The impact of education / What stays

In Antigone, the Anouilh version written in 1944

The line about wanting to cut off every soldier’s right index finger

So there could be no more warfare.

And then the reply,

“If they had one eye, they would be one-eyed soldiers, one leg, one-legged,”

The inevitability of human destruction.

In Huis clos, the inscription at the beginning

(Missing from the English version)

About how none of the characters have eyelids.

The worse fate, to be constantly stared at

And never have a moment’s respite of even one blink.

The bit about how at the end of one’s life

You draw a line, tally it up, c’est tout, nothing more or less.

My first encounter with existentialism. 

In Une si longue lettre, ruminations on how

Every career deserves careful consideration,

But especially that of teaching.

A maternal course, never decorated, often unsung

Requiring the precision of a doctor,

Planting flags of virtue and knowledge,

Territories yet undiscovered and

Formations still evolving.

Memory of an elephant, revelations that happened 

In school, in art, and finding the art in everything.

In malignant cancerous cells, what happens 

In their cycle is that they bypass the access point to know

When a) they are grounded to something and

b) whether or not there are too many cells, crowding

Thus making everything around them sick.

In beans and rice, the seed of both plants

There are all the 20 amino acids that humans

Ingest from food. You could very well sustain a life

On the might of beans and rice. Discovering health

In new terms, sustainable ways of nourishment.

The residuals, the moments of learning.

The pre- and post- of specific information gathering. 

It happens so often, through literature

Theater, artistic expression because if there’s something 

I know to be true, as the through-line of my being:

1- an obsession with language, the nuance and intimacy

2- the power of a good story.

It’s art that will persist, and the learning will return.

There was always a puddle on our street

Little pink house next to the canary yellow one

A walkway leading to the front door, host 

To innumerable photo shoots

Here is three year old diva, with checkered dress and sunglasses.

Here is halloween, old dance costumes reenvisioned.

Here is convivial Mozart, wielding his baton, dress up day for music class.

The excitement to get home.

Tree stumps from when we cut down the old almond tree

A moment of devastation, for us all.

Its roots gargantuan and gnarled

My first memory of scraped knee, watching the

Patchwork of lines fill up with red, before the tears.

Needed 2 hands to open the door:

Insert key, lift handle, turn, open

As if to remind you home is something you work for

Must tend to, a special jiggle and attention

To make sure you can get in.

If You Get Through It All, You Really Love Me

For my family, and the memories at our old Miami house.

There was so much wood, and there was so much red. An old white refrigerator with photos and magnets busting off the front, a veritable hodgepodge and constant reassembling when items would inevitably fall off. I sat on the side of the table facing the kitchen. Must have logged days of hours sitting in that chair. Pouring sparkles on top of a single eggshell container, cut from the dozen, to make a halloween or maybe christmas decoration in elementary. Pounding biology chapter after calculus chapter after history chapter, my notebooks and papers sprawled before me. Abuelo, when the sun started setting, and I never remembered to pay attention, turning on the overhead light above me-- a Tiffany chandelier with deep colors of fruits and vines. Abuelo, banging limes on the side of the red ceramic sink to soften them, make them juicier. 

I’m not sure when we settled on the seating arrangement. Mom at the head, the chair closest to the back door, me facing the kitchen, Teddy across from me. In all my memories of meals they are sitting in the same place. One morning, on a WEEKDAY, Mom had made cinnamon rolls and the house phone rang, the number that I still use to get CVS coupons. She left the tiniest morsel of cinnamon roll on her plate, the white ones with burgundy edging. She explained later, it was “something sweet to come back to.” She took the call but by the time she returned, I had eaten the bite. 

I was a climber and an explorer of not having to wash dishes. The counter was wide enough for me to hoist my full body up, stand with dirty feet on cleanish cream to reach the cups and bowls on the top shelves. The dishwasher was most likely never used. Always a place to store less often used dishes and serving plates. One time, making EZ-mac, I didn’t want to wash a bowl and put a quart pan in the microwave, convinced that it didn’t matter if the handle impeded it from actually circling around on the dish. It was only with the smell of burning metal and small smoking did I realize (hello!), that metal could not go in the microwave. Nati was always making soup and luckily, rightfully using the quart pan. While drinking soup from a Flanigans drink cup and drinking water from a Campbell’s soup cup, Teddy asked if she was trying to be ironic.

