He is trying to keep it together --- He walks up to the drugstore window and
pleads his case --- They will have none of it: “…not without a prescription;
it’s store policy” --- By the time he plops back down on the park
bench he is going in and out of consciousness: first an aura, a foreboding, a
strange smell, a series of flashing lights, shifting geometric patterns, then
a jolt to the back of the head, a lightning bolt ---
The passersby [ try not to stare ] just grab their coiffured dogs, pick [ at
the ] falafel sandwiches, make sure their designer watches are still there, [
wound ], and walk away ---
Soon the tingling will subside and all he’ll
hear is these piped-in E-Z listening drones: the
cell phones generating static? the sounds of turbines?
cycles of birth and death? seasons collapsing?… or
just another mindless afternoon in the industrial
park?
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.
These poems are from his book Kool Logic / La lógica
kool (Bilingual Press, University of Arizona, 2005).
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