The tiny theatre inside the cup, The apartment where the woman keeps the last remaining fly, because she herself is lost without the sound of wings halted in sleep.
saw an art exhibition. a woman's head exploded, the teeth intact. a flourescent light saying "We Die," ...the comma being the most important part of that piece...lines stolen from poems and rearranged in convoluted ways, then piled on the floor.
"El amor empieza cuando se rompen los dedos" --"Love begins when the fingers are broken"
"Voy a cortar las puntas de la vida como unas uñas." --"I am going to cut the points of my life like some eyelashes."
"El hombre pierde la vida y otra cosas" --"the man loses his life and other things.."
"the dark is empty. Most of our heros have been wrong."
"Esperar que canten los rátones." --"To hope that the rats sing"
"La obligación de olvidarla" --"The obligation to forget it..."
--
interviewed by a journalist student.
read the most touching children's story of a duck and death (it was a love story unlike any i've ever read, "El Pato Y La Muerte", by Wolf Erlbruch).
casually flipped through the pages of "Los Desnudos de SudAmerica"...there were lots of giggles around me. they didn't know i was actually staring at the words that were surrounding the naked bodies, not the bodies themselves. ah well, developing a reputation. so it goes....
the piece from yesterday:
***
Oh, the comedies Everywhere The comedies
The tiny theatre inside the cup, The apartment where the woman keeps the last remaining fly, because she herself is lost without the sound of wings halted in sleep.
These small devices of loss.
***
(en español)
Ah, las comedias por todas partes Las comedias
El teatro diminuto dentro de la taza,
El apartamento donde la mujer mantiene la última mosca restante, porque ella misma es perdida sin el sonido de alas paradas en el sueño.
ate my first argentine steak.....could have died right then and there. not sure if it is a faux pas to come into a fancy Parilla restaurant lugging shopping bags of cereal and cheese....nor if it is against the rules to eat all of the bread, butter, and dipping marinades. but, when in rome.....
...
soon we will put up the other blog/website that has the collection of writing/art pieces we've been putting up around the city....
but for now, what i forgot to post yesterday....they are getting shorter and shorter, as otherwise, i spend the entire day tip tapping on the typewriter.
this one was initially written in spanish....so, the english translation comes out sounding just like that, an english translation.
Oct.6
The skin, a bird, no , a collection of birds that sing with broken faces, their hands, without fingers, white, like the daughter of the blind man.
(en español)
La piel, un pájaro, no, una colleción de pájaros que cantan con las caras rotas, sus manos, sin dedos, blancos, como la hija del ciego.
yesterday i met a man who makes things out of sheep's wool...he even made a sheep out of its own material.
he showed me his bullet wounds....amazing how pale the skin grows around the wounds...like milk. but hard.
i have been fighting with my typewriter, i think i will name her bessie. i have her ink all over my fingers. she is a stubborn broad. but hearty. girthy. a little bit like a bowl of goulash.
today we passed by hundreds of people selling very small parts of themselves on blankets and tables. wishing i had the courage to do the same.
a small bathtub for salt. or sugar maybe. something granular and delicate.
books made of trains and cigarettes, a tiny window to catch the air.
a bag that talks of invisible walls, naming each one--from the Berlin wall, to The Great Wall of China...the width, and other necessaries.
a man disguised as a dog, who breaks hearts and makes women cry from their papers.
the time it takes her to make a scarf, 20 minutes. the beginning is very difficult, the rest, not so. i have it hung around my neck.
the chickens in the glass, upturned, as if to dance. the floor slippery with them. their noises being made from a toy three hundred feet away.
a small bird in a jukebox that you churn like making noodles. its body nearly small enough to fit through the bars, but not quite. slight starvation would save him. the removal of a wing.
i need to learn to address my rekindled collection of utensils. it must mean something. a preparation. i should make hands to hold them.
***
Shot twice in the Congo
**
The man making a sheep from wools,
Oh I am cold, cold.
Where is the skin?
Oh, the light is nice here,
So I sew
The thread is tearing the sky apart.
The girl, knowing not to cry For this is it, The manner of afternoon.
The swift taking of a bath
The marionette sodden Its feet lifting the sky up. Always up.
***
(en español)
El hombre que hace una oveja de lanas,
Ah tengo frío ¿Dónde está la piel
Ah, la luz es agradable aquí,
Así que yo coso
El hilo se raga el cielo.
La chica, que sabe no llorar
Porque esto es La manera de la tarde.
El tomar rápido de un baño
La marioneta empapada Sus pies que levantan el cielo arriba. Siempre arriba.
(Today, I saw a tree covered in thorns, with tufts of white fluff growing out of its branches. It looked like a thousand bunnies had tragically lost their tails all at once. It makes you wonder where the bodies ran off to, and if the absence of a tail makes the rabbits lose their balance and roll instead.
Later, there was a woman selling her honey. She stacked the jars and gently wiped each one as if it were a child. The tenderness made me want to blush and turn my head away, to allow her privacy. It was an intimate thing to witness. We bought her “Miel Rosada”, or “Pink Honey”. Will try it tonight with plantains. I’ve never cooked plantains before. It may be a disaster.
Met several artists today. One sold me a spoon with a face that looked like singing, and one that was a mirror with a very small horse growing out of it. They are already very special to me.
One of the artists told me that he thought one should learn how to do everything. He showed me a jacaranda pod broke all the way open. It was like a secret. Then he showed me something collected from the root structure of the wood that Aborigines make their didgeridoos from. It looked like a very small nest, or nerve structure. There were blue things caught inside.
After buying sewing needles, we met a man in the antiques market who sells maps and old silverware. I bought a knife from him, only after having to promise him that it was for cutting vegetables, not suicide. There was an old doll from the 50s, who was a physically explicit little boy with white hair. I want to buy it, but I don’t know what to do with it. It is now strange for me to realize how many dolls are anatomically lacking important structures.
I bought a book that is sewn together. It is a textbook from the early 20s, of the Argentine constitution. It is falling apart, and used to belong to a child who is most likely gone. It smells like cold dirt.)
----
Flap, Flap, Flap
*
The tails of the rabbits, the trees they are. And The woman washing the bottles as if children would fall from them. Each egg folded inside,
Abrupt, gentrified moss. The turtle kissing the throat of the thing.
oh. Oh. oh.
I don’t know its name, so I make its sound, the flap flap flap.
--
(En Español)
Solapa, Solapa, Solapa *
Las colas de los conejos, los árboles que ellos son. Y La mujer que lava las botellas como si niños se caigan de ellos. Cada huevo dobló adentro,
Musgo brusco y aburguesado.
La tortuga que besa la garganta de la cosa.
Ah. Ah. ah.
Yo no sé su nombre, así que hago su sonido, la solapa de solapa de solapa.
