Amsterdam Cantos (y poemas pistos)             

                  

                       "entre melón y melambes 
                       se hallaron un dinosaurito, 
                       melón se comió las entrañas 
                       y melambes el cuerito..."
                         dicho malejecutado 
                         al estilo fregado Y aún cagado, 
                         but it's de moda redonda 
                         como las nalgas al revez 
                         y en tu chocha ajedrez ... 
                         4 de Enero de 1979
                       Salty KoochLake, (p)Utah

         -and within the vísperas -

  I.
  and within the vísperas
  of a new year,
  within
  the entrails
  of silken
           (no longer youthful) wishes,
                 the agility of yesterday
                      caught fleetingly
                 in recollection,
  scanty moments
  become even scantier,
  mormonific quandaries assail
  others
    less tenacious
       & even less experienced,

  age forces one to wander more 
  into the awareness 
  that all withers away, 
  that grey becomes the hair
          just as broader becomes 
          the understanding, 

  wonderment goes away 
  to beguile others, 
  while
  spaces once vacant beam out 
  a loss of fear & the acquisition of serfdom, 
  once when

  my face
  was barely filling out,
                          when beard was 
                          sparse yet jet black,
  i thought then
  that the world was a barrier
               ridden barrio,
         hidden away
  in the condiments of familiarity,
              i would coerce
              from insecurity
              phantasms
              which would lull me,

  travel then
  was but a busride
  across
  the burning sands
       of el paso
  for pavement
  was a luxury  
  for the bartering side
       of town,
  i would run
  rain gutted/dust swirling streets,
  wanting to reach out to the world
  (while inner fears would gnash/gnaw me into near submission),  
  just months ago           i walked
  the canal strewn streets of holland,
  drank dark heineken
  in bistros
  once decorated
  with swastik-ed lunacies,
  danced thoughts
  into the macabre somberness
          of european fetishes,
  festooned ideas
  on the carcasses   de todas las
  kafkaesque grotesqueries, and laughed,
  wondering about
  international poetry festivals,
  parisian galavanting

  became
  cruises
  twixt ]es madames
  and their       servez vous 
  with cul belle trés chic(bon)ano, 
  femme of beguilement 
  in the ijtunnel bar
  on prins hendrikkade straat,
           lingulations
           & cuntal syncopations,
  all swirling
  in euro-kaleidoscopic manipulations,
  chuckholed imagery
  coincided amidst 
                   & man-years-ago-bumkinstylistics 
  the camaraderie of corrado costa, lorenzo, 
  & a coterie
  of famished poets
  gorging on gargantuan pizzas, cabronada pasta, 
  and the caterwauling pungency 
  of arts, letters, & spirits very fettered, 

  harbingers of balustraded poetries,
  vísperas de nuevas dimensiones vitales
  promenaded,
  entelequiantes piensasentimientos
  caroused       while new political realities 
  would abound in the swirling dust de el paso, te(de)jas, 
  as hungers 
  would rebound 
  gruñendo
  into the social gelatine 
  of disenfranchisement
      cum exploitation, still
  the mormon dialectic
  would await
  with invective
  my sullen return
  to the churning embroilments
  of saltedville life:
                        relics
                        rusting

                     upon
                     sameness
                     that
                     missionizing
                     thought
                     protracts,

  where can an angry chicano poet go 
  after the carnage 
  of sacrilegious thoughts 
  have rhetorically enflamed 
  the keepers of the keys of social zoos?
  where can an urgent/honest voice intone 
  after the halls have all closed up their doors, 
  the not-welcome mats have been laid out, 
  the stares have cut you down,
  the supplications have encrusted hope with fear,
  their "do not displease us with your truths" eyes
            have hunted you into a simple
              "don't much give a damn anymoreÓ 
                attitude 
  while new sirens sing new songs 
  beguiling you?

  where goeth fear and unawareness,
  that burning sense of vital provinciality 
  that smotes you
  and then goads you on 
  to overcome
  the hurtles of your birthing?

                  where can you find surcease 
                  from ill-encroachina
                           youthful fears
                  which pocked your mind & soul?

           wherein does destiny reside, 
           to mock you or to drive you on, 
           to challenge you to be
           the strongest you that you can be?

  qué pues, mi nues,
  qué hará tu mente al revez?

  it was a dream 
  concocted 
  by don quixiote's fervent mindsoul, 
  that special dream     which dares 
  to break through all one's barriers, 
  a dream beyond the ken 
  that disneyfies the world, 
  dreaming        onwardly 
  to clutch to mine mindsoul 
  fortuitous & promising awareness 
  conjointed by spirit's strength 
  and will of intellect, ay, 
  to travel and to know 
  the totalness of humankind, 
  to sip of dutch genever, 
  to sup of other thoughts, 
  to know the subtleness of being,
  to fervently explore,
  yesterday has gone 
  and now is when I live, 
  now is tantamount 
  to seeing life anew ...

  II. 
  i saw you, Tejas, 
  como un camaleón 
  exchanging colorations
         & awaiting coronations, 
  bleak yet vibrant,
         unlike utahn fantasies ...

  III.
  sensuous,
  torturously vibrant,
  you implode
  with your nails
  joyfully/painfully
  caressing
  me, your lips
  & burning teeth

  leave trails
        y escalofriantes muecas 
  de lo febril
  de nuestros encuentros; 
  after many years, 
  we still create 
  aesthetic ways 
  to share our love, 
  stronger & more resilient 
  than in our youth, 
  our lugubrious re-encounters 
  now have the intimacy of love 
  and sharing,     no longer 
  just the desperate groping 
  of two fearful-wanting-to-be-attached 
  lonely individuals ...

  you are so complete now 
  and now I no longer feel need of you, 
  past the realization
  that love is what attracts us, 
  not fear nor abjectness 
  nor the numbness of callow juventud, ay, 
  mujer, I must touch you when I see you, 
  not from need
  but from the realization 
  that we learned to
  complete the circle of life ...

  IV.  
     canto
  when feelings enmesh me, when 
  i sense
  you, pueblo mío, palpitating 
  within my blood,
  I sing you, humanity,
  songs of liberation
  which smile in mirth or joy, 
  songs which poetically declare 
  that regardless of circumstance 
  it is, netamente, beautiful to exist.

  V.
  I see you, tomorrow,
  within the grasp of my mindsoul, 
  though
      you are resilient & tenuous
        (vaguely amorphous),
  see you             there
  resolute and arrogant, 
  also loving and concerned, 
  it all depends 
  on how I want to see you, 
  how much I dare to struggle 
  to create, 
  and I shall dare 
  to be
  greater than my most creative utterance,
  that word
  might
  flow
  from
  deed,
          that all my shadows be 
  but reflections of my self, 
  I embrace you 
  without reservation 
  yet aware
  that if I must battle do with you 
  it will be quick ,
          and to the finish 
  for I've no fear
                     of strangeness, 
  just a curious will 
  that sings and howls 
  to all the winds
  that I was born to live and thrive,
    my tracks
  shall be among the many 
  who also dared to be 
  whatever they desired ... if
                            I am
                            still alive
                            tomorrow

                            I shall        
                            sing    
                            a greater song
                            than any
                            I have sung before,
  and if death
  shall be my coverlet instead,
  I shall then sing
  as great a song
  as ever I could sing,
  for I have lived
  as fully as I could
  in barrios, prisons,
  academe,
  and marriage bed;
  oh, I have drunk
          and supped
  and made of glorious love,
          so,
              let it be as much as it can be,
              until I die
              I'll merely live and ravel,
  and in my way
  fling out my canto
  to celebrate
               the world's life.