The Park

Fictive short - 24 Nov 2010.

His hands are sweaty, his back is arched, his eyes are filled with rage - the internal kind, the repentive, dirty, rotting kind - and he yells at his client "Fucking disgusting motherfucker!" Wiping his mouth, with repudiance, no, with teary disgust at the man he must have just passed moments with in one of the many cars that pull up to him every night.

From where I´m standing I can see him raging at the trees, the curb, the closed newspaperstand. He keeps wiping his mouth, raising his hands, yelling at the others that always stand there with him. Hiding his sad loneliness behind an aggressive rage. I know he´ll come to me for consolation in about a minute or two. After he´s plunged his fist in the dirt he´ll come here, hands in his pockets, nervously looking side to side but strung on getting here for some hugs and kisses. Shiny, colorful ones marked x and o - just like his eyes - one closed and the other open."

La Era Esta Pariendo un Corazon

Le he preguntado a mi sombra

a ver como ando para reirme,

mientras el llanto, con voz de templo,

rompe en la sala regando el tiempo.

Mi sombra dice que reirse

es ver los llantos como mi llanto,

y me he callado, desesperado,

y escucho entonces: la tierra llora.

La era esta pariendo un corazon,

no puede mas, se muere de dolor

y hay que acudir corriendo

pues se cae el porvenir.

La era esta pariendo un corazon,

no puede mas, se muere de dolor

y hay que acudir corriendo

pues se cae el porvenir

en cualquier selva del mundo,

en cualquier calle.

Debo dejar la casa y el sillon,

la madre vive hasta que muere el sol,

y hay que quemar el cielo si es preciso

por vivir.

Debo dejar la casa y el sillon,

la madre vive hasta que muere el sol,

y hay que quemar el cielo si es preciso

por vivir, por cualquier hombre del mundo,

por cualquier casa. Por cualquier casa.

- Silvio Rodriguez

...

"I just felt an immense silence. Heavy. Falling between the two of us. His eyes went red, angry, confused, unknowing... His hands trembled and his back straightned. I realized he couldn't solve my problems, he didn't know how to, he never knew, and he'd always pretended to be and know everything he was and knew. This man wasn't the father I had known, Zero Tolerance, Iron Handed. I wanted to hug him, to tell him everything would be okay, but as any wolf in sheep's clothes he bit his last words at me before slamming the door behind him - like a stab you don't feel 'til the knife comes out, just like that, violent and bitter, with a thief's face. The thief of my childhood, mask of my youth. 'Yeah', I thought, 'what youth, why don't you get lost after everything you did to ME', self-destroying before he destroys me, sitting there with my jaws jammed, swallowing tears, knowing that at the other side of that door he was hugging his little girl like he never would have hugged me, that's called looking for love where you'll never find it."

Fictive short, 26 Jan 2007.

Drawing "Santiago", paper and pencil 2 Jan 2006.

Pequeñita Introducción

"¿Qué les queda por probar a los jóvenes
en este mundo de paciencia y asco?
¿sólo grafitti? ¿rock? ¿escepticismo?
también les queda no decir amén
no dejar que les maten el amor
recuperar el habla y la utopía
ser jóvenes sin prisa y con memoria
situarse en una historia que es la suya
no convertirse en viejos prematuros

¿qué les queda por probar a los jóvenes
en este mundo de rutina y ruina?
¿cocaína? ¿cerveza? ¿barras bravas?
les queda respirar / abrir los ojos
descubrir las raíces del horror
inventar paz así sea a ponchazos
entenderse con la naturaleza
y con la lluvia y los relámpagos
y con el sentimiento y con la muerte
esa loca de atar y desatar

¿qué les queda por probar a los jóvenes
en este mundo de consumo y humo?
¿vértigo? ¿asaltos? ¿discotecas?
también les queda discutir con dios
tanto si existe como si no existe
tender manos que ayudan / abrir puertas
entre el corazón propio y el ajeno
sobre todo les queda hacer futuro
a pesar de los ruines de pasado
y los sabios granujas del presente.

Mario Benedetti