Tuesday, August 10, 2010

She walked in my train

She walked in my train at 34th street. She stood by the pole, involved into her reading. She was reading a book called "waiting to exhale". She was tall, 6 feet. She was blonde, short hair. She was there. I looked at her. She didn't see me. I could have not even been there!!! She would have never realized my presence. She got off at my same stop. We walked together in the same crowd. She cut in front of me at the stairs. I caught up with her at the corner light. I glanced at her. She crossed the street with red. I didn't want to stay behind. I rushed right behind her, fortunately no cars were near. I walked with her and another blonde short woman. Twenty five feet later, there was only the two of us. She saw me finally from the corner of her eye. She looked at me. I looked at her. I caught my breath, I was waiting to exhale. I finally said "hi". She turned around and smiled ........... She went into a store. I didn't know whether or not to wait outside. I decided to walk slowly towards my destination. I kept turning around but I didn't see her come out. I continued walking..................................

I have never forgotten her face, her stature, her smile. I have been taking the same train, at the same hour, for years now. I have never seen her again. I don't know her and I have this peculiar sense of loss. I now know that I will never see her again, and what's worse, I am beginning to believe that it never even happened. ............

ACD
Sept, 1993

Puzzle?

Shakespeare once said that:” indeed the world is a stage and we are nearly players, performers and portrayers. Each another’s audience, behind the gilded cage….”


I’ve lived my life as if it were a movie, where I am, of course, the main character.
I go through the different film sets every day, and the extras and other characters come in and out of the scenes as necessary for the plot to be narrated.

Sometimes it is very apparent that there is a very clear plot. At these times the film director excels and the scenes become small masterpieces. Then, all us characters march into the scenes and deliver our words and physical movements as if impeccably choreographed by our director….Cut!!!!!

Every now and then the plot is not so obvious. That seems to be when the direction also fails, the lights are not right, the timing is off. Sometimes it seems as if some characters were just there to sabotage the film, to derail the narrative, to set things back, to stop the production, to enrage you, to piss you off.

And like a film the images pass one after the other. Every action, every feeling, every close up fades into the next, and the next, and so on. And so the movie plot moves on. There is no rewinding possible in this film. Once you film one scene, you move to the next. One can only film. This is the implacable reality.

I film every day. But delivering somebody else’s lines, and acting in someone else’s vision, I often get tired and disillusioned. I then get the urge to write my own material, to direct my own vision.

I often wonder if there is even a projector that will play this film at one point of existence or another. Will I ever be able to see this film? I even wonder if there will ever be an audience that would laugh, cry, be bored or entertained with my movie. Is there any cosmic popcorn that will be served in this cosmic movie house?? Are the cameras really loaded???

But, are we really acting in this film? At times I get the feeling that we are just puppets, marionettes connected to the above by a series of strings that hang invisibly over us in the stage of life. But these marionettes are not being controlled from a magic hand above; on the contrary, they are controlling the movements of everything above, like pushing and pulling by the strings, the hand that was previously controlling them, as if each one of their movements, thoughts and actions constantly reshapes through the strings the form of that controlling hand. What ever happened to the puppeteer?

Some other times I feel as if I am the only character in the movie that is real. And if I am the only real character, what are the others….virtual characters, holograms perhaps?? If I am the only real character in this movie, are there many other movies?? Are your life and his life movies as well?? And if so, am I a virtual character in your film or his…??? Is there a collection of films which form the scenes of a major, MAJOR FILM?? Then, is the film nothing but a puzzle? And is each of our films a piece of the puzzle?? Are we here really because we need to resolve our own film-puzzle??

Will our film end the moment we solve our own puzzle, or will we move on onto other films until we solve our own major puzzle???

ACD
2-6-08
(In progress)

The anxiety of being

The anxiety of being and,
the torturous duty of having to,
the pure need to dominate entirely
The obligation to know completely,
the art itself, from memory, "The Craft",
to develop in that way (eventually)
the intuitive spirit, the inspiration,
the artistic philosophy, The art ... ...!

