House of Nezua [Libro]

here’s the title piece for the album of spoken word tracks fever of peace. (original post here).

Standard Podcast [ 2:28 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

this is the spoken version of a poem i wrote on umx in march of 2008. tell ya the truth, i listen to them and sort of want to do them all over! but they were supposed to be practice for the upcoming podcasts, that i can’t let my usual sense of perfectionism drag them into neverland. (especially cuz i have heard weirrrrd things about neverland).

i realize that my father has writing where i’m pretty sure he uses this line in a poem…but x is my generation and this xicano will take it from here. . .

Standard Podcast [ 0:01 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

From the Nectarine Meat collection of poems. Soon I’ll post a download link to this album in its entirety.

Standard Podcast [ 1:07 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Remember…to breathe…

From fever of peace.

winter…can be so long. this last winter was especially long.

many of these poems from the new “album” fever of peace were written to spark light, fire, heat to see me through the winter. here is one…an awakening.

Standard Podcast [ 1:03 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

for lunita.

Querida Luna [ 0:26 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

i’ve spent some time today recording some poetry that I’ve written over the last year. here is one called summer surrender.

Standard Podcast [ 0:50 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

odis has moved out.

it’s kind of weird. i find the absence of odis a little strange. offputting. unsettling. he was my first contact and friend in this joint. i mentioned him here, where i first moved in.

i came out of my apartment the other day to hear him talking with m—-, taking the last of his stuff out. couldn’t believe it. he’s been here six years. been here since the first day i moved in, i know that. always been cool. always ready with an extra cerveza, always willing to chill. came and went at some funny hours, but i don’t care about that.

i walk past his window feeling a bit strange now. i try not to look up. it’s just a little too empty, too silent there.

Odis talkin' about the flowers he planted over a year ago.

he planted a few bulbs under the soil, i’ve taken fotos of these flowers before last year or so.

i took this foto on the left just a week or two ago.

his story? odis came to eugene a number of years ago. recruited by nike, which essentially owns the town. he was an olympic athlete. this was the year, i guess or so the story is told, that the USSR swept the olympics aided by early use of steroids. nike didn’t want the big loss to reflect on them and their stock of athletes so they…dumped them all.

you almost felt meeting odis there had to be some kind of story behind his being here…not to be smallminded about it, but this area is…not particularly “diverse.” i mean…it is, actually. there are plenty of mexican enclaves, and native/indian communities and even reservations. but the area is hella segregated. and since i don’t live in the poorest part of town, around me are mostly white folks who really are convinced that wearing hemp, eating all organic food, and buying veggies at an outdoor market means they are fully enlightened. i don’t mean to be cruel. but race here is buried. and i guess that’s why living next to a black fella and an asian cat on the other side sort of helped me feel…buffered!

odis is a bit of a  gambler. he always seemed to be able to make it work. lately, as the signs come up in store to store announcing price raise or vacancy, we’re all learning our money doesn’t go as far anymore. maybe he missed a bet, or couldn’t recoup in time. for the first time in six years. or maybe our landlady decided she was tired of odd hours, late comings and goings, blonde women in a truck with Odis, who stands out in this neighborhood as it is. i loved looking out the window and seeing him and his little rowdy clusters of friends at night, idling, waiting to take off somewhere into the evening. maybe that bothers some…i like to feel there is life around me….

from what i hear he was late on rent and the landlady gave him “til monday” to work it out. he packed up and left. dont know if he’s still workin down the road at the gas station, i’ll have to drop by and see.

six years! not even a full month late. that’s all you get in this world, i guess, even if you pay rent on a place for six years. nothing to show at the end of it except some free newspapers that pile up in front of your door. memories of vegas, and being an olympic competitor.

i don’t mean to get overlydramatic. it’s not like he died. it’s not like we were close friends, but i felt comfortable with him living next to me, as i said. we let things be. we knew how to live nearby someone. the rest of the complex is nearly strangers. everyone keeps to themselves. nobody else starts conversation, most don’t look at you.

ah well. i know this post is jumbled. not sure its even warranted. i can probably find odis hangin around A—–’a, playin the machines, you know.

and yet. i feel his leaving here is a sign of something. dont know what, tho. i guess that’s why i’m writing this.

