Could you send it to Marcos, please?

(a free version of this)

Today, on the street, I saw a boy

who was just like you. Same face, same sway.

Maybe it was you indeed,

even though I knew it wasn’t

because it couldn’t be.

It didn’t matter. I acted just as I would have

even if I was sure it was you, casting that shadow,

standing there, by the gutter.

I would have stopped to tell you the news.

I’m on a diet, you know, and my watch

is early again.

I am not supposed to have time to gobble your words

and no longer clean my fingers full of

oil and blood

and man milk (sometimes),

face and hands smeared after swallowing.

It’s been a really long time since I last felt

the sweet taste of your rhyming

or your vernacular caresses.

Your slap on the cheek, with kid gloves,

me or whoever reads in between the lines.

So, I just let myself be haunted by your

rainy smile, by the orange sign with politics

you were carrying when I saw you.

Why was I wet and embarrassed

when you asked me to put it up too?

Even if you were here and not in another country,

we would be unconnected, out of touch.

You know, family, the kids, not easy to be the breadwinner.

I don’t know if you are one too. No pressure!

I prefer to think you are married to a ghostly muse

that feeds on your images and thoughts.

Am I digressing? This was meant to thank you.

(is it a defiance to art to call my own work this? Are you slighted?)

It is supposed to be a eulogy, a kind of prayer.

Not that I am comparing you to God,

you know? I don’t inflate egos like I do

those sculpture balloons.

I would never dare underestimate your

wits. You? Mr. One-Step-Ahead?

So I’d better come to an end, as our story never does.

(It also had more beginnings than one).

How I met you could be a script of a noir movie.

J’ai peur du noir.

Luckily we left the lights on all the time.

Now, we’ve got to turn them off.

Have I mentioned the bills, the imaginary wife with the rolling pin?

I’ll get my umbrella, yes, I will, but until I open it

I’ll let life sprinkle me again,

smiling like you a little bit more.

Crime Scene Reconstruction

version of my poem - Reconstituição do Crime

To my new friend Taryn

On the criminal

He feels his heart pumping, more and more.

Each drumbeat stretches all fibers in

his celebrating being, one by one.

Alcohol fluster the senses, everything

seems more

alive.

Colors acquire new shades, shapes melt into

thin air?

Feet moving swiftly, trying to follow the rhythm

of the music that comes from every side.

Shouting, laughter, it's a party. It is Carnival.

It always is, when there is fun. Libertas quae sera tamen.

Hands to the sky, are they pointing that way, or this?

They rub each other restlessly, like a bear scratching on a tree,

rabbits mating.

Happiness overflows him, and oozes from every pore.

He feels grand, enormous, whole.

Sweat drips down his nape till the bottom of his spine,

unplanned tickling. He sweats as if he was all water,

not just the 70%. Wet hands, beer breath, drops of malt.

Gaze lost in the spotlight, open smile.

The restive hands entangled in the shirt's cloth, uselessly

trying to dry themselves.

In a sudden movement, the shock.

Bare hands. Broken euphoria.

Better lose the saddle (or the ring). Than the horse (or the hand).

On the victim

I remember well when I was one among many.

I had nothing special, no stone, nothing.

Many came to see me, but I remained there, the only

place I knew.

Still. Fearing the unknown out there, but willing

to be an explorer.

Days, nights.

I feel a hand, fumbling, carefully? And when I see,

freedom.

God help me! But the sensation is wonderful. Colors, lights, smells,

everything. I am carried away,

right left up and down

What a huge world, Lord!

I try to communicate, in vain.  I’m mute, aren’ t I?

And fettered, I follow.

One day, it is a party. I feel proud. I am passively happy,

leeching someone else's joy.

I am a symbol. I am aware of that. I am an accessory, I

embellish and complement.

I am just as intoxicated. So many movements and sensations.

I belong and suddenly

The abyss.

I have always feared the abyss. And when I come to my senses again,

I a m a l o n e.

Is this hitting bottom? Full of confetti and serpentines?

The empty and dented cans, plastic bottles, I had imagined.

It is so cold in here, so frightening.

The party no longer makes sense.

How could I be so overlooked?

Lost. In life.

Better lose the ring of the saddle... what remains, again? The horse hand?

Better be alone than in bad company.

On the accomplice (or hero?)

The party flows like a river, rapids and lull.

Everything is new, yet more of the same.

Earnest joy, however incomplete. Sine qua non.

A friendship, shared laughter. I am fine.

Her bead necklace breaks, what a feeling!

Her ring loses its fake emerald, they say green means hope.

Where is the green stone?

Tired, hours of leaps and swing. Like a snake serpentining

on the dancefloor.

My friend takes another train and she travels around the room,

how does she conga! She is overjoyed.

My gaze goes from stage to people, to the ground.

Where is the damn green stone?

Where is what I don't see here?

Something is missing.

I hear a scream.

No, I hear a glow.

I see near me, on the ground, a ring. It is lonely. Like me (I wasn't or shouldn't be

but so tired, for a few seconds, a cloud covers my sun).

At that very moment, our souls touch.

Or mine reflects in its metallic surface,

Lacan and his mirrors.

An impulse, which I keep to myself.

Is it mine? No.

Better leave life as it is. Why should I change it?

I subvert myself. I bend down and catch it. It nests in the palm of my hand.

An engagement ring?

But it is not engaging anything. Anymore. It is out of context, just a ring.

Like finding a needle in a haystack, nitpicking.

But what can I do?

It is easier if I let it slip through my fingers like sand, may other people find it!

(and be haunted by its past and responsible for its present)

Damn! Am I putting it on?

It turns into an engagement ring to myself. We speak the same language and are no longer lonely.

Not alone.

Better lose the saddle, the ring, the temper. Or get them. Who cares about horses, hands or love?

Its future?

It's in the hands of God.

And a bird in the hand is better than two... on the ground.