Directing Julia Varley
Last night I was starving and decided to boil my certificates with salt.
Most people live on the illusion of dead-end professionalism and degrees.
I rather take the split coffee from a rotten liver &
light a match across my grades.
Soaked the cigarette in the sink and collect my ashes in vain
to feed the lamp across her ragged eyes.
Starving; and the freezer was a homework yet to be done.
Maybe staging Mayakovsky isn’t that hard once you’ve eaten
your education,
all what’s left is melting ice on the pan,
& she comes in naked and you want to fuck her and realize it’s only an image
of your sick mind
(she left after lame sex to be with her family)
& the mirror looks back at you but you are not looking at it.
I too was a blurring stain on a smoke canvas,
so I empathize with half sketched peoples
who tear the puzzle behind reflected stares.
Black ink is a bitter spice_with the right diplomas could make a tasty shawarma.
Re-composing / De-composing …
Этот вечер решал —
не в любовники выйти ль нам? —
… the dilated body on an craving stomach
is a risky game when you like paper cuts
You are in the spot light again.
Steam lamp is famine.
Text is dry.
Curtain rags smell of bacon break.
Lines fading in corporeal hunger.
Light is coming and I have to memorize the script shut
Страсти крут обрыв —
should get some sleep
отойдите.
Oh shoot!
Homenatge als amors eterns, com el de Vicente
(…vull que el meu cos es confongui amb aquesta terra de València, que és l’amor de tots els meus amors)
V. Blasco Ibáñez
hi ha toros tan gallardos com Manuel
jumped off the tip of my tongue
as I witnessed
the red-stained arena tremble to
the cries of the filthy crowd
el follet de Lorca inhabits there ajar
in the twists
unparalleled of the torero
boots petting the thirsty arena
slowly as a contortionist sneaks
himself in the very
core of the plaça and the ànima mediterrània
the big band on the upper tier march contretemps sinister, jigged;
duo tempo
one same ànima
the matador gentile-acclaimed stalking
the toro, beast humiliated, raging the steel
the breathing of the toro snorts through my nose feel pain through its bloodshed eyes move to the beat of the trombone (though I’m sitting still glued on the cement tier) torero no longer owns me know the rest trust that shouted olés are also meant to me have one last breath to scratch his jacket once more torero is such a gentleman gives me a few seconds to strike again allows me to trample on his barret with the dirt from my legs to get my final olé it’s his attempt to bust my ego to be forgiven to deserve or not to deserve the blessings of Donya Sol is the question
bone dust from toro ribs is the clay used to echo the church tower calls and toro horns the most sacred chalice on high altars to savor sang de toro eucharist
there isn’t any art as pure and brave (la resta són farses, això) than a red tango on the arenas of Valencia I think we are all whooped with the final step.
Julio César Paz is a Cuban-born poet and educator, raised in a small city by the sea. He lives in Hanoi where he shares his love of poetry through regular workshops with his students. He finds joy and inspiration in taking slow motion walks with his pet turtle Antigone after school. He has co-authored Lo que aprendí al otro lado del mundo with Nuyorican poet Carmen Bardeguez Brown, and Three Poets / Tres Poetas. His most recent collection is Trínculo’s Handwritings. Find him on Twitter @jcpazwriter.
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