Wie ben jij?

there is a simple line of preparation \ i might not understand why
but it's there, simple and clear for everyone to see
wie ben jij? \ who are you?
what do you do, what brings you here? \ before my eyes
withing reach of my hands, close to my arms.

and even so i cannot fathom it \
cannot descend my madness, my slow careless masochism.

you are such a light. white as a dawn and black hair. raven's eyes are lies waiting to be said.
wie ben jij? \ who are you?

S e v e n

Seven is a number
pretty perfect if you ask me

pine trees way out there

how's the snow, won't you know?
there's a little dog
and two ladies so old
they went through a bog
and shivered with cold

out there on the island
limp rocks made of grain-sand
make way through the pity
and regrets of the city

but with the tremulous hands
of all marching bands
trumpets
limpets
hornets
and castanets

are all one
like this pun.

g, it seems weird to have you here. after almost a year.

three stubs for a [really] difficult scene

it seems so simple yet so unruly and blurry
how you just came, disappeared and left no trace
in a matter of a few hours.
in between dark and dawn, you decided to forget behind these things:

a handwritten number: pencil, old style calligraphic sevens and little circle with a x inside;
one copper colored hair clean and silky to the touch.

you say i didn't leave you much space to explain
but
you didn't leave me much chance to understand.
i am drawn to you, don't ask me why, don't question my intentions, i ask nothing, i expect less. i just think there is more to us two than just fiery kisses.
have i ever exposed myself this way? with anyone?

oh fuck. i hate this part:

[question]

i shut my eyes and wait for a reply.

– – – –

but then i revise old behaviors for new passions, to calls, to pieces missing and others to be built
and then all is straightforward

i would take you and sweep you and dream you in million frames
and some would be black for the moments that are not describable, that are not even worth putting into visuals or words. they'd be only ours anyway
they'd clean all doubts.

i would take you and imagine mechanisms, global things in which i don't believe. i would place myself inside and think them slowly from the outside.

– – – –

a streak of birds flying flows
exactly like some magazine pages, yeah maybe i'll have another beer.
and maybe i can read in the foam why i am not with you.
it's all or nothing but i might have skipped an f.
would you cradle me or are strong arms you're looking for?
either way it's a part of you i am not pretending.
i feel i already have it.

song for an old time newbie

hey fab
i've been listening to you since we were young
never had many doubts, though
remember all those days through the yellow of your walls

i spent a month again
to your side, just like the old days
has anything changed? maybe i should thank you for this

the games, the sweat, the music
i cannot believe we are twice our age
we look like newborn maggots in my eyes

the air is a mirror, your face is a big reassurance
but i know you've been through a lot
and you're far from reassured
it shows, only we can tell

cause the only thing worse than having an awful youth
is having a perfect one

choose to leave

Wire in 1977. colors: FoE.

oh it's so early, my dear, where will you go?
it's so early that the sun has just peeked a ray through the night sky
but she's in a position of regrets and reluctance

it's an option that leaves me breathless i suppose.
sudden drops of tension make the whole lit place blank in and out
i probably should leave when the sun will be higher.

Things

I am amazed by things.
small things, big things,
how– they can hold a conversation for hours
how– they can keep a life, a relationship afloat.

i am interested by little cables, mariner's knots,
wine corks, dirty forks.
i like little, forgotten things. like a newspaper from last year used to clean a window, or to wrap some eggs.

i just find fascinating how they are little columns, scaffolding to hold and refurbish a life.
i am amazed by things.

They can make bouncy moves from your smell to your touch and back. that moves to that night in S. Ander with our friend's cousin,
how beautiful she was with a hairpin in her hand.

but that's not the point. beauty trascends things.
it's truly the only place where it can finally reside inside.

I am amazed by things.

