God, Woman & Country

God, Woman, and
Country
Danilo López
God, Woman, and Country
Published by ACE Industries
All rights reserved

Copyright © 1997 and 2004
by Danilo LCCópez
This book may not be reproduced by any means

without written permission from the author.
Second Edition, 2004

Dallas, Texas
Cover Painting: © Blanca Beatriz Caraballo

Coral Gables, Florida
Untitled, fiberglass and polyester resin book with
inserted natural materials and objects
ISBN: 1-892820-16-1
ii
For the gunshot deviated by a rib,

for the red convertible
nieces and nephews enjoyed,
for an afternoon of fishing at
Apoyo and Cocibolca lakes,
for the fins, the visor,
and the snorkel,
and the book about the
dodecahedron transporter,
and the husk’s fire,
and the thousand Cordobas,
and the lovelore advice.
For the uncle you were, are, and will

be,
Alberto Roman Morales,
I dedicate this book
to you.
Danilo
iii
Also by Danilo Lopez:

Poetry:
• Antología de Tarde
• Return to Guatemala
• Génesis Y Otras Fantasías
• Dead Souls
• 18 Poems
• 11 Nicaraguan Poets in the
USA (anthology)
• 5 Poets from Miami
(Anthology)
• Nicaraguan Poets of the
Immigration (Anthology)
In preparation:
• Dona Nobis Pacem
Translation:
• The Furies at the Deaf Man’s

Villa
(Guillermo Menocal)
• Loves and Frustrations
iv
(Guillermo Menocal)
• The Lost Past
(Guillermo Menocal)
• The Wind’s Wail
(Yolanda Gonzalez)
• Expressions of the Soul
(Karla Juarez)
• Paradise Regained
(Carlos Martinez Rivas)
• Magic of Love/La Magia del
Amor
(Karla Juarez)
• Events/Eventos
(Guillermo Menocal)
Editor:
• Poemas Personales
(Lourdes Guerrero)
• Poemas de Nicaragua
(Isis Pereira)
• Voces de America
(Compact Disk)
• Relacortos
(Guillermo Menocal)
v
The Chronicles
I. Faits Accomplis 13
1. In the Beginnings 14
2. On Similarity 17
3. The Gossip 20
4. On Stupidity 23
5. Check Mate 26
6. Norwich 31
7. Houses 33
8. Paperboy 34
II. Intaglio 35
1. In Theory 36
2. Dream Number One 38
3. The Puzzle 40
4. Sacred Places 42
5. The Kiss 44
vi
6. The Smell of Lavender 46

7. Illusion 48
8. Memories 50
III. Fabliau 51
1. Ging Seng 52
2. Kristel’s Oracle 54
3. Teri 56
4. Ivgav 58
5. Cloisters 59
6. Legend 61
7. Goddess 66
8. Dolls 67
IV. Lovelore 69
1. Dawn 70
2. Raelian Muse 72
3. Dusk 74
vii
4. Midnight 75
5. Afternoon 77
6. Eclipse 79
7. Out of the Duldrums 83
8. Rough Sketch 84
V. Remember Altagracia? 86
1. Condega Town 87
2. Picnic with Father 89
3. Bread Man 92
4. The Gigantess 95
5. The Knife Sharpener 98
6. Siblings 100
7. Father’s Home 102
8. Terra Incognita 106
Epilogue 109
viii
Dans ma tΛte un oiseau chante toute

l’annϑe.
In my head a bird sings all year long.
Vicente Huidobro
[ mar
leva tudo o que a vida me deu
Tudo aquilo que o tempo esqueceu.
The sea
takes everything life gave me
everything time forgot.
Fausto
ix
Acknowledgments
The author thanks and acknowledges the

editors of various magazines in which some
of the poems were published:
“Condega”, Third World;
“Out of the Doldrums”, Midwest Poetry

Review;
“Houses”, Writer’s Exchange;
“The Smell of Lavender”, Poet’s Review;
“Illusion”, The Poet’s Pen;
“Ging Seng” and “Ivgav”, Star*Line;
“Norwich”, Hayden’s Ferry Review;
“Raelian Muse” and “Sacred Places”,

Crescendo 3;
x
“On Stupidity” and “On Similarity”,

Neologisms
“Rough Sketch”, Midnight Zoo.
The following web sites have published

poetry by Danilo Lopez:
• www.Dariana.com
• www.Artefacto.com
• www.Baquiana.com
• www.proyectoSetra.com
• www.SieteDias.com
xi
“...Paz que llevo dentro, paz que todavía

sabes hacer música y la haces en mi...”
“...Peace I carry inside, peace that still

knows how to make music and does it in
me...”
Salomón de la Selva
(Nicaragua, 1893 - Paris, 1959)
xii
“...El origen de las cosas no es anterior sino

permanente;
mas por no caber juicio de relatividad en
lo que es insondable,- la percepción
humana señálale
al tiempo en un punto el principio-
que es a su vez
el fin de la Causa de todo lo relativo...”
“... The origin of things is not preceding but

permanent;
but since judgment of relativity does not
apply to
what is unknowable, -human perception
assigns to
time in one point the beginning-
which is at once
the end of the Cause of all that is
relative...”
Alfonso Cortés
(Nicaragua, 1893 - 1967)
xiii
I. Faits Accomplis
“...at the Gates of Gaeia people
were crossing in both directions:
Angels went to Heaven, Devils went
to Hell, and Humans stayed,
undecided...”
“Of Men and Visions” , the darker Danilo

Lopez
15
In the Beginnings
“We live in time so little time

and we learn all so painfully,
that we may spare this hour’s term
to practice for eternity”
Robert Penn Warren, “Bearded Oaks”
W hen I awoke Before and After

were already in existence and a
mobilized and crazy world
surrounded my body and my soul. I have
nevertheless reminiscences in my mind. I
still see them when I sleep, and when I
wake up I thank The Creator.
Bilad-as-Sudan is land of sand, jungles and

sun, and holds great secrets too. I saw four
gods living in the Ol-Orun; they were black
with white eyes, short and fat they enjoyed
playing without preoccupations, they had

fun without rest.
16
Great gods did great things: space is

infinite and not only for Earth life shall be.
We were wounded by fire, dried by dust,
disseminated by the wind, united
by webs, germinated by water... the Great

