The gates, the guardian angels,

the salt mines and the profits

Something I never told you about locked gates...

I am interested in gates, the imaginary clues to the entries and exits, the pauses to consider, the possibilities beyond the entry points, yes, but also the openings and closings of immense universes behind, before, around, inside the passages we allow,

the breaking down of our a la Poe bricked walls…

There is an enchanting movement of resistance today, where I and people I know want to break, once again, the codes of languages, to examine the gates, the imaginary clues to the entries and exits.

Poetry is no longer, I think, the necessary medium to break away from, to take apart, as it becomes more and more standardized and normalized. We are all deemed poets now, we produce it with gusto. Artificial intelligence produces it too, and we seem to be happy feeding it in large quantities into the stream.

And the men who pointed their index fingers and said only the great poets are him and him and maybe her, those men (and women) are all dead or are dying. So, we are becoming bereft of good idols and good quotes. And the now old people who made it on social media and are somewhat viral, did you ever notice that anything, any statement they utter, discovered recently in a hidden piece come to light, becomes sacred and important, carrying a message we ought to pay attention to…?

We might still be enamored of the improvisations created by past others… or we might still be enamored by our own minor daily mirror solutions… like teachers, self-help and do it yourself folks tend to be…

The salt mines appeared to me after what is labeled 9/11, here in the United States. It was a time for me when all water was drawn, sucked away from earth, all truth withdrawn, and all I could see were the working men mining, laboring to extract the salt from the mines.  Not the sea mines, but the upland inland mines I glimpsed at in some places in the west of Uganda, in Africa… Worse or not from the mining of gold in South Africa, the diamond mining, or the still current mining of gold in the Amazon.

It was unreal, it hit me in my gut, and I had blocked it until now.

There was then a gift, a world of understanding. It was a kind of enlightenment. When I meet with a woman, or a man with a ring of diamonds, or with gold, I no longer freak out, but I seriously wonder about our collective possible destinies as a people.

The guardian angel is the steady and simple one that stays by my side, right now, and whispers, yes, go for it.

And I ask myself, again, in poetic license:

Who really wants to give up their vacation at the inn, twice a year,
eighty-day around the world travels, once or twice in a lifetime?

the swim in clear waters, snorkeling
secluded in the pristine beach of ecological tourism,
the glimpse of noble beasts in the savannas,
the lion hunt,
the luxury of a very cold one, in drought?

The owned house up high, the second beached,
the maid in service, the nanny, the cellular, 
the well cared for body lotion,
the chunky in neck and wrist, the linen,
in organic cotton silk
quarter moon with views of Virginian islands
and Fernando de Noronha maritime turtle preserves?

Who wants to give up photography, books, frames, art?
The workshops, the ceilings raised, the enlightenments, 
the new views, the new bed, the Russian stove?
Sustainable air conditioning, hybrid electric car…? 

This all is in dire need of steel, though, 
of oil still,
of electricity conduction through miniscule plastic tubings 
for testing on microfiber with titanium,
from niobium,
from the green oxides of copper,
from under the earth
to the silver lightness of aluminium above,
from the sweat of the salt mines,
from the deep envy of gold
to the matching surrenders of now.

Someone must 

Someone must oversee the costs of desiring such protective divinities. 
Someone must invest in the right futures of the stocks, the pigs, the soybeans, 
Someone must protect us for not wanting to be conscious…

Someone must govern this thing…
Someone must take charge of the profits of growth

8/24

The gates ¹

A pause to consider the gates, the imaginary clues to some entries and exits through a boarded gate,

a childhood gate

A set of closed gates in hometown.

A gate to eternity for a sage who cared for homeless people in the Itaparica Island, Bahia, Brasil.

A gate I knew well to enter the secrets of the Mata Atlantica to find butterflies and silence, sometimes.

A gate to the only tire shop in the village.

A gate to 1000

A gate to the skinny monk or to the witch’s broom closet

A gate to sunrise

a gate to the house of spiders

Gates as imaginal analogies and possibilities and not as switches of yes and no.

On the verge of some happiness 

she stood perfectly still
as she watched you as a pure color become a hue
as a pure color become
a lighter version of the blues
a tint of something
a darker shade
made out of black and white
a hue no less, but so indefinite
it qualified as definition.

On the verge of some happiness she could not quite decide
the value of your color
the brightness
tone of your connotation
soul full moment of that second

and she stood perfectly still on the verge of happiness
at the edge of color
and of hue

1. The gate project started a while ago, during my travels. For more photos click on my Flickr album - https://flic.kr/s/aHsmxR3QKV

The recording at the beginning is in The Case of Dreams, a CD.