El Zocalo

I talked to you tonight. You said you were taking your mother to El Zocalo, because they had erected a giant ice skating rink across from the National Palace. I felt a deep ache in my heart that I could not go with you. I have never been ice skating before, and I wish that my first time on ice skates would be with you, tonight, in Zocalo. Like some bad movie, I would skate horribly, probably falling down repeatedly. You would reach for my hand and pull me up, laughing all the while. I can almost smell the city from where I sit right now. It's the smell of ancient spirits, fresh flowers, and the carnitas of the taquerias. I miss everything about the city, especially you. I miss the freedom of being able to live life unhindered and with passion. Here, I feel so limited and....not myself. Maybe, one day I will put on a pair of ice skates and swirl in circles underneath the giant flag of your country--the place that my heart has grown to love and miss.

Lost Elegy

a week after you died i wrote you into a poem
sitting in a room full of unfamiliar faces
choking on grief and words filling my head
i could hear you talking, smooth and sweet and heavy,
somewhere deep in mixed memories of warm nights
and loud music caged in hazardous caverns of back mind thought
yet you creeped up sounding loud from the small of my back,
lodging in the arch of my neck for a moment
and then rushing through along my cheekbones—
your sound lighting my face and then fading.
i wanted to shed my skin
to make the buzzing stop,
to run away

from the sound of you
from the child in your face that would never smile like that again
dying in that room as your sightsound possessed my veins
taking my oxygen, stealing my blood—red thick and hungry.
i had no other choice in the middle of a discussion
of the women of Juarez--older ghosts unlike you
i frantically ripped out a page and tattooed you on its lines
thinking maybe then i wouldn’t have to think
of those last moments filled with fire, loneliness, and the radio
fading out—tears and no goodbyes to anyone but the sky
maybe i wouldn’t have to remember
how your voice infused my body with light and sugar
when you whispered in my ear
thinking maybe i wouldn’t have to lie awake
at night wondering why existence is really only a fatal road trip.
sitting at that desk i wanted to cry,
baptize the pages with my own river of life
make up for the destruction of yours--empty riverbed.
my pen flamed across the page, darting and drawing you
in letters and pauses
i finished brow furrowed and tear strained tired
i shoved you in a notebook not wanting to look at you there on the page,
not wanting you to scar me any longer or deeper
a week later i went to look at you,
read the poem on some fatalistic therapeutic urge
and you were gone—more than forever this time
i tore through my notebook my room my clothes
thinking i could not survive without that piece of paper
and now you were gone, the only remnants i had left
lost on some ragged street,
thrown in some solitary garbage can,
found in the hands of a stranger
how easily you were lost,
i tried to rewrite you
struggling through teary sight and trembling hands,
but it was never as perfect as the first one
i couldn’t get your smile right
or the tone of your voice
or the way you walked
or the words you spoke
i tried so hard but you never came through that clear again,
despite the numerous attempts I have made
to write your face to face you
i hope some stranger found my lost poem
written in pure feeling and electric light
and it burns his palms as he reads it
for one moment he sees you there
in the words and the spaces and the light.
he sees you through my veins and wonders
where the beautiful boy has gone
as he tries to shake my sadness—EAC

New Poem

fall fresh sun beams

on ceramic features

of carved irony

warm the deadened

impulse to breathe

green grass grows

on the other side

of the world

we desensitize the cells

until growth is abstract

feeling obsolete

we steal false smiles

and so standing

in the mire

of dirt and secrecy

shame skirts the issue

of my two feet

beautiful woman

they say

look at you...

--EAC ('04)

**This is a short composite of words I found in a journal from a few years back. It's not bad, but it's not my favorite.

Burning Beds

black entanglement over terracotta cracks
you stretch and writhe
you suffer and break
the column collapses
the hot tears blanket canvas
the metal corset traps and holds
speak to me with your eyes

woman so weary

spread your unbroken wings

fly free as the swallow sings

come to the fireworks

see the dark lady smile she burns

la pelona laughs and draws dark lines
across your brow
even without feet
you traverse the split land
on wings of alegria
combust into the earth
your painted ashes
dotting the night sky

but the night sky blooms with fire

and the burning bed floats higher

and she’s free to fly

dreamscapes that form thoughts
in your mind
fill the beds of the earth
on which you lie
light your judas on fire
set yourself free
la bailarina covered in gold ash

y la noche que se incendia

y la cama que se eleva

a volar

**this is a work in progress....***

brief update of sorts

despite all the things that have been happening in my life recently, i have finally found my way back to art. for almost a year, i have not written anything. i couldn't look at a piece of paper, yet alone touch it for fear of what would happen if i began to write. i imagined myself writing that first word, and then breaking down in convulsive sobs, only to have some poor, innocent person find me lying on the bathroom floor in the fetal position with my thumb in my mouth. it was out of fear of what emotions would bubble forth (perhaps ones from which i would not recover) that i stayed away from the thing i love the most.
lately, i have been writing and drawing (yes, i actually have some skill) which has been quite therapeutic for me. therefore, keep an eye out, because i plan on posting some of my "art" on here as well as some new poems/writing samples. try not to be overwhelmed in your excitement.

