IT WORKS

Crazy fallen leaves in autumn Roll around the bottom, They renounce the top. To lock the chain They don’t wait for the rain. That’s nature’s large-scale chop.

I feel that man was made to grow, So I can’t understand a going back. It’s beautiful, that season’s show, But I don’t feel I’m taking up the slack.

Some stowaways say that the shortest way leads to the falls. But first of all, I think we should define which are the goals.

If we do nothing, we’re nothing, nothing but bald monkeys in the sun. If we are happy, we don’t need a meaning of life: Life is having fun.

Some stowaways say that the shortest way leads to the falls. Excuse me if I stay seated and I decline my last phone calls.

It might be hanging by a thread, It might look diffused and strange, It has the face of a sad end, It seems the back of the last page, But keep on, keep on rowing I don’t know how, don’t even want to, but it works.

Some stowaways say that the shortest way leads to the falls. Excuse me if I keep sat and I decline my last phone calls.

There’s nothing written anywhere, and these are times of big despair. Talking about freedom here, It’s a question of respect. Keep on, keep on rowing I don’t know how, even don’t want, but it works.

UGLY IN THE CITY

A school bus crash in a crowded street. My sleep is letting me intuit: I dream the world’s collapsing as my ancient models become outdated.

My favorite bar changed its direction, causing me an undaunted rejection. Now, cocktail names are given by chance, And the music’s loud for people to dance.

But I sicken with no aim. This world has always been the same: A forced and overlapped relief, A victim helping his closest thief.

And we all think it’s unfair: We’ve been too little time on the chair. And a year won’t be a year anymore, We’re knocking on a revolving door.

Though I haven’t made my choice yet, I feel closer to the backward way: To buy an island, to grow my greens, To give the world, to teach my child.

We’ll watch the sunset from the hill, feed the rabbits, grind the mill, We’ll find an equation to decipher seasons That day by day elude every reason. We’ll depend on the changing rain That fills with plenty the whole plain. We’ll air the land with a homemade rake, We’ll learn to cook a strawberry cake.

We’ll tear up mirrors, tear up clocks, They’ll be less than keepsakes in a box. And, by a hunch I cannot say, I know we’ll die on the same day.

I know I might be wrong, But time has made truth lose its sense. My voice is low; I don’t want to shout. I’ll never train to jump the fence.

I don’t want to take part in a race With thousand people in a narrow gauge. Let’s go somewhere to buy a carpet. Aging with you is a beautiful target.

Let’s try perfumes on our wrist. Let’s fake death doesn’t exist. I’ll hammer a mosquito net. We’ll never sleep in two separate beds.

On the porch, we’ll kiss as we were still pretty. We won’t be ugly in the city. And we will feel released from Discussions about right or wrong.

We are sage enough to let Our children deny us.

We’re sage enough to renounce to a revolution that would deny us.

We just want To grow old together, alone.

SILENCE OF SAGES

Repeat a word if you really hate it, and so you’ll make of it a senseless noise. You’ll see how air destroys the meaning You’ll be seeing what sound destroys… There’s someone stealing our time. They are stealing our time. Now we’re living in TV age Like rabbits in an observation cage. They make averages with our taste To sell shit that soon will be replaced. They, they are stealing our time, they are stealing our time. And since, in fact, we know that life’s too brief:
too many conspiracies to believe in, and being just a part of the throng we find the pleasure to belong.
As they, they’re stealing our time, and we let them steal our time. You can shout, but never say a thing. Empty words repeated with a spring. When you turn it on, you join the chain: Harmless anger. Optional brain. Optional brain. In future lessons of history, the silence of the sages is gonna be considered as today’s worst mistake, they’ll just remember what they never said. They are stealing our time. They are stealing our time. They are stealing our time. They are stealing our time.

LIFE IS A ROUND TRIP

I’ve been waiting for Me,

seated there, on the bench,

Ignoring the candle I was going to quench.

Long ago, in the future, I know

I’m both of them at the same time.

And it might seem profane or divine,

And I don’t mind.

I’ve seen my dear nostalgia becoming a burden,

When it used to be the center of it all:

My only master wall.

Now my plan is just a bad scrawl.

But, with all the good will, I go on.

With all the good will, looking for

Someone I lost one day,

When truth came and blocked the way,

And showed me the secondary road.

Lately I’ve been thinking that the best way to take it is

To think that we die when we go to sleep.

That every dream is like a sweep.

So, the next day, there’s no reason to weep.

No reason to weep.

