The Unknown University (50 page)

THE WORM

Let us give thanks for our poverty, said the guy dressed in rags.

I saw him with my own eyes: drifting through a town of flat
houses,

built of brick and mortar, between the United States and Mexico.

Let us give thanks for our violence, he said, even if it’s futile

like a ghost, even if it leads to nothing,

just as these roads lead nowhere.

I saw him with my own eyes: gesturing over a rosy background

that resisted the black, ah, sunset on the border,

glimpsed and lost forever.

Sunsets that enveloped Lisa’s father

at the beginning of the fifties.

Sunsets that gave witness to Mario Santiago,

up and down, frozen stiff, in the backseat

of a contrabandist’s car.
Sunsets

of infinite white and infinite black.

I saw him with my own eyes: he looked like a
worm with a straw hat

and an assassin’s glare

and he traveled through the towns of northern Mexico

as if wandering lost, evicted from the mind,

evicted from the grand dream, everyone’s dream,

and his words were,
madre mía
, terrifying.

He looked like a worm with a straw hat

white clothes

and an assassin’s glare

And he traveled like a fool

through the towns of northern Mexico

without daring to yield

without choosing

to go down to Mexico City

I saw him with my own eyes

coming and going

with traveling vendors and drunks

feared

shouting his promises through streets

lined with adobes

He looked like a white worm

with a Bali between his lips

or an unfiltered Delicados

And he traveled from one side to the other

of dreams

just like an earthworm

dragging his desperation

devouring it

A white worm with a straw hat

under the northern Mexican sun

in soils watered with blood and the mendacious words

of the frontier, the gateway to the Body seen by Sam Peckinpah

the gateway to the evicted Mind, the pure little

whip, and the damned white worm was right there

with his straw hat and cigarette hanging

from his lower lip, and he had the same assassin’s

glare, as always.

I saw him and told him I have three lumps on
my head

and science can no longer do a thing for me.

I saw him and told him get out of my tracks, you prick

poetry is braver than anyone

the soils watered with blood can suck my dick, the evicted Mind

hardly rattles my senses.

From these nightmares I’ll retain only

these poor houses

these wind-swept streets

and not your assassin’s glare

He looked like a white worm with his straw
hat

and a handgun under his shirt

and he never stopped talking to himself or with whomever

about a village

at least two or three thousand years old

up there in the North, next to the border

with the United States

a place that still existed

only forty houses

two cantinas

and a grocery store

a town of vigilantes and assassins

like he himself,

adobe houses and cement patios

where one’s eyes were forever hitched

to the horizon

(that flesh-colored horizon

like a dying man’s back)

And what did they hope to see appear there?
I asked

The wind and dust, maybe

A minimal dream

but one on which they staked

all their stubbornness, all their will

He looked like a white worm with a straw hat
and a Delicados

hanging from his lower lip

He looked like a twenty-two-year-old Chilean walking into Café la
Habana

and checking out a blonde girl

seated in the back,

in the evicted Mind

They looked like the midnight walks

of Mario Santiago

In the evicted Mind

In the enchanted mirrors

In the hurricane of Mexico City

The severed fingers were growing back

with surprising speed

Severed fingers, fractured, scattered

in the air of Mexico City

ATOLE

Vi a Mario Santiago y Orlando Guillén

los poetas perdidos de México

tomando atole con el dedo

En los murales de una nueva universidad

llamada Infierno o algo que podría ser

una especie de infierno pedagógico

Pero os aseguro que la música de fondo

era una huasteca veracruzana o tamaulipeca

no soy capaz de precisarlo

Amigos míos era el día en que se estrenaba

«Los Poetas Perdidos de México»

así que ya se lo pueden imaginar

Y Mario y Orlando reían pero como en cámara
lenta

como si en el mural en el que vivían

no existiera la prisa o la velocidad

No sé si me explico

como si sus risas se desplegaran minuciosamente

sobre un horizonte infinito

Esos cielos pintados por el Dr.
Atl, ¿los
recuerdas?