Nothing with any Certainty

“i know nothing with any certainty,
but the sight of stars makes me dream.
--vincent van gogh

lying back in carpets of grass
drowning in the night sky
pools of blackness and neon puddles
engulf me suspend me protect me
FIELD CLOSED
and my feet don’t seem to mind
i trail the blades of grass
sharp lines between my toes
sharp cuts into my thoughts
the moon refuses to show her face tonight
perhaps she knows i shine enough for both of us
or she is a captive of the same manipulative thoughts
that hold my words for ransom
until i wrap them in suitcases of skin and bones
offering them as ultimate sacrifices
to the ghosts that drift the corridors of the mind
still moments such as these
with the languid breeze
licking my wounds soothing my skin hiding my scars
my skin doesn’t feel unknown to me
the ghosts don’t scream and beckon for payment
with the damp grass at my back
i do not worry of what must be offered next
to appease these abductors of thought
the neon puddles shine unwavering
there is no baggage for me to carry
tonight--EAC

fell asleep with the pen
clenched between my fingers
again last night
the rapid flutter of drug heavy honey eyelashes
and I lost the ability to evacuate
these swarm of bee thoughts
clamoring at my honeyhive
unconsciousness drowned the persistent droning
still I slept with my hand spread
across the page
grasping its smooth finish
like a mason jar half full
my callus broken hands
covering viscous words
still thinking they could
drag me back to inspiration
unyielding
before the beekeeper returned to check
the safety of his buzzing teeming minions.--EAC

Inspiration

something else i've been "doodling..."

Writing from Another Time

a work in progress

-for an old friend-

i know now.
august of last year would be the last time
i would ever see you.
i crave that night street cool breeze lane
where my captivity first began
to begin that night again
just to slow the second hand
as it made shadows multiply
on familiar concrete under possessive summer skies
the sun had started to fall, the air no longer thick and heavy
but moving swiftly over my skin
we were on the creaking wooden porch
me in a swing
you in a chair
blocking my vision occupying my thoughts
while talking to your sister, mouthing inconsequentially,
i intently stared at your face
a face I could remember from
pages of twisted words and compressed thoughts
all this in order to figure out when you started to look so old,
when i started to fell so distant
staring across empty space i found lines, rugged and sharp
that my fingers had never known,
stubble creeping along your chin
that had never brushed against my cheek
i wanted to reach out trace the outline
so i could remember what you felt like in air
what you looked like through the lens of my hand
sitting in that chair so unaware
the old wood creaking, keeping time
i glanced at you once finally
face to face only to find myself bombarded
by my bondage to you
at that moment my eyes decided
it was too monumental to ever do that again
profiles are safer when the stars are out
safer than the dark pools i had to face,
the dark pools that keep me chained to that swing
oscillating perpetual limbo with you in the same scene
only we pretend to be adults now—older than our memories
when time ceased to matter, the house lights extinguished,
we drifted into the street, a ritual we had learned
when we were still new
when the sky always threatened to keep me from you
your friend who had always lived up the street
joined us as we sat staring at the stars
talking about the past, about the lives we longed to relive
this was not the space where one spoke of the future
or the present that was running us down, hunting us
the street was a time machine keeping us frozen
in old fears and comforting insecurities
you eased down beside me with familiar weight
i felt my body relax under your presence
i couldn’t look at you or the moment might steal away
into the cover of the trees never to be recovered
never to be felt as it freed my skin
up the street friend raged on about money and capitalism
fuck the system mantras we had come to dwell on
over years of jaded living
nothing matters dropping on the wind
why am i here’s scraping on the cement
i just considered the holes in the sky
thinking of a night a few years past
when we still had intentions.
i had stood under those same stars
and watched you disappear a thousand times over
the stars had not changed and neither had i
i was older in my skin less happy
less aware of where my feet were
where my mind had traveled
but i was still frozen with you there beside me
still the same person who held your face in my hands
so i wouldn’t forget who you were
so i could always find your face tattooed on my hands
while my mind moved miles above us
you placed your hand over mine
i couldn’t even look at you
for fear that I might break and seep into you
i just smiled and linked my fingers with yours
it didn’t matter that we no longer were
it didn’t matter that we may not ever be
in the early hours of the night i just wanted
to remember what safety felt like and
how the stars looked hanging in the sky--EAC 2004

A Bird in the Hand

Today a bird flew into a window while I was a work. I found it laying on the ground gasping for air and immobile. I picked it up and gently placed it in the palm of my hand. I ran my fingers over the soft feathers of his chest, willing life back into his almost-still body. I tried to place him on his tiny, two feet, but he fell over onto his side and silently opened and closed his beak in protest. I was overwhelmed with sadness. I set him on the table, on his side, watching him, praying for him not to die. I rubbed his back with my index finger, hoping that a little love would bring him to his feet again. Minutes later, he hopped up on his two feet, but still refused to move off of the table. He sat with his eyes closed, breathing rapidly. I took drops of water from a cup and let them fall into his open mouth. Recover. Recover. Recover. Finally, he found the strength to fly away.



Recover. Recover. Recover.