Adrift in this world I am,
with the need to express something,
everything I feel,
as a man, as an intelligent being,
who thinks, feels, suffers, lives and dies.

And I do not posses the talent, or perseverance, or any thing necessary,
yet I occasionally grab this pen,
and begin to write, and as he who comes too close to
the page to write and sees everything blurry,
I so feel that my ideas and my words are woven into my mind ..
I feel them blurry, illegible, with feet of lead,
Without a defined form,
Interspersed and in primitive state,
With all the strength, but also all the lack of purity and class,
but with certain pain and sorrow ...
of not reaching, or not having a prophetic feeling, which is worse than just feeling.
I sense what I cannot see, I cannot touch.
I feel what I do not comprehend,
But I understand that I am not, until I stop trying…

And so, I do not care then about being, so I just let myself be
and try to give in anyway what I can give, that which is infinitely small but mine,
but my words which “can not”, (the only thing they do consistently well is not being able to) ..., (a bit like my everything, isn’t it??!! )..........

So I like to give anyway, that which is mine as much as what is not, what I say,
which is ultimately the conglomeration of what others have said.

And that “Me”, a part of that smallness, "The General Me", which is even smaller than "The Fragmented me" Oh God ... if I could only get out of this maze ..!!!!! ... With one confusion after another, perhaps I could understand the irony that lies under my writing.
But no, here I am, confused and confounding,
Hunter and prey….. pick and ax….
Dealer takes four and…....I’m out…you win….!!!!

I find it impossible these days to raise from the opaque…. and shine,
Find some common sense out of my constant mental chaos,
which contains me……. no, no, which drags me down,
drifting in the same chaos which I am trying to describe and fail.

And it is then that my pen does not draw poetry or prose, or stories anymore, just symbols with the character of potpourri or exotic omelet of eclectic energy, or just pure anarchy ....and I STOP.


ACD
1-31-90
Modified 5/14/10

I know you!!

Yes, I know you. It seems that I’ve always known you.
You are from my past.
You look so mine.
Like together we belonged to something once.

I look at you. You look at me too.
We look away, but for a while.
Our eyes were caught ( in the moment)

Yes, You know me. You think you’ve always knew me too.
You look through your memory album fast.
You look and I seem so yours,
like I could be one of your old ghosts.

We stare at each other’s eyes and for a second
We know us too.
Then we pass. We look away, and
We walk away. Well see each other,
Some other way,
Some other day,
On some other life….far away….!!

ACD

Every Time

I see you every time in my dream, walking, smiling.
You are not always the same.
I stood behind you in the coffee shop today.
You felt my presence behind you.
I noticed your body vibrating with a certain anxiety.
You turned around inconspicuously as you were able to.
You looked at me from the corner of your eye.
I had the advantage of seeing you,
from my perspective standing in line.

I noticed a certain anxiety in you.
I put my hand on your side and gently kissed your neck,
right under your right ear, moving your brown hair with my nose.
I felt your body vibrating. There was more than anxiety in you.
You breathed deeply and peacefully.

You picked up your change and left.
You didn’t turn back.
I still noticed your body vibrating high.
You were dying to look at me one more time.
Perhaps you are still wishing to be in my dream again tomorrow.
This is my dream but I am left with a certain anxiety in me.


ACD
11-21-95

Elevator Excerpt from "The Tousand ways I will...."