God loved us in the valleys, in the rivers, in
the mountains, in the swamps, in the
woods, in the dessert, on Earth.
He loved us in Ile-Ife, and prior to us, He

made plants surge, animals; He appointed
chiefs of things, lords of kingdoms: the
elephant because of its sense, the tiger
because of its force, the monkey because
of its astuteness.
He created man from mud, He shaped him

and gave him life. We are black like the
night, black like mud, strong like the tiger,
astute more than the monkey and the

elephant... Proud and erect... worthless.
17
God in the heights, Man on Earth. That is

why He burned us and the storm fell on our
backs, and we had drought; we were
destroyed naked, without dying to suffer...
and fire made us dark.
I saw the destruction from within, maybe

Man has two generations, and the second
is the best. I saw seeds fall, trees grow and
fruit, snakes crawling, life leaves fly...
everything started to form again.
God gave me a name, I gave myself a

woman: Sekume and Bongwe... her name
follows me ever since. Often, I hear her
steps behind me, and sometimes, when I
sleep, in a quick awakening, I see her
entering my body, because at night, she,
Nisim, goes for a stroll.
18
On Similarity
T he idea of similarity, its concept and

other abstract derivations, go far
beyond the Egyptian civilization.
Aknathon, the great heretic Pharaoh,
having proclaimed the existence of no
more but one God, wrote on the Omega
papyrus: “That, which is not equal, is
similar”.
However, in Sumer, hundreds of years

before, another great legislator and code
writer from the gates of the city through his
dinner table, had already structured a
theory on similarity, the equal, and the
distinct. According to Amurabi, there is a
line that connects all beings, all things, all
concepts, all times. It begins... or ends?
Anyhow, one of the extremes is the equal.
The other is the distinct. Between both
there is an extensive range of vague
concepts on which the echelons of
similarity are laid: near the equal, stands
19
the like. Close to the other extreme, stands

the different.
In Peru, Manco Capac developed a

measures system to cut off the mountains
the colossal stones that were used in the
building of Machu Pichu. There were
equal stones, similar, distinct and other
stones. An obscure hermit, who was
believed to have come from Tenochtitlan
or the Phillipines, asked the emperor about
the location of the middle point. The
preoccupation for finding an answer to
such a question tormented Manco Capac
for the rest of his many days.
The center, the middle, the navel, had

always been relative points. Ever since
Hermes Trimegistus declared that: “As
above so below, and as below so above”,
“the complete realization of things”
became a stepping stone for prophets,
poets, and scientists.
20
To Einstein, the shortest distance between

two points in space is a curve. To Ruben
Dario, a tree is “almost sensitive” and a
stone “does not feel at all”. To Jean Dixon,
a black “will conduct multitudes” in Africa
and a new Ar Hijrah will take place in the
South.
Similar, other, history cycles that repeat

themselves, Antichrists, the image in the
mirror, hate, indifference, love, death, life,
and rebirth. All are equal concepts, yet
different. The opposites, the extremes, all
come to touch each other at the same
point of the wide circle.
Maybe the true difference lays in the

passage we all walk, often difficultly,
between the two ends.
21
The Gossip
A ccording to popular wisdom, gossip

is a women’s trade. Unfortunate
assertion and worse belief that was
popularized during the Middle Ages, when
European kings and monarchs utilized,
some due to cowardice others for strategy,
their women to deliver messages to a
confessed adversary or a potential ally.
Napoleon and Josephine were masters in

the art of gossip, he, dictating the
phraseology and she repeating the sweet
words. The annals of history registered ever
since that behind each great man there is
a great woman. Behind? Before? Hand in
hand? The truth is that gossip, practiced by
aristocrats, commons, and the bourgeoisie,
although in different manners, was
heightened in category with the progress
of times.
22
Churchill during World War II, and Hitler,

during the organizational period of the
National-Socialist Party, exhaustively
demonstrated the power of gossip when
used at a massive scale. The latter,
promising promotions to his loyal servants;
the former infiltrating false messages to the
enemy lines.
At high governmental spheres, but

especially diplomatic ones, it was
discovered in gossip a value never
suspected before: its power as a weapon
in global and specific negotiations.
Information leaks, some people called it;
declaration of non-identified sources,
some others named it.
It was nevertheless, the communist secret

service that recognized in gossip an
effective and rapid way to transform the
real into false; the true into dubious; the lie
-which is essential to survive- into certainty.
This way, trust and skepticism between
nations, governments, and political-
23
economic systems reached new levels

during the Post-war of Cold War era.
Today, with centuries of gossip on our

backs, we have learned to confuse, blend,
and conciliate the one thousand and one
truths -or lies? - that endure scattered
among humanity.
The secrets of the universe, with their point

and linear theories, with their black holes,
supernovas and big bangs, have not
escaped the vortex of gossips in which we
subsist today. Nonetheless, those are part
of another story.
24
On Stupidity
“I gnorance can be eliminated; the

stupid has no remedy”, spoke
Siddartha Gautama, the Buddha,
thousands of years ago.
During his many travels and casual

encounters, Zarathustra, the Ancient
prophet who knew Persepolis before it was
even built, met all kinds of people, animals,
and things. The only one he regretted was
an obscure king named Fanor, The Stupid.
It was under his reign that appeared a
decree prohibiting such activities as
reading, writing, and sculpturing, but
encouraging the population to play all
sorts of games like drinking, eating,
sleeping, and sexing.
When Darwin wrote the manuscript of his

infamous “The origin of the species”, which
almost cost him his life, he had originally
written “stupid” instead of “less fit”. That
25
was a reference to the “natural selection”

which meant that those who are less fit to
fight with life, or those who do not have
enough ability (intellectual, manual, or
moral) to cope with everyday problems,
become relegated to a second place. In
nature, the second is the last, and there is
no opportunity such as “the last will be the
first” and viceversa, as Jesus taught His
followers. The Christ Himself condemned
the stupidity, the blindness, and deafness
of the Masters of the Law, whose followers
used to consider as never-mistaken
geniuses.
In Greece, the Seven Sages represented

the concept of Stupidity with a group of
philosophers inside a cave. They were
sitting with their backs facing the entrance,
analyzing among them the “greatness of
the world and its origins” unaware that the
world was another measure, in another
time. They thought the voices from the
people outside were echoes of the gods.
26
Dostoyevski opted to retitle “The Prince

