IN SEARCH OF THE PRESENT

I begin with two words that all men have uttered since the dawn of humanity: thank you. The word gratitude has equivalents in every language and in each tongue the range of meanings is abundant. In the Romance languages this breadth spans the spiritual and the physical, from the divine grace conceded to men to save them from error and death, to the ****** grace of the dancing girl or the feline leaping through the undergrowth. Grace means pardon, forgiveness, favour, benefice, inspiration; it is a form of address, a pleasing style of speaking or painting, a gesture expressing politeness, and, in short, an act that reveals spiritual goodness. Grace is gratuitous; it is a gift. The person who receives it, the favoured one, is grateful for it; if he is not base, he expresses gratitude. That is what I am doing at this very moment with these weightless words. I hope my emotion compensates their weightlessness. If each of my words were a drop of water, you would see through them and glimpse what I feel: gratitude, acknowledgement. And also an indefinable mixture of fear, respect and surprise at finding myself here before you, in this place which is the home of both Swedish learning and world literature.

Languages are vast realities that transcend those political and historical entities we call nations. The European languages we speak in the Americas illustrate this. The special position of our literatures when compared to those of England, Spain, Portugal and France depends precisely on this fundamental fact: they are literatures written in transplanted tongues. Languages are born and grow from the native soil, nourished by a common history. The European languages were rooted out from their native soil and their own tradition, and then planted in an unknown and unnamed world: they took root in the new lands and, as they grew within the societies of America, they were transformed. They are the same plant yet also a different plant. Our literatures did not passively accept the changing fortunes of the transplanted languages: they participated in the process and even accelerated it. They very soon ceased to be mere transatlantic reflections: at times they have been the negation of the literatures of Europe; more often, they have been a reply.

In spite of these oscillations the link has never been broken. My classics are those of my language and I consider myself to be a descendant of Lope and Quevedo, as any Spanish writer would ... yet I am not a Spaniard. I think that most writers of Spanish America, as well as those from the United States, Brazil and Canada, would say the same as regards the English, Portuguese and French traditions. To understand more clearly the special position of writers in the Americas, we should think of the dialogue maintained by Japanese, Chinese or Arabic writers with the different literatures of Europe. It is a dialogue that cuts across multiple languages and civilizations. Our dialogue, on the other hand, takes place within the same language. We are Europeans yet we are not Europeans. What are we then? It is difficult to define what we are, but our works speak for us.

In the field of literature, the great novelty of the present century has been the appearance of the American literatures. The first to appear was that of the English-speaking part and then, in the second half of the 20th Century, that of Latin America in its two great branches: Spanish America and Brazil. Although they are very different, these three literatures have one common feature: the conflict, which is more ideological than literary, between the cosmopolitan and nativist tendencies, between Europeanism and Americanism. What is the legacy of this dispute? The polemics have disappeared; what remain are the works. Apart from this general resemblance, the differences between the three literatures are multiple and profound. One of them belongs more to history than to literature: the development of Anglo-American literature coincides with the rise of the United States as a world power whereas the rise of our literature coincides with the political and social misfortunes and upheavals of our nations. This proves once more the limitations of social and historical determinism: the decline of empires and social disturbances sometimes coincide with moments of artistic and literary splendour. Li-Po and Tu Fu witnessed the fall of the Tang dynasty; Velázquez painted for Felipe IV; Seneca and Lucan were contemporaries and also victims of Nero. Other differences are of a literary nature and apply more to particular works than to the character of each literature. But can we say that literatures have a character? Do they possess a set of shared features that distinguish them from other literatures? I doubt it. A literature is not defined by some fanciful, intangible character; it is a society of unique works united by relations of opposition and affinity.

The first basic difference between Latin-American and Anglo-American literature lies in the diversity of their origins. Both begin as projections of Europe. The projection of an island in the case of North America; that of a peninsula in our case. Two regions that are geographically, historically and culturally eccentric. The origins of North America are in England and the Reformation; ours are in Spain, Portugal and the Counter-Reformation. For the case of Spanish America I should briefly mention what distinguishes Spain from other European countries, giving it a particularly original historical identity. Spain is no less eccentric than England but its eccentricity is of a different kind. The eccentricity of the English is insular and is characterized by isolation: an eccentricity that excludes. Hispanic eccentricity is peninsular and consists of the coexistence of different civilizations and different pasts: an inclusive eccentricity. In what would later be Catholic Spain, the Visigoths professed the heresy of Arianism, and we could also speak about the centuries of ******* by Arabic civilization, the influence of Jewish thought, the Reconquest, and other characteristic features.

