martes, 1 de diciembre de 2015

Alis

Vos podés estar
bailando
podés estar bailando
y podés
tratar de parar la cabeza
podés estar tratando de
soltar
y moverte

Podés volver al cuerpo
sin pensarlo
sin decirlo
y
de pronto
podés acordarte
que Alis nos dejó
en el plano físico

Puede pasarte eso
una noche
bailando esa banda
moviéndote lindo
conectada


y
ahí
puede pasarte que
te muevas en serio
que se corte el monólogo mental
que eso te dure tres días
que nazcan tres poemas
que bailes y sonrías
que hagas nuevos amigos
que disfrutes del atardecer en un lago.


Marruecos

tagine terasse tagine terasse
Les gazelles! Fatima couscous
eh! Messi! Argentina!

Sahara in my ears
desert skin
a light awakes me
quick as a snake
the man asks
“Can I sleep with you?”
no- no - NO!
teach me to drum instead
Yallah! Vamos a la playa
a mi me gusta baile
el ritmo de la noche…
Two young boys hips closed
together bent as a camel— Allez!

WE ARE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN
let the moon pull us up out of this mess
too many poems

too many poems
too many words
I have grown
to distrust spoken language
for a second there
I knew Ahmed
knew me better
than I even know myself
His tears where
enough
to bring up mines.

Americans ask too many questions
Spanish smoke too much
our driver tells a racist Moroccan joke
Basque like to shout and splash around
and Murakama, a small Japanese man, is perfect all alone

He might be Avalokietsvara
(for all we know)
His plastic bag, his tall waist
pants. His eternal smile.
He knows something
I also know
(and keep forgetting)

I keep forgetting to take pictures for my grandchildren:
look! once I sat young and confused on a camel and wondered
how to find my way when the wind erases the dunes we try so hard to memorize

to stop trying
stop making the effort
Just giving up
because then, only then
the true purpose of our
voyage is revealed
Our plans mean nothing
our egos mean nothing
our knowledge means nothing
and
then
when we stop trying
love floods from inside
an ocean of silver lunar
salty love
that never
runs dry

To love, we add the will to live
the will to cling to the bottom
a starfish opening and closing
suckers tracing cool night wind
will it lift us?
will we dance in the sand
skating the fine line
between surface and depth?
or is it us who must rise to meet it?

Rising into the bottom
Getting sucked by the
all greedy and red
hole in the starfish
where there is no ups
or downers. No rich
no poor, no wise no superficial
no thieve no just men
no Christian no Muslim
Just the calm tide
of dunes everlasting
movement in the Sahara
the sun rising on our hair
caressing our skin
We where blessed by
the gift of one more morning
in this scary surface
camels grow into

The camels, like the wind,
make patterns in the sand
endlessly repeating lines
back and forth bobbing and weaving
together a story we call time
there is no way to tell
when or where or why
did we come here?
I get caught in the details
I lose my head over a broken handle
a dirty glass no toilet paper a greedy smile and a look
that says, baby, come on I know you want this—
and all the time the road keeps coming
red and hot and real

Red, cause, tides are fine
but we inhabit a present
we deal (as we can)
with contradictory information,
oppression, pain, injustice
y seguimos caminando
porque la vida es como
andar en bicicleta
para mantener el equilibrio
hay que seguir pedaleando
And there is no
Starting point or finishing point

and there is no
starting point or finishing point
there are no memories we don’t lose
faces half-remembered, places only ever half seen
how much of the truth did we get this time?
50%? 100%?
The truth is we will never know
we learn to separate the rose from the thorn
that’s why we came here
to put to bed visions
of truth, justice, beauty
that remain cold to the touch
to learn how to sell anything
with only a few words of English
and an eternal smile
come, my friends, it’s not too much
we’ll give you a good price, for friends…

