2011/12/31

June

*To the soon to be memory of 2011
and the times it crowned


If you leave me now
there will be no sorry, Charlie
cause the tables have turned
and you´re down and you´re out
from my life

shame on you in spite
of all the unusual moments
oh the joy that you gave
why did you have to turn it down down down down down

soon all this will be through
pack up all of your bags
and hit the cosmic road
so long.... my... friend...

Sideral

En la bruma perlada de cada mañana
Difícil es ver algún porvenir;
Nos movemos inciertos, la noche lejana,
Pues ya su escondijo no puede servir.

Pero pasan las horas adentro del alma,
Y vemos maneras de vernos surgir;
Nuestros pasos se nutren, se unen las palmas,
Y fortalecidos, no cuesta servir.

La tarde se expande, radiante y osada,
Un vago recuerdo la duda de ayer;
Corremos cegados, por sueños de nada,
La sangre nos hierve, ¡hay tanto que hacer!

Y así nos sorprende la noche estrellada,
La sombra reluce su capa de añil:
Ya es tarde, lo siento, nos dice su espada,
Lo hecho está hecho, y ahora, a morir.

2011/12/11

Sobre Titulina

¿Por qué no pedir prestado ésto a un epistolario, a mí que tanto me cuesta volver a nombrar las cosas?

Titulina nació el 11 de marzo del 2010 en condiciones de grave prematuridad. Pesaba 1.100 g y estaba en la semana 29 de las 40 de gestación. Si no se actuaba como se actuó en ese momento, Titulina y yo, ambas o cualquiera de las dos, podíamos perder la vida debido a una preeclampsia aguda. Fue un éxito. Titulina NACIO, viva, sana, embolada por ser arrancada de su mamá, y muy chiquita. Fue llevada de urgencia al Materno Infantil de Trinidad donde sus signos vitales, que eran buenos aunque con grandes interrogantes, fueron monitorados en la terapia intensiva neonatal (tin).
No necesitó respirador, comía abundantemente y todo seguía creciendo dentro de los parámetros normales pese al trauma de haber nacido tan temprano. Cuando me recuperé lo suficiente como para ser dada de alta (agonía de 10 días sin poder a ver a mi hija, mientras la presión seguía en el cielo en ese cuarto de la Cruz Roja), me reuní con Max y la Titulina y no me despegué de ese hospital de Trinidad....por...sesenta y cuatro días. El 25 de marzo (día 14 de vida de Titulina) los doctores de la sala deciden que Titulina está bien fuera del peligro inmediato y la transfieren a una incubadora que había recién sido desocupada en la terapia intermedia (possibly due to the death by infection of the previous occupier). Y sí: esa misma noche, a Titulina le sube la fiebre, convulsiona, y sufre una hemorragia en el ventrículo derecho del cerebro. Se había contagiado de una infección hospitalaria.
La hemorragia se detiene y es absorbida por su cuerpo en menos de una semana, la infección es vencida con antibioticos, y el desarrollo de la Titulina continua. En los meses sucesivos, Benedetta supera también una intervención al ojo derecho con terapia laser para parar y reparar la retinopatia del prematuro (rop) que había sido producto del exceso de oxígeno de las incubadoras (aparte que fueron dos meses y pico expuesta al oxígeno, cosa que inevitablemente acarrea consecuencias a nivel de la vista). Las visitas neurológicas en Asunción apuntan a la necesidad de profundizar el estudio del posible daño causado por la hemorragia.
Así, apenas llegamos a Florencia, la inscribí en el sistema de salud italiano y la hice ver por una eminencia de la neurología, que me la insertó completamente gratis en el engranaje del hospital pediátrico Meyer, en el departamento neurológico, justamente una de las áreas por las que ese hospital tiene fama planetaria, para hacerse todos los estudios. Fue en el arco de esos tantos electroencefalogramas y resonancias magnéticas que descubrimos que una de las consecuencias de la hemorragia había sido una epilepsia y uno de los ventrículos del cerebro tapados impidiendo la circulación del liquido cerebral. En los meses Benedetta había acumulado un hidrocéfalo preocupante, que amenazaba con cortarle la vista y hasta matarla, sin hablar del daño que ya había causado dejando sin espacio de desarrollo al cerebro. No se notaba porque había ocurrido después del nacimiento, cuando el cráneo de Bene ya estaba lo suficientemente duro como para no deformarse para nada. Entre mayo y noviembre se controló de la mejor manera posible con fármacos la forma epiléptica que ella sufre, que en esa etapa se manifestaba con un sobresalto cada pocos segundos, como si le corriera electricidad, ocurriendo en clusters de varios sobresaltos, especialmente cuando recién se despertaba o cuando trataba de agarrar cualquier cosa). En noviembre se aprobó la cirugía para ´destapar´ el ventrículo que estaba impidiendo la circulación del líquido cerebral de su cabecita. La intervención se llama tercerventriculocisternostomía.
Inutil es tratar de describir la angustia que se siente como padres ante tanta impotencia, tanto ´destino´, tantas variables sin respuesta a la vista. Vagábamos por los jardines del hospital las tres horas de la operación sintiendo que se detuvo el tiempo y que el hacha se balanceaba detrás de las nubes. Entendía amargamente la agonía de mi hermano y mi cuñada hacía tan poco tiempo, cuando la vida de su tesoro pendía de las manos de los doctores.
A pocos días de habernos dado de alta, Francesco y yo comenzamos a ver los efectos positivos de la operación al cerebro que le hicieron a nuestra hija. Vinieron de a cuentagotas, porque la situación de los ventrículos era, y probablemente seguirá siendo, crítica. Pero vinieron: pequeñísimos pero milagrosísimos progresos. ¡¡¡Titulinaaaaaaaaaaaa!!! De mi parte la misión es toda la estimulacion, terapia musical, visual y corporal que me sea posible. ¿Qué más quiero? A mi lado un ser hermosísimo y sagrado, la fuente de gran parte de mi asombro, que depende alma y cuerpo de mí. ¡¡¡¡He aquí la misión más importante de mi vida!!!! El sistema de salud italiano no solo nos concedió cobertura total de todos los tratamientos, visitas, y la delicada operación, sino que refuerza el proceso con un equipo de fisioterapeutas y ortopédicos increíble, con el cual hay diálogo y un claro sentido de evolución, una sensación de que si descubrimos cómo, todo es posible, para que la Titulina vaya aprendiendo a sentarse y pararse, y relacionarse con los objetos, interactuar mejor con otros, y ojalá un día también a caminar y hablar...y cantar... y bailar, como me prometió una incauta enfermera del materno infantil en el 2010, sin imaginarse lo que ocurría debajo de esos cabellitos... Es por todo ésto que sabía que tenía "sí o sí" que volver a Italia. Y estoy una vez más sintiendo el alivio de haber encontrado la serenidad necesaria para tomar muchas decisiones acertadas, por más que no había cortes limpios, y en todos lados sentía dolor.
Soltando recién ahora un poco la respiración, pido disculpas por el largo tiempo que me tomó compartir todo esto... y no, no hablo de la condición de Benedetta en otros medios sociales... pero mantendré al día personalmente a quien tenga interés por saber como nos va. Las vías del Señor son, después de todo, infinitas.





