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Showing posts from 2008

hemas/gemas

con lagrimas hachas y gritos de trueno hemos horadado la soledad inmovil y descendido a encontrarnos abajo en pura tiniebla gris

Capas del Cielo / Capas de Ti

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Como te vas a marcar el paso del tiempo, compa? por el calendario?-Existen varios por la fecha de nacimiento?-Todo es chance, y el reloj se equivoca Aun las estaciones nos enganen, con inviernos calurosos y veranos friolentos en Antarctica… Entonc te pregunto- Como nos vamos a marcar el paso del tiempo? Al cortar el arbol, se revelan sus anillos, su piel, cada dia el viento y el fuego se lo batio, hasta que irradio una capa nueva, y el parte se junto con el entero. y cuando la fruta se brote de la semilla, sabemos entonces que el tiempo ha pasado que el crecimiento se dio vida, que el alimento no sea lejo’ En tu dia, mi compa, que has cosechado tu? lagrimas, amistades un poema, un amor - sera que aprendiste convivir con el dolor? Sera tu corazon mas fuerte? Lo has amasado suficiente para sea mas dulce y resiliente? Hoy, que marques el tiempo por latidos ansiosos por la verdad que la mano de tu reloj se anima por la persistencia , y no por la maldad. Hoy, que cumples un ciclo de aprendi...

El Apice

al àpice de raìces enredadas estoy y de la estirpe humana como tù soy yo, Nuestros cuerpos cifrados son, de nietos todavìa no nacidos la boca de eva y adàn y la faz del primer hombre que buscò alimento para que nacieramos. del àpice de las raices vivas me volvi A construir una fènix ofrenda piràmide a Dios frotarme ampollas nuevas intentarè para que se rescucitaran los àtomos de siempre Dia y noche intento descifrar los codigos de mi sangre buscando en mis manos la fe y las ampollas de los que construyeron Teotihuacàn: mis huesos, glifos de mèdula de un luchador rendido que en el fùnebre crepùsculo de su entierro habìa una luz trèmula de mi presente la chispa de la luz de nuestro giro incesante por el eje eterno. (Y sigamos en busqueda del pasado y del advenimiento.)

tha Modern Life

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This is what I will be doing, come Monday December 8, 2008, for 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week. This is like telling a man in prison, that if he turns his bed on it's side, he can use it to do pull ups, so don't worry about not being able to go for a run. Though come to think of it, even prisons have gyms. On Monday I will become an industrialized worker, who performs only 1 task in a system of tasks, rather than being a holistic contributor to all aspects of the goals of my Agency. I watched a movie last night whose main character was from Greenland, she had grown up in the vast expanses of snow and landscape--her idea of Hell was to be enclosed. I thought about quitting the job I have not yet started. I decided to hold out and see how it actually feels. Last night I also met someone who has a similar 40-hours-a-week-in-front-of-the-computer job. She said that the first week, her eyes were constantly bloodshot, and every hour her body felt so restless. Now, her eyes have adju...

Arte

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Nieta a Abuela: Viste el libro del arte de mi profesor, Malaquias? Abuela a Nieta: Si. El es muy...radical...? (Abuela comienza "radical" con el tono de una declaracion...tiene dudas y se acuerda con quien esta hablando entonces lo termina mas con tono de pregunta) Nieta a Abuela: O sea, El no permite k nos olvidamos de las cosas k pasan en el mundo. (Nieta comienza con tono de declaracion...no quiere hacerla a la abuela sentir mal entonces lo termina mas con tono de pregunta) Abuela a Nieta: (un poco defensiva) Pues, EL escoge lo ke el creE ke es importante no olvidar. Nieta a Abuela (senalando a una obra de arte en la pared, de unas naranjas): Asi como este artista escogio recordarnos de las naranjas, mientras gente moria...

The First Family of the United States of America!!!

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Nov 4

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Those of us in our early-mid twenties probably remember the Clinton years, the ends of which were tainted by the Lewinsky debaucle as a (looking back) silly segway into the BUSH ADMINISTRATION years. So, for all of my waking political life I have lived with a combination of love & loathing for the people and ideas of people of this country as the political scene has become more and more polarized. I have been at once aghast at the spiritual depravedness of our "Leader", while at the same time KNOWing that this system is sick and although it still plays a role in the organizing of human affairs, that at some point we will hear its death rattle and I don't know if I will be alive for that or not. I have wavered between believing this system will have to completely disintegrate to give way to something new, and hoping that change will happen so organically that we don't have to see complete destruction before the base for a new world system is built. Since Bush ha...