Idiot” his celebrated novel rather than “The
Stupid”. Nietzsche picked the word “idols”
and Borges and Dario selected such
names as Golem and Toki.
Many stupids call themselves

revolutionaries. They consider everybody
as lacking knowledge and expertise.
Stupids run projects, institutions,
governments, countries, and other
people’s lives bearing in mind a distorted
vision of facts, ciphers, images, and doors.
Their life is an immense journey, which

takes place into a labyrinth. They go
everywhere and nowhere. They do not like
changes, challenges or favors. They feel
protected and secure in their old small
stuff: that crazy maze only they can run,
discover, and recognize.
If you wake up at night hearing their

distant cry, or in the streets run into an
27
angry person, or have a genius for boss...

feel
sorry for them. A stupid can be easily

identified: they never know what they are.
Let them manage their tangle. Do not
ever enter it. They do not want to be
alone, yet they fear that it is their inevitable
fate.
28
Check Mate
First Movement
An anonymous young man from Brooklyn

starts to manipulate with mastery the
pieces on the checkerboard. Morbid
humor of the little devil who in a country
lambasted for its fatal luck, continues to
draw idols on an indecisive, yet exact,
horizon.
First strategy: idols are produced in mass to

be consumed by the masses.
Second Movement
The brilliance of geniuses is incubated

behind the centralist ideology. All sorts of
marvels are chemically studied, planned,
and prepared in this great circus of
science and technology, where a setback
of two hundred years does not impede the
29
people to touch the beard of a non-

existent god on the other side of the moon.
The Arab square also holds a secret
advantage beyond dogmatic
understanding.
Second strategy: the division of work is

sacred dogma of faith. Its only objective,
to be consumed while producing.
Third Movement
One dreams. One fights and wins. The

race of America is a meteor coming from
the obscure sidereal depths. It is a lucky
staircase that wakes up thinking in the
mornings and goes to bed in the evenings
weighing alternatives. National
championships are part of the genius’
delirium that approaches, step by step, the
obsessive final war on top of shells and
clear circumstances.
30
Fourth Movement
And if ideology stimulates -over there-

personal self-praise, it augments -over
here- self-sacrifice for the Homeland. A
nation projects itself with the accumulated
individual accomplishments. A country is
developed by the unfair competition of its
members in the sluggish dream of free
enterprise. Behind a gross caliper curtain,
is cultivated the soup that will engulf like a
victor and with the dressing of the militants,
the triumphant revolutionary cause in
sciences, culture, sports, politics, and the
military. Economy is the transformation of
the individual to satisfy the system.
Third strategy: ideology shall make of the

individual its image and counterpart to
sustain the State.
Fifth Movement
The bacchanal’s reason of being is its

voluntary escapism. Liberating the
31
inhibiting superego is nothing more than

another libidinal farce. Pavlov and the
socialist resources identify on the
checkerboard the game of cat and
mouse under simplified amplitude. The
battle of corsairs, cadets, and knights
defends a king, a country, and a sweating
man full of liberal caprices and rotten
syllabus of imperialist fatigue. It’s my world
against yours. My system against yours.
Can I load on my shoulders, nevertheless,
all men? Am I the system or is the system I?
Sixth Movement
Once the fissure open, the sword enters,

lacerating, definitive; it conquers the
coagulated blood instantly; and the pain
will serve to make the mind awaken to a
new consciousness of being and essence.
Metalanguage and symbol are united in
the same systemic crusade.
Light closes on the forehead and another

luminary forces the contender to run
32
startled, scared for his victory. Double

defeat. (Was I a vehicle or a rationalized
clash? Was I the snobbism against
individual existence opposed to
totalitarianism? Was I the object of this
historic checkmate or a prelude of a new
death?)
Seventh Movement
Everything has ended. And everything

begins here. In a tranquil Swiss town, a
fecund genius plays an anachronic game
on the Arab square, ready to show with
ostentation his pitiful personal cause
through the colors of a flag unknown to
him. Let the giving be total, since for this I
was designed and programmed. I have
no choice but to love my destiny.
Eighth Movement
The game remained open with that

ancient mate. We both signed a will of
hate, love, and amazement. Luck was
33
decided in an eternal return to the time

that imprisoned my persona, our tenebrous
past, the silly present, the hypothetical and
uncertain future.
In an obscure apartment in New York -the

crammed empty city- shaky hands,
uncrowned head, ambiguous ruin, another
genius refuses to see his queen, his king, his
dear stoned bishop. Lacking information,
with the mastery oriented toward another
crux enigma, I think, that could well have
been a rehearsal; a drill of victory that will
not repeat itself, a defeat again
programmed with the purpose of not
having to come back. In the next battle, I
think, I was afraid to lose.
34
Norwich
In Bluefields of Zelaya there lives an old

man
the sea has made him tall
sun has browned his skin
hunger has made him thin
In the evenings he can be seen raising the

sails
of his thoughts, after he has spent the
morning
excavating and his body is embedded
with coral
The old man whistles and you might see

a glistening speck of sand encrusted on his
head,
shining through his coastal gray hair
The old man does not caress the metals

and peels-off rails with his remembrances:
trains, bananas, stations, desolation
35
The coast recognizes him and kneels

before
his presence.
He casts his net into the sea and touches
other worlds.
He has a rancho on the beach, distant
like a song in the forest, tranquil.
There are seashells on its walls and in the

yard:
wood, stones, palms, shells of ancient
chelonians and skins of archaic lizards
fallen
in the river.
He has cages in his patio and birds in his

garden.
The old man wastes away his feet on the
sand,
his lungs on the tobacco leaf,
his sense of smell on the sea food, his eyes
on the net, his ears on the sea waves.
He falls, little by little, -between dreams
and walks-
36
into tortuous paths of caviar mountains

and ebony canoes.
His vision is back and the routine begins

anew.
Except for a few crabs, nobody knows his
secret.
37
Houses
I step out to the balcony

and see passing by the same poor houses.
It rains.
They are the same yellow houses and the

same blue colors.
The sun comes out.
A bird flies.
I see the same houses passing by.