That old wooden table saw so many cakes. There was a whole drawer dedicated to old and new candles, lighters, matches, Lucila’s plastic cake knives, an assortment of balloon napkins. A drawer with take-out menus and ziploc bags. Above the house phone and taped to the wood shelf, was a small index card that had all the important numbers. Mom’s careful script, for once legible, detailed extension lines and the personal/work cell phones, to make sure we could always reach her. The Tuppwerware situation was out of control. On one of her visits, Cristy sat her ass down on the terracota floor and declared “we are going through this.” (Cristy also once helped organize my closet, same trip?) Throwing out mismatched lids, old plastic waterbottles, she just wanted us to keep what was useful. 

Barbie, the stepgrandma, once gifted me a book of hometown midwestern recipes, and I thought I could bake. First me and Teddy couldn’t even figure out where to find the ingredients-- had to ask a couple store employees where to find shortening at the local Winn Dixie before one man knew exactly where it was. The most epic baking was of course, Hugo’s Birthday-at-the-Cabana Red Velvet cake. To this day, the closest I can assume is we had mistakenly put the oven on “cleaning” mode while still actively baking the cake. But somehow or another, the should-be delicious, aromatic, buttery waifs of fresh cake baking was actually some sort of noxious fume that made everyone’s eyes burn. (Why were we always setting our bodies on burn? Let us not forget the incident of expired (? again, we make conjectures) baby sunscreen lotion that made our skin itch and turn purple, even when you tried to aggressively wipe it off with green pool water.) 

There were always small sneaky things happening in the kitchen. I was sixish, trying to escape Abuela’s view with a handful of strawberry thumbprint cookies. I was twelveish, cutting sliver by sliver of Entenmann’s pound cake, until Mom walked by and remarked, “it’s half gone!”. I was, well, always, being rushedly handed two or three small Hershey’s kisses by Abuelo. He even showed me his “stash” of wine in the door of the fridge (it was Kosher, nonalcoholic grape juice). That kitchen. That oval dining room table. Those wood cabinets with the white porcelain knobs, with the dark brown dot in the center. Absolute inundation of childhood, celebration, bonding, and reverie. When I dream of home, it is still the house at 9515.

Innumerable Rays

Her hair was just as gold 

As the flowers she picked.

Middle of summer, everything

In full bloom.

Her first kiss was not far off

From these fields.

The nighttime reverie

Chasing fireflies and 

Giggling into the arms of someone

She would love.

Her mother loved yellow

For the way everything

Reflected in a glorious light

From its shadow.

She too, had this effect

Basking everyone in love.

Painting by Hugo Benitez.

when i love you isn't enough

i first step on sand, dig toes in you

i ease of pre-chopped garlic you

i flip to the B-side expectation you

i slip into something more comfortable you

i bundle up in just dried laundry you

i gulp water after long run you

i slather in sunscreen, feel the difference immediately you

i hook the necklace on the first try you

i make the shot from half court, send us to overtime you

i lazy sunday brunch in bed you

i find just the right word, from tip of tongue you

i hair still wet, skin still salty, drive home from beach with windows down you

i belt bacilos on noche buena you

i dance salsa with the fam you

i dream of you, still dream of you,

wake up with lyrics to the song we’re writing.

Inspired by @cronziii going through her old notes and finding some sappy love content. ALWAYS down to go for the poetic romantic gold.

Y

Old man in rocking chair

Creaking on his patio.

Persnickety ,

Withered

Can’t stand the raucous youngins.

“¡Yá yá yá yá yáaaaaa,

Déjame tranquilo!”

Down in Florida,

Neighborhood streets 

Covered in swampy magic,

Spanish moss and air plants

Float about like fondest memories.