Ivy covered the backward road,

Denying the chance that history bestowed

On people like me, that doubt,

That simply can’t live without

The certainty that there’s a way out.

And we go on with our disguise

‘till memories come to strip our lies,

‘till water fills up the ship

‘till you take your first sip

And it shows you that life is a round trip.

There were times when the sun always shone,

When summer wasn’t something old, cold, gone.

The circle you cannot skip,

Your guardian angel’s whip…

life is a round trip,

But I’ve found things could fit right

if, leaving the stunning night,

you begin receding to the light.

BUT I DIDN’T KNOW YOU EXISTED

I visited countries, I scattered my will,

I grinded my innocence at the shared mill.

In search of a rhyme, I sold-off my time

To a salesman that never asked for it.

But I didn’t know you existed,

I thought love was something to steal,

And, although I had read about you,

How was I going to dream you’d appear?

I spent the best words, I discovered the sin,

I learnt some tricks to preserve my skin.

I hung a picture, I imitated the rite,

I preferred being safe to, being right.

When I didn’t know you existed

The world was a predictable place:

The suitable dress, the draw you can guess:

The world was a predictable place.

Now everything seems to happen so fast…

Me, I was used to step on a sticky past.

I feel time fades away, and life’s like a short day,

And history shows us we don’t last.

Once, I didn’t know you existed,

And I wandered in a convincing way

By an empty street, unknowing we’d meet

When April’s ‘bout to turn into May.

TIME BRUTALIZES

The naïve puppet tried to hold the threads of his dark destiny.

With a fictitious strength, he balanced the weight of any eulogy.

To stand in line, to keep that thing that many call “The Truth”;

There’s no need to say that all his efforts were guided by his youth.

A crow was singing where the white-dressed lady tried to wash her hair,

Where the trees were crooked, where the wind was cold and the flowers rare.

The clock of the town hall was showing above the foul-smelling pond,

And a race of clouds was taking place from far beyond.

The tastes on the tongue were just sour and bitter.

The waiting seemed so long, but now it had been left behind…

They try to go on,

they stir a lie that they can’t forget.

‘Cause nothing is as hard as to hold, stand and face your own threat.

All the burdens are remaining somewhere when you think they’re gone,

When you see you shouldn’t have jeopardized what you haven’t done.

Burning in the fire of your heaven,

your lost glance is repeating the steps you can’t take back…

Long ago someone took your hand to show you a little secret place,

Where you got naked … Strawberries were sweet.

You followed her and your eyes were as open as your mouth and, then,

Your heart exploded synchronized with your breath.

But soon you weren’t there.

Like now, you were not there.

You don’t know why, but you’re not there.

Your father like books are not the same when you’re reading them twice.

It seems that nature just lets us do things a single time.

Time brutalizes, and mind’s like a cancer we can’t control

But keeping wild, freezing the brain as body’s growing old.

Otherwise, life’s made of loss and rust.

Otherwise memories win and turn the present into dust.

Once you were so young that you thought you would never die.

Once you thought time was a lie that your parents invented

To keep their little boys and little girls away from the goods they wanted for them,

And now how much you’d love to recover your mistakes,

But you know it is too late, and you are too old to fake

That it is not too late.

ORDINARY PEOPLE WERE PARTLY RIGHT

We were laughing at them at the church gate,

They were guffawing, ignoring us,

We, thinking that was such a kitsch parade,

Children running around, all that fuss.

Then we saw the rented limousine

with the father and the bride,

saluting friends and cousins

with unjustified pride.

A bunch of workers came

into the bar where we were sober,

And, since the seats were not enough,

one of them moved a chair closer.

They were talking about chicks and sports

with a sandwich and a beer,

speaking with food in their mouth,

their happiness so sincere.

We were far from there,

we were running fast beside the souls of writers,

philosophers, thinkers that we wrongly thought that

would never move a finger

without the complete sureness

that they were going to transcend.

We founded that dusty club-

as if we had a life to spend.

There, no feeling was accepted

without a convincing argument:

With references, poetries, and no repeated jokes,

and the promise of never going where

ordinary people goes.

Lifting from the ground with a

certain rightness I won’t deny,

we were silent and invisible,

we both were the perfect spy,

Then we left the neighborhood

were we had lived so many times

and the road became narrow

as friends were being left behind.

Then was when I thought

we were wrong,

I left you though you were my shadow,

my loneliness, my half, but then I left you ‘cause I learnt,

that not ev’ry airplane

had to be The Spirit of Saint Louis,

that there are degrees of wrong.