——

UPDATE: Related. this too.

my body for you
my bones for you
my blood, my heat, my breath for you
i spend it like a child throwing coin in arcades
i wake up and run
along gold dusted paths green shade and torn feet skimming dew laden glade
my life for you and i slam toward the sun

if i burn up chasing stars
because i need to throw them sideways at mute tanks and stone faced fakes
then i’ll turn to smoke laughing
hover over your shoulders and hair
when you feel you’re alone and nobody cares
bristlebrush honeycomb tangerine
fist in the air junglerudder in the stream
you are the stuff of a guerrilleros dream

it’s the gig of course, the job blogging. that’s what got me blogging at umx again, on political issues. i really had lost almost all urge to do so and took that long break. i wanted to do more vlogs, but forgot that this demands more time than i reasonably have…at least right now. even if i stop blogging. i seem to fill that time with other creative means. ah, well. i will get to video more, when i can. i generally don’t allow my creative urges turn into iron-tinged guilt trips because that’s a self defeating cycle. creative energy wants to be unbound and be given room to return or ebb at will. anyway, yeah. it’s not as if blogging for work reminded me of what i was missing or anything. it’s that i was getting frustrated that my voice was so edited. and rather than let this feeling interfere with work, I figured i’d remind myself i could vent, that i had a place to say it however i wanted to say it. no need to feel like my weekly paid gig was the place i had to get everything out. and even now, i wouldn’t say “blogging again.” i don’t even think it will last. either way, i’m keeping it open and easy.

i may travel this weekend to portland to shoot an event. and i may travel to portland next weekend to shoot another event. and i hope i land a few gigs i’m bidding on because my expenses go up a little this month. and i’m trying to save up for a couple things that are pretty important.

it occurred to me the other day all of a sudden that there are like three women i see regularly in my travels/errands that normally would be in the “asking out” zone. as in, i’ve seen them enough times and had friendly conversations and positive response that it wouldn’t feel outlandish to ask, and further, a healthy male in my position would probably do so. i haven’t…and i haven’t been angsty about it or anything. it’s not that i think i’d be rejected. it’s not that i care so much about that. after all, what i’m thinking of when i say this is not sexual. or even romantic. i guess i just miss the company i used to always have when i was married, living together and such. i’ve gone past the howling loneliness that pervaded the joint most of last winter. i’ve made it out the other side. i’m glad, i’m proud, that was the point, it needed to happen. and yet, i still don’t want to get romantic with anyone.

thing is, i know despite how i might try and word it, there’s just no asking a woman to hang out casually without the idea that there is an endgame. if i asked any one of them, they wouldn’t take it that way. and since that would be the case, i know that even if one said yes, i’d be disappointed. i’m not looking to start all that up. and yet there’s really no way to ask a woman to hang out and watch a film or play video games and not have it sound like a pick up line. it would be in the back of her mind. the anticipation, good or bad, it would color everything. who am i kidding. it would probably be in the back of my mind, too.

anyway, i don’t ask. and it’s okay. for now.

don’t we need to make sure we have a reason, an excuse, an alibi, when the light comes on? don’t we make sure we have it all lined up just right? isn’t it too scary to just live and be and not be justified or righteous, to not be ascending perhaps, or maybe even not learning? isn’t life just too big for organisms that wander and float like mold, like spores, like smoke, like  snow, like light? i hope not because that’s me. me and you. legs and arms flung so wide our skin cracks over our windpainted teeth, flying through our lives sneaking extra gulps of air and screaming all the way down. delight, delighted to meet you, delighted to fling myself into you like ocean on rocks. happy to rise tides with you. delighted to brine and foam with you, delighted to seagull scream with you. so nice to be warming sand with you. the way the steam filters the light, it’s sort of like a dream, isn’t it? but we know it’s not a dream. because if this were a dream, that would mean we don’t even yet know what being alive is like.

here’s how it goes. beginning: you had one and if nobody took notes, fake it. make one up. it’s the same thing anyway. middle, put the big things on top. it’s the opposite of what you’ll wish you did later, but that’s what the middle is for. at the end, say it all made sense. laugh and cry because you know whether it did or not, nothing changes. on the way? run your fingers over and under and across everything. and if you forget all you know, keep those memories close. the way the world feels under your fingers, in your hand, against your skin, close to your chest, in your mouth. these things are more important than people would have you know. we are, after all, a holy place, the very first church that ever was.