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Wednesday, June 22, 2011

ugly moon mm

It's 6:50am in Granada. I am in love with this city. I cannot sleep because I am in physical pain. So, here is something.

UGLY MOON MAMA

UGLY MOON MAMA
WITH GHOSTS IN HER IRISES
AND TEAR GLANDS FILLED
WITH THE WEIGHT OF
A FATHERLESS RACE
HOLDS HER RAGGED KNEES BENEATH THE MOON
AS SHE HUMS SONGS THAT IN THE DAY
BLUEBIRDS SEEK TO DROWN.
GOT SHADOWS BURIED IN HER JAWBONES
MAKES HER SMILES MOVE LIKE MELANCHOLY
GOT TEALEAVES IN HER HAIR
THAT SHE COULD NEVER READ
AND FEATHERS IN HER EARS THAT TAKE HER NOWHERE.

THE NIGHT HOLDS HER LIKE A LOVER
AS BEST AS THE NIGHT KNOWS HOW--
COLD AND FAR AWAY.
SOMETIMES
--WHEN THAT IS NOT ENOUGH--
SHE BLOWS KISSES OFF OF CLIFFS
IN HOPES THAT THE WORLD
WILL CHANGE ITS MIND
AND RECLAIM HER AS
A THING OF BEAUTY.

UGLY MOON MAMA
AND HER HANDS TATTOOED
WITH THE ECHOES OF TIME,
TRACES THE STARS
AND SEEKS TO FIND
THE THING THAT MAKES DOGS HOWL,
TORMENTED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Los Indignados

As I was writing this, I found that the Puerta del Sol camp, after four weeks of protesting Spain´s sky-high unemployment rate, has been dismantled. I am glad that we had the chance to see it while we could. The order and timing of some of my posts will be off due to limited internet access.

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I did not get the chance to sit down properly and write about Los Indignados in Puerta del Sol. It has been a while since I was last in Madrid, and I still haven’t written a thing.

I guess I will just have to show you.

The people living here were inspiring to say the least. Ignited by the Arab Spring, Los Indignados across the nation started camps and marches to demand radical change in Spanish politics as an angry response to the nation's debt crisis--youth unemployment is over 43%: the highest in the UN.

While in Puerta del Sol, I spent the day walking around the camp and speaking to activists who volunteered various services available to the community. Los Indignados organized their own manifestos and they developed decision-making processes for political action and deciding communal priorities. They have communal libraries and information booths, living quarters, kitchens, and art collectives. The people of Madrid have donated lots of supplies and money to support the individuals who have pledged to occupy the Puerta since the protests initiated at the end of May. It’s not just young people either: it was people of all ages exercising their rights to be idealists, to be pissed-off, dissatisfied and fed up with the status-quo, and pressure the rest of Spain ask themselves why they weren’t doing the same.

Here are a couple of sites they gave me, I haven’t checked them out yet as I’ve had pretty limited internet access—fifteen minutes a day, every other day, has been the pattern.

bibliosol.wordpress.com

These are more writing collectives and public forums, attempting to channel the voices of discontent into prose and poetry.

I have a lot to learn about everything: this is all I know for now. I am thinking of a lot of people who should have seen this with me. Luis, Barry, Sadie, and countless others.




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For a few euros more

You know how in Westerns there’s always that scene were a stranger comes to town, he enters a bar, and everyone in the bar looks up and stares? That totally happened to Jess and I today.

So today’s Sunday, the one day of break we have off, and we decided to walk up to a nearby village, Alcutar. The village is about a 20 minute walk away, up a curving dirt road, past ancient ruins (which, I’ve found, people sneak into and drink 40s), past a mini waterfall, and sits snugly on the incline of a ridge. Jess and I have been away from civilization for nearly two weeks now: we just wanted to go to a bar. The village is made up of narrow little streets seperating tall, bone-white apartment buildings. The combination of the fact that the village has a population of about 800, plus it was siesta time, made the place a ghost town when we arrived. All we could hear were the whimpers of the mangy dogs and cats that stared us down when we walked too close to them, and the dramatic exclamations from telenovelas blasting out of open doors and windows. It was strange because most of the windows were open, and the beaded doorways would shimmer every now and then, but we saw no faces. Occasionally you’d hear someone calling from a roof or a window somewhere, but the owners of the voices were always just out of sight. Finally, the labyrinthine little streets led us to the center of town, where the long awaited and only bar in town was: CAFÉ BAR JUAN (which, by the way, is next to the only church in town). Panting from the heat and from walking up these endless, snaking streets, we made our way through the chain-link doorway and into CAFÉ BAR JUAN. As soon as my eyes adjusted to the lights, I noticed that not only was the bar pretty packed for a ghost town, but all the men at the bar were slowly turning their heads to stare at me. It was a grungy looking bunch of middle-aged men with dirt caked on their faces, skin dried and leathery from the sun. I expected one of them to spit out a gob of tobacco into a spittoon. These weren’t “guy stares at a chick at a bar” kind of stares either, they were like, “The hell dragged you in here, Americana?” kind of stares. In my head I did a little showdown whistle, before giving the “bar bunch” a little Maya smile—when in doubt act adorable—and waltzed over to a barstool.

Of course, it was all good once we ordered the beers, as if I’d said a secret password or something. With the ordering of two Cruzcampos, suddenly we were treated like average customers, and people even greeted us on their way out. Everything was dandy after that. We could not, however, stop giggling to ourselves about how it must have all looked.
On the trek back home, Jess and I couldn’t help whistling the theme song from the Fistful of Dollars trilogy, and hoped a good Western would be on the TV when we got back. (Unfortunately, our hosts, Martin and Toni, don’t actually pay for cable or whatever, so the only thing on was Judge Judy). We realized that once we get to Italy we’ll only know two phrases. “Bonjourno” and “Sergio Leone”. Many Italians will be annoyed, but the right ones will like us and our Spaghetti Western aspirations, as we continue to stumble into small bars as incredibly out-of-place strangers, in every country we visit.

I appreciate the lovely individuals who taught me that to get to know a place is to get to know its bars, because that’s a good lesson I’m sticking to. (Chuck, Theo, John, and Melissa)






Monday, June 13, 2011

non-fiction

Around here you can escape many things. Time, almost.
Here the sun rises every morning, red and pregnant with a new day, starving as much as the first dawn on earth.

The people who live here have leathery skin and their stories are written across their chests, arms, and knuckles.
They have lived a thousand lives. To be sure, however, they have also died a few times. For every death they’ve endured, they grow something new: the sweetest of fig trees the Mediterranean has ever seen, olives, that make olive oil, so thick and sultry, and almonds so sweet and soft.

You will never see a sunset because the mountains, they get far too jealous, they hide you from such sights. But once the sky goes dark, the pomegranate trees sparkle and the terrace lights up with dragon flies and butterflies in electric blues and reds.

The people sit beneath these sparkling lights, listening to twanging guitars and smoking hand rolled cigarettes and nodding to everything.

I will tell you some things because everyone here already knows. Understandably, you are not here, and do not know.

I: There was a Frenchman with startlingly blue eyes and this is what he said: “To be successful around here, you must be starving”. I agreed.

II: If you run fast enough nothing can catch up with you and you will sleep well, so well.
(Everything will catch up eventually. You must sing the blues off of cliffs until the pain drops far, far away. )