And I’ve heard that you’re obsessed,

looking for an audience,

an accomplice, that you watch me

hidden in my tidy garden

but I never look at you, ‘cause happiness is something blind,

that turns you off, that gives you peace

and rubs the doubts of your mind,

I even have begun to accept that short ugly poet

that writes to cheat stupid girls-

he only wants to fuck-. Like anyone else.

THE FARM OF HORRORS

We are on the porch; it’s a lovely evening.

The universe seems to empty its mercy over us.

The air is quiet -a gentle breeze-,

Birds are going to sleep in the trees

And my tired hand lays on your hip.

My love, don’t let these tiny, little worms

Walk on your favorite lettuce leaf.

Your dead cold husband is in the dung.

He makes greens grow

As he walks around

With his naked skull.

Hens are at the poultry yard,

The mule is in the barn,

Nestled beside the ghost tractor.

And if you look at the ridge,

You can see a fawn.

Everything is in its place on our farm.

We know that if one day we dig a hole,

Unless we knock against a corpse,

We’ll make a well at our own expense.

We’ll be doing fine.

Remember: we don’t have to

Call the water divine.

ENJOY MEDIOCRACY

We enjoy mediocracy

In this “Best Of All Possible Worlds”.

Chances for ev’rything.

Chances for ev’ryone.

Even the lame old man

Has now the right to try

To become a football player.

No one wants to make him cry.

Reason has been pushed into the background.

Arithmetical mean is equivalent to Truth, to Certainty.

People live

With the hope to know

That it’s never too late

To become a part of the show,

And ev’rything depends on luck,

On the right person looking at you,

On your scruples to be fucked,

On what you think about what you do.

Isn’t yours the pain of

Any contemporary mortal?

Try writing songs. In fact, it’s easy, it’s quite easy:

begin singing:

La la la la la laaaaa, lalala laaa,…..

OLD TESTAMENT v-3.8

It rained for one hundred nights with their long one hundred days,

it rained in a way that everything was going to waste.

Shepherds in their cabins were all drinking like fish,

peasants were considering hanging themselves with a leash.

The local prophet had been fired by the major’s wife,

The priest was feeling better in possession of a knife.

Most of the young women had forgotten their vows,

had poisoned their old husbands and had sacrificed their cows.

Promiscuity was showing off in the middle of the streets,

the whole town was looking for another crumb to eat.

Evil, vandalism, pain and death:

the worst in anyone, blooming at the end.

Then a thunder crossed the sky and a stranger came around.

He was riding an old mule, he said he came from the mountain.

He astonished us all, as he stood there still, so tall

and he spat off, to clear his throat, and quietly said:

“I’m not a ghost, with a sheet, ball and chain.

I’m an expert sorcerer than can take away the rain.”

He showed us his price list, we looked for the word “flood”,

it was something crazy – all our savings-,

but, once we had paid him, he took some strange items,

he raised his cane and, in front of us, then, the rain stopped.

Three months later the land was dry. It hadn’t rained anymore,

so ten strong men in town went to see the sorcerer at his home,

he told us we could only choose between drought or rain

and if we wanted him to bring us clouds we had to pay again,

but there was no harvest, no cow and no handicraft;

he said it wasn’t his fault, he turned his back and laughed.

While he was asleep that night we took him from his bed.

We bounded him hand and foot, and forced him to make the spell.

And, when the sky began to pour, we built a reservoir

and an ambitious system of water channels made of pipes and tanks.

And there we have his grave.

If we had not killed him, we would had become his slaves.

And we erected a statue, to remember what he did,

he saved us twice to leave us where we were,

but we learned a lesson we’d always remember:

a town can’t depend on the will of one person.

May God condemn us, may God ignore us,

but a time will come when sins will be forgiven,

and it’s sure we are guilty, but our children are free,

and they’ll always have all the water that they need.

TONIGHT WE STAY HOME

It’s around half past four

When I unfasten your watch.

I hold your wrist and I think that yours is the heart where I am lodged.

Crystals of thin ice

Twinkle with borrowed light,

Floating in an exact Negroni, with a red so bright

We talk about the world

as the clock is growing old.

I hope in my eyes you see the wisdom of the one that doesn’t want to know.

From the kitchen

I pour myself a drink

This time I’ll take a Dry Martini, with an olive and a lemon twist.

In the haze of our drinking there’s a veil of time and words.

My shoes are upside down; you smile getting closer.

You’ve just understood something I don’t.