I feel the same warm mouth and the same
bitter flavor.
I continue to be myself.
They continue to be poor.
38
Paperboy
I hear steps, on the double,

frozen on the heat of the pavement
a grave weight answering back to the
silence
and the twinkling of coins, loose,
crossing the mute warmth of the
afternoon
meanwhile
my back sweats
dryly trying to speed up this boring
region of my spirit
39
II. Intaglio
“... Then I perceived an image
sunk below the surface, and realized
that what my eyes saw was not what
I got...”
“Chronicles of my Land”, The Ice Queen
40
In Theory
“The universe was an infinity of maybes”
Peter David, “Vendetta”
I have written a thousand poems

and I have dreamed another thousand.
Of those I dreamed,
I have forgotten 999.
Of those I wrote, I have lost another 999:
the perfect poem

the urban history of Nicaragua
the applications of solar energy to
vernacular architecture
my essays on ethics and aesthetics
my refutation of Kant, Schopenhauer, and
Kafka
the diary I faithfully kept for thirteen years
the songs of love, theology, and
exasperation
the secret messages
the Letters from Amelis
41
the 999 poems I forgot could be just 9 or

999 millions compiled along my existence
are they trapped in some arcane place

in my memory, the Universe?
will I eternally approach them only,
never reaching them?
will they return to me when the circle
of Time begins again?
if the velocity at which I approach them

becomes infinite, the space that I travel
could be one, or the entire Cosmos, and
for the equation to comply time should be
zero
does this mean that the poems are gone

forever, lost within a personal space
of which I have no consciousness at all?
or that they simply never existed,
and belong to someone else’s dream?
42
Dream Number One

“I have been happy, though but in a dream”
Edgar Allan Poe
Today I will think about you

without wanting it, without thinking it
I will dream you with those fire eyes
watching my dream
your skin will be tanned and shining

in my dream
like those Africans you used to fear
today I want to dream about you

to purposely entrap myself in this tangle
of situations and words we don’t know
where will lead yet
I dream you child running on the walkways

of your home, crying, laughing, jumping
the rope
and doing things little girls do
43
I dream you in school uniform, touching a

guy’s heart in love who is still waiting
for you in some lost corner of your life
I dream you in Rivas, Chichigalpa, and

Corn Island
I dream you speaking English and dancing
at
Lobo Jack discotheque
under a thousand forms I will dream you

deliberately, and I don’t have to try too
hard
because you did everything already
-knowingly or unknowingly-
it doesn’t matter
today I will think about you

despite you lacking the courage to think
about me
44
The Puzzle
To Kidest Albaari
I f we take the one thousand pieces of a

puzzle, throw them to the air, and let
them land on the floor, there are
numerous possible combinations they can
be arranged in when they touch the
ground. Statistically, one of those possible
combinations is to form the figure they
collectively compound.
Such is the possibility of each human being

finding the perfect mate. We are all
thrown into this world, randomly, and are
expected to form the figure He has in mind
since the beginning of Time. We are
supposed to determine our purpose in this
life, and help put together all the pieces of
the puzzle, each in its proper place.
Each piece has one and only one place.

Our challenge is to guess His thoughts and
45
find ours. We are all different in character

and age. Geography, years, and beliefs
separate and reunite us in this arcane plan
of the Cosmic Mind we call different
names.
It is the same God interconnecting

everything, the same God that at the time
of the Big Bang, threw all the pieces of His
puzzle in a void named Universe.
The same God that continues to watch the

pieces fall in the chaotic order of
haphazard.
46
Sacred Places
Many places in the world

draw the secret energy Bacon
and Thritemius aimed to capture
all their lives:
the womb of the Black Virgin of Ankara

the passageway of Aglie in Paris city sewer
the wine cellars of Casa Madonna where
Cagliostro lives
the Northwest corner of the patio in
Altagracia
the countertop in the Kendall apartment
by the Golden Cage
Of the many Sacred Places

an abundance of them are not in use
anymore
except for secret sects visiting at night:
the Magic Circle of Stonehenge

head number 4-A in Eastern Island
certain location of the Altamira caves
47
The Source excavations in Jerusalem

the pyramid of Uaxanctun restored by
German archeologists
Evil places should not be mentioned

for their bounding spell might hurt her and
those he loves
I only think of that point in space

without dimensions or time
the point where it all began fifteen billion
years ago
and all will end when God reclaims His
dwelling place
and tries to form this Golem Universe
one more time
48
The Kiss
Of all the memories that I stole from you:
the big green eyes watching my dream

the soft happy words talking about love
the attentive instructions on how to
approach him
the warning of the last notice of
employment
the eternal everchanging figure
efervescent, fresh, beautiful
the date of your birthday on March the
23rd
the names of your grown children
the married-again husband
the clepsidra indicating the morning brake
is over
your fingers running on the keyboard
your face reflected on the monitor
the cafϑ-con-leche shared at the terrace
the poem I wrote you before I met you
the Christmas card I never received
49
your relationship with a Nicaraguan guy

prior to me
there is just one I shall never return you:
the furtive kiss you surprised me with

the one I clearly feel today
the one that wrote all our stories in one

second:
the story that was
the story that will be
the story that could have
been
50
The Smell of Lavender

To my wife, Krista
“No wreaths please

especially no hot house flowers”
William Carlos Williams, “Tract”
When I die, bury me

with the objects of my joy:
poems I wrote when I was thirteen

ideas of tales some day to be told
outline of novels one day to be written
Reima Aleksandra’s navel and her hospital
name tag
the slide of Abuelita reigning from her
majestic rocking chair
the Portuguese book on politics and
strategy
we never read
the fosilized white seashell Gabriel dug
from
the backyard
51
the Rosicrucian Source Book so I don’t

forget the Truth in the next Plane
the picture where you are 25, a rifle in your

hand a rose in your hair
Kristel’s first pair of glasses, bent and

broken
the ten commandments Mother gave me

along with Father’s letters
Danibel’s single earring, her drawings and

sweetness
When everything is ready to close me in

throw the Palm Cross we had in the
bedroom wall and the remote kiss you
gave me at the airport
the first time I went away
52
Illusion
All memories come back in my dreams:
friends from school days already dead

pretty girlfriends who inspired pleasant
sentiments
towns I grew up at playing
and those I visited as a tourist, a student, a
wanderer
in my dreams the future speaks:

