The Pathos of Being

Listen, don't get me wrong, I love the world. I absolutely love the world, and the people in the world- I think they have a lot of good intentions and positive things to offer. I think their laughter and smiles are sincere. I think the mean the best and all pursue the same thing: Happiness. But I gotta be honest- I am a little tired of all of it. I am not necessarily tired of living. That is not what's happening. In fact, I am getting the need to experience more and more, and believe that reliance on others for experience is actually what might inflicting stagnation in the ability to experience. I am arriving at the self for all the answers concerning that pursuit of happiness. I am tired of the references to the racisms and discriminations and sorrows and blood of history. I am tired of empty opinions concerning what I might be thinking at this point in time; but most importantly, I am tired of the work it seems to take to be able to conduct a conversation with someone. I am sometimes ashamed at the things that come out of my mouth to impress some girl.

I wouldn't argue if someone thought the problem lies within the self. It may well be a glitch caused by some complex from childhood. It may be a seed left by some logical text on why life may not have meaning. I would like to wake up, work like a machine, come home, eat, read, exercise, sleep. But none of it includes other people. I would like to go to a show, and I do, go to shows, and get a beer from the bar tender, tip him, then form an intimate relationship with the music emerging from the instruments. For all I'm concerned, the place is empty and the instruments are playing themselves.

I see a guy; he looks a little like a lion. He has grown a pony tail and talks in assertive tone. It's like he knows what he's saying and knows what it means. All at the same time. He pauses at the right times to let the ideas sink. He looks you in the eye and doesn't blink. I envy that guy a little. He seems like he has no stress around others, no problems relating to people. It is like he is an open door for people to trust and confide. He looks like someone bound to be happy, or like someone who has finished his pursuit.

historia 1

Daban ya las 11 de la mañana, ni un minuto pasado, cuando Martin Cordero entró en escena. La escena aquella era la calle Árrizon, de un pueblo llamado Rishmon, en la costa oriental de Unais. Aquella calle era siempre la más viva del pueblo. Tipos y chicas caminaban de cada lado de la calle, vestidos en sus trajes más modernos- unos colores brillantes que le darían envidia a mariposas y aves tropicales. Cada quien se creia, se las tiraba, se mandaba, y todo lo demas que reflejaba un estado de orgullo absoluto, el tal “jubris” de los pedorros intelectuales. Todo el mundo marchaba y posaba con lentes oscuros, levantaban la cara al sol y se remangan las mangas cortas para que se le quemara un poquito la piel, pero no mucho. Despues terminaban con ridiculas quemadas que ahi tenian que hacer el amor con la luz apagada, para no reirse y detener los rituales.
Martin Cordero miraba hacia abajo. Vestia de una camisa y un pantalon de color obsoleto. Era la victima perfecta de una sociedad llena de lobos: timido, inocente, etc. Pero quien iba a saber que en su bolsillo cargaba algo que le mostraria al mundo que de cordero no tenía más que el apellido. “Ya veran… hijos de puta… ya veraaaan….” Se murmuraba.
Arriesgo una mirada alrededor a ver si ojeaba algun hostil observador. Nadie lo miraba, pero el sentia que cada ojo detras de cada gafa le tocaba cada pulgada de piel y ropa. Sin embargo, todo el mundo miraba con sus gafas de sol la cintura del cielo, sus caras curvas como parabolicas convexas, atontados por algun avion que hacia quizas demasiado ruido entre las pocas nubes de aquella mañana.
Hacia calor: Chorros de sudor le navegaban la cara, y como el Principe de Persia le colgaban a puros huevos de la barbilla. “Dios mio… bajale un poco a la estufa…” murmuro Martin. “Hey, chaval!” escucho gritar del otro lado de la calle. “Hey, hombre!! Martin!!” escucho de nuevo. Miró hacia delante, calculó las cuadras que le faltaba caminar, volteó la cabeza la derecha y a parpados notó entre la muchedumbre a uno de sus pocos amigos, Jorge Rincon.
“Que pasoooo, papaaaaaaaaá?!!? Quiubo, Comoanda?!” Las palabras le salian de la boca como leche que le entraba al cereal de sus oidos, y crujian. “Nada, hombre, aqui tranquilo. Y tu como tas?”
“Pue tu sa’es, alli echando la hueva con Marco y Glorita. Ya los conoces?” Martin meció la cabeza de lado a lado. “Ah, que no?! Ven que te los presento!” Y aquel tomó a Martin de la mano y se lo llevó consigo a traves de la calle sin voltear a ver ni un ni el otro lado para ver si venia carro. Alli, contra la pared, estaban los dos amigos de Jorge. Marco vestia de una camisa cuadrada, abotonados solo tres botones inferiores, una faja de bucle ancho, que le brillaba con lustre opaco, y unos pantalones medios mamados con la textura gastada y rotos por aqui y por alli. Este como que no le iba a caer muy bien, penso, meciendole una mano semi-brusca y venosa.
Glorita, cuyo color de ojos guardaba detras de cortinas de cabello y gafas, le sonreia una sonrisa bailando entre curiosa y macabra. Se quito las gafas con una mano, y le extendio la otra, diciendo tibiamente, “Mucho gusto, Gloria. Aunque estos papos me llaman la Glorita…” Vestia un vestido blanco, cosido al azar con hilos azules, verdes y rojos. Tenia el cabello riso y los ojos de un verde muy oscuro, como quien diria el color del profundo de un mar. Martin le calculaba el cuerpo bajo el vestido con cierto conservatismo. Los vestidos eran unas de las cosas que más enloquecían a Martin (y el no dudaba que al resto de los hombres) de los dias calidos como este.

