Tag: poetry

Alone

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Lentamente

L e n t a m e n t e

L-e-n-t-a-m-e-n-t-e

Va naciendo

Va creciendo

como un árbol

esta medio vivo

hasta que rápidamente

vea el olor de sus ojos

ha visto nacer el fuego

al conocerla a ella, a ella

len-ta-men-te

si no, se va a dormir solo,

sin vida.

•••

Slowly

S l o w l y

S-l-o-w-l-y

it is being born

it will grow

like a tree

it is half alive

until quickly

it sees the smell of her eyes

until you meet her, her

you would not see

the fire been born

slow-ly

if not, you go to sleep alone,

lifeless.

Liar 

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De todas tus mentiras la que más me encanto fue la que no dijiste con tu lengua pero sí con tu cara, como por ejemplo… “Yo no quiero comer más, estoy lleno”, y tu boca goteando.

Of all your lies, the one that I liked the most was the one that you didn’t say with your tongue, but with your face. For example, “I don’t wanna eat, I’m full,” and you’re there salivating.

Jamaica Avenue 

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Photo by José Silva

“The bus left me this morning. It was damn cold. Don’t be. Don’t be fooled by this tin light you see across Jamaica Avenue. I am burning inside, I have the Dominican sun inside me. I survived. I don’t know. No me pregunten. ¡Que se yo! I don’t really know, how can one adapt? How can you pretend you don’t miss a single thing? Your hands are cold, freezing, hard-heartless-cold winter got me this time. I am lying, not only this time… multiple times. There, while waiting for the Q56. In front of everyone, it did not cared a bit. My twelve year old self was desperated. You would be too, if someone would take you away from the bright sun that burns your body while bringing happiness under a tranquil wooden house in the campo. It has mutilado lo que soy, ahora. I told you I was not lying, I was honest from the beginning. I, myself, no longer wait for the MTA to sent me the bus to go somewhere. I persist fighting against a winter that I did not give birth to, holding it like a child, even if it cries and pulled my brown hair, I still have patience to give him love. But this bus, the one I am waiting on, I don’t want to take me anywhere. I want to just go home. I hope, I really hope, with all my mixed heart that the driver have a pilot license, home is far–not here.” —La niña diaspora
F.P.

La Cotorra de Gentrification

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Photo by José A. Silva

Tumban los tambores
Tumban los recuerdos coloridos
Tumbaron la tibia sombra de alegría
Tuvieron que ser otros, no ellos
Tuvo que ser alguien que vino de lejos
Tuvo, tuvieron, tuvo que tumbar
los edificios del alto Manhattan
Del bajo Manhattan
De allí y de aquí
Allá donde se huele a diáspora
Allá donde tiembla el tambor
Al lado de la bodega amarillenta
¡Ay que dolor!
Tumbando andan los rincones de lo
que hemos sido nosotros
Instantánea ha sido la derrota
Andan con aspiradoras negras
y bocas de palomas milagrosas
“Se tragaron una cotorra” -dijo la vecina
del apartamento de Post Avenue “¡ A mí, no me cotorrea nadie!”- repitió
Máquinas de cotorra son
Cotorreando que salvarán la cuidad
con símbolos de una manzana comía
Pura cotorra na’ma’
Queda poquito tiempo para que tumben
los caminos construidos por inmigrantes
en las
factorías/bodegas/salón/tienda/hoteles/
restaurantes/hospitales/escuelas/
mundo que no se ve y que funciona silenciosamente
con la cotorra que divulga que  gentrification
es la cure para el atrazo
Tumban los buildings
donde llegamos todos a vivir
cuando aun hueliamos a campo Cibaeño
Tumban to’ lo que encuentren
Clavando acomidades lujosas
Dicen que no somos de aquí

“¿De donde somos entonces, mijo?”

