Land Breeze

Dawn won’t arrive if I don’t end up in the Kentucky *
begging. A swig. If they don’t dry the sidewalk.
Dawn won’t arrive if I don’t feel that I’m not me
ever again. As though you and your shadow, and dry mouth.
Dawn won’t arrive if I don’t piss on tiptoes
in the toilet. It splashes me. I don’t give a fuck. I don’t want to get dry.
Dawn won’t arrive… It won’t if I don’t urinate
and if I’m not your whore, dry mouth. And I don’t want to get dry…
and I don’t wash myself. I don’t give a fuck. Sidewalks clean themselves
with the wind that comes from inside and dehydrates. It dehydrates me
(rancid mouth. The hangover. That wind that comes from inside.
Arc del teatre, de l’Est, Nou de la Rambla, the icy dust cloud.) **
And the footpaths, drying. And the alcoholic dysphagia ***
of a whore. It’s me.
Who knows that
dawn won’t arrive if she doesn’t end up in the Kentucky
begging. A swig. Or begging to be the meat
of your shadow. Begging. Just a gesture from you
sliding on an ice cube or a rancid whisky
in a tube glass on the sidewalk. Abandoned.
As though never, as if it didn’t exist. Drying out
with the piss that reaches from that corner
where there are twenty cents. Rejected.
No one picks them up.

* The Kentucky (ll. 1 & 16) refers to a Bar on Carrer de l’Arc del Teatre #11 in old Barcelona open between 10:00 p.m. and 04:00 a.m.
** The other streets mentioned, Carrer de l’Est and Nou de la Rambla (l. 12), are located a block from the Kentucky.
*** Dysphagia (l. 13), the clinical term for difficulty swallowing, can result in dehydration, malnutrition, and ultimately renal or kidney failure. If food or fluids consumed enter the lungs, pneumatic infection can also occur.

Terral

No és de matinada si no acabo al Kentucky
pidolant. Un glop. Si no s’assequen les voreres.
No és de matinada si no sento que no sóc
jo ja mai més. Com si tu i la teva ombra, i boca seca.
No és de matinada si no pixo de puntetes al lavabo,
i m’esquitxo. Se me’n fot. I no m’eixugo.
No és de matinada... no pot ser si no m’hi pixo
i si no sóc la teva puta, boca seca. I no m’eixugo...
i no m’eixugo. Se me’n fot. S’eixuguen soles les voreres
amb el vent que ve de dins i deshidrata. Em deshidrata
(boca seca. La ressaca. Aquest vent que ve de dins:
Arc del teatre, de l’Est, Nou de la Rambla, el terral glaça).
I les voreres, assecant-se. I la disfàsia alcoholitzada
d’una puta. Que sóc jo.
Que sap que
no és de matinada si no acaba al Kentucky
pidolant. Un glop. O pidolant saber-se carn
de la teva ombra. Pidolant. Només un gest teu
vincladís fent-se glaçó de whisky ranci
en got de tub a la vorera. Abandonat.
Com si mai, com si no fos. Ressecant-se
amb el pixum que ve d’aquella cantonada
on hi ha vint cèntims. Rebutjats.
Que ningú almoina.

[from Dents de polpa]

Crip is Sexy *

I knew a guy who was dyslexic,
but he was also cross-eyed,
so everything came out right.
Harmony Korine, Gummo **

I don’t have words to describe
the violence of a body so naked
under clothes. I imagine
Frida Kahlo and Carol Rama: ***
penetrating one another. The beauty
of a pneumatic erection,
orthopaedic, ripping you
the shit between the buttocks:
shit to have a name,
shit to have skin,
shit of a womb tied in knots
with all the kids you won’t have.
But I
don’t have words to tell myself
the embarrassment of a body so naked
under clothes and I only know
to look at it through the key hole.
I imagine your presence
piercing me. The beauty
of a pneumatic erection,
orthopaedic, ripping me
the shit between the buttocks:
shit to have a name,
shit to have skin,
shit of a womb tied in knots
with all the kids I won’t have.
Because I
don’t have words to describe
the horror of being my own police
inside clothes.