Tio Beto

Tio Beto used to be my uncle. I mean he still is my uncle, but lives now only through the memory. He was a short, stubby man, strong as hell, with a limp carried around since his youth and a right arm reduced to the elbow.
He used to drink alot. He drank so much that I get the sensation of smelling the alcohol in his breath by merely eliciting his memory. It used to crowd his mouth in a stench and wrap around his blurred words, quit his mouth in spasms and strike us in the nose and ears, alternately. We were children back then, given to sensual sensations. It awed and bothered us at the same time, and it happened so often that it was a reality to us. We were sad and grieved and angry at the man, for being so addicted to the liquid. We wished he would break his bottle and mature.
He drank so much that his belly stretched and extended, but always retained a sense of tension and composure as it floated in the center of his body. It was a hearty, strong belly; you could punch it and it would feel like rock where you expected your fist to sink into it at ease. He would hold his belly with his one hand and the stub of the other and either scratch it or burp.
Tio Beto was incredible in some ways. With his faulty pair or tools he did what he could. He could climb ladders and fix roofs, he could used drills and wrenches and pull nails and screw screws. He could replace toilet pipes and make water flow from faucets once again. He could bend bottle caps by the mere act of bending his stub over them, a scene evoking the same awe of pennies places on rails and bent by trains. He could fish without a rod, and would sometimes bring home so many fish we could eat fish for a week. He would hold the fish down with his stub and cut the guts out clean with a knife on other hand. He honestly seemed to have perfected his stub to function as a hand but he could never stop drinking.
I never understood what hid in the depths of his soul. It must've been some deep sadness. Some very deep sadness. I could only speculate as to his reasons. I don't think he knew, for example, exactly who his father was. Two of his brothers, for example, died in his lifetime; he was the sole remaining male of the family, and bound to carry the Arriaga for the generations to follow. He lacked, for example, his right hand. He was, for example, middle-aged and lived with his mother. He never had much of an education. He always had to hustle for jobs.
He never, for example, seemed to have married. There were rumors around town of possible wives hidden in houses living alone with his offspring. It was hard to believe because at the end of the day, or two days, or three days, he would always come back home to his mother, crosses the dining room, t.v. room, and kitchen drunk, stammer sluggishly into the alley where he would sometimes throw up, or head directly to his bed. Sometimes he would threaten to kill himself. I think he tried more than five times- He kept a gun in his room which trigger he would point towards mourning doves, and which I do not doubt once in a while contemplated his own face. He took pills a number of times. The man was definitely sad, and the reasons were many, but which was the real cause is buried with him where ever he is buried.
One thing is for certain: When he spoke of his death, he would proudly ask the people to celebrate when it occurred. He would tell us, only children, to light firecrackers and mortars and turn the volume to the music high and yell "Ya Beto Canhon esta muerto!"
So be it- the day I was told the news I cracked a bottle of wine and drank it in his honor.