As two nietzschean widowers
we faced the dare. we traveled
alone, single, women, white, young
we where awaken by a Berber
half drunk asking if we wanted
to sleep with him
We where looked at and touched
in the wrong way far too many times
we had our backs
in the end (is there an end?)
we payed to little for the gift of
wisdom.
We learnt from every time we where disrespected
and ripped off
We dealt with our impatience
with the impulse of judging
we killed beauty, truth and justice
we saw disabled young little kids
walk to school. We saw women
working while men got the money
we saw camels working while
men got the money
we saw girls with veils and
girls with no veils
we saw rivers of palm trees
cutting trough the grand red canyon
in the Atlas mountains
We heard life stories
We learned we stopped judging
and assuming and expecting
we listened
I have no fear of men
I have no fear of danger
I only fear my rage
I will sometimes exit the scene
before the lava is unstoppable
I have been hurt so much
so young I learnt and mastered
the art of fear
My only answer to his
“baby I know you want this”
came trough my eyes
He wouldn’t look down
I would not look down
then he understood
he was in danger
he laughed and set his eyes
on the floor
then I knew he had understood
he was in danger
He laughed and set his eyes on the floor
then I knew he had understood
then I knew I would not have
to explain with words that if he touched
my shoe one more time
I would use it to break his teeth in his sleep.

[one person to the other, pointing to something on a scroll or rug]
What does it mean?
-Kasbah: home, cool in the summer, warm in the winter, made from mud and rock and straw
What does it mean?
-Berber tent, between mountain and desert
What does it mean?
-Camel—life, work
What does it mean?
-Freedom— women tattoo it on their faces
What does it mean?
-Gazelle— a love-object, a young girl, prey

We try to decipher desert stones
codes to a life prohibited to us
and that we want, sneakily,
in small silent doses.

It means alarms are weird
They can go off even if there
Is no fire
What does it mean?
It means Jasmine and Aladdin
are our love role models
What does it mean?
Wait
Was Aladdin a thief?

Was our hero the kind of man
who takes all for himself?
two wives divorced unworked told
to watch TV and stay still
while babies crawled out of her?
What thoughts did he steal
from under her breath
when he spoke for her?
Speaking red, yellow, and indigo
with beauty…

He spoke
we listened
the second wife
“didn’t even ask about work”
Her family rich
He would not accept their money
–Then no. He would not take
everything just her breath
not her money.
–You think so? Does she really
need to work six hours a day
for 100 euros and then 24/7
in the house?
(both)–Who is taking their breath away?

Blazing sun, bare breast tops mark
a line in the sand
What is this place?
european, hot and tousled
we are told we are not good women
we take a picture with the driver
We reach a strange concrete oasis
a street bearing the old king’s name
next to a pizzeria and French garden

She knows how to talk to drivers
the Argentine in her a desert flower
life-giving, persistent, obviously beautiful

Persistent, this we are
this I like
What where these alpine houses
transplanted and growing
in twenty first century AFRICA?
How did French colonialism work?
How did USA step in?
How do international corporations
rule the world over every national
jurisdiction?
It’s Shell, it’s oil, it’s iron, zinc
And mine working
devastated lungs
That is what is taking their breath away
This is what I (we) will change.

Zorro in the medina
cut me some slack
I took a dump in the cemetery
and didn’t look back
I felt naked in the plaza
where men gather in tight groups
I can’t see the center of
the story: a man stands and speak
to fireworks and applause
his words are not for me.

–First time in Maroc?
–Yes. –No.
–First in Chefchouan
–yeah–…yes.
Questions. Answers. Different cultures
different perspectives, different experiences
different ways of understanding what
is being said, what is the intention of what
is being said, and what should be
answered and what is the meaning
or the intentions of what each of us
answers.
Are they friendly… Now?
Are they selling…   Now?
Am I impolite…    Now?
Was she impolite…Now?
Babel tower. And letting go. Letting go.
Letting the narcissistic desire of
pleasing everyone go and follow
its beautiful ride on the dunes
while the strings of the guitar keep
on singing.

