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-

Love Poem in Paris

I am going to create a ceremony

to the glass you drank from

I will dance around the silverware

you used to eat with

I will save forever

the napkin that touched your lips.

I am a romantic collector of your footsteps

the patches of your sleeplessness

he who stitches together the bits of light

that you left in the air you pass through.

I like to scratch your head

and feel the velvet

of the archangels guarding your sleep

I want to kiss your closed eyes

and feed myself on your visions.

I am going to sing to your hands

that figure out the equation of the day

in each wing beat

I am going to make a blanket

with all the smiles

that you brought today

with it I will cover myself in the dawn

to write you a poem,

this poem.

Image: Rodin sculpture, photo by Adrian

© Adrian Arias, Paris 2013

Translation by Nina Serrano

7 moments for María

Map on the skin

the treasure found

written in time

Weaving clouds

adventure in the sky

kiss on the womb

Rooted

the water on fire flying

it fruits in your body

You take from the ocean

the reflection in your eyes

shining moon

In the mountain

there is no tiredness or rush

only seasons

Your body kept

secrets of life

now the wind

Precious stone

embedded in your chest

there you remain.

María was my mother, May 3 1937, April 23 2010

© Adrian 2013
Translated from the Spanish by Nina Serrano
Original poem in Spanish HERE

At night (or day)

I don’t want to walk down the street in fear

I want to sing as I walk

I want to dance if I feel like it

I don’t want you to clap my mouth shut because I am singing

or because you don’t want me to scream in fear or pain

I want to scream my singing to trees

I don’t want to run chased by shadows

I want to run chased by birds and clouds

I want to fly with them and visit my illusions

I don’t want you to throw me to the ground and mistreat me

the earth is sacred and my body also

You can calm down and try to think

There is nothing wrong in thinking it over again

You can ask your footsteps or your memory

there is nothing wrong with sitting down to think it over  again

There is no blood more sacred than lives in our body

no ideas more beautiful than are expressed in a smile or a kiss

I don’t want pain or fear or sympathy or trembling hugs

I want to write a poem in my body

about my life free and peaceful

just that, nothing more than that

-As I walk around my neighborhood-

Trans: Nina Serrano, 2013

-peace and poetry-
Adrian

The Intangible

And the intangible .... finally reached my fingers

I could touch caress push disentwine

and there it stood looking at me from its intangibleness

from its blueness

from its infinite curve

as if I could understand it but no

I only wanted to touch the intangible

(Nothing more than touch)

I did not want to understand anything

only to t-o-u-c-h

push its skin and feel the softness that hides its scar

unravel the silence of its scream

caress the intangible

only that and later perhaps ...

be born.

© Adrián Arias Translation by Nina Serrano, December 2012


-peace and poetry-

(silent poem)

(...)

“Poesía se está, callada,

escuchando su propia voz.”

Martín Adán *

(1)

It opens

rises

I stop breathing for a moment

seems like a party

undefined color. 

(2)

It stops

lowers

I breathe again

seems like it’s another day but in the distance people celebrate

It’s not the end of the world.

(3)

It sleeps

floats

I hold my breath

wings of sand hair of illusions

the clock has forgotten to say goodbye and sing its sorrow.

* "Poetry is, silent,
hearing his own voice"
Martín Adán.

©Adrian (January 2011)

translation by Nina Serrano (April 2012)



-peace and poetry-

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.