ichaso: January 2010

por justo.

lori

22 year old called girl i never called. met her in central park, weeping over my first divorce. the weeping stopped. she told me she was a freelance artist. the two bikes on the grass. I swore to GOD silently, that I would say something, it was hard, but she hadn't move. she was still listening to the wheel spiining slowly and the fifth ave traffic echo, then I thew myself. i invited her to see The Rolling Stones. picked her up in my father's old, green, Imapala. I waited on Park Ave., when I saw her racing out of the expensive building. she was out of breath. she said: I just raced down 7 flights of stairs...and then, with that look, added: I've never done that before". outside the madison, the scalpers were going higher that what I had, she pulled out a wad of cash and handed to it to me to make the deal. 15th row, $30 a seat. she stood up on her chair to sing You Can Always Get What You Want...as a hundred steel drummers and congas spilled out of the wings onto the sides of the stage and into the audience. she gave me the look again. she was good tonight.

seduction

Jan 8, 2010.

There you are. Where you've always been. Where I haven't looked.
Static and with fear in your face when you see me. But I see you, just the same. Frozen inside my brain. Beautiful. And you see me, balancing my act, out of balance, and kind.
Its all the same. Like the first time. The first smile. The brightness I have lost. But still mine. Like when you moved around my life and understood the deal we had made without love. While we listened to the chatter of what we needed. Wired to the broken, flying, escaping. To wherever love was. You were a good passenger or something like that. Crooked down to this pleasure of ours. Seduced.
It never goes away, some people say 'I remember'. With me, it's a life sentence, a life. Between photographs and letters, to confirm it happened, knowing always, how much time we had for this. That's where you live.
New explanations are not needed anymore. We know and continue our love invisibly, like secret agents, sworn to never let on, as per case.
Nervous, when your eyes hit mine with that look. Touched. But moving away. To reaffirm the distance gained.
Red. Black hair. Many descriptions that I can tell any cop that accuses me of your disappearance. Whenever I'm stopped, carrying this curse of loving the past. My version if it.
That's how it works. Dizzy with you.
Around the dark garden outside, with the cool air, and the endless howling of the coyote gang, eating something up, someone innocent enough. Just like this location of a city. That's were we survive.
In a happy day, disguised. We wander. Jerky. Consumed. Attracted. Negotiating the part we play with our hearts.
We're someone else. And in the confusion of wanting so much, we pass one another, change names, and smile. To the face of a stranger, as if it was you. And I say 'hello, how are you'. And the apparition of you, can only be polite and ask back: 'Fine and you?'. That's how it goes, if it goes well, with the music and the choreography of cars and clouds and red neon. We live. Like the ghosts of us.
Wherever it is. Hello. I know.

happy memories of imaginary days

electric pretty jangling memories. smelling and smiling. so nice to see them dancing happily and sadly...leaning into one another. couples, single memories in the dance floor...spinning their story...intimate with old and new lovers.
there were never better times than those we imagine. beautiful days filled with love, that once in a while went awol. like it never existed. kissing and spitting and biting. yeah. fuck the past as we know it.
for some, it's a marathon. always in motion. traffic lights stare you in the eye. you walk over millions of steps...and see nothing. sometimes you face strangers and remember them. and the faces turn into a blank and anonymous presence. and i move on. one step ahead of yesterday...just enough of a distance to allow someone, or something to surprise us...and remind us we're alive...and we can see...and we see too much. I've become a walking lie detector test, for better or for worse.
i do service whether wanted or unwanted, I'm my age and more.
and that's trouble. but i must put trouble aside and walk with my miles and my hundreds of happy tales. my tainted and painted and torn magic days. i should give happiness a chance, even if it is all in my split-personality imagination. and let life comes back to life...dusty and yellowed, with stains of beer and cigarette pages. yeah, that's the beauty of yesterday, it only gets better. or does it? late at night, when all that's left is pieces of you chasing after one another to piece the logic of it all. then, you see it....you see the outline of a life finished ten times and broken way too often. you see a man and a woman stumbling to embrace and collide into a kiss...like boxers that can't hit each other anymore and all they can do is hug like best friends embracing.
and you hear theM saying real low to each other tough and tender words..."I know you too well, don't forget, cause that's all we have....that history when the two of us were one...and only I know, at the end of the line I can say it: be kind...and please don't hit me again" the war was over so long ago, before it was a real war...because we were the 'young of yesterday'. obsolete and valuable to the very few that held their place and held their beating hearts as a protest, to all those blind and secure today. poor them. and as the music melted our two bodies and we agreed it was okay to drown, i whispered one last time: "Your smile is as lovely as the first time i had it...your eyes still see me like the man you wanted... but i don't know if it's true..." and you say nothing...as you close your eyes and sigh, resting your head on my chest. invisible.

velvets & doors

summer of 67. driving into new york city. i see my friends from the taxi, and realize, that 'they were not waiting for me, that were going somewhere. but i saw, stopped the checker, right on union square. and with my suitcase on my hand, we walked into max's. that same night, i got a job. i was always holding on to the cardboard-miami suitcase-balsa. finally to saint mark's place, egg shop, to buy rolling papers, breathe all the love, the summer of love. was giving away. down the electric circus. arrogant and curious enough, to pass. allen ginsberg turns his head, to the noise of cuban speaking teen-agers. kadish and howl are this real. and that was different. you had access to all of your heroes. ultimate reality. life changing night. brain tatoo. nothing going wrong sometimes. but you 'd know it...from way up, over tompkins square, with tim buckley and the miracles. off to the boston tea party.

little victories

LITTLE VICTORIES

the little yellow stickers are pasted all over my walls. like the yellow ribbons tony orlando tied on the old oak tree. they say: be normal. be happy. be the old you. I want to be gentle and discreet.
yes. these are the danger flags. the little stick-ums all over the walls. the reminder of what i was and what i want to be again. real simple projects. happy, gentle, normal, etc. of course it sounds simple, but nothing more difficult than the basic and ordinary things i miss so badly.
talk to my fear. stop. "hey...what do you want from me?". but no one talks back at the end of the night. not here. not where the signs hang silently, not where i control myself out of control. there's no fear here. i dont hurt anyone but myself and i wanna see me at the finish line.
how many more beautiful words for the deaf? why pretend the deaf one listens? because i want to feel deceived and justified to wound myself. that simple. the target of all this drama is me. hit me.
in a few hours . i turn 57. my mother wants me to lend her a few of my years, says i'm a baby, sees me like i'm four...and in minutes and days i'm on my way to 58. as i cross madison avenue again and feel the steam rising out of the street, i am comfortable. as you get older you forget to look for taxis running the lights, i forget i can get mugged...and it suddenly hits me that i suffer from premature aging defficiency syndrome: where i adjust my age like a rear view mirror. to look behind me or to stare at myself in the red lights.
and let out a scream. people from cars as far away as a block look around to see who got killed...and i pretend i'm singing when we make eye contact...yes...i'm just an extremely happy guy driving out of control and hollering to nothing specific. just one long loud primal scream at nothing just in case. enough pain acumulates as it is....get rid of it, even if strangers look and see you demented and naked. and then cool off and stretch in the front seat. fasten your seat belt and lower the radio. point the AC vents right at your face. you need air, that's all.
i am still breathing hours later. still complaining while on the tv thousands die and lose their homes and drown and suicide bombings crackel like popcorn in countries i'll never visit...but will visit me.