* The title “Crip” in urban slang can, amongst various more specialised uses, act as an abbreviation for “cripple.”
** The epigraph is a citation from Gummo (1997), a dystopian, collage-like cult American film scripted and directed by Harmony Korine, exposing addiction and abuse, homophobia and prostitution, psychopathology and suicide, violence and racism amongst impoverished youth against the insistent background of popular music.
*** Frida Kahlo (l. 4) nowadays is an acclaimed disabled Mexican artist of the first half of the twentieth century constantly in the public eye after her marriage to fellow Marxist and artist Diego Riviera in 1929. Her often symbolic paintings, depicting her pained self, equally questioned larger issues of identity and marginality, sexuality and subjectivity, power and politics, the Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair (1940) and The Broken Column (1944) being two of the more popular examples. She claimed that she was impaled by a vehicle accident during her adolescence such that a handrail entered the left-hand side of her abdomen and exited through her vagina. | Carol Rama (l. 4) was a self-taught Turin-based artist whose avant-garde stylistic changes from the early ‘forties onwards continually depicted the overtly psycho-sexual and the bestial, the frenzied and the grotesque—e.g., Appassionata (Marta e i marchettoni) (1939), Dorina (1940), and Eretico (1944) amongst her earlier works and much later figurative artworks such as Baiser fougueux (1963) and Organismi ancora ben definiti e vulnerabili (1969)—which she would attribute to her mother’s psychiatric incarceration and father’s suicide during her youth. For those unfamiliar with her confronting work, see the succinct summary provided by Kirsty Bell, “Carol Rama,” Frieze Magazine, Issue 124, June-August 2009, at: https://web.archive.org/web/20101104170931/http://www.frieze.com/issue/review/carol_rama/

Crip is Sexy

I knew a guy who was dyslexic,
but he was also cross-eyed,
so everything came out right.
Harmony Korine, Gummo

No tinc paraules per descriure
la violència d’un cos tan nu
sota la roba. M’imagino
Frida Kahlo i Carol Rama
penetrant-se. La bellesa
d’una erecció pneumàtica,
ortopèdica, esquinçant-vos
la brutor entre les natges:
brutor de tenir un nom,
brutor de tenir pell,
brutor d’una matriu trabucant-se
amb tots els fills que no tindreu.
Però jo
no tinc paraules per descriure’m
la vergonya d’un cos tan nu
sota la roba i només sé
mirar-lo pel forat del pany.
M’imagino la vostra presència
foradant-me. La bellesa
d’una erecció pneumàtica,
ortopèdica, esquinçant-me
la brutor entre les natges:
brutor de tenir un nom,
brutor de tenir pell,
brutor d’una matriu trabucant-se
amb tots els fills que no tindré.
Perquè jo
no tinc paraules per descriure
l’horror de ser la meva policia
dins la roba.

[from Kalàixnikov]

Detroit 

The Spree like a tongue that’s hydrated *
when the beer is sweet. When you bite
each useless synchronicity with teeth of pulp,
and the impotence in the gums is sweet.
The Spree. And a tongue that’s hydrated
groping about industrially. Or you, sucked
from night and precipices of neon, absurd grimace.
The jaw cramping to an absent god.
Pleonastic. Redundant. Reduplicating
to a hypnotic groove. The pattern. The cycle
in movement. Atavistic electronic rhythms

or noise to the industrial eyelids:
w o o d w o r m s a n d h y p o t h a l a m u s. **

Or noise to the industrial eyelids:
w o o d w o r m s a n d h y p o t h a l a m u s.

Or noise to the industrial eyelids:
w o o d w o r m s a n d h y p o t h a l a m u s.

Hammering of the tracks and of the trains without pause
like the Spree, or like a tongue that’s hydrated
when the beer is sweet. When you bite
each useless synchronicity with teeth of pulp.
Each useless incandescent revolt. Twinkling,
you and your form pure and hollow. Hypertensive.
Hypertrophy. Obesity of the dams and ***
pornography of the farsighted amnesia
of a beat. Of a galaxy. Of a half a kiss of mist
saying goodbye across the window, if the beer is sweet
and the impotence in the gums is sweet.