sí, los recuerdo, y también recuerdo las risas

de mis amigos

Cuando aún no vivían dentro del mural
laberíntico

apareciendo y desapareciendo como la poesía verdadera

esa que ahora visitan los turistas

Borrachos y drogados como escritos con
sangre

ahora desaparecen por el esplendor geométrico

que es el México que les pertenece

El México de las soledades y los recuerdos

el del metro nocturno y los cafés chinos

el del amanecer y el del atole

ATOLE

I saw Mario Santiago and Orlando Guillén

Mexico’s lost poets

suckered by atole

In the murals of a new university

called Hell or what could be

a kind of pedagogical hell

But, I assure you all, the background
music

was Huasteca from Veracruz or Tamaulipas

I can’t put my finger on it

My friends, it was the day they premiered

“Mexico’s Lost Poets”

so you can imagine it now

And Mario and Orlando were laughing as if in
slow motion

as if in the mural where they lived

velocity and haste did not exist

I’m not sure I’m explaining myself

as if their laughs were unfolding infinitesimally

over a never-ending horizon

Those skies painted by Dr.
Atl, remember?

yes, I remember them, and I also remember the laughter

of my friends

Before they were living inside the
labyrinthine mural

appearing and disappearing like true poetry

that which the tourists now visit

Drunk and stoned as if written in blood

now they disappear into the geometric glory

that is the Mexico to which they belong

The Mexico of solitude and memories

of the late night subway and Chinese cafés

of dawn and of atole

LA LUZ

Luz que vi en los amaneceres de México D.F.,

En la Avenida Revolución o en Niño Perdido,

Jodida luz que dañaba los párpados y te hacía

Llorar y esconderte en alguno de aquellos buses

Enloquecidos, aquellos peseros que te hacían viajar

En círculos por los suburbios de la ciudad oscura.

Luz que vi como una sola daga levitando en

El altar de los sacrificios del D.F., el aire

Cantado por el Dr.
Atl, el aire inmundo que

Intentó atrapar a Mario Santiago.
Ah, la jodida

Luz.
Como si follara consigo misma.
Como si

Se mamase su propia vulva.
Y yo, el espectador

Insólito, no sabía hacer otra cosa que reír

Como un detective adolescente perdido en las calles

De México.
Luz que avanzaba de la noche al día

Igual que una jirafa.
Luz de la orfandad encontrada

En la vacía e improbable inmensidad de las cosas.

THE LIGHT

Light I saw at daybreak in Mexico City,

On Avenida Revolución or Niño Perdido,

Fucking light that hurt your eyelids and made you

Cry and hide in one of those crazy

Buses, those minibuses that took you around

In circles through the suburbs of the dark city.

Light I saw like a single dagger levitating on

The sacrificial altar of Mexico City, the air

Sung by Dr.
Atl, the filthy air that

Tried to capture Mario Santiago.
Ah, the fucking

Light.
As if taking its own side.
As if

Sucking its own vulva.
And I, the uncommon

Spectator, didn’t know how to do anything but laugh

Like a teenage detective lost on the streets

Of Mexico.
Light advancing from night to day

Like a giraffe.
Light of orphanhood found

In the empty and improbable immensity of things.

NOPAL

Vio el nopal, pero allí, tan lejos,

no debía ser sino un sueño.

De entre la neblina surgían: formas

redondas y blandas, repetidas,

en una larga marcha de un sueño

a otro sueño,

conteniendo, en sus formas de espejo y uña,

la imagen fulgurante

de un adolescente solo,

de pie, con los brazos extendidos,

mientras en el horizonte interminable de México

aparecían las tormentas.

Pero sobreviviría.

Y al igual que los nopales de los precipicios

su vida se suspendería en el sueño

y la monotonía

a intervalos irregulares y durante mucho tiempo.

Pero eso no era lo importante.

Importaban los nopales

y allí estaban otra vez:

de entre sus lágrimas surgían.

PRICKLY PEAR

He saw the prickly pear, but so far off

it must have been just a dream.

They were rising from the mist: round

and tender shapes, multiplied

over the long walk from one dream

to another dream,

containing, in their mirror and fingernail shapes,

the blazing image

of a lonely teenager,

standing, with arms outstretched,

while storms appeared

on the endless Mexican horizon.

But he would survive.

And just like prickly pears on precipices

his life would be suspended in dreams

and monotony

at irregular intervals and for a very long time.

But that wasn’t the important part.

The prickly pears were important

and there they were again:

rising from his tears.