“The truth is out there”
is a promise the brochures will never keep
truth is we went to Plattsburgh and it wasn’t a blast
so we scurry to Albany to see the Patroons play:
during warm-up
the basketballs
thump against the rim-
and time is pressing like the
squeaking of a running shoe
on the parquet floor
so let’s see something new
(the cultural logic of late capitalism
means you can’t distinguish
the new from the antediluvian,
so let’s camp out under the stars!
In dungarees
we’ll make some S’mores
watching as the flames
consume the megastores
making the voiceless agitators and
graphic designers
blend into the stucco:
one vast expressive cultural tableau
charred beyond repair)
The truth is out there
If you can catch it:
In Mexico City it’s galgo,
In Madrid it’s Talgo,
In Port Authority it’s Peter Pan,
In ghost towns of the Saratoga/Cuyahoga variety
Sites of resistance are grafts in the sand; ...So we spend our Memorial Day weekends in transit
Piercing our temples imagining home
Standing in line to be born again
Under the weight of the second-hand valises
We brought with us from the long since ruined depot

Urayoán Noel is a Puerto Rican poet, performer, and critic. He earned his B.A. from the University of Puerto Rico and M.A. from Stanford University, and is currently a doctoral candidate in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at New York University. He has published two books of poetry: Las flores del mall (Alamala, 2000), and Kool Logic/La lógica kool (Bilingual Press, 2005), the latter with a performance DVD. A book of his poems in Spanish - Boringkén - is forthcoming, with spoken word CD, from Ediciones Vértigo. His poems, creative essays, nonfiction, and translations have appeared in New York Quarterly, Long Shot, Pavement Saw, Rattapallax, and in anthologies of Puerto Rican, Spanish Caribbean, and Latino literature. He lives in the South Bronx, where he fronts the rock band objet petit a, and co-directs the arts organization 'Spanic Attack. See www.urayoannoel.com.