Soon the sun will come to remind us

Cycles and all that stuff.

Then I draw the curtain.

You close the bedroom door.

Tomorrow we’ll wash up.

Now I want to leave your clothes across the floor.

I just want to leave your clothes across the floor.

PORTRAIT

I had been drinking; then I found myself in my old R5,

Driving nowhere, on a road with trees at each side.

There was an embankment leading to a farmyard and a grove

And a little girl on the grass that grows around the river cove.

When I walked behind to see her smile she just heard my ghostly swish.

She, my future wife, my darling, my fulfilled wish.

She grew up in the country side, in a house with a broken beam.

In a time when I was only my mother’s common dream.

She had jumped off the window while her father was having a nap.

The unmade bed and the goodbye not said, were her only slap.

She had slept on the hay, beside the hens the night before;

Then I saw her start marching again along the river shore.

I know one day these words will complete our tombstones,

And time will burn on and on our flesh, our bones.

Today all our embraces are feasible and sublime,

but life is something tragic that we get round most of the time.

OPTIMISTIC GRUMBLE

Carlos played the bass so well…

But he left me for a woman.

Now he’s living in a small town,

I ‘m sure he’s finally found himself.

Others left me ‘cause they knew

that singing in English brings no money

Here, where the sky is sunny

And people have the right to understand the show.

But I’ve kept on singing my songs,

And now my girl is pregnant

And I’ve never thought I was wrong.

Now she’s tired all day

and she sleeps,

And on the bed I play with my fingers on her lips.

She’s the engine of my aim,

she’s the one that makes me forget.

I wasn’t earning too much,

so I took a job in a school,

with my salary I pay my studio,

and I bet a bit in the football pool.

Our house is getting smaller,

so we’ll have to look for a bigger place,

but the moment is so convulsed,

everybody’s afraid to lose the race.

I’ve seen my daughter in an ultrasound scan,

and I’ve seen things I’ll never understand.

Many worries seem stupid lies,

when we see her looking around with her little eyes.

I’m more or less in the middle of my time

but I long to see Ginebra in her prime.

She gives me a new picture of myself,

She is a new arrange of my dusty shelf.

I’m sorry for talking ‘bout me this way,

but this song won’t be a single, it will barely be heard.

END OF WAR AGAINST TIME

I see flowers at each side:

Poppies’ red; irises’ white.

I’m coming home,

I’m coming home,

I’ll be sleeping at home tonight.

I can’t wait to knock on the door,

This one has been the most useless war,

But the pain’s behind,

Now, I can hear the chime:

It’s the end of war against time.

I’ll slowly get used to be free.

I had always thought it depended on me,

But it wasn’t so,

And now, finally, I know

I’m immortal.

In a few words: these last years I’ve been living

Surrounded with things that had no relief:

People and objects that were dying, somehow;

Boring when happiness is too repeated.

In a world that pushes us to be selfish,

To know ev’ry country in ev’ry continent.

To leave our footprints in a noisy manner,

While our dogs only live ten or twelve years.

Our grandpa’s passed with little success.

They taught us to appear in encyclopedias

And, now, we have realities or the Internet.

Oh, sorry: it may seem I’m trying to save the world…

But now I feel released from that heavy load,

I’ve returned the badge I had been bestowed with,

And when I’ve gone, I’ve smiled:

I’m gonna have a child.

I’ll be sleeping at home tonight.

That aging I used to reject

Will be her growing up side effect.

I’m gonna leave my gun on the floor,

It’s the end of war,

It’s the end of war,

It’s the end of war,

End of war against time.

THE AGE OF REASON

Ev’ry road leads out from the fairy tale.

The haunted forest was chopped down, and now its wood is for sale.

I don’t know how to deal

with a past that sleeps.

My eyes are too tired,

or too sick to weep.

I would swallow all my ancient words.

And, coming back to momma’s lap,

I don’t want to grow up, 

I don’t like these things

That I have to do

To keep on walking,

going somewhere

I just fake I choose.

I don’t want to wait

For better times,

Swapping vices

for sacrifices,

since ev’ry day could be the last.

I hate myself, and I feel ashamed

When, watching a precious landscape,

I just stay the same.

What’s this thing that turned my skin into a wall?

A single leaf in the wind can’t turn spring into fall.

I feel so tired doing nothing but letting myself go.

Life’s a river with no riverbed,

and I’ve got to let it flow,

And I’ve got to let it flow:

Don’t be afraid to be free.