Like the Spree. Like all the tongues that are hydrated,
cramping groping their way.
Smiling to the absent god.

* The Spree (ll. 1, 5, 19 & 29) is the river upon which Berlin was originally built, especially by the Hohenzollern dynasty of Brandenburg and Prussia, passing the Berliner Dom (or Cathedral), the Reichstag, and the Schloss Charlottenburg. Detroit, too, first founded by the French in 1701, is located along the Detroit River running into Lake Erie and forming part of the border between the state of Michigan in the United States and the state of Ontario in Canada.
To that extent, this poem is suggestive of techno music since the ‘eighties in both cities. Initially, Afro-American electronic musicians deployed science fantasy imagery as an expression of society transformed at a time when robotically driven manufacturing brought about marked unemployment. Its impact in Berlin and its clubs was most evident with the dismantling of the Berlin Wall marking the dissolution of the Russian “soviet” empire in Eastern Europe from 1989.
** Hypothalmus (ll. 13, 15 & 17) refers to that region of the brain producing hormones governing bodily temperature, thirst, and hunger as well as sleep, moods, and sexual drives.
*** Hypertrophy (l. 24) is excess atrophy, emaciation, starvation, or wastage.

Detroit

L’Spree com una llengua que s’hidrata
quan és dolça la cervesa. Quan mossegues
cada inútil sincronia amb dents de polpa,
i és dolça la impotència a les genives.
L’Spree. I una llengua que s’hidrata
a les palpentes industrials. O tu, xuclat
de nit i precipicis de neó, ganyota absurda.
Enrampant-se el maxil·lar a un déu absent.
Pleonàstic. Redundant. Reduplicant-se
a un groove hipnòtic. El patró. El cicle
en moviment. Atàvics ritmes electrònics

o soroll a les parpelles industrials:
c o r c s      i      h i p o t à l e m s .

O soroll a les parpelles industrials:
c o r c s      i      h i p o t à l e m s .

O soroll a les parpelles industrials:
c o r c s      i      h i p o t à l e m s .

Martelleig de les vies i dels trens sense parada
com l’Spree, o com una llengua que s’hidrata
quan és dolça la cervesa. Quan mossegues
cada inútil sincronia amb dents de polpa.
Cada inútil revolta incandescent. Rutilant,
tu en la teva forma pura i buida. Hipertensa.
Hipertròfia. Obesitat dels dics de contenció i
pornografia de la pèrdua hipermetròpica
d’un beat. D’una galàxia. D’un mig petó de baf
acomiadant-se a la finestra, si és dolça la cervesa
i és dolça la impotència a les genives.

Com l’Spree. Com totes les llengües que s’hidraten,
enrampant-se a les palpentes.
Somrient al déu absent.

[from Dents de polpa]

Folegandros *

I love you in the minimal shade of a dry stone wall.
When all of a sudden: the sand. The abrupt weight of a body
out of the water; the amniotic sac exploding **
at each step; the marble articulates each of my
faults; dictating to me the judgement in the ribs;
nailed in the vascular sentence:
I am dead weight,
the pelvis decentred at each step of mass
out of the water; amniotic sac exploding
when all of a sudden: the sand. The abrupt reminder of a body
fills the afternoon, and the marble reminds me that
I love you in the minimal shade of a dry stone wall.

* Folegandros is the name of a minute Greek island in the southern Aegean comprising three small villages, its isolated beach at Katergo known to tourists for nude bathing. Originally, its ancient inhabitants were speakers of the Doric dialect and under the sphere of influence of Sparta before being overtaken by the Athenians in their fifth-century B.C. struggle for supremacy of the eastern Mediterranean.
** Amniotic sac (ll. 3 & 9) comprises the pair of transparent membranes containing the developing embryo and thereafter foetus within a protective fluid. Along with the umbilical cord and placenta, the amniotic sac is expelled upon birth.