La hoja

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Estaba caminando, pensando en los ultimos dias porque fui a Los Angeles y vi mucha gente, pensaba k seguro estos dias me dieron algo para explorar con palabras...pero sabia tambien k tendrian k "percolate" un poco mas, tendria k permitirlas pasar por todas partes de mi mente, digerirlas para darles vida, anyways, cuando pensaba esto, casi al fin de mi caminata, vi esta hoja en la calle. Tenia todos los colores, tenia primavera, verano y otonio todas juntas- no tenia colores muy FUERTES - los k usualmente me llamen la atencion--pero me parecia mas linda por tener sus colores mas humildes - una belleza k cuesto encontrar, una belleza k no gritaba. me parece k cuando la mente esta muy agitada, busque las cosas mas tranquilas y justo cuando la agarre, comenzo a tocar esta cancion de Ursula Rucker en mi ipod: (*disculpa, es la unica copia k encontre, alguien ha puesto sus propias fotos) y en vez de seguir caminando con mis pensamientos en gira, me sente, disfrute de la vista de So...

In a Time of War

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This morning I woke up and rolled over in the comfort of my bed, in a time of war, to check my email. Grex had sent me a video, in a time of war, of Hector Buitrago's "Damaquiel". Damaquiel is a beautiful track, bodies moving, sending salutations, in a time of war, in a place of war, colors and patterns and hips and trees and guitars and resilience. An Afro-Colombian man traverses the city and the the countryside, he dancingly shuffles, floats just above the surface of the earth, in a time of war, and his feeling is one of praise, he sings it, he shares it, his arms wave about to disperse it into the air, to bring it out in my own body moving in my room as the soundwaves hit my ears. Here, in my room, i'm surrounded by my beautiful things, in a time of war, i'm surrounded by my purple and yellow dried corn wombs, watercolor paintings from my grandmother, painted wooden boxes, carved seed jewelry, a warm hoodie, my holy books, I'm going to get up now and make ...

The Greatest Oppression

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I finished reading Native Son, by Richard Wright, today. Although the ideas and people I lived in through his words for the past two days are still near enough for my thoughts to turn to and explore further, it makes me sad because now that I have read his three major works, I don't know where to turn to satiate this desire to read. Anyways, rather than go into how much Richard Wright was a fighter, seeker, artist, genius who kept it real and most of all was constantly, brutally honest in his explorations, and uncannily perceptive in his observations of MAN (that large M Man that includes ALL.OF.HUMANITIES Universal Emotions, Desires, Motives, Yearnings) ... (I just highly highly highly recommend reading his works, esp Black Boy & The Outsider) I just wanted to share a line from Native Son that most struck me: "Remember that men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread!" I kept pairing that line in my head with this line from...

Language & Power, or: Abandoned in Mexico!

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It's funny the thoughts that pop into your head in moments of meditation. Usually its simple, like remembering to write "soy milk" onto my grocery list for the next day. Or as random as realizing, as I did a few days ago, that the color-scheme for the painting I just finished was the imagery and color scheme from my "Odyssey of the Mind" club t-shirt from 6th grade!!! Tonight somehow in my meditation (obviously not over anything super important- this usually happens in the transition from prayer to meditation when I'm just looking for simplicity and clearing my mind, just before the real discoveries) I thought about h ow important language is, how language is power. I remembered a time in 2006 when I was with my family in the seaside/country town of Santa Cruz, Nayarit, Mexico, and we were borrowing our friend's big white truck. We used it to go between our little apartment and some other homes, and when my parents weren't with us, I got to be ...

Salsa

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5 years ago I lived where I live now, in my Grandmother's house. At that time, my aunt and my Grandfather also lived here, but now its just my Grandmother and I. I spent 12-15 hours a day in the laundry room/studio, silkscreening. It was the first time I realized in my life that I didn't constantly 1. Think about boys 2. Think about food. I didn't even realize that I was alone other than my Grandparents and my aunt for 3 months! I had never felt loneliness then, so I was too naive to feel it. Anyways there was a certain day where I went looking for a burrito. This town is totally Mexican so no sabia donde ir pero I just got in my car and drove around till I found one. It was really little and had a painting of a fish and the ocean on it. That burrito was hella good. I remember eating it outside, and afterwards I ate a fresh mango with cottage cheese on top. It's the only meal I remember from the summer. I must have been naive about more than loneliness, because I do...