Hispanic eccentricity is reproduced and multiplied in America, especially in those countries such as Mexico and Peru, where ancient and splendid civilizations had existed. In Mexico, the Spaniards encountered history as well as geography. That history is still alive: it is a present rather than a past. The temples and gods of pre-Columbian Mexico are a pile of ruins, but the spirit that breathed life into that world has not disappeared; it speaks to us in the hermetic language of myth, legend, forms of social coexistence, popular art, customs. Being a Mexican writer means listening to the voice of that present, that presence. Listening to it, speaking with it, deciphering it: expressing it ... After this brief digression we may be able to perceive the peculiar relation that simultaneously binds us to and separates us from the European tradition.

This consciousness of being separate is a constant feature of our spiritual history. Separation is sometimes experienced as a wound that marks an internal division, an anguished awareness that invites self-examination; at other times it appears as a challenge, a spur that incites us to action, to go forth and encounter others and the outside world. It is true that the feeling of separation is universal and not peculiar to Spanish Americans. It is born at the very moment of our birth: as we are wrenched from the Whole we fall into an alien land. This experience becomes a wound that never heals. It is the unfathomable depth of every man; all our ventures and exploits, all our acts and dreams, are bridges designed to overcome the separation and reunite us with the world and our fellow-beings. Each man's life and the collective history of mankind can thus be seen as attempts to reconstruct the original situation. An unfinished and endless cure for our divided condition. But it is not my intention to provide yet another description of this feeling. I am simply stressing the fact that for us this existential condition expresses itself in historical terms. It thus becomes an awareness of our history. How and when does this feeling appear and how is it transformed into consciousness? The reply to this double-edged question can be given in the form of a theory or a personal testimony. I prefer the latter: there are many theories and none is entirely convincing.

The feeling of separation is bound up with the oldest and vaguest of my memories: the first cry, the first scare. Like every child I built emotional bridges in the imagination to link me to the world and to other people. I lived in a town on the outskirts of Mexico City, in an old dilapidated house that had a jungle-like garden and a great room full of books. First games and first lessons. The garden soon became the centre of my world; the library, an enchanted cave. I used to read and play with my cousins and schoolmates. There was a fig tree, temple of vegetation, four pine trees, three ash trees, a nightshade, a pomegranate tree, wild grass and prickly plants that produced purple grazes. Adobe walls. Time was elastic; space was a spinning wheel. All time, past or future, real or imaginary, was pure presence. Space transformed itself ceaselessly. The beyond was here, all was here: a valley, a mountain, a distant country, the neighbours' patio. Books with pictures, especially history books, eagerly leafed through, supplied images of deserts and jungles, palaces and hovels, warriors and princesses, beggars and kings. We were shipwrecked with Sinbad and with Robinson, we fought with d'Artagnan, we took Valencia with the Cid. How I would have liked to stay forever on the Isle of Calypso! In summer the green branches of the fig tree would sway like the sails of a caravel or a pirate ship. High up on the mast, swept by the wind, I could make out islands and continents, lands that vanished as soon as they became tangible. The world was limitless yet it was always within reach; time was a pliable substance that weaved an unbroken present.

When was the spell broken? Gradually rather than suddenly. It is hard to accept being betrayed by a friend, deceived by the woman we love, or that the idea of freedom is the mask of a tyrant. What we call "finding out" is a slow and tricky process because we ourselves are the accomplices of our errors and deceptions. Nevertheless, I can remember fairly clearly an incident that was the first sign, although it was quickly forgotten. I must have been about six when one of my cousins who was a little older showed me a North American magazine with a photograph of soldiers marching along a huge avenue, probably in New York. "They've returned from the war" she said. This handful of words disturbed me, as if they foreshadowed the end of the world or the Second Coming of Christ. I vaguely knew that somewhere far away a war had ended a few years earlier and that the soldiers were marching to celebrate their victory. For me, that war had taken place in another time, not here and now. The photo refuted me. I felt literally dislodged from the present.

From that moment time began to fracture more and more. And there was a plurality of spaces. The experience repeated itself more and more frequently. Any piece of news, a harmless phrase, the headline in a newspaper: everything proved the outside world's existence and my own unreality. I felt that the world was splitting and that I did not inhabit the present. My present was disintegrating: real time was somewhere else. My time, the time of the garden, the fig tree, the games with friends, the drowsiness among the plants at three in the afternoon under the sun, a fig torn open (black and red like a live coal but one that is sweet and fresh): this was a fictitious time. In spite of what my senses told me, the time from over there, belonging to the others, was the real one, the time of the real present. I accepted the inevitable: I became an adult. That was how my expulsion from the present began.