I was waiting patiently on the 5th floor elevator lobby, starting at the call button, which was lighted on its up position. The waiting time seemed surprisingly long. It was 7:30PM and today it had being a damn long week, or so it seemed. The fluorescent lights were glowing uncharacteristically bright in the colorful space. The pendant fixtures seemed to vibrate with the sound of their ballast. I thought about the day, what had occurred, my stupid boss breaking my chops about how I should have performed on certain “CRISIS du jour”. I was annoyed. I was almost forty years old and I had to listen to a spoiled idiot who needs to prove himself every half hour. I also felt very tired. It had been a bitch of a year. My eyes were red I and I was rubbing my right eye with persistence.
The cleaning lady was dumping a trash can into the master can that she was wheeling around. I could see her through the glass doors and sidelites. She came through the doors in what seemed a long time. She was walking very slowly, as if her feet were made of led. She walked by passed me and she looked at me with curiosity and a sort of strange look, like if she had seen a dead person, or some kind of ghost. I was not that surprised, since she looks very strangely at me every time, and she never says even a word to me. “I’m sure she must be pissed at the fact that I throw my half full Dean & Deluca medium tea cups into my trash container and she may must not like it at all”, I thought.
She kept walking and turned around to kook at me again, and I was tempted to ask her what the hell she was looking at, but I decided it was not worth the trouble. Besides, I was really tired I just wanted to get home.
“Why isn’t this stupid elevator coming!????!! My first thought was that there must be having a party at the ballroom upstairs and these retards are holding the doors or there must be those damn Pratt students that are monopolizing the elevator.
I had the urgent feeling to leave, to take the damn stairs at once, and get out of this building. I’ve been here since 8:15 this morning, and I wanted to leave, but something kept me there. It felt like I my shoes were glued to the maple floor.

After an eternity, I heard the sound of the floor annunciator, and the door finally opened. As I got into the elevator, my eyes had to adjust to the low intensity of the elevator lights. It is usually dimmed, but that night, it seemed as if one of the ceiling lights in the cab had burned. As I walked in the figure of a small man appeared in front of me, but as I focused my eyes into his face, as he turned, I realized that he was a woman, a woman with the most beautiful face that I had ever seen. As I could not help it and looked again at her, I realize that she was really a man, but this time I realized that his face was not only not beautiful at all but, that he looked extremely evil and had an non-human, and satanic quality. I began to feel afraid now, and I stepped back hitting the elevator wall behind me with my back.
“Hello Tony!!” He said. “I was waiting for you for a long time!!”
I swallowed my saliva although my mouth was dry, even though my whole body was covered by a cold sweat, and I knew right there that at that precise moment I was going to die……….

Dirty Table

Dirty Table, full of crumbs
Little Spanish cashier maybe,
Or super charming Hindu girl.
A cute slightly chubby girl enters.
She slides in the queue.
A young, long-nose, skinny girl
steals the napkins from my table.

I blow into my hot chocolate, which is pure suds.
Being weightless, gravity, it has none.
($) Three bucks twenty five for just air and foam.

The cute slightly chubby girl asks me if it’d bother me
her shearing my double table. Everything else is occupied.
How could it bother me??!! “ Off course go ahead….!!!”
Her green nail polish has almost completely fallen off.
She has a really nice little face, she can’t be more than twenty.

Time never does go by when you are waiting….
The smell of hamburgers mixes with the sizzling
sound they make as they broil in the grill,
The sound is interrupted by the sound of an agile spatula
scraping the grease of the hot top.

My neighbor and I look straight ahead as not to violate
each other’s field of vision, thus creating a new kind of
geometric personal space…. linear, instead of a bubble.

The fat black guy on the table behind me finally left.
I can finally move my chair a bit and breathe.

My last 5 minutes can be described as spent in a stage
where actors come and go, in front of a stage made of
J’O Crunch yogurt, bottles of Snapple, sodas, Vitamin Water
Snyder’s pretzels, Cape Cod Chips, Sunchips, sandwiches salads,
cookies, and slices of fudge and cheese cake….

I should go, before my neighbor finishes her sandwich.
It usually gets awkward when both get up to leave at once.
Should I stare straight ahead as I get up avoiding eye contact?
I don’t, and I return the kind beautiful smile that is being given to me.
I nod at her and I leave while my feelings of ego swelling are invaded
by those of regret for not having said a single word to her….

I leave and cross the street….6th Avenue and W16th Street. I think about turning back, but the rest of reality awaits me… “Hello there reality… good to be back”…
ACD
12-16-09