these awful throes oh lord,
of your begotten son, my soul
revolts against the walls of
this timeless misery.

Mysteriously, it is they
who unsheath the knife;
they, to whom destiny foretold
the carving of the eyes
straight from the sockets.
And I, with empty pockets
persist in pain:
tired, thoughtful, quiet, almost...
dead.

The cells that beat and move within me
reach their zenith and retire
the blood clots slowly, the hair loses its color
lifelessness ensues, and then we die.
It is the natural end to every story
told from the inside out
to a deaf world.

truffle.

Vulgar anthems sung by jins
on the deepest crevice of Jupiter.
The white face of the moon
isn't surprised just
sad at the quantity of sin...

simple protozoic prozac gulping stoics
yelling out yellow thoughts
verbatim.

I, the visionary monkey,
crack of dawn dreams of orient
wrestling cobras and smoking opium...

I saw your uncle, the dope fiend,
he owes me:
three pounds, two pence
and half an apostolic head
seasoned in tarragon and garlic spread
on a rusty brass platter
the blood drained on the roses
painting the roses red
red like the head of a new born baby
like the crest on a rooster red
red like the velvet on the queen's bed.

scream in the background
sick guitar trembling dark
bound to place auditory learners
in deep thought induced coma

I got the tortilla warmed up
for the beans and sour cream.

Let be be finale of seem.

BlaBlaBla

There was once one Persian woman with some Persian eyes that looked straight into your soul. We never really spoke, we merely wrestled. She loved to wrestle. She would put her hips next to mine and pull my upper body towards her. I'm sure one day she would throw some one. Hopefully it will be a thief, and that she may carry a knife or a gun with her to finish up the job by severing some precious limb of the miscreant.

And then she left, but she left so early, I was impressed. Up to this day I hold a deep sense of baseless admiration. Baseless because it has no stable base for existence, no friendship, no previous dating, no previous life meeting, nothing, caput... Therefore, baseless.

It is minds and ideas I am interested in in this life, in essence. I care about the bodies, but the bodies are merely cartons, plastic casings, bottles to the really valuable insides, to the juice, the chocolate milk, the chunk of soy, or the tuna, whatever you wanna call it.

You see I think I can read into beings pretty well. I have devoted much time to contemplation and/or avid observation of the homo sapien species, and have determined that for every action there is a reason behind that action, for the most part, and there will surely be some sort of reaction, whether intended or unintended, of left unattended. I have demasked a few hypocrits, by now, even though it took me time to realize it. Certain things some bastards, say, you know, that makes them extremely phony.

This dude, for example, cheats me in this game, and then justifies his action, after winning the game, by saying "it was my instincts". Fucking instincts. Instincts are inherent in all human being, and are not subject to game. He is just a fucking pig who hates to lose, and will step on as many good people as he can before he licks the ground beneath his feet. People like this opportunistic fool will get everything in life, and will be happy at the expense of others. I only wish the Old Testament were a literal word of God, so that God Almighty could zap his ass and turn him into the mud, where deviant, cross dressing creatures like this lizard should be conserved for life.

