From Víctor Manuel Velázquez

Los navegantes: Bautizaron "Enmanuel", en memoria del hijo que no rebasó la adolescencia, a la chalupa clandestina hecha de tanques de latón y despojos. Le improvisaron una vela con una discordia de sacos de yute y mástil de bambú. Cargaron una virgen de yeso y una brújula que se entronizó en la proa guiándolos al norte, hasta que solo hubo una línea trabada entre dos cielos pujantes, que se mordía la cola como una víbora imperturbable.

Remaron y remaron con la fuerza de los brazos sin carne, hasta que el viento bastó para arrastrarlos al abismo que de tan azul parecía negro y oliva, allí donde los elementos se quedan sin su nombre, donde las olas son una soledad dorada y movediza que ve pasar las nubes indefinidamente.

Algunos días los entretuvo el sol que relojeaba de este a oeste, mudando de color. Otros días, por la deshidratación, creyeron ver todo el mar aflorado de piraguas tripuladas por gente que gesticulaba, como aves a punto de volar; o con ojos sonámbulos cazaban sombras de leones sumergidos, imposibilitados de distinguir la realidad del delirio. En las noches, mientras resbalaban los gritos hasta perderse en la constelada desmesura, los seguía una luna desdeñosa y muerta, redonda como el ojo de un ídolo, diferente de las lunas de tierra firme; una luna rubia anterior al pensamiento y a las primeras glaciaciones, y aún así, sabedora de tantas cosas. Lo que ellos eran dejó de existir en algún punto entre la isla y el continente.

Los periódicos de allá dijeron que huían en pos de la libertad. Los de acá se refirieron a ellos como los "menos favorecidos", eludiendo la palabra "pobres", nuestros pobres. La libertad no existe, solo hay liberaciones, contadísimas oportunidades de esfumarnos en un sueño. A fin de cuentas, qué es la vida sino eso, una charada.

The navigators: They baptized "Enmanuel", in memory of the son who did not exceed adolescence, to the clandestine boat made of brass tanks and offal. They improvised a sail for him with a discord of jute sacks and a bamboo mast. They loaded a plaster virgin and a compass that was enthroned in the prow guiding them north, until there was only a line locked between two mighty skies, biting its tail like an imperturbable viper. They rowed and rowed with the strength of their arms without flesh, until the wind was enough to drag them into the abyss that seemed so blue, black and olive, there where the elements remain nameless, where the waves are a golden and shifting solitude that watch the clouds go by indefinitely. Some days they were entertained by the sun that kept watch from east to west, changing color. Other days, due to dehydra tion, they thought they saw the entire sea surfaced with canoes manned by people who gesticulated, like birds about to fly; or with sleepwalking eyes they hunted shadows of submerged lions, unable to distinguish reality from delirium. At night, while the screams slipped until they were lost in the constellated excess, they were followed by a disdainful and dead moon, round as the eye of an idol, different from the moons of the mainland; a blonde moon before thought and the first ice ages, and still, knowing so many things. What they were ceased to exist somewhere between the island and the mainland.

The newspapers there said they were fleeing in search of freedom. Those from here referred to them as the "less favored", avoiding the word "poor", our poor. Freedom does not exist, there are only liberations, very few opportunities to vanish in a dream. After all, what is life but that, a charade.

Our Road for Mrs. G.

By Patrick Connor

On sunny days we strolled by the schoolyard recalled our latest game and talked trash to each other. They say that life is what you make it. One moment you're 15, the next you're 50. The loss you have had is less than the love you have gained until there is another loss.

On rainy days we ran by the schoolyard splashed little drops of happiness which mixed sweetly with our tears. Life is what it is today. You share a meal made of love and are afraid to take the leftovers in case they might be the last.

Calling

After Pablo Neruda

By Patrick Connor

I was at that age where a man from this society should have a career, a car a purpose clear to all around him. Yet there was so much more I lacked –integrity, passion, commitment. I didn’t have a public face, and I could barely look at myself in the mirror. Then, just as I had nearly accepted a living death which aspired to mediocrity my entire myopic world imploded caved in by a gust of putrid wind. I had a clear choice –be destroyed by impure nonsense embrace the abyss of a world not worth being in where I only occasionally received guilty pleasure and a sick sense of belonging –or rejoin the path I had once followed. Long had I ignored the summons. I knew exactly where it came from –pure wisdom patiently waited until I finally answered her call. I overcame the mere existence I left behind, while being prepared by repeated trials and refining fire for the inspired life which will define me.

Finding Myself

By Patrick Connor

Strive to change the world in such a way that there's no further need to be a dissident.

Ferlinghetti, Poetry as Insurgent Art, page 8 Rising up from deep within the very core of my being the essence of who I am underneath my public image is the need to find myself someone to admire.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti spoke the words the world needed to hear at that exact moment. Best of the Beats because he promoted the rest above himself.

Paragon of enlightenment inspirer of a new way of being artistic role model. Ferlinghetti would have loathed such titles based on what little I know about him. He would have frowned if not downright sneered at such fanboy foppery. In the same way many reading or hearing this could be offended by words like humanist, socialist, countercultural, malcontent, protestor, activist, freethinker, nonconformist. In the Coney Island of My Mind - or, more accurately, Exhibition PlaceI get to play with words turn image into meaning and back again with enough musicality to form a poetry of concise language and complex thought imagine these words making this world a better place at least for a moment and believe if I say them with clarity and integrity for long enough you may just listen to me.