I have seen myself rambling through
Father’s home
in ruins, the paint flaking, trees dying
time fools my memory confusing past

events with
future dates
in a corner of the patio I see my eldest

sister,
younger than me, entering the bedroom
53
and my wife is a grandmother sleeping

away
her last agony
I talk to myself before being born

and feel trapped in this wheel inexorably
spinning
I wake up, and she sleeps by my side

I look at the girls in their beds and know
that Reima and all of them are
safe
I go back to the mirror, which daily talks to
me
it points out new gray hairs
54
Memories
I could found another city before my

glowing eyes
and relate how the Big Dipper convinced
me
to go and sail with her again
I might think of the distant brothers and

sisters
the children I lost
and one or two girlfriends dispersed along
my wonder years
I may collect cheers to your laugh, your

curly hair
or the straight one, I don’t know which
and try to keep your sweet image or the
sour
the one most convenient to my sorrow
But all those attempts to rebuild the past

the thousand poems that lie at the
bottom of my secret drawer
55
the days the kisses the jealousy

will not be more than
just memories
56
III. Fabliau
“A Book is a Spell”
“Focault’s Pendulum”, Humberto Eco
57
Ging Seng
O nce upon a time Ging Seng

initiated a cycle of conferences.
Her modeling of lips and fingers
gained her high places in Vogue, Bazaar,
Goodhousekeeping, etc.
When her New York apartment was

abruptly relocated to Nicaragua, with no
false mirrors or bengal lights, she realized
what it is like to walk difficult situations all
the way wearing in her feet only rose
petals.
There was a Walker in her life, who did not

have feet or hands. Sometimes a diffuse
shadow would appear on his shoulders
resembling a human head. This happened
in the days when commodores had the
ability to convert big salt bags into colorful
butterflies. Ging Seng wanted to test her
loving capacity under the most adverse
circumstances.
58
When she ran into the Walker again, she

unfolded Kristabel’s persistence, Donna
Sumer’s rhythm and Penelope’s patience.
Her woman’s heart beat with the potency
of a thousand quasars. The Walker was not
the same anymore.
Nobody knew of their whereabouts after

he disappeared on a Monday at the end
of the 20th century.
What the human race ignored was the

foundation of new intergalactic colonies
all over the universe. The origin,
development, and destiny of such forces
was scattered without limits beyond the
end of times.
59
Kristel’s Oracle
G ing Seng, among lotus trees and

wool songs, planted her love seeds
in the palace gardens, in the
aromatized rooms of the geishas, in the
ports of sandal and marine fog, in the brick
roads of the Empire.
Her sweet and volatile melody filled the

Fukuyama with echoes and messages; it
reached the edges of frozen rivers, the
depths of ancestral snow, figurative mural
paintings, brimming with cynical and
sashaying signs. Without mermaid’s chants
it occupied the bazaar, the water, the
dances, the martial arts school, the Red
Sun temple, and the fantastic kimono; the
sandals, the sake, and the primal image.
There was a mournful Prince who listened

to the sound. Again, legend eventually
put aside dreamed reality, and the
encounter was fatal for life and for death.
60
An ethereal limbo, extending its arms of

frivolity and seriousness, covering with its
green breeze the wide horizon of the
islands.
There was a deliverance. An innumerable

and varied ritual, a tsunami that at times
decreased in level from the Heavens -
where the Emperor’s son lived- to the
lustrous and radiant Earth -where the
Emperor’s son was Master. From the crystal
rose and the metal lotus, Kristel was born,
with all her Venus essentia emanating from
the sea spume. An universal creature of
love, earth, sun, and moon.
Today, a Princess named Ging Seng orbits

the space, governing the illusion of some
Prince in love. At night, her face watches
us. During the day, her song protects us.
61
Teri
T he Tale Teller has written about the

Japanese Ging Seng and her
daughter Kristel, famous beauties who
amazed ancient warriors and secret
emperors.
The Tale Teller wrote the stories of Siddartha

Gautama’s priestess Karmal, with her
exotic eyes and rare ebony color, and that
of Queen Ivgav, who ruled Persepolis for
twenty years and re-invented the ziggurats
as the best place to talk to the stars,
primary guardians of the gods.
Double-Comb, the Mayan Gifted Ruler, set

during his 8th century kingdom the
standards to differentiate good poetry
from bad moons, strong smiles from rotten
personalities, penetrating eyes from eternal
happiness.
62
In the land of Sekume and Bongwe, south

of central Equator in Africa, dancing was
the ultimate performance, and singing
songs to sadness, the first shield against
rivalries, hatred, and love.
In the Caribbean, not too long ago, a small

storm was born. People could see it from
the deep waters, and feel it from the
hidden master suites. It is the hour to talk
about Teri, the Princess who came from the
ocean.
She was born with the beauty of both,

Ging Seng and Kristel. She was held by the
gods while perfecting her character, as a
virgin, as a priestess, as a demigod. She
was designated Queen of the New World
and stars were sent to light her path. Other
standards were created to meet her more
restrictive expectations on poetry,
personality, dance, and singing.
Yet, as years passed by, she decided to

live as a human being, away from the
63
heaven that was created for her. Teri, the

Princess, traveled to Earth, where she is
now learning, living, and waiting -without
searching- for the common prince who
also came from the waters.
64
Ivgav
F rom the ziggurats of ancient Syria,

astronomers used to make
calculations and take measurements
of distant and mysterious planets, and,
some argue, gave instructions to
extraterrestrial visitors who came in flying
ships.
Behind the mirrors, and against the popular

belief of our age, a world created
opposite is in motion: antimaterial twins
eternally imitating us, whom we cannot
hug, pursue, or mimic in return.
At the other end of this short dimension of

desks, there is a movement of body and
energy. Different posters indicate a
constellation of heroes destroying a fence:
ceramics, banners, plants... and this
perennial prose I thought forgotten and
dead.
¡
65
Cloisters
K halil Gibran envisioned, prior to his

first astral flight, all the future margins
of his beloved Persepolis, the
majestic celestial city that housed the
Royal Palace of Jerjes.
In spite of anachronic locations and one or

another Arabic poem, Khalil felt a
permanent necessity to embrace other
deities: Chinese, Japanese, African, and
also Hindu.
Rare encounter that of the Visionary Poet

