picks up around the ears of new generations, we -- the voices of the dead -- will attempt to whisper sense to those willing to listen:
Dammit children!, if you do one thing on earth, you've got to be kind to one another.

And they run away in laughter, the only way they know how: towards the future as other voices struggle to be heard.

So this broken world lays outside as a solitary stroll invokes a seemingly coincidental foray into the musical etudes of memory which trigger a brief moment of nostalgia.

This is the now and we must be prepared for any moment upon this spiraled timeline.
Like water, formless and strong. Both empty and full. Tranquil and relaxed yet, ready to act at a moment’s notice.

This is the life we live, no longer directed by sinister muses but by the gentle spirit of love. And the dreamers stand up and jam to the fluid movement of feeling romanticized in the form of other worldly rhythmic vibrations.

Two lovers: both existent and non-existent. Yet, lying in the realm of Possibility.

They stay up late and write new stories for the stars.

***

(Part IV: Masquerade)

Sometimes, I think that I too
have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness...
And burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo
In the machinery of night…

(looking for anything)
(…anything)


They are the burning hot quasars of existential memory -- nostalgic interludes of this melancholy masquerade

-------

(Scene V: Poetic Perseverance)

[scene:late night]

I step of my house -- tired.
I look out at the deep dark ocean of a starry night
and breathe a sigh of relief as my eyes caress
the milky white streaks of matter spilled across
the sky: straggling clouds separated from the herd,
distant star clusters blurred by restrictions of sight,
and spiraling galaxies -- whizzing by at tremendous
speeds. Unfathomable.


Drifting away.
Swept under
the gravitational pull
of an angry sun.


Humanity dwindles on the edge of reason
softly singing a song -- quite possibly a requiem.
The cool breeze of chance glides around
our collective skin -- chills recollect static.

The sound of silence, deep in space.
Under the glow of a million dead stars.
The settled dust of an empty planet
begs for the creation of life.

I gaze outward into the open void
of the desolate universe and wait

…waiting.

Waiting for the moment to soar.
Because this is the one where we learn how to fly in the end.

Friday, December 26, 2008

The Simultaneous Collision of a Thousand Heart-Shaped Moons




So this must be what it feels like when a flower blooms --
The simultaneous collision of a thousand heart-shaped moons.

Blurring the division between dream and reality
-- in a single daydream, spent eternity.

A Glance:

She ripped away the heavily-weighted nets of hate which instantaneously caused everybody to gently float upward
to the skies in a simultaneous dream of lingering euphoria.

She finally showed us how to love;
and her name was music.
Contemplating upon the complexity of a moment, a heavy thunder
hammers upon the fragile strings of poets and philosophers alike.

It leaves a resonating echo in the chambers of
both the heart and of the mind -- repeated invariably
across a landscape of fluctuating mediums.

They simultaneously sing the archaic elegies of yesteryear
and the pseudo-colloquialisms of our current endeavor.

The result is a blur of possibility that lies hidden
within the haunting chords of an unknown song.

Wandering the cusp of existence; where the world is
freshly planted in the soft damp soil of infancy
we are able to experience things again for the first time.

The soul is reborn and the origami dreams of the heart
take flight in a blizzard of rare snowflakes that have been
forged in the icy-blue jet-streams of mysticism.

Romanticized symbols dance inexplicably about my being,
unknown in the world yet meant to signify a refined, pure, soft
and gentle love. But in the process become choked up,
pianissimo mumbles, garbled up with the nonsense of
incomplete incoherent mumbling.

So this must be what it feels like when a flower blooms --
The simultaneous collision of a thousand heart-shaped moons.

The Place Where The World Ends





I temporarily gazed into the grotesque
and all too REAL eyes of Mortality.

The grand scope of all things threw its
intense weight upon my being and pinned
me down to the dusty earth.

- I saw sand turn into glass.
and all around me: glass dissolve into sand.

- I saw the mountain landscape change
flowers and plants and trees, disappear.

- I saw the hard wooden casket of a loved
face, no longer with us. Only then did we
regret lost time.

Staring out the window, I see a dead world.
-- have we truly removed ourselves that far from nature?

My heart sings a song of melancholic reflection
and My mind engages a maze of philosophic meandering.
but my soul...

my Soul transcends beyond the known
and into the hidden flux of all things.
I too, become a transparent eye

and I see what we have done
and I see that all is one.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Ode to Buddy Bolden




Play on! Buddy Bolden
with your sweet cornet
and the big fourth note
(ba-dum, bum, clack, Bee-AT!)

If only America had the chance
to hear you play again
or -- at least one more time.

Unrecorded and lost in time
they say you were the cool cat
who first played Jazz.

Playing in many halls in the very
early part of the Twentieth Century
You could play it ALL
and you could play it HOT!!!

Playing in the counter-culture Red-Light District.
In Storyville, New Orleans
the children head you eternally practicing
and quickly called you King.

If only we could hear you once more
we thought -- as you walked away from that
one parade -- and found yourself within
the pristine padded walls of the institution
we know as the mentally insane.

And America wept as we slowly
found out we would never hear your soulful sound
again -- in the Kasbah of North America -- or anywhere.
All that is left is one blurry picture
and a legend to last a lifetime.

And Resonating through your legend
are powerful heavy notes --
played loudly and unpolitely;
the new music of the soul.
It is simply what you did --
..and it was beautiful.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Take Five (Dave Brubeck Tribute)




Bass drum, snare and cymbal work together with percussive placidity to forge the beginning of a new song.

Soon blasts forth the syncopated piano rhythm in the feel of five-four.
Put your hand to its heart and feel its heartbeat.
A new voice is quick to join the romantic affair of harmony and melody.

In comes the smooth timbre of a sleek saxophonist. Poetry flows from the bell, telling us a story that only our imagination can remember.

The resonating boom of the bass strengthens the foundation upon which this romance is set:

-- all parts fit snuggly together as pieces of the puzzle, for this moment in time, music reigns supreme.

A fine diminuendo commences as lead drops out and only piano remains. We are graced by the sound of ivory keys jumping up and down to the elation of precise musicianship. The stage has been set once again for magic to take place:

Percussion takes the forefront, persuading us of our rhythmic endeavor – the chains of restraint are lifted and all notion of form ceases to exist -- The neglected rhythm generator becomes the untamed and a beast of the beat. We call it a Drum solo

Tonight: Jazz fills the air with its intoxicating aroma of pleasant perfume. Music holds our hearts in firm embrace as it reminds us of our humanity and our capacity for human expression.

We are all different as the instruments upon stage; as diverse as the notes to a harmony. Yet -- we all come together, and for one moment create something uniquely beautiful…


***



* Dedicated to Kriss Thompson, fellow music lover, lover of life and most importantly my friend. The world stops to hear the symphony of our lives – Richie Marrufo

The Open Road Revisited




I can be Jack Kerouac
and you can be Emily Dickinson --

together we can blow this joint
and hit the only open road yet to be traveled.

Overcoming our dichotomous anxieties
we will flow as Yin and Yang

A poet's heart, a poet's soul: you and I
build paper cranes until its time to nap.

Off we go into space -- the new frontier
tiered of squaresville and mundane bedrooms.

Off we go:

I can be Jack Kerouac
aand you can be Emily Dickinson --

Subversively singing soft mad lullabies
to our infant dreams: the children of the world.