It may seem paradoxical to say that we have been expelled from the present, but it is a feeling we have all had at some moment. Some of us experienced it first as a condemnation, later transformed into consciousness and action. The search for the present is neither the pursuit of an earthly paradise nor that of a timeless eternity: it is the search for a real reality. For us, as Spanish Americans, the real present was not in our own countries: it was the time lived by others, by the English, the French and the Germans. It was the time of New York, Paris, London. We had to go and look for it and bring it back home. These years were also the years of my discovery of literature. I began writing poems. I did not know what made me write them: I was moved by an inner need that is difficult to define. Only now have I understood that there was a secret relationship between what I have called my expulsion from the present and the writing of poetry. Poetry is in love with the instant and seeks to relive it in the poem, thus separating it from sequential time and turning it into a fixed present. But at that time I wrote without wondering why I was doing it. I was searching for the gateway to the present: I wanted to belong to my time and to my century. A little later this obsession became a fixed idea: I wanted to be a modern poet. My search for modernity had begun.

What is modernity? First of all it is an ambiguous term: there are as many types of modernity as there are societies. Each has its own. The word's meaning is uncertain and arbitrary, like the name of the period that precedes it, the Middle Ages. If we are modern when compared to medieval times, are we perhaps the Middle Ages of a future modernity? Is a name that changes with time a real name? Modernity is a word in search of its meaning. Is it an idea, a mirage or a moment of history? Are we the children of modernity or its creators? Nobody knows for sure. It doesn't matter much: we follow it, we pursue it. For me at that time modernity was fused with the present or rather produced it: the present was its last supreme flower. My case is neither unique nor exceptional: from the Symbolist period, all modern poets have chased after that magnetic and elusive figure that fascinates them. Baudelaire was the first. He was also the first to touch her and discover that she is nothing but time that crumbles in one's hands. I am not going to relate my adventures in pursuit of modernity: they are not very different from those of other 20th-Century poets. Modernity has been a universal passion. Since 1850 she has been our goddess and our demoness. In recent years, there has been an attempt to exorcise her and there has been much talk of "postmodernism". But what is postmodernism if not an even more modern modernity?

For us, as Latin Americans, the search for poetic modernity runs historically parallel to the repeated attempts to modernize our countries. This tendency begins at the end of the 18th Century and includes Spain herself. The United States was born into modernity and by 1830 was already, as de Tocqueville observed, the womb of the future; we were born at a moment when Spain and Portugal were moving away from modernity. This is why there was frequent talk of "Europeanizing" our countries: the modern was outside and had to be imported. In Mexican history this process begins just before the War of Independence. Later it became a great ideological and political debate that passionately divided Mexican society during the 19th Century. One event was to call into question not the legitimacy of the reform movement but the way in which it had been implemented: the Mexican Revolution. Unlike its 20th-Century counterparts, the Mexican Revolution was not really the expression of a vaguely utopian ideology but rather the explosion of a reality that had been historically and psychologically repressed. It was not the work of a group of ideologists intent on introducing principles derived from a political theory; it was a popular uprising that unmasked what was hidden. For this very reason it was more of a revelation than a revolution. Mexico was searching for the present outside only to find it within, buried but alive. The search for modernity led

When my world crumbles
And the birds no longer sing
Their innocent morning melodies
I think of you
And where you’re going
It reminds me that no matter what
The sun will bring light to your eyes
The oceans waves will flow freely
And the world is still spinning
But, My head is still spinning
My stomach is still turning
My blood is still flowing
So fall asleep
Smiling and at ease
Knowing you were able to conquer
The anchored stubborn mind of a man
Who could not resist your perfected charm
Beautifully free
Secured from the worlds bitter harm
And for the rest of your life
You’ll be able to inspire all that I admire
I’d say that’s a treat
But my minds still spinning helplessly on
So when my world crumbles
And the Canadian winds no longer blow
The autumn leaves to the dusk
Of the white blanket approaching
I think of you
And your largest love
It reminds me that no matter what
The bears will roar
the French will still speak of Amore
the business men will march civil suited
As you admit you adore me
My heart cramps
And the monarch twists my stomach
Bringing upon my corny sweat of panic
So fall asleep
Smiling and at ease
Knowing you were able to conquer
The anchored stubborn mind of a man
Who could not resist your innocent smile
Beautifully free
Its such a relief that we’re compatible
And for the rest of your life
You’ll be able to inspire all that I admire
Id say that’s a treat
But my stomach is still turning
So when my world crumbles
And the queen falls
The golden state is 10 feet under
And people forget the Hollywood ways
I think of you
And your love for those of disabilities
It reminds me that
No matter what
Flowers will bloom in spring
the willow will creak with every gust of wind
and our lives continuously change
our love remains tightened by a bind
my cheeks crimple
my finger tips tingle
my spine straightens
So fall asleep
Smiling and at ease
Knowing you were able to conquer
The anchored stubborn mind of a man
Who could not resist your **** mind
Beautifully free
Love would admit we are intertwined
And for the rest of your life
Youll be able to inspire all that I admire
Id say it’s a treat
And when my head no longer spins
My stomach no longer turns
And My blood no longer flows
I want to watch the world come to a stand still
Standing six feet small
Beside my precious love
You are everyone I ever wanted
Let this thought haunt you
Falling deeply in love with me
My world can crumble before my eyes
But it would not be enough
To break the anchor of this stubborn man