Letting go of the camel strap
means one of two things:
falling or finding new equilibrium
between your thighs
a tightening, let go of your brain
feel your toes instead
sand insects that know better than you
where you’ve been.
Feel you back— it aches!
strings tightened to breaking
you massage yourself the best you can
you do not ask for help
suffering is our greatest intimacy
We take to the road again
it is so hot
knowledge melts in my hand
and I’m left with my sweat
a renewal, a reknowing that grows

Re-knowing. Forgetting what we’ve
Learnt. Closing our ears to teachers
and parents and friends and
cousins and writers.
Finding new equilibrium.
Not asking for help.
Doing the best we can.
sweat that compensates
us for all the love,
knowledge prevented us from experiencing,
then there is reknowing
a knowing thet is not knowledge
(built and transmitted by others)
But reknowing
(our own experience, un savoir,
pas une conaissance)
This we know. In life death
And pain made us re-born.

Love in repeating each other’s words
without understanding, love in Buddha’s
smile and repetition of your French phrases.
Can you measure love in misunderstanding?

The cock, the Kasbah, clusters of beads
around the neck of the taxi, its backside, upended
a view into its depth is
melted leather and dirt
it makes me sick
I don’t want to see what is under,
inside, or behind
just to smile
and be the fool they expect.

Custard yellow mustard custard
like the Dijon moutarde
dripping from a dead
camel’s eye. Somebody called
us. We answered quite slowly
a girl with veiled eyes.
--Dorothy: we are not in Kansas anymore
(and I’m lovin’ it)

There is no yellow-brick road
follow instead the wild flowers
yellow and light purple
lined by clusters of cactus
longing to be touched
each town has a mosque, a fountain
an oven for baking homespun bread
each town has a stork, find him
he is the man behind the curtain
who calls people to prayer
to see his face is to know
that none of this is real
that you should only have faith
in others’ ability to lie.

He has three nationalities
He flies from Slovenia, to Croatia to
Africa. He has three passports not one
not two not four.
He will wait for you just in
the corner where the
Royal Palace
meets la Banque Populaire
it is easy to find him. He is the
smiling one showing all his
gums without a single tooth.

Let him show you his house
the view of the cemetery from his terrace
but refuse his bread and his mother
these intimate things are best left for friends
he will understand you, he is a traveller, too
he learned to separate an orange from its skin
and toss the unneeded fibers, very young.

I like travellers
I can be a nomad
I have moved so (too) many times
I only have friends that can put
up with my very special character
through a couple of decades
the rest are travel companions
they will (as my friends do)
misunderstand my way
of giving not what they want
but what they need
They will fail to see how
much I will instinctively
and helplessly try to help

Can you measure love in misunderstanding?
What do you mean by friend?
How can you know what I need
if you are not my friend?
I don’t understand us
we take ourselves for Gods
we imagine the insides of everyone’s head
but we are bad artists
we make crude assumptions, bad sketches
and to operate with these maps we make
means to get lost, to lose every time
we need to hear the other
tell a story in their own words
and understand that their failure to understand us
is our failure to listen

--yes, but then, what is it really to be said
(or heard)
Everybody needs the same thing: love
not to be escorted to the Riad because
of imaginary fears. They need to be
taken care of sometimes. And they also
need to be left by themselves so
they can discover how strong they
are, how perfectly capable of finding
their way, their inner never
ending never drying source of
love. When they get there
they will agree: there was not such
thing as a problem or a need to
be expressed. And then gratitude will
rise in your eyes and in mine and
in theirs. This is how you talk with
a camel.

The arrogance of the truth, its nakedness,
its fearlessness scares me
It makes me revolt and say NO
you do not know me better than I do
but once again it’s right
and I feel small as a child
hiding behind the costume box
in my bedroom closet
leave me here so I can cry
take your truth to the market
where you can dress it up
and sell it in parcels, to Sunday women
enjoying the holiday
they do not know they are buying
my shame, my fear of being minimized
misunderstood, shut up, un-loved, passed over
They do not know about the door I’ve closed
so it won’t come back and hurt me
again and again.