with an Uncivil and Astral Master, in his
pilgrimage to the mountains beyond
Mongolia, Khalil met The Enlightened.
Birds do not enjoy their flight as much as

fish their swimming. Siddartha Gautama
knew all the secrets, all the pain, and
Zarathustra had to begin his terrible task:
“The Buddah, Khalil, the Buddah”.
66
Occasionally, the lovers of Happiness meet

in the heights of Tibet, in the snowy
mountaintop of the Himalayas: one by one
they give away pieces of their heart in love
to the simple mortals that, avid of caresses
and words, look for the aid of the Buddha,
or of one of His priestesses.
67
Legend
“Woman, be my country”
1. God
her dark eyes hypnotize him

in an eternal blink he sees how
DNA molecules agglutinate in a

thick soup to form the beginning of life,
in the intemporal plane
God’s mind smiles,
Noah releases the explorer pigeon
which later returns
an olive branch in its beak,
the Good Thief fears and

an earthquake announces the death of a
Martyr,
infinite arrows
hush over the helm of Rodrigo Diaz de
Vivar,
Christopher Columbus lands a foot on
America
68
in a foreign island
a French ex-conqueror
agonizes, poisoned and another,
German, dies by fire,
a boy screams in silence in
the ovens of Auschwitz,
a missile nails the most recent kibutz
in the mountains of Dipilto

a peasant falls wounded,
and a solitary astronaut sees
Angels on the hidden face of Luna
at this very instant

Reality ceases to existand begins
the Fantasy of releasing her lips
2. Woman
she was not here

rain suddenly attacked in the morning
bringing a sensation of doom and lust:
69
red lips rounded on the napkin

midday suns smoked in a rush
feet massaged nails done
memories creating and recreating
a language only she and him
understand
then it was late old days were no more

but in pictures and funny faces:
the afternoon Papi slept and they

took his hat
one quiet night riding imaginary
horses
gypsies made of light and shade
corners nobody knew or remember
friends flying heads atop mountains
she was here and air became leather

pencils became chains touched by
strangers
no more soft bites on his face
no more tongues rolling thirsty mouths
70
a drink background romance

darkness
sorceress magic cloaking them
despising cashiers and patrons
they built these memories out of paper

and stares
they built these stares out of paper and old

songs
selffulfilled prophesies dramatizing the

scene
a nasty sincerity evoking reality
the sweetest caress his hands felt
a raging heart pounding desire a
simple no
a trembling maybe an expiring yes
3. And Country
“Ich bin so lang nicht bei dir gewest”
71
(I have been away from you for so long)
he dreamed his return

from a long lasting voyage
at the threshold her silhouette awaited
he would be born from the darkness

to reach the happy seconds
her lips provide
her eyes gave him the hope

and the reason
and the passion

and the poetry
and reality
and illusion
and the power to love
72
Drawing © by Beatriz Caraballo
73
Goddess
suddenly, her name acquired the likable

sorcery of friendship
and Peru, with the wonders of Machu

Pichu
and Cuzco -the Navel of the World-
bring up a cumulus of ancient images,
archaic music, ancestral architecture
her face has traveled all those generations

to find him here, in front of her dreams,
across of her fantasy
she longs for beautiful heirs and strong

personalities, he theorizes about hideous
shadows and golden cities
he writes about an inexplicable

gemütlichkeit between two
74
Dolls
Ixchel and Itzamna, the Creators

saw that the children in the world
below were suffering anxieties:
the Lords of Totonicapan had become
cruel and had envy of the children’s
ability to be happy
The Creators remembered the three

Ixtans that had defeated before, in the
form
of mermaids, these same Lords of
Totonicapan
Beautiful Quibatzunah was called to

the presence of the Creators, they made
minute reproductions of her, gave them
life and put them inside small boxes of
copal, the sacred wood
The small dolls were put by Quibatzunah

under the children’s beds, thousands of
them.
During the night the dolls took
75
away the worries, and in the morning

the children awoke happy again,
The Lords of Totonicapan had been

defeated once more
Today, you can buy these little boxes in

Antigua Guatemala, or receive them as
a gift from a grateful indian wizard
76
IV. Lovelore
“Eso sólo es fuego de tusa” (“That’s
just a temporary spark”)
Alberto Roman
77
Dawn
I learned to capture the flood of your

thoughts
with my third mystic eye and discovered
in your sparkling darkness the happiness of
life
the intelligent little voice
I am yours forever and came so you could

take places where we felt the same words
and stones
We walked under a topographic sun

drilled in a shop that doesn’t exist yet:
future called your soft sadness

spread with tenderness and realized it was
going to write you an astral process still
not understood
Your dynamic figure, a tall image with

a happy forehead
78
your infinite face,

the dawn of the universe I touched with
my sight and quests
Your devilish gestures occupy an extensive

ambit
of this afternoon, and I await the time
propitious to the memory
to dip into
the elementary flames of reality
79
Raelian Muse
couples find their way to

eyes and lips
let us try a third language
a hush a touch
small steps lead the way

five forward one back
a jump a lion waiting
hunting
feed your body parts

rotundas laid in three circles
spread talc on the blanket
buy a soothing oil
(the painter’s dog

sits by the pool
the partner’s niece runs
on the walkway their friend
towers over the table
a customer next door
clicks her lashes at me)
80
you now fulfill these

afternoons an icecube
melts the heat in my belly
a floating sensation curls
the air
action is when the body leaves

the mind and your arms fall on me
like algae in the sea of my skin
action is when my lips rediscover

your shoulder when an
embrace
closes this rite when you smile
standing in the threshold
opening the door to another passage
81
Dusk
I bring you cigarettes, nights, and money

the snobbism of our lives is not such as far
as love is concerned
your skin, close to a thunder, is as silent as
a monk’s retreat
we seek all that is clear and strange in
poems,
darkness, smoke
this rare lovers love is felt in the deep

breeze
is hidden, unbelonging, clandestine like a
fight
emerges from the levelness of the fog
hugs us with beauty, makes us wish we
drowned
together on the way
despite of facts, situations, and words

despite the thoughtful kiss with which we
sealed our night
82
I distrust of the vibrant force that might

make your
freedom to become chained to my prison
83
Midnight
Saturdays have her aroma, darkened

