OCTOBER Dark Year of the Penguin

Loneliness is eight hours in the office,

is being an old man wandering the streets without a hat,

is listening to a certain song in a premeditated bar,

loneliness is having breakfast with nobody,

writing long letters,

watching T.V. every Sunday

loneliness is a house without portraits,

a dirty carpet and an empty mailbox,

loneliness is a house without friends,

loneliness is a country, unknown

                                  Jorge Luis Rodriguez

SEPTEMBER Dark Year of the Penguin

I close the door of my room

in silence

To not wake up the madman who lives downstairs

I walk on the hardwood looking for my papers,

Then, I transform,

Now I’m a poet and I write about my entrance

In a room full of posters, and hats,

With a broken window

Through which one could see at night

The shining words,

                Thrifty, Ralphs, McDonalds,

A bunch of faces are opened in the stars

And solitude is a previous silence that drowns me

Letting a white serpent grab my ankle,

It’s my mother’s voice, calling,

Telling me, rice pudding, sweetheart, natillas,

Telling me that my father’s watch hurts her in the wounds,

Calm down mother, or you’ll wake up the madman,

I show her Clinton’s head

Trapped in the T.V.

Talking about how everything is almost fixed,

I make her a kiss,

Give her a song by Pink Floyd,

I give her Pilar’s Peruvian hat,

And the leather hat,

And my own hat,

But the ocean explodes with rage

And there is my mother turning off all the stars,

Then, I pronounce the magic words:

                Thrifty, Ralphs, McDonalds

And her hand lets go of my frozen ankle,

She leaves causing the hardwood to squeak,

And the other madman screams

                                             Jorge Luis Rodriguez

AUGUST "Dark Year of the Penguin"

Señora, you who lived in an abandoned calendar
with the windows shut to the march of history,
in your grand shell without a porch
were even the wind stops
to not disturb the silence of the 50's
you who stopped time beyond infamy,
who entered the mystery with a robe of flowers
and curlers on
calling with screams
so many sons
and grandchildren
and who knows,
Everyone lost between Belascoain and la calle ocho
letting the coffee get cold in the solitude of little cups
and now
forced to scare the devil you have given birth to brooms,
that your hands tremble
as you sweep the sad leaves falling from the soul
because after so much ideology
though we learn to program computers,
we don't forget you, Señora,
dream in peace,
we also need your broom


                                                   Jorge Luis Rodriguez

JULY "Dark Year of the Penguin"

http://www.stageofthearts.info/Dark_Year_of_the_Penguin.html

The rats
Are always the first to be aware of the shipwreck,
Then they escape, with their dark glasses,
Their false passports, their suitcases filled with papers,
They mingle with the patriots,
Hide in the telephone cords,
Going everywhere,
Offering their services to other tyrants,
Exploding in a foreign land their notorious fame,
They repent, before the ship sinks
in an ocean of blood,
the rats escape,
they take asylum,
they hang themselves,
or they are saved

JUNE "Dark Year of the Penguin"

Clandestine:

They came by asking for the apple,

we were innocent

they took the others,

they buried them in a well,

when they all left,

you looked at me,

then, you showed me the apple.

performed at CASA 0101

MAY "Dark Year of the Penguin"

Flowers
the wild flowers, the nameless,
were your last recourse,
the labyrinth where you used to hide,
where you slept late,
children followed you,
you only heard bells and colors,
you spoke of pink animals,
and shipwrecks,
(the children listened in silence)
one day: the door was steel,
when they returned for you, the cell was empty
they only found a flower,
a small one,
that they could not understand

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