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All Boundaries Are Conventions
An oldie but a goodie. I wrote this in 2015 or 2016. I wrote it in the Hispanic House at the College of William & Mary, where I lived my senior year. I vaguely remember being at one of the desks in one of the Casa Hispana’s shared spaces in the evening, perhaps after an evening class, gym session, or club meeting, and certainly with other pending deadlines. It was dark outside and the lights turned a little low as we had codified for nights in mutual respect of each others’ bedtimes. Se me ocurrió escribir esto, what else can I say. All boundaries are conventions. All boundaries are conventions.that’s…
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To Pretend: Hacer como que
“When Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them, but he pretended to be a stranger to them and spoke to them harshly…” Genesis 42:7 NET1 While I would be inclined to agree that, for academic work, I would have to demonstrate that this word is actually difficult to translate, I will only briefly do so here. If you are like me, you have enough experience in Spanish to know that the common output of interlingual dictionaries and online translating apps “fingir” is not quite right; native speakers do not often say “fingir” in the same contexts in which we would say “pretend” in English and, if they occasionally do, it…
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Is violence ever justice? Is coercion better than violence? Israel, Palestine, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Christianity, and the question of violence
What if there were no more physical violence but we agreed to argue, fight, or address conflict by other means? Would we not resort to espionage and trickery? Is that really any better than physical violence? But that is in the nebulous realm of international or interstate conflict. Imagine you stand face to face with your captor. He has not physically trapped you anywhere. Instead, he has coerced you through laws, rules, finances, relationships, and so forth. Shoot, maybe he’s plain smarter than you. So you’re trapped doing his will. Any little thing you do is at once what he asked—and then some—but not good enough. You sweep the floor,…
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Tatiana ii
Me mudé a la península de San Petersburgo, encantado del olor de la luna. Las ondas de las estrellas flotan de estado en estado, atrayendo a monos de todos los rincones y árboles. Antes se empacaban en trenes y ya la arena rasca los entremedios de sus dedos y arrugas. Sin esfuerzo, sus tensiones se relajan y sus sonrisas se desatan. Años atrás, durante pandemia, Tania y yo, por su cumpleaños, visitamos L’Hermitage online. Me deslumbraron las dimensiones de la estructura e historia. Siglos de geneologías luchándose abstraídos a dos dimensiones, a veces tres en escultura, transmitidos en salas virtuales, mediante ondas .5GHz entrecortadas entre el viento húmedo de la…
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Tatiana i explicación Con este poema – y espero que yo lo haya logrado – estuve intentando expresar la sensación de que una Tania no se busca, se encuentra. El humano es incapaz de imaginarse a otro humano tan altamente bueno como me era Tania. Ojalá, iglualmente, yo le haya aproximado algo parecido. Del todo, la búsqueda de ello siente ingenua. ¿Cómo apuntar a lo que no se puede imaginar? Platón se planteó lo mismo a través de su teoría del reconocimiento. ¿Cómo es que uno pudiera saber si ha encontrado lo que quería si nunca lo ha visto? Su postulado se trató de almas espírituales y sus vidas corporales…
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Tatiana i
Busco de día, bailo en boliches las noches, contemplo de madrugada. No encuentro a nadie; Dios, minando el infinito replandor de su entramado espiritual, se halló a Tania
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Why, on Earth
To be trapped seasick nauseous and hungry in a small prison cell-like yet expensive room aboard the m/v Kennicott in the North Pacific Ocean, incomunicado from friends and family and with no doctors obviously on board (a sign outside the purser’s office reads to the effect of “medical professionals please volunteer during an emergency”), enclosed with physical and emotional pain, and peep on the horizon outside the little circle window the snow white ridges of the Fairweather Range rising above gentle crests of wake and against clear celestial blue sky is just about worth the trouble. It is better in some ways than living a cubicle life in D.C. Most…
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Continuity of the Work Day
“Many of them, indeed, know better but, as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know. To act is to be committed and to be committed is to be in danger. In this case, the danger, in the minds of most white Americans, is the loss of identity. Try to imagine how you would feel if you woke up one morning to find the sun shining and all of the stars aflame.” James Baldwin, My Dungeon Shook – A Letter to My Nephew In the office of the Congresswoman Carl was working for, whose building, “Rayburn,” lay in the shadow of the Capitol Building…
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Continuidad de la jornada
“Muchos de ellos, consta, lo tienen claro pero, como verás, para muchos les es difícil actuar con lo que saben. Actuar es comprometerse y comprometerse es ponerse en peligro. En este caso, el peligro, en las mentes de la mayoría de los Estadounidenses anglos, es perderse la identidad. Imagináte cómo te sentirías si te despertaras en alguna mañana en rayos del sol y con las estrellas en llamas.” James Baldwin, Mi calabozo sacudió – Carta a mi sobrino En el despacho de la congresista por la que trabajaba, edificio del que quedaba bajo la sombra del capitolio en el que ardientemente se debaten los temas populares del día, Carlos les…
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The Pen Unbroken
Written by P-Man Swiftly gliding, quickly flowing, stalwart, resolute, unbroken The sole instrument of a feverish mind, alone the antidote of chaos Clarifying that which is held locked within, an angelic trumpet amidst the fog Bursting forth in flames, across the page it brands anew, the hopes, the wants, to see one through A poem wrought of night’s depth true, the pen unbroken to see it through P-Man works in sales and is an aspiring author writing out of New England.