Sambil menyelam, minum air / While diving, drink water

Indonesian expression meaning “Accomplish two things at once.”

You are me and we are one

But I am nothing but my productivity.

Reply to days of idle with self-schedule intent:

Quarantine can only be effective.

Forget the pain of trauma,

Longing of what once was.

Face all friends on FaceTime, 

Call virtual chat that much better,

No commute time and no pants.

There’s something lingering here

Amidst the shame and guilt.

Between depression naps and

At-night attempt to sleep, hearing my eyelids blink.

Not so much PRODUCE PRODUCE PRODUCE

CONSUMER GOODS TO BE CONSUMED

But rather, what to do to sustain sane, 

Safe space of mind?

Day to day definitely changes, now adept at the 

Adapt to present moment and

Chase what offers respite.

Shakespeare wrote King Lear during the plague outbreak of 1606.

So where’s that book I’m writing?

Get off my back bro, I’m working on it.

Does it count as a gift if you're always asking for it

Blessed to have one

In the fam who gives book recs

With color, shade, hue, theory, and/or 

bible in the title.

Who passed along this tome

Of a biography on de Kooning,

That’s been with me through 

Four changes of address.

He didn’t start in watercolor

And to be honest for a while, 

The oils were just more impressive.

But then there was a learned softness

A way to bristle, to dab, to just graze

The page and make utmost impression.

If oils are the opera then

Watercolors are the emphatic whisper

In his better-hearing ear.

I was not subtle. Like at all.

My very first apartment and

Obsessed with curation, I hoped so deeply

For one of his creations.

Don’t you have just something, anything

Laying around?

After Sunday dinner one evening, 

On his way out he popped back into the Subaru 

To grab something, for me.

An already framed-in, delicate painting

A bouquet of red roses, brimming with green.

Packaged safely in luggage,

Nestled in soft t-shirts. Eager

To explore various wall space

And see what made most sense

For painting’s new home.

A morning delightfully spent.

With hammer in hand and eyesight exact

I decide she goes right by the front door.

A welcoming vision, perennial bloom

Creative fecundity to all those who look,

Willing to receive.

Thank you Tio, for the flowers.

The Cruellest Month

Birds in springtime overture 

Windchime sensitive to slightest breeze

Flower buds steeped in expectation

Gardenias you smell before seeing.

Bunnies when they’re small and mangy

Raindrops when it’s hot and sticky

How suddenly it all gets green.

And before the sneezing

Bikes abound, babies are out.

Afternoons spent ambling 

Serenades along the Schuylkill Trail

But first, new beau to be found.

Neopets was a sleepover thing

The plastic case was soooo thick.

The clip, equally as thick

You couldn’t have something that might fall off your waist.

I could only call the beeper number

If it was a REAL emergency.

Sitting in the backseat of the car,

Listening to my red walkman.

We were on a bumpy road so I had to 

Make sure to hold the player flat on my lap.

“Stabilizer” technology my ass.

It still skipped when the CD bumped around.

I listened to the entire T.I. album

In music files that ended in “.mp3”.

Was doing laundry singing

“Match your panties with your bra,

Get ya shit togetha!”

I originally thought of naming my AIM profile:

369damnimfine

But when I was too embarrassed to tell

Teddy and Nati, beloved, sage, brother and cousin,

They suggested I go with something else:

qtlucie22

I was SO spoiled, got a cell phone

In sixth grade with some HEFT to it.

Could’ve knocked someone out,

Motorola is damn near indestructible.

The credenza used to house the

House Computer,

Just 1 per family.

Me, Nati, and Ceci would play Icy Tower

For HOURS huddled around the screen.

Switch out when we each inevitably lost,

Rather quickly. Teddy would wreck our high

Scores in but a moment’s time.

Computer Class is when you got to

HAVE FUN, figure out

How to unflip your screen with the fancy

Keyboard shortcuts. In French class, 

Got a list of the ALT+02XX

To get the right accents. Make sure to

Perform proper pronunciation on the page.