ANGUISHES/SEASONAL AFFECTIVE DISORDER - S.A.D.
The Clinicalz
Anguishes Ouverture by Francesco Trinipet
S.A.D. Music by Fran Bellucci 
Words by Francesco Trinipet and Fran Bellucci

Oh, let's get to the core
before my time runs out and
symptoms of a classic S.A.D. return

you said our lives were quite bizarre
and that awaking demon stars
would never yield a positive result

What season spares
young lovers and their flares?
May swinging moods
carry us flying through!

Whatever Daisy can adore
I'll get and bring right to her door
Pretending to deserve a little more...

Uncompromisingly charmant
while craving sweets i start to chant
a tune of classic (y)early winter S.A.D.

What season spares
young lovers and their flares?
no reasons reach
the shores of Daisy's Beach

You woke my biophiliac nerve
made me flirtatious
so a dirty flamboyance
could take control of me

Even a sunset just for two
before the lazy colors flew
could come to poison hearts in rising pulse

What season spares
young lovers and their flares?
May swinging moods
carry us to the moon
What season spares
young lovers and their flares?
No reasons reach
the shores of Daisy's Beach...

2011/10/06

And all this time the river flows...

I was born and raised in a river culture, and from 1978 to 1983 watched Dunderklumpen on a weekly basis.

Post Data:
A river whisks you away
to unknown places surreal
It´s just a dream but so real
Your dream so you´re the bereaved!

2011/10/02

All This

what a waste of commands

My Ex-Post-Facto

Bless that old off-color publication
Bless your looks the night in question
You the impostor born elusive
And I… I was only being lucid

(Yet) I could sense your sense of suffocation
Oh shameless palace of perplexion
You were to blame for leaving
Or maybe not, cause I was leafing

You´d revamp me in the mornings
Till I played the fool one evening

You´re my ex-post-facto.