autos dance and jump on still ponds
invading cobblestones
my poles feel the soft light of her body

my flying foot runs on the pedal
my eyes arrive to her hair
nights are thirsty days are absent of life

words emerge like distant echoes in a
funny dream
that makes her laugh
we depart, sail together without falling on
dense
conditions we cross the city
conclusions take us to open days

substituted with origins to a closed sun
adorned
with water drops
to a linear winter spread on the skin
to a cigar of sobs smoked in the nothing
to a death of things received without pain
84
without minutes, without rancor
to a warm hand caressing defoliated

heavens
to some broken words sounding with
furious calm
we laugh and dimly smile with whelming

light storms
we cross the complicated contents of
multiple electrical connections between us
85
Afternoon
I am better off like this

in my hill I feel secure
without anxieties without disturbances
almost happy and almost sad
almost loved and almost alive
you tell me with reason I am almost a man
at my age I am a person of averages

calms and circumstances
thank you for the happiness you offered

and I almost enjoyed
thank you for the energy that amazed me
and I almost tasted
thank you for your concern, inspiration and
care
I almost appreciated
five, ten or twenty years from now

I will not remember you but full, whole
solid
86
the grace of my imagination paired with

the
force of your present
will make me feel completely this love
together we knew, developed, and
enjoyed
almost
87
Eclipse
“Who, then, devised the torment? Love.”
T.S. Elliot, “Little Gidding”
I tried to peacefully corrode my bones

seating at
the macabre covent where the witches of
Salem gathered
somber landscapes abound in Nindiri, a

noisy cemetery, talking skulls
I breathed the lights at the skirts of the

Santiago volcano
my bones didn’t emerge to my skin
she had surfaced long ago towards papers
and chests
the National University was assaulted by

soldiers and guards
88
I relentlessly remember how the moon used

to shake when contacting gigantic dogs
my reasoning drowned in her dark red lips
trembling for her figure my body

approached its astral matter, her
eyelashes
reflected on my glasses, I learned about
oblique woods and southern swamps
listening her warm smile I realized her

archaic memory lived within me
snow lay on the sand, waters of the

Masaya lagoon
rapidly advanced and backed off on a
shady rocky
beach, laying on a green towel, my hands
ran her contour
only you and I remained, tremulous

liberating ourselves of all lies created to
escape together
89
behind the dust and the clouds, a number

of things,
keys and calendars stopped being to us

an eternal magnet, an electric current, an
ignorant diapason
stubbornly imagining us deluged before
jumping into the water
everything is gone and my serene profile

reflects itself on the pavement on which I
sit wondering
calling you, far away
crystals, whining and workmen were no

more than daily echelons in the pursuit of
common goals
thinking of your clothes, the class break or

your
lipstick in my handkerchief, feeling your
hush while
playing on the air, traveling nocturnal
kilometers holding your hand, your chin on
my shoulder
90
I have howled through drunk fields,

demolished
rocks’ thrusts, eaten veins and tusks,

walked acute villages and broken speeds,
looked for you all over my house, not
finding a celestial trace, a shattered
footstep, a dormant beehive in agony,
leaves of terror
I have meandered impatiently through the

blood that surrounds me, I have thrown
fusils and empty rumors, I have
pronounced your name quietly and also
outloud
all was in vain, my hammers also got tired
so I started the absurd reconstruction, the

daily bridge that brings me to your fruits
I inexorably arrive despite your legs running

away
I come piece by piece despite your
drowned shouts
91
I penetrate your seed above humid

footsteps
behold, don’t run away, I will hunt distant

verses,
the insolent aim that depicts your
abandonment and shows me the
exactness of your fragrance
92
Out of the Doldrums

“in a dark time, the eye begins to see”
Theodore Roethke, “In a Dark Time”
and I don’t know what

came first-
my boredom looking
at her body, or my
hatred feeling her words-
but when the time

came to leave, my eyes
were dry, awakened, and
in a last spasm
these legs were able
to rise and walk
the telephone kept on

ringing behind me
93
Rough Sketch
to Carmen Rodriguez, Mima
he grasped the sparks emanating from

her green eyes reflected in the
mirror
followed ethereal metallic wings that
gently caressed her hands and felt
solid
he revered her womanly vigor

childish innocence
voice of ancient goddess,
this infatuating figure his pencil drew
he loved her things

and the etiquette that one day surpassed
his resolution and terror
he finally succumbed to her indifference

and buried in the depths his crazy ideas,
traded gift of truth for silent moan
94
supplanted imaginary kiss with tense

embrace
he guessed her fear and rejection

the need for a stiff hug
the hurdles in her dream smile to an

imaginary
man with an overlapped life
she wanted to unfold her rhymes,

complete her verses
time transfigured her

reminded him day by day
the futility of her ruined hope
the absurdity of his fantasy
the immense happiness of that envisioned

Avalon
the unfinished Cithera in which she was
Queen
and he a devoured man
95
96
V. Remember Altagracia?
En la numerosa penumbra, el desconocido

se creerá en su ciudad
y lo sorprenderá salir a otra,
de otro lenguaje y de otro cielo.
In the numerous darkness, the foreigner

will believe himself in his city
and it will stupefy him to find another,
from a different language and a different
sky.
Jorge Luis Borges
97
Condega Town
“a stream
runs through my mind
amber honey and beeswax
coat my mouth”
Richard Weakley, “A Stream Through the Mind”
E
ach time I went to buy tortillas, I
repeated in my mind the
recommendations of my mother,
“One peso or tortillas, and come back
quickly, I don’t want you to stay playing on
the streets”. But after a while I only
remembered the first part, so on my way
back, since I had to walk by the plaza,
where everyday the boys of my town were
playing with spin tops and flying kites,
crossing it was like a torture to me.
I would approach the guy who had the

highest kite and ask him to lend it to me for
a moment, because it was cool. I
98
remember the feeling of the rope between

my fingers, the wind pulling me, suddenly it
starts to fall, “pull it! Pull it! You dummy!”
and I pull, I give some rope, pull again, until
it reaches the desired height.
In the distance I see my cousin

approaching, waving his hands, snapping
his fingers, announcing a storm, “you son of
a gun, they’re gonna kill you this time, your
mother says it was an hour ago she sent
you for the tortillas!”
My face blushes hot, my body itches all

