I am invisible

I am invisible

I move into nothing

my body is made of memories

I am the every day

with my troubles and my sleepless nights

I'm blood cell skin

I am my interior noise

mixed with the silence of my desires

Here I linger to contemplate the light

that cleans all

Here I notice the shadow

my body projects

Here I close my eyes and see the time passing

the tic tac of lights

and my grandmother’s smile

Here I am a child

Here I am old

here I return to being me

amoeba red cell sigh light ray powder nothing

here I am quiet

and only am

© Adrian

image by Todd Brown

Overture

A blue light emanates from the silence

we are an island

traveling in a labyrinth of a dream

bodies accustomed to the waves

that time leaves in its steps,

we are the echoes of what we see

the horizon that we desire

the stone of what we forget,

we are an island

and from our body

surges the silence that feeds 

the days.

Adrián, January 6, 2014
Translation by Nina Serrano
Image form the visual-poem performance "Overture", Somarts, San Francisco, January 4, 2014

When my mother died

When my mother died

the earth showed me

its true aroma

the sea spoke to me

in its true language

the fire and water embraced me

with their true music

when my mother died.

© Adrian

Translation by Nina Serrano

Welcome to America

Welcome to enjoy the best shoot-outs

on and off the big screen

welcome to smile at the helicopters

passing over the backyards

to make it clear that fear exists

welcome to experience the sweetest torture

to win wars in foreign lands

to make money in foreign lands

to impose ideas on foreign lands

welcome to enjoy a fast food

fast read, fast friendship, fast sex,

and hurry so you don’t miss the train of fame

and the American Dream.

Three helicopters fly over my house

they come and go in circles

People cross the street quickly

the noise in the sky doesn’t allow me to lose my fear

the noise in the sky is the new church, new catechism

the new way of saying that justice has spoken

the white man still has the power

and that having a black president is just a coincidence

of time and space.

I’ll try to leave without being seen

I'll climb trees and hide in the branches

I’ll make a nest with the birds who offer me refuge.

From the top of this tree I can see more people like me

writing poetry, more people like me out into the streets to protest

I can see frightened people, people with rabies

people wanting revenge.

I don’t want to live hidden in four walls of fear

I want to say that here I am

with all my verses ready to shoot my words

to strafe my poem in their faces

and in response be killed in self-defense

with the permission of justice

and the inevitable problem of the color of my skin.

© Adrian

Oakland, 15-16 July, 2013

Translation by Nina Serrano

-Helicopters photos by Adrian-