Desperate Love

I want to knock on your door
but I cannot find my hands
I think I forgot them in that dream
where I caressed the nape of your neck
after having hugged your back for hours
or maybe
my hands left with the rain
to touch the faces of those who look face to face
and receive my hands without fear
…but what should I say?
here are my hands
I write your name in this piece of paper that isn’t paper
in this piece of light that gives me the perfect sensation of the void
writing in the sand of this beach invented by my whims
waiting for the wave to come and erase everything at once
but
there is no sea or sky
nor sand nor rain
nor light
only a door,
your closed door
and my hands
that don’t know what to do.





-peace and poetry-
© Adrian
Translation by Nina Serrano.

About sound...

After my mother died
I thought I could make music with any object
pass through doors without opening them
and even eat bread without the bread existing.

It’s not a matter of grieving or calamity
its about sounds, for example
the one caught in the snow in the trees
seems like it doesn’t make a sound
but you have to come near and put your ear to the trunk.

The birds when sleeping
dream that they speak and say strange things
and on awakening they don’t understand even a “peep”
because they can’t accept that it is possible.

It’s as if the air were nourished by the breath
of inanimate things and suddenly everything sounds
each time that my pencil hits the notebook
each time I press the keys or create a silence, everything counts.

I thought that it would be a good idea to follow my mother’s last wishes,
the ashes scattered in Castelar would sound like leaves
falling from the lemon tree of her childhood
the one that no longer exists but was there, I have witnesses.

It would be like rebuilding the downed tree
like extinguishing the fire that burned her body
like extracting the monster that inhabited her entrails
like putting out the candles of a birthday that missed being celebrated.

It is as if the air had empowered my efforts
and I wrote frozen and happy from knowing that there is no measuring of life
only for the sound that life expels every time it says Ding dong
and we answer Tick tock...



-peace and poetry-
© Adrian
translation by Nina Serrano

(32) Occupy Day of the Dead

Today the skeletons occupied the city
they seized thousands of faces
promenading their smiles all over.

I saw my grandmother Elena in the body of a boy
playing the tambourine without stopping,
I saw Maria, my mother,
in the body of a girl dancing with open arms.

(((a snail fell____s_l_o_w_l_y____inside my body)))

Today the bodies have forgotten fear
today the bones are the best weapons
to occupy the skin that enfolds us.

I have seen my grandfathers Carlos Maria and Fernando,
who in life never knew each other ,
they walked the streets embracing half drunk
giving out marigolds to each woman with a face painted as a skull
who they met along their way,
and I saw my Aunt Luz
she was a feathered girl in the fury of the Aztec Dance.

(((now my body falls____s_l_o_w_l_y____inside a snail)))

Today the bodies have forgotten their pains
and the bones have occupied their place in the barrio.

I have seen my Aunt Ilda painting flowers on the faces of children.
Finally I saw my grandmother Maria
she stared at me with her smooth baby face
she held out her hand like this …
and smiled at me while she said something in baby talk
that surely meant “bye bye”

(((now my body at last occupies my body)))

Translation by Nina Serrano
© Adrian Arias 2011
image: "Jamille" by Adrian


-peace and poetry-

(((((((((((((((((((((21)))))))))))))))))))))

"The end of the world will be today"
advertise bus posters and radio programs
"The End of the World” is a phrase that reminds me of childhood
My grandmother, who was very devout and went to church every Sunday,
once told me that people were a little sick in the head
to think that the world would end in a punishment from God
saying, "it is what people will do that will end the world"
As I was a child I smiled without fully understanding that phrase,
but now I understand.

"The End of the World” is the whistling of bombs
falling slowly over a small town that
just celebrated a birth, a birthday and a wedding.
"The End of the World” is the dark street of panic
is the monster that haunts us
with the experience that we want to forget.

"The End of the World” is the cry of pleasure in love
is the cry of pain in childbirth
the silent cry of the father who lost his daughter
the farmer who lost his crop.
"The End of the World” is the celebration of the gods,
idols, commandments, stones, robes, flags, anthems,
political parties, penance, pistols, loans,
"The End of the World” is the gift of God for having sinned
or our own invention for wanting to be afraid.
"The End of the World” … "The End of the World” …

There are those who say that everything will begin in a remote village
in the mountains of Colombia,
others assert that it will begin at a place full of books
with people listening to a poem about the end of the world.

Confronting the eyes of faith, what can the poet do?
just keep reading while the ground shakes
and if is not shaking would it be a disappointment
after such a tremendous prediction
oh please help me to live at this very moment
"The end of the world”
by raising your right foot and letting it down hard on the floor
then do the same with the left
and repeat this operation eleven times
until you feel the earth tremble, then
Stop instantly and listen
… listen …
… listen the silence …
… the silence that remains after producing
"The end of the world."



First version of "Poema del Fin del Mundo"
Translated by Nina Serrano.
Poem read @ SF Public Library, the day of "The End of the World", May 21, 5:05pm


-peace and poetry-

MANTRA (a cellular poem)

Awakening is a color
the silence an aroma
the embrace a song for my soul

Awakening is a color
the silence an aroma
the embrace a song for my soul

Awakening is a color
the silence an aroma
the embrace a song for my soul




-peace and poetry-
2011 English version of Mantra 2008
to be read by CELL-PHONE, as part of Adrian project
"Poemas Celulares/Cellular Poems"
translation by Nina Serrano and Adrian Arias
As part of "OLMECA" @ de Young Museum poetry reading
March 18, Koret Auditorium
...and....
@ The Independent, April 1st
as part of Rupa & The April Fishes concert
Benefit for Voice of Roma

( ( ( ( f o u r ) ) ) )

four seasons
four elements
four cardinal points
four way road

rail-road-cros-sing

four hands
four arms
four legs
four walls

four
looks like a house without a roof
and so that …

five…
finishes covering the sky, it doesn’t matter
hug me tight
close your eyes
and dream.



-peace and poetry-
© Adrian Arias
Translation by Nina Serrano
Photo & Object by Adrian, as part of "Beautiful Trash"
Art Residency @ de Young Museum 2010

(((three)))

Snfffffff… you inhale the precise qualifying adjectives
you exhale silence…

Grandmother chews the garlic with a piece of river stone
that is round, black and perfectly polished…

160 years ago an enormous rock fell to Earth that converted dinosaurs
into future gasoline…

A man notes in his notebook that 718 days are left
till the end of the world and lights his cigar…

According to the dictionary “Day” is a time
in which the sun is above the horizon…

You feel the aroma of the rain
is like a recently cut tree branch…

“Silence” is a prison of condemned words to live
without showing its face because of the fault of some fault…

That woman has risen to the heights just to touch the moon
and the moon turns her eyes away with every step…

“Blame” I an insect that causes more bites than any other
and provokes a stinging of unlimited dimensions…

However I don’t know how to explain that
I dream that I wake and don’t remember my dream…


Translated by Nina Serrano
(original version in spanish here)

-peace and poetry-
Adrian, January 3rd, 2011