In the Penal Colony

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Today at the Dollar Tree (where everything, yes EVERYTHING, is just $1!), I saw some books titled HOLY BIBLE, sticking out like bucked teeth from a cardboard box labeled INSPIRATIONAL. (*Warning: Everything written after this first line may be perceived as "boring", but I wanted to push myself further and explore my resigned indignation at seeing a Holy Text shoved into an "inspirational" cardboard box for $1. Then when I sat down to write I found my notes taken from some post-war Jewish philosophers...Read ahead with caution) This was a Holy text, but it would take a lot of convincing for me to have felt from those particular Bibles any AURA. AURA is human spirit infused. Aura is what your mother’s cookies have, as compared to cookies bought at the store in a package. Aura is an actor on stage: you can see his sweat, you feel the air move as he strides across the scene, as compared to the appearance of an actor on TV, who in reality was...

Woman Alone: Experiment #1: The Movies

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Woman Alone: Experiment #1 A few months ago I was talking to my friend Sami on the East coast, and somehow I brought up how I would be terrified and embarrassed to go out to see a movie by myself. “Mel,” she responds, “I go by myself all the time!” Maybe that’s why she is a self-possessed and independent woman that I like to think of myself as. Or maybe she IS that, which allows her to go to the movies by herself without burning cheeks. My cousin, also a young woman in her mid-twenties, recently went alone for the first time. It was a Sunday evening somewhere near UCLA – She went to see “The Duchess”, with Keira Knightley. When she walked into the theatre, there were previews playing but the entire place was empty. She was worried that all that electricity would be wasted only on HER. Then, another single woman walked in quietly, and another one after her as the movie began. They both looked like young professionals in their mid to late twenties. Maybe solo-movie...

My Monster & me / Mi Monstruo y yo

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My Monster, I think he found me at age eight having hatched out of taught cracks of uncertainty he came to stand at the mirror with me ethereal & globulous. My Monster his eyes were pulled tight at the ends by little playground fingers still brown underneath from the sand box still sticky from halloween pop-rocks CHI-NESE! My monster looks a lot like me at eight ethereal & globulous & chi-nese in jeanshorts and purple hi-top nikes My monster and me Sometimes I don't walk alone. Many times I've gone to the grocery store with him cloudy all around me. It gets hard to see clearly and sometimes my eyes get watery when people notice he's with me. Anything anyone does, I think it's because of my monster. He's not a frightening monster, at times I feel attached to him, I don't know what it would be like to not have a monster. Other people may not even see him but I know they subconsciously react to him. It's not me they react to, it's him. This mor...

Tha University

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"DE-COLONIZE my MIND, but you don't teach us how to live 180 UNITS but you can't teach us how to give ."

Iztcuincle

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soy tu iztcuincle y con mis patas picaras persigo tu corazon

Landscapes

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because... a landscape is only beautiful in person. when it becomes a memory, its image is only a scribbled lovenote whose immensity no one will ever comprehend A LOS 23 ANOS... a los 23 años yo vi, desnudo, el cielo. la luz había caido debajo de sus pies con su ropa sucia y arrugada atrás del horizonte. millones de diamantes engarzados tiritaban con la humedad de su respiro y el vacío lleno de su omnipresencia como en la nieve queda el hueco calido y solitario de un lobo vagabundo… la tierra soplaba y yo en mi espalda un bicho atrapado la vi vestirse otra vez rescatando lagrimas cometas escondiendo dedo por dedo su belleza cruda con la llegada del sol (En los Andes de Bolivia, 2006)

The Personal & The Political

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EL PORTAVOZ anoche se murio el portavoz del movimiento tal vez por suicidio, quizas por estar tomado- La conciencia ya no sembraran los granudos con gritos recios; Ni jamas nos inspirara el canto de poetas pericos. Anoche en este momento, con dedos tiernos y un cepillo antiguo peine pelos negros y largos , mis manos; dos aves anamorados preparando su primer nido a tu cabello liso tejieron, acariciando... y tu trensa humildemente brillaba en nuestro silencio From "Black Boy" by Richard Wright: My mother opened the door and stared curiously at the pile of magazines that lay upon my pillow. "You're not throwing away money buying those magazines, are you?" she asked. "No. They were given to me." She hobbled to the bed on her crippled legs and picked up a copy of the Masses that carried a luri...