Drownout

all these damn calluses
in the wrong surfaces
give me the slightest of doubts

struck on a featherbed
absent and lighthearted
as I return from improbable routes

Pas de deux

She was melancholy
He was male and colic
They would sit and bicker
Over tunes from Mellon Collie

Improbable Delivery

Amazing little thread that threads me
Do you know that I´m blindfolded
Pity take and pity give me
Here´s my prayer, now unfold it

Please excuse my lazy slumber
Please ignore my flightless saunter
Please believe my sorry puzzles
Please install my Amadeus
Please delay the crazy schedule
And insinuate my fortune

Hall Mark

She was that ancient beauty
hanging on the family wall
you´d think passing beside her
She was giving you a call

No Refund

A                Bm                  E                      
Exquisite aging gets forgiven every
F#
time
Dm           G                       F#
I wish I could assure my poor soul
                 B
she´ll be fine…

Repeat 10 times and stop

PS special video, courtesy from the future
version of No Refund recorded feb 17th 2012

The Reasoning Song

Now why wouldn´t you
Wanna be like me?
I do as I do
I do as I please
I make you believe
Kind of slantwise if you will

Now why wouldn´t I
One like me wanna be
I think I can fly
No matter your tease
I bet you don´t see
How ridiculous you all are

Maybe you see through my eyes
maybe you see through my guise
maybe you see me beyond
my soon impending demise

American Witness

Right up my street
Oxford Apartments 213
It´s the home of a man
I wouldn´t wanna meet

You know, sometimes I hear them bleed
You know, sometimes I hear them plead
(face it)

Right up my street
Oxford Apartments 213
It´s the home of a man
You wouldn´t wanna meet

You know, sometimes I hear them bleed
You know, sometimes I hear them plead
(for their lives)

Radical Subliminal

you wanna make your god a happy guy
a tiny wee euphorical
you wanna make it in a bungalow
i wish i knew what for

comical, it´s so sadical
comical subliminal

you wanna make it like a fantasy               
a little unsophisticatedly                            
no use to make it insufficiently                   
(do you really need chilly nights               
when you're with a maniac?)                      

oh do you wanna make it believable         
do you really want it believable?              

comical, it's so sadical                               
comical subliminal                

The Poor Puss

souvenirs and attaches
who do you wanna fool
you reek of forbidden fruit

so tell me why
your love of fame
makes you so shy
hopelessly lame

you´re still the same
you´re still in pain

souvenirs
an act of faith
who do you wanna fool
you picked up the gauging tool

so tell me why
your ace of spades
makes you so shy
It´s like you fade

it´s such a shame
you´re still in pain

2011/09/13

Of Youth´s Sinker Logs

I used to know things when I was 8 or 9, that I knew I would have to lose awareness of in order to become an adult.
Senseless to hope the logs of awareness would reemerge at the far pool,
yonder.
And yet, there, perhaps, they are already.

2011/09/05

Lily

Lily looked out the window listfully. It was beginning to get dark and slightly fresh in the valley, and the summer promised to pick up and go elsewhere.
If I´m a songwriter, why is it so hard for me to publish my songs? Do I have to admit that I´m a dysfunctional composer? Well, I am.
Lily kept losing herself in eternal variations: the sincerity of alternative options had become an enemy for her decades ago. And when she slipped into certain chord progressions which would better be described as trapdoors, the drive went from positive to negative and she´d stop playing altogether.
Lily cringed recalling that sullen, all too familiar reaching-for-the-power-button-moment which recurred too often... could it be that hidden forces were conspiring against her with her own creepy unbeknownst aid?
Maybe a cigarette...
And who ever guaranteed that, if you´re lucky or unlucky enough to have one, your vocation will be fully functional? Having a vocation is only that: an inner calling. There's a number of choices that don't quite come through but don't violate the clause of responsibility towards a patriotic or spiritual mission either. You can pretend you don´t hear, or answer with complying sweetness and then do as you please, or act like a fucked-up teenager, or be authentically docile...But nothing you do is guaranteed to work. Even with the most perfect machines, the result is the result... of much else.
No, a vocation is no guarantee of functionality. Maybe for some it´s more like a steaming pizza right on the other side of a 7-foot-tall, 7500-volt electric fence...
Lily had stopped counting the total songs she had almost fully composed, a while ago. Far from being a source of pride, this futile attempt at feeling historically productive only added to the anguish. The thing that stumped her the most was how, while the self consuming star of a song was irradiating its light, coming into being, sometimes for a few minutes and sometimes for days or weeks, her energy had no end, and she was in love with the song, in another dimension, let´s tritely say. And then, after a while and due to partly unknown factors, she usually couldn´t listen past the 20th second, as if the song had let her down. There had to be something she was missing. It was a depression, it was the classic STEOS moment (Skip To End Of Song)... It was Judas and Christ at the end of time... and then, not happy with that either, even if who would be, give me a break, after a while it was sometimes all wonderful again, and ooh! and hey I'm a frikkin genius and shiiiiat what a brains and sensitivity I carry... to the point of song completion! What the hell?
Oh Lily, Lily thought.
Oh Lily.

