"De ninguna manera volveré a México.
No soporto estar en un país más surrealista
que mis pinturas."
(Salvador Dalí)
(1)
Sentences spread slowly
like ink in water
birthing tentacles
that touch and test.
Body reaches out
in colorless cloud
melting moonlight.
It is second sight
moist with flowers
blooming one night
husbanding nothing
evening the world
drinking and being drunk...
(2)
The dogs of zero hill
disappear into murmur:
one month
one moment
one eye....
All facts are past.
Goal is nothing.
Hunger is nothing.
Venus is last and only time.
(4)
Dearest seer see, dearest hearer hear:
Do you demand common use and conventional conversation?
Plain language and prosaic rose?
Are you looking for explanations?
To you there is really very little to say except:
Nietzsche knows
(his feet walking piano conciertos in the mountains):
the nose knows
Jimmy Durante knows
unmown and antic hay knows
Antarctic knows
Atlantic knows
Pancho Villa knows....
Muchas gracias Francisco.
Muchas gracias José Doroteo.
Muchas gracias, Don Pancho.
No hay falla....
(5)
On one level it is a climax of fragments
melding into a solar system of black suns.
On a another level it is the negation of figments
as if the ladder were a scale.
On the level of levels it is an ascent of time
like Vallejo rising from the center of the earth
under miner's hardhat:
replete with bread and butter
replete with French
free of blows
with a nose
that smells the conqueror
and inquires
(as daintily as an ancient Persian unfolding the last folio):
Cay coritacho micunqui? Is this the gold you chevaliers eat?
(6)
Her body reaches out
in colorless blood
melting moonlight.
It is second sight
moist with flowers
blooming in the night
husbanding nothing
evening the world
inhaling and being inhaled
inhaling self.
Aequam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem...
This is the lost terrible middle
unlost in the steppe
unlost in village dance
unlost in night song
unlost in gallop.
This is one of the many lives and wives and mounts of Pancho Villa.
(7)
Pancho Villa is the first surrealist film-maker:
he films revolution filming revolution live.
Villa films for money.
Villa moneys for arms.
Villa arms as Mexicans laugh
cackling and cursing and rolling double R's.
Villa chairs.
Villa centaurs.
Zapata wants a still life
wants RR's be sealed
with a miniature of satraps' kiss
under raised cup drunk and sober.
Don Pancho stiffens over the stirrups of his invisible mount
and complies.
!Viva truth! !Viva lies! !Viva Mexico!
(8)
The dogs of zero hill
disappear into stillness
one moment...one eye...one flash of powder:
Cay coritacho micunqui? Is this the gold by which chevaliers live and die?
[E. A. Costa 20 October 2013]
[E. A. Costa 20 October 2013]
