The
Inner Blender
I am the
poet's inner blender,
state of the art, in ways you'd never
understand; I had voice circuits
long before Panasonic introduced
their ovens with 'The roast is burning,
stupid,' or cars that delight in monotone
reminders that the door, monsieur, is open
yet again, merci, ça ne fait de rien.
My words
and language, you inquire?
She thinks the words and language
she employs are hers; she as most poets,
is scattered to the nth degree, will jump
from mothers to marauders, from war
to werewolves, from love to lichen,
and expects the reader to exert herself
in feats of acrobatics fit for the Olympics.
And there's my sexuality, which she would say
is non-existent if she thought in such abstractions;
an inner blender with proclivities? Please, I can hear
her whine, louder than frappé at highest speed.
Talk all
you want about the inner child, that nasty
waif who lurks in corners yet is nothing but a brat,
waiting for the opportunity to stick its beastly foot
whenever feeling, dressed to kill in high heeled
party shoes, prances about. Mark what I say:
the inner child is nothing but that snotty whimperer
whose eyes you'd blacken in a pinch, no reason needed.
I, on the
contrary, am the inner blender,
an instrument of reckoning, the heart of all
discourse, the perfect mixing of each metaphor.
My kind sometimes must cater to lost souls
who meander through the planet and their days
attempting to connect the dots, red, purple, green.
This is the case with my benighted poet, this silviantonia
who cannot decide which language she will write in,
who prays to various deities in translation because, she says,
one never knows, it pays to be prepared. I think
in some past life I must have shredded language
to a pulp, or dangled participles without remorse.
If not, why not Neruda, Eliot or the Pope?
The
meaning of life
if you
think i am going to tell you anything
about the meaning of life
think again, amigo
what i
really wanted to tell you
what i wanted to explain
in one or two versos claros
is why
sometimes, maybe most times
there is a lack of punctuation,
puntos y comas
or capitalization,
mayúsculas y minúsculas
when i write my stuff
i gave
up most of this
when i was seventeen or eighteen
i'd started college early
la universidad
de puerto rico
and had a ball with juan ramón
jiménez, garcía márquez had just
published
cien años de soledad
cortázar was writing about cronopios
y famas, joan manuel serrat
kept singing
songs in catalán
and ray hernández, whose father
was a US militar with large pistolas
sang against
the yanquis, his own
father being yanqui, with his guitar
in cheap bares where we gathered
nights
and listened to the story
of profit and destrucción
in colombia, méjico, chile
"fuego
fuego fuego, el mundo está en llamas
fuego fuego, los yanquis quieren fuego
fuego fuego..."
it was
a simple thing
a given somehow
when the presidente called in
the policía
and they killed
antonia martínez, who was just
looking from her balcón in río piedras
that puntos
y comas would become
as unimportant as all the major issues
such as why we were killing children
in vietnam
or why we were giving money
to the government of papadoc in haití
and pretending he wasn't a killer
or why
we were friends with dictadores
and people engaged in la tortura
and were training folks with dinero
through
la cia to be asesinos
and so a little punto or a coma
became so not the thing to look at
that i
stopped looking, rhyming
and it wasn't eecummings 'cause i was
reading antonio machado and goytisolo
but why
rhyme when reason was passé
you may have noticed that i use
the puntos suspensivos - ... -
and sometimes
i don't use the I
which is the yo en español
and some of that is who i am
a sad cubana
who has never learned
to love this exile who still misses
beaches with arenas blancas
and such
a sea you'd cry
and sometimes there's a point
that must be made with proper
puntuación
or a mayúscula
that must be used
but most times
whether
anyone reads this mierda
i've lost the little bastards
with my virginidad
they're
gone
mi buen amigo
se fue para no volver
manicero se va...
the
first law, No. 567th rant
i.
it's not
about rights
or constitutional depredations
or about parties
elephants or pregnant
asses
it's the
first law
in the
beginning was the word
and the word was profit
in this
our perfect world
of fast consumers
and their holy websites
and lovely credit cards
american excess
visa to hell
master card for dummies
greed is
the fuel
all for the entertainment
of the huddled masses
yearning to be
free
from boredom
and save the children
and the dolphins
and the massive whales
and cut more trees
to print impassioned pleas
for nature and her forests
to gain
or not to gain
that is the question
ii.
you read
about another
century, 10th, 18th,
with nobles and their finery
and pregnant wenches
and children working
mines
and greed was much
the same
in the
beginning was the word
and the word was profit
iii.
in other
days the doings of the few
were secret
no global village
carried newsreports
of all the latest genocides
these days
we carry
all the news that's fit to print
which means those which our sponsors
will approve and pay for
you'll
hardly read about
the perils of Juanita and Raúl
working from dawn to dusk
for mere centavos
or about the babies Rosita
gave away because her milk had dried
and fórmula was too cara
or about Manuelita who gave birth
to a deformed bebito
when she was sprayed
picking the grapes
that come fresh to your table
courtesy of multinationals
in the
beginning was the word the bottom line the profit
greed death the muck
and mire the human filth of those
who barely live to bring us all the toys the gear the clothes
assembled in the farthest corners of a fucked up planet
in the beginning in the middle in the end
the bottom line the middle line the end
the profit fuck the values fuck the ethics
profit profit profit profit profit worlds without end
per saecula saeculorum
amen
Copyright © 2001 Silvia Antonia Brandon Pérez