Fall This Way

bring on the autumn apple,
I can´t stand this summer one more day
let the chlorophyll leave
and then let the leaves go
give me the joy of the sudden gust
free me from my need to go
give me my loved ones in this room
I'll stake it out
I'll order in
I'll gladly dance my dance
from here

2011/09/02

Gruubs´ Eagerness

General Perkins explained to Gruubs that he did not intend to write a book. Not even a series of short stories.
´Not even a series of short stories, Gruubs.
I´m an impressionist, you see.
I don´t need all the notes but I can flood you with them if I need to.
The structure is to evade a two-level structure, or pyramid if you will, to not have a sum of parts except the individual components scooped out of moments in unlikely lives and persons, all the more real the more surreal.

´So, Gruubs, you do follow don´t you? ´

Gruubs nodded with eagerness.

´Am I not glorious? I´ll just depict moments, lived by scarcely brushed in characters, who become familiar unconsciously by the complicity in the tone I myself, the host of my listeners and readers, will delicately paint for them to tread.´

´You are truly remarkable, General´.

Pleased with the response, General Perkins turned to leave just in time not to catch a glimpse of Gruubs, who was bending down to retrieve his copy of Heidi and a chipa guazu.

Riverside Talk

sometimes you think if you´re determined enough you will overcome obstacles,
but what happens is you don´t pause long enough to consider the obstacles, to study them and figure out what exactly it is you´re trying to conquer.

for example, in a long-term project you may think the problem is the physical challenges and difficulties of the tasks involved, but maybe the problem is that very particular, frail and inexorable moment when you get stuck and you don´t understand why.

after drifting off completely and a bit destructively, your mind resets and your memory may even have recorded that you were unaccountable with the practical aspects, or that you couldn´t deal with the visible props of the stageplay. And you think, oh weak I´ve been and should take advantage and sin some more, before you gogo, no seriously, if I´m determined enough I will surely not trip up next time...

you really do think it´s the step you didn´t get to that got your nose on the ground? oh, you don´t. oh, you do, once in a while?
let me spray this out: there was another prop, and another, and another, that you did not acknowledge, that you did not consider, look!
g.a.s.p.
n.o.d.
and perhaps you should be determined not to overcome obstacles like a blind christ,
but to master your stage play.

now it´s time for your nap, my little genghis.






After Dark

Her mommy was thinking of the enormous whirlpools of spiritual energy in words like

                                                        DISENCHANT



2011/09/01

Window in the Pain I (Sweet Slumber)


you've been through a thousand lives
nine-nine-nine of which are fond
of glowing bright before your eyes
as sweet slumber comes along

the wind brings the autumn brings the wind
crisp news evading your reaching hand
the wind kicks the window in the pane
testimonies lost and lost denials wisped away

the north-south current and the east-west current
and the renaissant cypress are heaving
to stay still
to stay still
means not that these fears will stop wreathing

2011/08/31

Injustice

i used to be afraid of losing
till i lost everything
except my fear of losing
so what's the deal

2011/08/30

Busy Universe

There's no space for me at the moment.
Should I make myself some?
What matter should I displace?
What energy should I disperse?
Won't I be sorry?

At the Cosmos Cafe'

very well very well, our usual plate of despair, I see...
will you have some chips with that, Ma'am?

nono, waiter, nono, my despair?
you know how it is: all the better the more bitter!

Wish Fury Were Deaf

yes, I wish fury were deaf
I wish nothing had the power to fuel it
losing myself to my anger is sad
losing my anger to my sadness is mad
...and losing my madness is bad oh so bad

Boo and the Blue Bloop

why does it seem to me that everything I will ever do is meaningless?
have I been wasting my life?
what's all this dreamers' shiiet?
have I been mislead?
have I not changed?