As All Your Kin

i'm a blue of second phase
of intensity and paradigm
i'm off, you see
i'm wearing tee

twilight is always light in late night bars
i'm a cross, you see
it's further out it's farther away
you know the difference.

i'm awake at night
i'm awake by day
i lie there like a little bug in your hand

bars they open close and open
and they glow with such steady red noise
it seems so useless to write you

but i still feel sincere.
when i feel, even for just one hour.
for one hour i love you with all my heart
and that's what i need to keep my accounts.

now to describe you
as all your kin
you're fair and sweet, still tempting and mysterious
someone i'd never trust
someone i'd never forget.

double e and double t

while you're at it
start asking questions
i might never find
an answer to

it's supposed to be a whisper
but it always comes out loud
and it always tells you
that you're always wrong no matter what you do

she's condescending
in a way she says
she's masquerading
no way she says

it's a difficult shot
to find your eyes when they're so small
we're all so quiet
when it comes to playing
our last cards

about sudden rain and paperbacks

so there is this really funny irish-sounding man that sells used books on saturday mornings in the square near my house. i usually get up earlish on those days, because they are the brightest barcelonas you'll ever witness. everyone has sleep in their eyes, but they are so happy it's saturday.

the best about saturday, you see, is the unconscious knowledge that you're getting a second chance: your friday was crap, well, it'll go better tonight. she said no on that last step? well, on saturday she just can't..and even if your friday was awesome, well, let's see if you can't hit the drum even harder tonight.

but where was I? oh yes, the funny irish-sounding man that sells used books on George Orwell square.
he has a look in his eyes, like someone who left his wife for a teenager and then fell in love with his wife again.
this is all towards books though, he flips them, he knows them, he feels them.

"so you're back, where you've been?"
"i had some business in italy, you see"
"ah! i remember those days in Florence, won't you like this paperback edition?"
he's always picking out some books, he's always got a taste for what you might like, or for what he'd like you to like.

either way, it's the same.

i had started Thomas Mann's Bruddenbrooks in high school, having a slight resemblance to one of the author's earlier characters.
he hands me the book, with the usual caring gesture. it's old, almost 40 years old, the pages are of an ocher tint, they smell like the trains they've been into.
"the really old hard cover books, have a distinct morality. they have never really been in love, though. but paperbacks, oh paperbacks. they got mistreated, they've tried on themselves the promises of love that are always made on ships, or on docks."

either way, it's the same.

how many a time, they were promised to be kept as little treasures...how many times they heard "i'll never open them too much, i'll never crease them". but they always end up the same.
nevertheless, for this, they're stronger. they're books that know the uncertainness of life, the incompatibility of man's idealism with the slings and angers of outrageous fate.

and for sure, they know that, when you need an umbrella you only seem to find a paperback book.

written for g. or with g. on my mind. which ever came first.

The Really Useless Inutility

"I am filming paraplegic firefighters
doing their job while whistling a tune.

my books state the obvious, indeed, but i get
published
and you?"

you see, i am no writer. in fact, i don't write.
i look for no consent, you people cannot give it to me.
i can get it by disturbing you, by distracting you, by making you, me.
by making me a thousand little pieces while i reconnect calling
each and everyone of your names

i can get it looking at the whole of society, of man, of its past
from above
from below
from inside.

i can gather clues, from your eyebrows, from your dress and from that twitch in your voice.
and then i can put them together and give myself the consent
everyone gives, with one mean or the other
to themselves

Plexiglass River City

an inconsistence in color
is vaguely familiar
to the eye, this time of the year.

yes it's mid-April again, and it's like the world turned
slowly but steadily those six hours i wasn't waking
and landed my bed under another sky
on another plexiglass river city
another new new street

the corners look the same
the streetlights haven't changed
but the smiles, oh the smiles
the skirts and the ankles
those timid shoulders

this also has its disadvantages, don't believe
in what the seasonal anglo-saxon says.
i haven't spoken to strangers tonight
and, inevitably, i feel as i wasted a day

Some Prowess In Literary Expression

Some prowess in literary expression
is needed
every time you blink an eye
some time is essential
to buffer the point to where
we decide right and wrong

we're walking downhill
with a burned hand and a promise of love
we're all running from something
that came up as a place
we lost so long ago

some very little awareness
is needed, just to watch
just to observe
to lend an ear
to all the whispers that surround us

like that time you slept on the airport floor
listening to all those changes in C minor

we're all sleeping beauties
from very close
you can hear our breath, our heavy breath
on the pillow our mother gave us

and just before. just before you make that final decision
you make a right on that final fork
you look at it all:
it's been good. it's been good.

In between the rain and you

i sighed when i noticed
that it was just too late
that i would've had to kiss you

i thought it wonderful that
it would've just been perfect
if we'd had another hour between the last drop
of rain and the last drop of whiskey

i would've waited long for that
it kept me sad for days
to know that when you want to wait, you never can.

and it's just as bad as when you can't.