The pick
All the stress that an orange has caused is painful.
It is painful for the tree from which it came.
Snatched away with promises of sweetness.
A tree mostly green, engulfing
Small speckles of that deceptive orange.
It was such a bright colour – high hopes!
Handpicked by a man only looking for the best,
Choosing poorly not for the first time.
The green leaves frantically try to reclaim what’s theirs.
Branch after branch reaching out, trying to uproot him.
Close, so close. But they are a sea apart,
At least an apple has a core, a heart.

The peel
Now it is pilfered, the painful process begins,
Never quite ending: disappointment beckons.
To try and taste these orange juices
You soldiers must bear the burden.
Each soldier, a finger digging themselves
Into the tough stressful shell.
Fingernails stained with orange blood,
Eyes blinded by the same tangy juices.
It never slips off in one go
Like a roomy balaclava,
But crumbles like the remnants of a bombing.
Brick by brick, orange by orange it crumbles.
Now it is finally undone
But neither tree nor man has won.

The preparation
The crust collapsed, but now
It is time to untangle the web the mantle holds.
First, a division – the separation of brothers
Who served side by side at birth.
Dissected by these soldiers
Acting as a bomb squad,
Searching for those hidden pips.
Found, but not without casualties –
Sticky fingers with no taps in sight.
Once removed the web is untangled.
Tired, he hopes that the stress will swiftly end
Unaware that the sweetness was just pretend.

The pain*
Finally the moment has arrived
And illogical ceremonies commence.
I fear the celebration is far too soon,
For as white touches orange and tries
So desperately to unite,
The tartly taste slays the poor man’s buds:
Igniting like petrol on his burning tongue.
He wishes he could return that orange
To the green tree to which it belongs,
To return a bullet-sprayed windscreen is not an option.
The orange, once bitten, enjoys its trance
Latching on to those pained tingling taste buds.
His orange, a disaster to undress:
Bad taste – a foolish price for such a mess.

i watch this website fall apart
the entire screen freezing as i try to log back in after so many years
and after taking ap principles last year
i can kinda tell why

i am now seventeen
with only a "youthful disposition" to be seen
but only living for her
the little kid who thought being old was all there was to be

fruitger aero
y2k
grainy photos from yesterday

it was never about getting here
it was just about getting away
and crying over an indie album
from 2008

the words hit me harder than any song from a tiktok artist today
were we never really alone?

strange individuals from ten years ago
once scorned, now cherished by the youth

and i ahead or simply behind?

the useless porcelain jars from the thrift store hold more soul to me than any shirt from target ever will

born in the correct era
for now i can love the previous one in peace
strange how we only like something when it leaves

Umpisa pa lamang
Alam ko nang gusto kita
Nakita ka pa lamang
Atensyon ko'y nadukot mo na

(From the beginning
I knew I like you
The moment I saw you
You already captured my attention)

Paghawak ng iyong kamay
Pintig ng damdamin ay bumilis
Mga emosyong itinago nuon
Pilit nagpaparamdam muli ngayon

(When I held your hands
Heartbeats in overdrive
Buried emotions in the past
Making themselves felt in the present)

Sa pagpungay ng mga mata
Ako unti-unting nabibighani
At nung akapin sa'yong mga bisig
Tuluyan na kong nahulog

(The way your eyes look at me
Makes me intrigued by the second
And when you wrapped me in your arms
I completely fell, then and there)