---Yes, but then, you already always
knew this. Because you are older
than me, because this is not your
first time walking this planet,
It also might not be the last one
and (even if I’m a liar) I´m sure
of one thing: we had met before
and we will meet again and again
untill we both learn what we are
here to learn from each other

Hurt is perpetual, but there are different layers
and the only thing that distinguishes anguish
from a dull remembering
is time
luckily, we have time
not money, not direction,
but time
so let’s enjoy the scenery in purple, red and yellow

Last night, I had a dream:
a woman came to me
in dark blue robes
she sucked my thumb
and asked for spare change
I gave her five dirhams and asked her her name
Fatima, she told me.

words run down our pen
like our bodies run down this road
the car slides through right curves
left curves where donkeys feed on
yellow poppies, the red poppies reminded
me of Afghanistan. Today I had a scary thought.
I was rumiando que sino me convierto al
Islam es porque de ahí pasaría muy rápido
a hacerme jihadista, olvidaría esto que se
y que sigo olvidando y que nadie puede
enseñarle a nadie y que es amor; pero, entonces,
si yo pasaría tan rápido, entiendo, que ellos
también y que esa decisión solo se toma
a condición de aceptar una premisa
muy simple “podemos ganarles” Entonces ellos
creen esto cuando dan su vida por el Estado
Islámico. El pensamiento que me asustó y tuve fue
“¿pueden ganar?”

The poor, the marginalized, the fragile
are people most vulnerable to radicalization
says Liberation Maroc
in Kenya where rich flaunts itself
before starving children
a man is radicalized
an elite, a good name, a good family
no one is safe, we conclude

travel warning on Mauritania, Nigeria, and Kenya
travel warning for young women EVERYWHERE
better safe than sorry
sorry to hear that, that’s horrible
6,000 deaths in Kathmandu
an earth tremor a heartbreak that just
nearly escaped the quake, phew
Thank God, thank Allah, Shallah
that you will have children
fat ones with big cheeks
that can guide you like the wide
eye of the moon, radiant and smiling.

La travel warning no es lo mismo para
nosotros. Hoy, para la derecha norteamericana
hay que “tener cuidado”antes de invertir
en Argentina. Ridículo. Posiblemente tenemos
menos deuda que muchas potencias, pero
hoy, por un tecnicismo legal hablan de
default y de falta de responsabilidad
y respuesta. Yo no soy una población
vulnerable, pero soy bastante “radical”
en mis ideas. Es que desconfío de algunos
discursos y de algunas maneras de leer
el mundo. Un terremoto es otra cosa. La
tragedia y el dolor de esas madres y familiars
¿Qué más se puede decir? Me duelen
esas muertes en el cuerpo. Imagino con el
cuerpo los cinco días abajo de los escombros
de dos sobrvivientes. También agradezco
todo el dolor y las dificultades que pasé en la
vida. De ellas nace un optimism férreo e
inquebrantable, tanto lunar, como oceánico.
Sólo desde ahí me atrevo a hablar. Creo que es
Lo mejor de mi a darle voz y lo mejor que puedo
Compartir, cuando tomo la palabra. Porque
el poema se escribe solo, nosotras
solo traducimos algunas de las tantas y tantas
voces que somos y que nos habitan. Escribir
es siempre un trabajo de traducción, de poner
en palabras movimientos, ideas, impulsos que
llegan en coro armónico o disonante en
lenguas y continentes y culturas y situaciones y ya
no importa quien es “dueño” o autor porque
no le pertenecen ni siquiera a la mano
que mueve la pluma. Así la escritura, el diálogo
y la caravana de versos en el desierto de
este cuaderno nos regala visiones y
compases en las multitudes que somos
solas, juntas y con los otros.
Atena Lussich y Vera Carothers