— Which one is the poet.
— They both are.
— Who’s reading tonight?
— The Rican.
— Poetry is a dead art, long dead. I want the here and now, coke and pretzels, junk food, fast food. I have to ask myself what I am doing here, listening to a Rican who can’t spick English or Spanish.
— I can understand Spanish but I can’t understand Puertorricans.
— We have a similar problem. I can understand English, but I cannot understand Americans.
— Scum of the earth. Destiérrenlos de la república. Sponges. Chameleons.
— So what. Zelig is a chameleon.
— Zelig is Woody Allen — and Woody Allen is a filmmaker and filmmakers count and poets don’t.
— When do we eat.
— I’m nervous. Did you see him. Over there.
— Who.
— Scorsese. What is he doing here.
— Wassila invited him.
— I should have known. I would have worn my Armani suit. Why did you made me wear this Mao Tse Tung outfit? It doesn’t fit me. I don’t belong here. I’m scared. Why did you take me out of my closet. I’m going to be so famous I don’t even want to think about it. But I’m not ready to expose myself. How dreadful to be somebody. To know that I was nobody. To feel so hurt inside — knowing that I was somebody — inside. To know I was so shy — nobody knew I was somebody — except some nobodies. To know that I was neglected, unwanted, and to be here, in front of Scorsese who’ll recognize my talent and make me a movie star.
— We’ll worry about it after it happens. In the meantime, try to shine.
— I’m not Madonna. I want my closet back. Close my doors. Do you think they really want to know who I am?
— Of course not. Some are here for a taste of Suzana’s salmon mousse and high art. Others want her movie contacts and coconut rice.
— Oh, my God. Let’s go home. Robert De Niro. What am I doing here. With all these mafiosos. Al Pacino. I’m gonna die. The Godfather himself.
— Whatever you do, don’t sound lyrical. Grumble guttural, sardonic threats. I’m gonna crack ya mudda fuckin head open. Smash ya god damn teef in. Mafia talk.
— Deny my culture.
— Mock it. Roll your “r”s rougher like you’re mad.
— I am mad. What am I doing here?
— Sssh. Remember, bring out the killer inside you.
— Macbeth has murdered sleep. I can’t remember my lines. My hands are bloody sleepy, bloody merry, bloody mary, with scotch on the rocks and my heart just stands still for Al Pacino.
— I told you we had to practice.
— I don’t have to practice. I know it by heart.
— Don’t improvise like you did the last time, incorporating cheapshots into the text.
— You made me so angry I had to read what I was feeling inside which was stormier than the way I wrote it. I wanted to see if you really felt the part. Don’t look offended by your lines. I didn’t invent these dialogues. They’re your words, Mr. Nice Guy. But you cringe with beet red shame whenever I quote you. I know it’s painful to be ashamed. We all feel ashamed sometimes. You thought we had it all rehearsed, but if I let you, you would steal the show.
— Steal the show! Everyone can tell you wrote it. You keep all the best lines for yourself.
— Todo se improvisa, de alguna u otra manera. Pero yo sólo veo una inmensa carretera, donde corren los carros sin parar para nada, y yo estoy esperando un milagro, o una solución a mi dilema, tengo que cruzar la calle, y no hay semáforos, por favor, habrá alguien que tenga la cortesía, de parar, o de dejarme cruzar, o que todos paren, por favor, un instante, y me dejen cruzar, o me lleven a la carretera del destino, donde haya un farol por la noche, y el aire polvoriento y las candelas chispeantes, como el niño que en la noche de una fiesta, se siente entre el gentío, ¿dónde estoy? Miro de lado a lado. Soy un niño perdido entre el gentío de esta fiesta, y asoma su corazón de música y de pena. Así voy yo borracho, melancólico, lunático, siempre buscando entre el aire polvoriento, y las candelas chispeantes, como el niño que en la noche de una fiesta se siente perdido entre la niebla, y el aire polvoriento y las candelas chispeantes, y asoma su corazón de música y de pena.
Quiero pensar como piensan los hombres cuando se cansan de pensar. I am dead.
And it’s not a matter of surviving. I have survived. And I’m not proud that I’m one of the survivors. Survivors are not proud of having left the dead behind — they’re just as dead as the dead — and their smell stinks more than the stench of the dead. Just because you rise at dawn, and you walk, and talk — alive or dead — you’re more dead than alive. Stop talking about you — as if it were somebody else but you — me — myself — the dead — looking at the blank verse in a frontal mirror every morning, and brushing my teeth, with the infamous caries of a llaga — right through the blank verse — because it’s blank without verse or phrase or paraphrase — sound or mute — blank or empty — the eyes of the verse fill the blank verse and open each window of my verse, mi verdad, mi versatilidad.
Explain yourself in a better mood. Just because you’re young flesh and I’m frontal to my death. Why must I continue surviving and breathing for the rest of my life. When will I die without stinking my breath of immortality. Oh, come on, nobody is immortal nowadays. We continue living without possessing our lives — in mutinity — in mutility — immotivated by the immobility of immutability — invalidated by a certificate of mortality, immobility, immortability, tranquility, morbality, morbidity, mortability, murámonos moribundos, antes de que la tumba rest in peace before the time has passed for us to reposar en paz perezosa por el resto de los muramos pronto antes de que apestemos la ropa que apesta el mortuorio llevar la vida a pie y sin camisa lloremos y cantemos.
Here, in silence, surrounded by stages to mount upon mount upon mount and climbing each step of a stair with cautious eyes to look around, upon a stair, I sigh, and look down there, where the subway runs, and returns, and there is a noise that noises my nose, I take out my handkerchief, and of course, of course, of course, in the blank verse I blow my nose, hard and loud. I blow it out of proportions, out of dimensions and proportions — tiny and gigantic, certainty, and certainly, danger, and proximity, altitude and dexterity, enterprise of multiple choices — a wrong answer against a right attitude — fortitude of mind behind a window of desire, and perplexity and doubt, upsetting the nervous system of la cage aux fois.
Do it right. Or at least get even. Even if I stress my mind, I stretch my neck, and bones crack my other fortitudes, and no one is certainly more certain than doubt and proximity. Even when dancing gets even with drinking and dining — and sleeping pills don’t sleep at all — but sour stress and ojeras, frontal to mirrors and glances — are making their way by buses and subways, with ways to come, to go, and get upset at the boss, not at me, honey, I am just counting the pennies to get back home and prepare your tasty supper.
Develop your argument, see you tomorrow, don’t miss the appointment, the opportunity of a decade, sounds good, honey, but I prefer to do it the right way, shortcut is longcut, if you cut it too short it’s never too long to grow back again, but remember you’ll have to wait, and patience is way off in your calendar. Dividends against multiplications. Carioletes against amigable people — or are you following step by step — the rule of books and connoisseurs of wines and dines — and dividends and months and connoisseurs of time — and high piled papers to fill out — no address, no phone number, no multiple choices, no way out against orders — responsibilities piling up — filling up blank checks and multiplying dozens by thousands — before falling asleep into the coma of retirement — golden age of sorrow and no return to the truths and blues of morrow, I pay homage to the dead, and return to my pile of work, paperwork, waste of time for the rest of my junkie life.