Ngunit pag-sinta'y parang walang halaga
Sigla ng unang pagkikita'y unti-unting nawala
Di malaman at mawari ang mga dahilan
Na nang dahil sa nadarama ay pinipilit maintindihan

(But it seemed these feelings hold no value
The passion from our first meeting dwindling
I can't comprehend and identify the reasons why
But because of this love I feel, I still try)

Pilit tinitiis ang mga pighati
Kahit unti-unting nadudurog ang puso
Aanhin ang dignidad na patapon
Kung puso'y hindi marunong umibig

(Enduring the searing pain
Even if my heart is crushed
Setting aside my meaningless pride
If I don't know how to love right)

Siguro'y nagiging makasarili
Ngunit lahat ay binago at binigay
Lahat ay tinitiis damhin
Kahit na lungkot ay di mapawi

(Maybe I'm being selfish
But I changed and gave my everything
I endured all the ill feelings
Even if the loneliness doesn't go away)

Bakit hindi pa yun sapat?
Para ika'y sumugal sa akin?
Nangako ng pag-ibig na di magbabago
Kahit ang mundo natin ay tuluyang maglaho

(Why is it not enough?
For you to take a chance with me?
I promised you a constant, stable love
Even if our world crumbles to dust)

Naghihintay sa iyong pagbalik
Mula sa malayong dako kung san naroon
Ang puso **** labis nang nasasaktan
At takot nang umibig muli

(Waiting for your fateful return
From that far, hidden place where
Your broken and beaten heart is
That lost all hope in love)

Ialay ang pusong nagdurugo
Kapalit ng puso kong gusto kang mahalin
At nang lahat ng sakit ay aking akuin
At nang maibalik natin ang ngiting mailap

(Exchange with me your bleeding heart
With mine that anticipates to love yours
To share with me the burden of your pain
And bring back the elusive smile on your face)

Mahal kita umpisa pa lamang
Mamahalin kita kahit masakit
Lulunukin ang dangal at dignidad
Sa pagsusumamong ikaw ay maging akin

(I loved you from the very beginning
And I will love you still amidst the pain
I will swallow my pride and dignity
In this arduous quest to make you mine)

Sana matapos na ang ating paglalaro
Ang tagu-taguang walang patutunguhan
Panalangin kay Bathala sana'y marinig
Ang pusong nagsusumamo'y sana yakapin muli

(I pray for the little games to end soon
This hide-and-seek that seems meaningless
Dear God, hear my prayers and pleas
Of the heart that yearns be embraced again)

Time crumbles over the years, eroding
under the weight of "I should have been
theres", and "backwhens", and "I miss
yous". And, as it erodes, it leaves the
bittersweet smell of what was, complete
with a little taste of memory on the back
of your tongue that will never quite go away...

forgive me my darling
hollow beauty
but seeing you so gaunt
with
sunken dark eyes
and skin like gray soap
makes me feel
your easily breakable
already so close to death
my **** could crack your pelvis
and bird delicate ribs

inspired skeleton dancing
your body exclaims to all
a sensual exhibition
of slow suicide
my bloodless blossom
brave breatharian
your favorite math
subtraction
by multiplied
delicious starvations

you may need a strong man
deaths final instrument
who will love you
with tender crushes
darkly ******

come naked
spread wide my lovely grotesque
nestle in my arms
coffins embrace
to be bruised
while tremulously kissed
i will turn you to crumbles and powder
to finish sweetly
what you have started so long ago

drifting along, out to sea
when you stop, do you think of me?
I watch the water, as tears flow
did you really have to go?
and as I watch with glittering eyes
the whole world, dark and wide
crumbles.

believing when the world crumbles
She won’t crumble with it
The girl in the red dress
A wild horse- a beauty galloping at full speed
Never forgetting her worth or her means
full of fireworks
With a passion overwhelmed
by the aching love of the world
The girl in the red dress
Who is freer then any being
Because she lets herself be
Free
Yet more tied down then she seems
The girl in the red dress
Who will fight ferousicialy for anything
And anyone
To the girl in the red dress
Who has the wisdom of the moon
And the brightness of
The sun

you're a melancholic blue rock
who's oblivious to what you're parallel of

just a slight erosion I noticed,
as I picked up
the little crumbles
the gem stones
the tears

crystallizing under crushing pressure;
I know it's aching,
some time to tether
you're (spontaneously) combusting
but you're still as dainty as a feather

don't have to look at your reflection,
just your shadows
then you'll see you're illuminating
and now you know
you're more than enough
you were just
a diamond in the rough.