There’s no pain

When the pouring rain

Falls upon the sea.

If I ever have to leave,

I’ll say “bye” instead of “hello”.

And in that quiet eve,

As time will not exist,

the sun will precede the snow.

Today I’m sad,

but there’s something inside

That tells me things will change

like beaches change with the tide.

I just need to know, I need to assume

That I’ve run half the race, I’ve stopped for a while,

And now it’s getting to be time to resume.

I don’t need to bury my old clothes.

Old Me lives within myself,

he sleeps after moulting,

And it takes a lot of years

To forgive yourself.

But  there’s no treason:

It’s the age of reason:

When each book’s on the right shelf.

I’ve got to learn

how to quit some cards,

to feel fair and proud

and, at the same time,

leave myself ,

leave myself,

leave myself,

leave myself,

leave myself,

leave myself behind.

WORLD OF BROKEN THINGS

What if I find you any day

In a senseless bar or at a cinema queue?

What if I try to dissimulate

And I see you’ve seen that I know it’s you?

Should I go away? Should I cross the street?

Should I fake I’m absent-minded or that it’s not me?

I’m so lost in this, I really don’t know what to do.

It’s been seven years pretending you were dead.

I’ve seen you two or three times

(and I’ve also seen you in my bed,

In restless dreams, like a wounded ghost

Reigning in that land of ashes that one day you drew,

Like ev’rything you do, just to try).

What if you see me from your chair

With the things that make me happy today?

What if you see me feeding my child?

Will you cry again? Will you notice, then,

That it was no game when you threw your lies?

I think one day you learnt that ev’rybody dies

And you began to die that same day, though you had eaten so well….

And you were strong, too strong some used to say:

You loved to laugh out loud about others’ wrecks,

But you were not pure – that’s my biggest pain-,

Not completely crazy, not completely sane,

Oh, it could have been so easy in any clearer way.

As for me, I live ev’ry day with the bittersweet sensation.

The tumor is non-malignant, but I can’t foresee

my reaction

When one day I receive a call and someone

Tells me that you’re finally out of range,

And death will derange your world of broken things.

WAITING ON THE DECK

There’s a tragic subtle moment when a thing begins to be another,

When the wrong is partly right, when the day is partly night,

When the night is partly dawn,

And, when you look around and you see

You had been laughing all alone.

It’s time to wash the punch bowl, swear about the sticky shoe sole,

To yawn and lock the door, sweep confetti from the floor.

Everybody’s going home

But the drunkard in the corner,

Who feels like dancing with a corpse.

Some days I feel like I would climb a mountain, but then a cloud comes flying

And leans upon my back, making evident my lack,

putting everything in the same sack

and I just get up from the ground to keep on dying…

But I’m not too sad, so I don’t complain.

I paid in advance for all this pain.

I’ve talked so much about the sure wreck,

That I can wait for it on the deck.

I look at you, you are so pretty…

and what makes of it a pity is what makes it precious, too,

what turns old what once was new.

One day we’ll say: love, time flew

And our happiness will scramble like a teardrop in the blue sea.

Then, we’ll belong, as the sea belongs to the world.

And when the planets crash after their orbits turn loose,

Our ashes will be home, where nothing moves.

THERE IS NO PAIN

What are we?

A body that grows old and cracks?

A hope that reaches a top and fades

And, then, thinks it’s too late to come back?

When you sowed a rose,

You knew for sure it was going to die.

But even death acquires a sense

If you think that time is just a way to arrange some things.

There’s a time to wait, a time to get.

A time to hide, a time to share.

A time to learn those things that,

Later, you will learn to forget.

We’re not a part of history.

We are ev’rything.

What are we?

A scrawl in the sand swept by the tide?

A fish that came out of the sea

And grew hands and feet,

Driven by its pride?

A clever chimp?

A bunch of cells joined by mistake?

An oddity in a universe, usually terse,

In need of an own wake?

Starting from the Big Bang has a certain sense,

But I wouldn’t think in terms of cause and consequence.

It’s just the absent silence what keeps us apart from the understanding,

Obsessed, digging always the same hole.

And there are few clear truths

Like frustration or sleepy love.

Something’s got us tied up,

Making us think we’re what we are not.

Something completely wrong.

And all those dreams

You once held

Are awaiting beyond,

In the plane of the unreal,

Where we really belong.

And no judgment is severe

When time is long and slow,

When the mercy of the dead

Makes the lies shine low.

From “The Dharma Bumps” I learnt

That there is no pain,

There is no pain.