My room is a mausoleum
Housing this living corpse.

The windows are always shut
And the lightbulb stays off.

A fan on the ceiling blows,
Though not hard enough, 24/7.

There're empty water bottles
Discarded on the floor

By the dozens serving as
Unofficial decor.

Filthy clothes everywhere
Mingle happily as

If ****** with the ramen cups
And chocolate wrappers.

A skyscraper built from books
Raises it's ink stained arms

Up towards the concrete sky
Pleading, crying, to be read.

Crumpled papers, like scriptures
Belonging to God, yell

Unfinished lines of poetry
During the Dead's strolling.

The aroma of burnt cigs
Stains the air and green walls.

Another wine bottle hides
In the closet, elixir

For the trapped. A skull, candles,
And a pack of tarot

Sit expression less and
Calm inside the nightstand.

Posters and poems line the walls,
Their eyes observe the goings.

A bed, the coffin, stands deep
In the peering darkness,

Stiff and terrible, alone,
A headstone slab pillow,

Accommodate the carcass.

Daughter of Lilith,
    Night haired succubus,
   On weakened knees and
    ***** like stupor
     You've left me fallen,
         Seductive caller
      By smiling howls, led
     Towards highest cliff
    Where trees bend in peak
   Agony and King
     reins the dark and rot,
        Amnesia strikes stiff
          The bled mind and eyes,
     And somewhere above
  Lay the physical
    Figure of some fool
       I once knew, once was,
          Wasted on the streets,
      Empty, discarded,
    A cold useless shell,
Lightning rang and lit,
     And down spiraling
   Through the nothing, down,
        Into arms of fiend.

I once went to a poetry reading
At a café shop in old San Juan.
A tuesday night i believe,
The tourists, like cattle,
Down their cruise ship ramps,
And into the cobblestone streets;
White, bloated stomachs, burnt skin,
In their sandals and Hawaiian shirts,
Or sandals and short skirts, short pants,
Invaded the capital city streets.
The sun was setting.
They were still out and hungry for more
As tourists are for sights, and they'd stop
In the plazas where the pigeons play,
And they'd yell to their misbehaving kids,
And to "look at that!" at their uninterested teens
Who text and text and chew gum non-stop.
So there it was, the café, a quaint little place,
With coffee and pastries fresh and a shop
On the side specializing in art and poetry objects,
And a in the back a space with a set tiny stage
Where poets come and bard and have a drink
And discuss their affairs in the most
Pretentious way that is only possible to
Be achieved by poets, that air of superiority.
A man in a beret and a black shirt and jeans
Was the first to go and he read about
The flowers and the rivers and the beauty
Of this, our land, in a way that wasn't true,
In a poetic way, and then after applause
Another went on, wine red hoodie, jeans,
Young and unkempt and he read about
The Americans and their imperial ways
And about patriotism and independence
And dreams that us young kids feel,
The need to rebel against our oppressors
Because our spirits have not been beaten yet
By the disappointments reached through a
Lifetime of political wrath and corruption
And propaganda and all sorts of things,
The young poet received a great ovation,
Writers here have strong spirits and
Even the elder ones still believe in the cause.
Some Americans, a few europeans
(a Spanish couple and a ****** face German),
Had gone in the shop, probably for a drink
But stayed for the poetry, and they stood,
With uneasy faces that, even if they didn't
Understand the words, they felt
The vibrations of their meaning,
And it was wonderful, and i was glad,
Know the truth and that the cause isn't dead,
It simply crawls in backs of shops,
It hangs with the young people,
And one day it'll explode,
One day the people will awaken
And get rid of these demons.
This time a poetess came up,
And she read in English a rhyme;
While she gave her show some teenagers
And their parents, Americans,
Texans by their accents, began talking,
Interrupting the reading, and the blonde
Woman reading the poem stopped and struggled,
Until at last she said "be quiet, gringos."
In a voice that was strangely soothing,
And the americans scoffed and silent they were,
And she finished her reading and got off the stage
And sat her purple t-shirt, skirt, dressed self
Near the people she'd just told to settle down,
Grinning. I don't remember what her poem was about,
I only remember her action, it was one
That served as reminder to everyone there
That this is our land and not theirs, that we make the rules
And the outsiders should be the ones respecting them,
Not the other way around, that the fight should continue.
I left the cool café and walked into the humid streets,
The moon above San Juan and the bay,
And El Morro
And La Perla
And Capitolio
And the bums and the dogs and cats
and the tourists and all of us;
The proud city, centuries old, that holds a prison
Were our poets and our fighters  and thinkers
were once held,
And i thought: The dream is still alive.

The fog was thick that morning
The forest wept in silence

We walked towards the kitchens
The smell of food struck the air

Footsteps marched ******* the stairs
Echoing down the green mountain

The metal tables were set
At the end of the hall, ghosts

Pouring the meals on chrome trays
Hungrily we hurried, lined

Each receiving their own
Then we sat, ate, on metal

Not one word was spoken, quiet
It was cold, not one complain

Food finished, the ghosts came back
Carrying off the gleaming plates

It was only us, alone
Once again, we stood and left

Through the doors, down the stone steps
The forest fog swallowed us