1, 2 and Three

the immediate consequence
of action-reaction

is a given possibility
but indeed,
cannot be considered an inviolable truth

because i follow
paths that take me into differential
equations of intimacy equaling empathy

without no hope or gain
of a possible
integer
solution.


And That's How The World Began. And That's How The World Will End.
Modest Mouse - 3rd Planet (The Moon And Antarctica)

I Should've Followed You Home

I should've followed you home
we ended up in a red and black bar that played swing.
we danced; a bald guy with a single dreadlock asked my number to play uku together
the other american met a handless guy dressed up like a gangster;

Maureen decided to hit the Concha
i didn't have a clue, i was blurred, i was listless, i was helpless
i left the other american with another american that had come along

on the way there
i hurdled thoughts of blame
culpable demons as:
"why did I leave with the married couple,
i should've stayed with the other american that i like."
the full set
and its contrary:
"...maybe the other american isn't so fond of me, though"

but then again, in the redness and darkness of the red/black bar
she had held my hand, and we had danced
and she had smiled.

i also thought
of when she said: "let's not talk in english anymore"
which i had interpreted like a "stay out of my face"
but now
it seemed like she had done it to exclude the other american
although, if be like this, why did she ever call him?

of course, he called her.
I should've stayed there
she didn't like that puffy blond, but was way too sweet to say no.

at that hour, it was way too much for me to see through that last bottle of Voll-Damm.

I crashed on the couch, wrapped in the dog's blanket. hiding from the culprit demons.

I should've followed you home

Avrei fatto meglio a seguirti a casa

Avrei fatto meglio a seguirti a casa
alla fine siamo finiti in un bar rosso e nero che dava dello swing.
abbiamo ballato, un tipo pelato con un dread solo mi ha chiesto il numero di telefono per suonare l'ukulele insieme.
l'altra americana ha incontrato un tipo vestito da gangster ma senza mani.

a un certo punto Maureen ha deciso di andare alla Concha.
io giá non capivo niente, ma ho deciso di seguirli lasciando nel bar rosso/nero l'altra americana con un altro americano sopravvenuto.

nel tragitto vengo assalito da pensieri demoniaci misti a sensi di colpa del tipo: "perché sono andato via con la coppia sposata? forse dovevo restare con l'altra americana che mi piaceva." e ancora: "...forse però all'altra americana gli stavo un po' sui coglioni, é meglio così."

poi ho pensato che invece nel bar rosso/nero l'altra americana mi aveva preso per mano e avevamo ballato e mi aveva anche sorriso genuinamente.
però ho anche pensato che a un certo punto mi aveva detto: "non parliamo piú in inglese. parliamo solo in spagnolo."
io l'avevo presa come un "dai, finiscila di annoiarmi".
ma invece ora pensavo che l'avesse detto come se avesse voglia di escludere l'altro americano...e forse era cosí. ma allora, perché lo aveva chiamato?
o forse l'aveva chiamata lui.

oh, no! sicuramente l'aveva chiamata lui, e lei non ne aveva di quello sfigatello, solo che é così carina che non gli aveva saputo dire di no.
sarei dovuto rimanere lì a far capire al tipo che in tre si è in troppi.
che cretino.
ma allora perché non mi ha chiesto di restare? almeno con uno sguardo, o...
forse l'ha fatto.
solo che avevo finito anche questa bottiglia di Voll-Damm ed era veramente troppo da chiedere alla mia perspicacia.

in modalitá pilota automatico sono ritornato a casa, non ricordo il tragitto. all'improvviso ero sul mio divano e dormivo avvolto nella coperta del cane.
cronaca di una serata nella mente di un ubriaco paranoico.

Avrei fatto meglio a seguirti a casa.

Visions of a new old Barcelona

there is a kind of recovery
of bees and their wax

there are ghosts that allow us

to keep believing that we'll believe
and even when
they come out of their white sheets

and laugh, as kids do when
they know they have won the game

we have no reason to keep them away.

there is a kind of recovery
that keeps us waiting, bearing, pleasing
our only thought of waking up tomorrow.

about shutting eyes

i'm sleepy, i know you are.

damn, life just seems bigger when you got nothing to lose;
the day-by-day all works a lot worse when you suddenly realize

that you have anything to work with, that you can
choose

but does it sum up?

we need to fall in love. the same way we need to believe.
we need to prove ourselves wrong.
otherwise, we can't deal with the zeros we always forget to carry.

Obviously listening to: Built To Spill -Carry The Zero EP