Folegandros

T’estimo a l’ombra mínima d’un mur de pedra seca.
Quan de sobte: l’arena. El pes sobtat d’un cos
sortint de l’aigua; el sac amniòtic rebentant-se
a cada passa; el marbre vertebrant-me cada
culpa; dictant-me la sentència a les costelles;
clavada a la condemna vascular:
sóc llast,
la pelvis descentrada a cada passa d’un pes
sortint de l’aigua; el sac amniòtic rebentant-se
quan de sobte: l’arena. El record sobtat d’un cos
omplint la tarda, i el marbre recordant-me que
t’estimo a l’ombra mínima d’un mur de pedra seca.

[from Kalàixnikov]

Exorcism *

perché anche la malattia ha un senso,
una dismisura, un passo,
anche la malattia è matrice di vita.
Alda Merini **

The womb was ripped from me as if aborting,
unchained, the concave promise bonding.
The dilapidated ellipse from some fugitive hollow hands
was collapsed in me, regurgitated.
The offering was crumbled, the verb was denied and
the poured amniotic promises were broken away
- turning arc the curve of hysteria.
The womb was unlocked from me as if aborting,
wretched, the concave promise was withdrawing.
The precise rotation axis was broken from me,
the skeleton was dislocated from me at the vanishing point,
the horizontal line was shaken and
pulled me from the threads called dementia
- turning arc the curve of hysteria.
The womb was ripped from me as if aborting,
discounted, the concave promise returning to me.
The flowering within my belly was dismembered,
the margins were fugitively cleared.
The flight was strangled, the vertical was flapped and
the precipice of insanity was broken open
- turning arc the curve of hysteria.

* Exorcism is the practice of expelling malignant spiritual entities from persons believed to be possessed by them, typically by making such entities swear an oath (exorkismos), commanding them to leave in the name of higher powers, or performing elaborate rituals and incantations. The practice is found in the belief systems of many cultures and religions throughout the world. In more secular terms, those claiming to be demonically possessed have at times been ascribed symptoms associated with psychotic and physiological disorders such as epilepsy, hysteria, and schizophrenia.
** Alda Merini was a Milan-based writer whose work came to prominence from the ‘fifties onwards and whose severe manic-depression (or bi-polarity) resulted in prose poetry exploring madness as part of creativity, notably her 1986 L'altra verità. Diario di una diversa (The Other Truth) was first introduced by the avant-garde writer, translator, and critic Giorgio Manganelli as “neither a document nor a testimony,” but rather “a ‘reconnaisance’ through epiphanies, deleria, tunes, songs, revelations and apparitions, of a space, not a place, where…the natural hell and numinous nature of humanity bursts out” (trans. Serena Ferrando). The epigraph itself can be approximately translated as: “also because the disease has a sense, an excess, a footprint, the disease is also life’s matrix.”

Exorcisme

perché anche la malattia ha un senso,
una dismisura, un passo,
anche la malattia è matrice di vita.
Alda Merini

Esbadellà-se’m la matriu com avortant,
escabridada, la còncava promesa vertebrant-se.
Esbalmà-se’m, perbocada, l’el·lipse
esbutxacada d’unes mans furtivament supines.
Esbocinà’s l’ofrena, esvertebrà’s el verb i
esbravà’s l’amniòtica promesa en desclucar-se
—arc voltejant la corba de la histèria.
Esbadocà-se’m la matriu com avortant,
espoltradora, la còncava promesa replegant-se.
Esgavellà-se’m l’eix precís de rotació,
esconillà-se’m l’esquelet pels punts de fuga,
estremí’s la línia horitzontal i
estiraren-me dels fils que han per nom demència
—arc voltejant la corba de la histèria.
Esbudellà-se’m la matriu com avortant,
esqueixalada, la còncava promesa retornant-me.
Esponcellà-se’m la florida dins del ventre,
esbardissà’s furtivament el marge.
Escanyellà’s el vol, esbategà’s la vertical i
esbotzà’s el precipici de la insània
—arc voltejant la corba de la histèria.

[from Kalàixnikov]

It Follows

We will meet, love, in the blind spot of the rear-view mirror, and virginal fires

will blossom to give us the most tender edge of terror.

I will wear a canyon opening me from the throat to the genitals and you can

drive the whole curve of my body until the adolescent abyss

of my toothed desire. The night: it will be as deep as the cold

of orphanages. The night: it will be as high as the shout in my nipples.