I remember these things, from the nineties

The early 2000s. When we were all just trying

To communicate… Music, calls, language

Figure out the game and how to keep up.

Nowadays, my phone hasn’t been updated in 2 years

My WiFi inevitably just D R O P S

The soundbar will probably never connect to the TV.

Open on a questioning western

Off to summer camp, my favorite log cabin.

I brought the pick-up sticks,

You’ve got the Rubik’s cube.

Approach everything with method.

Canary caught in the chicken coop

Singing song like warbled vibrato.

Get to town on the back of a red motorbike.

Five-and-ten store with mostly empty aisles

But still find cans of condensed milk.

Bring them back to campfire circle show-and-tell.

Chanting, pour sweet stuff on chocolate smores.

Ring around the rosie, Pablo lost his bongo,

Bangs on the side of a pink lunchbox to keep dancers in sync.

Sandra looks like a tree, fingers splayed like pulmonary.

I grab your hand, lollygag, head to the water’s edge.

Hop right into handmade canoe, oars that get us nowhere.

Sitting ducks, what grace to sit in place.

Fireflies, too fast to catch pop rock confetti,

Electric spritz the summer sky.

Inspired by Devendra Banhart’s “Hatchet Wound”. Click here to listen to the song!

Invitation

The door is to be painted red,

So passersby know they are welcome inside.

Over tea the story of where they’ve gone, where they’ve been led.

The door is to be painted. Red

From anger, blue with grief, several shades of weary biped.

With strangers I have wept, then laughed until we cried.

The door is to be painted red,

So passersby know they are welcome inside.

So starts the season of gluttony

Nearsighted vision inundated by LSD

Everything is bull’s eye

Pointing straight to candy center.

A nice little bite to flower’s anther

Make sleep zzz sound to shake the goods out

Down it rains, the protein powder.

Petal platform welcomes weary traveler

Here to sit and pack some baggage

Pollen suitcase on both back legs.

But this is not the one of seven deadly,

Will not take until disabled.

Furry friends get what they need

To feed the young, progenate.

See how they cooperate? Live together? Make a sweet?

Even in soft hedonism,

Drunken flood of scent, sensation

Their handiwork helps others out.

Bees pollinate, spread seeds

To feed and feed and feed

So others too, can live a life of full.

Supermarket Run

Before it was mere nuisance

Part of weekly existence

Like doing laundry and washing dishes

When I lived near a market

Things got exciting

Made friends with the Sunday butcher

Knew the most efficient route to and fro

Found fun after all.

Now out in the suburbs,

Scared moms get snippy. Daredevils forgo the necessary six.

I eschew a passing graze, dread an unmasked face.

I am most afraid of ration cards, living on just cans of beans.

First Line from Emily Dickinson

The reticent volcano keeps

Having untamed anxiety dreams. 

In one there is a magma shortage.

Crust rupture friends turn to foe as

Each one hoards, holds onto more

Than they could ever need

In centuries of nonstop babbling. 

Back at home, creativity: individuals 

Make their own mix of crystals, liquids, 

Noxious bubbles. When they find something that works,

Up-charge the product because above all, always profit.

But in the dream she had last night,

All around was only silence.

No ash-covered land nor lava stream,

Just emptiness, an ungodly quiet.

Bottoms up

Depending where you are,

You can light it on fire

You can find more than just lead trace

You can count too many parts per billion

Of too many forever chemicals

But you sure as hell can’t drink 

What comes from out the tap and up the well

Before it goes back down the drain.

Corporations will not save us.

Chemical companies do not fucking care.

The fracking industry will continue full force.

Profit must just taste better when laced with

Loss of life, destruction of land,

Absolute evisceration. 

After Cuba, I came back depressed.

Not knowing if I’d have access to drinking water,

For days drinking beer

Left a bit of deep-seeded anxiety,

Of survival kind. 

I am descendant of Caribbean,

Grew up on sandy shores.

Cannot think of anything more to satisfy

Than full body immersion,

And something crisp to sip when back on land.