Si esta cuidad es un nido de imigracion
Tumban,tumban, tumban sin conciencia
No los tambores…
eso están adentro de los despachados
que los llevan cargados en las bocas
donde quiera que sea su nuevo
edificio.

—F.P.

Serum

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Photo by Joelle Santos @azuquita.prieta

 

Amo el tiempo, porque a pesar de ser lento como un suero en hospital público en Santo Domingo, lo arregla todo si se tiene paciencia.

Y mi estructuras favoritas son las arrugas
Y no hay cosas más linda que alguien
que no le tiene miedo a las canas
Y quién engendra paciencia en los costados
es èl (el tiempo), que se asfixia de esta
gente
y lo endulza todo
y la paciencia se sienta a deleitar.
I love the time, because despite being as slow as a public hospital in Santo Domingo, it fixes everything if you have patience.

And my favorite structures are wrinkles
And the cutest thing is someone
that is not afraid of grey hair
And who begets patience on the sides
It is him (the time), who falls in love with
these people
and sweetens all
and patience sits to feel delight.

—F.P. @Mujerconvoz_poetry

Escape

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[A second collaboration with a teacher and writer @unclewalts]

I want to follow the stars
with her until we have been
to places unknown and
tasted foods and fresh air
in every clime, until time
seems to stand still and
we become one, together
in a strange land, until
we finally unite and bind
our souls as one.

— m r @Unclewalt2

I want to find you in the
mold of the bathroom floor
(with pastel colors and dramatic lines),
que tú braid the uncontrollable
chaotic hair of mine,
and then I can react to the
smell of your pensamiento 
– kind of in Inglés – which
is traveling from the vocals
of the siren in the autopistas 
of the world, but only coming
to salvarme a mí, rescue me.

— F.P. @Mujerconvoz_poetry

Cuentos del Salón 

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Salomé, solo quiero
que me sueltes los moños.
Domingo es hoy.
Quiero verme entera;
entera, enterísima, entérate…
yo te pago lo demás

tú,

tú,

tú …
con t mayúscula.
Salomé,
suéltame los rolos.
Yo quiero soltar la vida.
Yo quiero soltarlo todo.
(No sé lo digas a nadie.
Entre tú y yo, na’ más.)

Don’t Date Women with Stretch Marks

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Don’t date women with stretch marks.
Do yourself a favor… and run.
¡Corre! ¡Corre! Run far
away from them, like
you’re in a marathon to
a black hole, you’re not
going back to Earth.
Ellas son la Tierra,
swallowing your memory,all
up to the moment
you see her.
They know how to
use their white lines
against you.
They know what it’s
like to be stretched
all the way… into a poem
pull all the way back
like Afro-Caribbean hair,
pull back like a metáfora
and still be glorious
and still be alive
having a permanent mark
on you.
You would be missing…
under her curvy smile,
you, will be
like an empty black
and gray wall
in lower Manhathan
on a lower backstreet
finally…
finally…
full of colorful graffiti.

—F.P.

Madres

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This is a collaboration with a talented and special writer from Hawaii @Christy.Passion. This photo was taken by yours truly to a special woman and her kid.

They want us to remember
the afternoon glow through
muslim curtains over the kitchen sink,
where they gently lowered
out tiny newborn bodies
into warm sudsy water
humming, always humming;
hoping we remember our
weightlessness and quenched
thirst.
Could we forget their gaze,
little birds pegged on our
fingers and toes,
lifting their downy masterpieces
preparing us for flight.

— @Christy.Passion

Mothers. Woman. Nature .
The ones who are always looking through the clutter of toys for an “everything is all right” filled with dirty fingernails,and
fatigue.
Registering. Insisting. Pacifying. Consenting.Loving in all the ways you can imagine,the bodies of their birds bloom since we too were feathers in their arms.They always keep a moment between their white stretch marks.They do not want the wind to grow.
Still, they turn up the melody,dancing in the kitchen, letting her creatures free outside the room of her own belly.

—F.P. @Mujerconvoz_poetry