The night: as dense as blood trickling calligraphy that will write

our names against the asphalt. Against the eternal youth of windshields,

love! We will meet in the blind spot of the rear-view mirror, and we will gather

the beheaded dreams of motorcyclists butchering the median strip of terror.

The impotence will only be the impossible copula of the parallel lines

on the plane. The motorway will be a projection ketamine deforming

distances and horizons. The dawn: an innocent chimera of salvation.

My thighs: the atoning bite of the coyotes. Our impact will only follow

the exact deflected trajectory of your erections, and we will write

our story against the asphalt. Against the eternal youth of the windshields,

love! We will meet in the blind spot of the rear-view mirror, and we will gather

the fermented dreams of corpses dismembering the ditch of terror.

I will be the nocturnal cancer. I will be the evil Siamese. I will be oxidised Texas *

mutilating humanity. I will be AIDS. I will be the latest nuclear disaster**

and I will be the eyes looking at Sodom, I will be the eyes without eyelids desecrating

your mouth. I will be the unspeakable juice ejaculating chaos on you

and I will be: the look retracing the route of your organs writing

our names against the asphalt. Against the eternal youth of the windshields,

love! We will meet in the blind spot of the rear-view mirror, and virginal fires

will blossom to give us the most tender edge of terror.

* Oxidised Texas (l. 19) presumably refers more generally to sterling silver charms and pendants whereas “mutilating humanity” (1.20) seems suggestive of the Alamo charm and the wholesale slaughter particularly associated with the Battle of the Alamo in the 1836 war between the Texans and Mexicans.
** The acronym “aids” (l. 20)—“sida” in French—or acquired immune deficiency syndrome is caused by blood-borne infection with the human immune-deficiency virus (initially identified by the Luc Montagnier and the Robert Gallo research teams in 1983). It is principally transmitted by unprotected sexual intercourse, including anally and orally, and by contaminated blood transfusions and hypodermic needles. The fear and stigma associated with aids was rapidly projected on to those perceived as homosexual (or “sodomites” especially in the case of anal or bestial intercourse), as bi-sexual, as sexually promiscuous, and so forth.

It Follows

Ens trobarem, amor, a l’angle mort dels miralls retrovisors, i floriran

incendis virginals per regalar-nos el tall més tendre de la por.

Jo duré un congost partint-me de la gola als genitals i tu podràs

conduir tota la corba del meu cos fins a l’abisme adolescent

del meu desig dentat. La nit: serà tan fonda com el fred

als orfenats. La nit: serà tan alta com el crit dels meus mugrons.

La nit: serà tan densa com la sang regalimant cal·ligrafies que escriuran

els nostres noms contra l’asfalt. Contra l’eterna joventut del parabrises,

amor! Ens trobarem a l’angle mort dels miralls retrovisors, i collirem

els somnis escapçats de motoristes degollant la mitjana de la por.

La impotència no serà sinó la còpula impossible de les línies paral·leles

sobre el pla. L’autopista serà una projecció de ketamina deformant

distàncies i horitzons. La matinada: una quimera innocent de salvació.

Les meves cuixes: la mordassa expiatòria dels coiots. El nostre impacte no farà

sinó l’exacta trajectòria desviada de les teves ereccions, i escriurem

els nostres noms contra l’asfalt. Contra l’eterna joventut del parabrises,

amor! Ens trobarem a l’angle mort dels miralls retrovisors, i collirem

els somnis fermentats de cadàvers desmembrant la cuneta de la por.

Jo seré el càncer nocturn. Jo seré el siamès malvat. Seré Texas oxidada

mutilant la humanitat. Seré la sida. Seré el darrer desastre nuclear

i seré els ulls mirant Sodoma, seré els ulls sense parpelles profanant

la teva boca. Seré el suc de l’indiscible ejaculant-te el caos a sobre

i seré: la mirada reculant la traça dels teus òrgans escrivint

els nostres noms contra l’asfalt. Contra l’eterna joventut del parabrises,

amor! Ens trobarem a l’angle mort dels miralls retrovisors, i floriran

incendis virginals per regalar-nos el tall més tendre de la por.

[from Kalàixnikov]