You see, I rant about this being, but will never say the name. I merely lay it out there that there are people as such, and that I can see through their skins, and directly into their crummy hearts. They are bottles and cans with nothing inside, because everything they can feel is at the expense of others. They can never be alone and will use smooth, soft words to seduce others into satisfying their whims. In conclusion, they suck, and if I can help it, I will stay away from this species.

There are others in this earth who deserve great praise. Three souls recently heard my plea and moved mountains in order to help me out. It is people like these which the world needs more of. It is people like these that bring about the sort of tear that makes fresh water rivers, as opposed to sea water. People like these deserve that heaven religions speak about, without hesitation at the threshold of death. These people have so much within their frames, in their hearts, they emanate these values in their characters, and this beautiful juice spills out onto the world in sweet gushes, and make those around them fortunate to be around them. This paragraph is perhaps too short and does no justice to the honor these beings deserve for who they are. Nevertheless, what little can be said, should not be kept in silence, lest it be buried in our chests at the hours of our deaths, and make our souls the heavier to move on.

St Alban's Bane

The newspapers spoke of a missing child, 11-year old James Barbour from St. Albans, West Virginia. It was the ninth day of his disappearance. The Barbour family has by now issued several calls for help in the surrounding states, urging the authorities of these bodies to act upon the case. No clues have yet been found. The ball James was playing with the day he was abducted still lies dry on the outer edge of the lawn.

12-year old Robert Richter, young active resident of Keyser, West Virginia, learned something about life at an early age; he learned about its loss: death... Robert found James Barbour’s body in the woodland property outside his house on the morning Saturday. Robert reports to have “smelled something weird when playing with the dog, and [I] wanted to see what smelled weird,” which led him to the discovery of the murdered abducted child. James had Robert’s same stature, hair color, and skin tone. Robert remembers seeing the faces posted on posts, walls and windows around the town he schooled in, and at his school. He never knew James and never thought much of the pictures. His parents report having come in from playing outside and innocently told them the boy from the pictures was in the woods.

The boy had been cut with scissors throughout the entire body. The face was barely recognizable as that of James Barbour. His stomach could be described as a table on which a game of chess had been played, but replacing the game pieces with knives. Bruises were found in several areas, as well, most prominently on the thighs, where constant blows had broken the bones beneath and incapacitated the child. Maggots had already captured feeding ground by the time of discovery and had dug into the bottom half of the skull, exiting through an incision in the neck, believed to be the cause of death, and reentering the body into a small hole behind which stood the stilled heart. Mucus and blood and brain matter mixed and pooled into the right eye and, in excess, dripped onto the ground.

There are no clues, nor leads, towards any suspects. Parents of the murdered child and neighbors report nothing as to who might have committed the crime. Christmas will be different for the Barbour family this year, for James was their only son. After the discovery, the body was seized by the state in order to assess the causes of death and evidence of the murder. The Barbour family wanted the death of the guilty, but most importantly they wanted the life of their child. However, time has taught each individual that its proclamations are marked upon mountains, and cannot be erased, burned, nor hidden. No one believes the murderer will be found; seizing an innocent child from an isolated town results the perfect victim to anyone’s crime.

Today James Barbour is buried in St. Alban’s cemetery, next to the grave of his grandfather, Louis Barbour. Two dates are carved out of the tiny stone of his marker, one marks his birth and one marks his death, beneath the initials R.I.P. squeezed between two lethargic angels. In the coffin under the earth, the blood and mucus have been cleaned, the face reconstructed, the maggots retrieved. One could now say, if one were to desecrate the grave soon enough, that the child doth rest in peace. In the town of St. Albans, the few yards once populated with playing children have been vacated after the incident. The dry leaves of autumn remain dry and dispersed by the wind.

Across the state, Robert Richter still ponders his discovery, he sees someone similar to himself when he closes his eyes. “That could have been me,” a soothing voice constantly repeats. It is the voice of his conscience, and he wishes it would stop, so he could once again sleep.