over, I’m back to reality in a shock, cold air
running through my lungs. I pick up the
tortillas from the ground, clean the few
that fell off the napkin...
Back home a different world awaits me,

yells, spanks, weeping, “don’t cry mister,
don’t cry!” a gnarl in my throat, tears... but
I don’t cry.
99
Picnic With Father
I did not swim in the
c
a
s
c
a
d
e
I did not
h
e i
h l
t l
b
m
i
c l
100
that morning I only had eyes for the
l t l a t c a l n
i t e n s r w i g
u n d e r n e a t h,
I went crazy climbing
the big branches
of t
h
e
s i c o m o r e
and at the end of the day I
101
my sight in
l e
r ♥ h l
i t i
g t
e t
d l
n e
o b
l
102
Bread Man
W hen I was a child, days began at

eight or nine in the morning. I was
still too young for school, so I
enjoyed the luxury of waking up late.
When I started elementary school though,
it was a different story. I had to ride public
buses for an hour before arriving at school.
I used to get up so early, at about six a.m.
It was then that I saw him for the first time.
Bread Man arrived in his bicycle at six or

five thirty in the morning. The felt hat
slanted to the right, his pants tied with a
rubber band at the cuff so they wouldn’t
be caught in the bike’s chain. A big
basket in the back seat with a huge table
cloth wrapping the varied pieces of bread
he sold: French bread, monkey fingers,
large loaves, small ones, semitas, triangles,
all warm, right out of the carbon oven his
wife had at home. Eating that bread with
real, homemade butter, soaked in cafe
103
con leche, was a heavenly breakfast, with

frijolitos, love eggs, you know, real eggs,
made by hen and rooster, with a brown
shell, good sized, orange-yellow yolk. Not
like the ones we swallow today, all pale like
if they had leukemia.
But when Panaderia Jumbo, the Jumbo

Bread Factory opened in the late sixties to
early seventies, all that changed. The
owner, some Deutch immigrant who spoke
funny, had brought all that modern
machinery from Holland. He opened the
factory in the middle of the barrio. Some
people were happy to work in a clean
environment making more money than
what they were used to, wearing a
distinctive uniform with the word
“Panaderia Jumbo” threaded on their
chest.
So, Bread Man started to lose clientele. It

wasn’t necessary anymore to madrugar, to
wake up at 5 in the morning in order to buy
bread. The Jumbo squarish, white pieces
104
were available any time, day or night in

many pulperias, neighborhood grocery
stores. You could store it longer without it
getting hard as a rock. It was cheaper
and they had a wide variety of types also,
all of Bread Man’s and some more;
different shapes, colors, and flavors.
When I entered seventh grade, Bread Man

had stopped delivering. I don’t recall why
by brother and I remembered him once
and wondered his whereabouts. We
decided to visit his house on the other side
of the creek. We rode our bikes and got
there. It was his house alright, but he didn’t
live there anymore. Some unknown tenant
was there, he had moved out and away,
the old man said, I don’t know where. “I
bought his property very cheap, including
his oven and molds”. And he showed
them proudly, like trophies hanging on the
wall. The oven, dusty, with spider webs,
and little bugs; the bicycle with flat tires,
the headlamp broken, the seat torn out.
105
Where are you Bread Man? Where did

Herr Gerster drove you to? Did you go
back to your loved mountains in
Matagalpa? Are you delivering bread to
the saints in Heaven?
106
The Gigantess
“In the swamp in secluded recesses,
a shy and hidden bird is warbling a song”
Walt Whitman, “When Lilacs Last in the Door and

Bloomed”
D uring Holy Week, we used to go to

church each day. Even if we spent
the whole seven days at my uncle’s
house at Huehuete Beach Town, we still
went to church every day. It was an old
town chapel, with old saints, like Mayan
temples, rotten benches, and a million
holes on the stucco walls.
Monday through Thursday, it was okay to

play, and run, and sing. But Friday, ay, ay,
ay, nobody could talk, or run, or play. That
day Jesus had died thousands of years
before. The streets would be empty like a
desert and the day hot as if the sun itself
had descended to earth. You wouldn’t
107
see drunkards on the streets, or cars, or

horses; all cows would be kept within
corrals, and it was forbidden to fly kites, spit

on the ground, and take a sunbath.
Saturday, mock figures of Judas would
appear hanging from light poles along the
road. Peasants would put big tree trunks
on the pavement to restrain cars from
circulating.
Monday through Thursday were the

Gigantess days, la Gigantona. My little
brother was afraid of her. She was
preceded by a host of noisy boys and girls
throwing small rocks at her long skirt,
laughing, dancing. A small group of men,
probably paying promises to some Saint of
their devotion, marched in front of La
Gigantona, playing tin drums and
trumpets. Taa! Taa! Taa! Tum! Tum!, Taa!
Taa! Taa! Tum! Tum! After each round of
drums and music, these men alternated to
recite rhyming poems, four lines each,
ridiculing a prominent political figure or the
economic situation of the country. A
108
group of shabby dogs completed the

escort of La Gigantona, who kept shaking
her 12 feet high body, with long, loose

arms moving as if swimming in the air.
When the revolutionary government came

to power, they tied this tradition to the
Catholic Holy Week celebrations, and
since they did not believe in God, all those
who attempted to revive La Gigantona
were accused of traitors, counter-
revolutionaries, and imperialists. Most men
that used to play the drums and trumpets
were sent to the mountains to fight some
“crazy, idealistic idiots opposing the new
government”. They were sent to defend a
revolution with no meaning to them, under
the orders of “internationalist brothers”.
The children, if not dead of hunger, were

recruited to be a part of the Civilian Militia.
Instead of learning how to read, they
learned how to fire a machine gun,
denounce their parents, and “give their life
for the revolutionary directorate”.
109
Back in a hidden patio, behind a tight

curtain of pine trees and madroΖos, the
woman who played La Gigantona, still
keeps her costume. She cleans it every
year, wears it, and dances, and sings, and
tells jokes to herself about the
comandantes and a revolution that took
away her yearly reason of living. We can
still hear her dancing Taa! Taa! Taa! Tum!
Tum!, Taa! Taa! Taa! Tum!
110
The Knife Sharpener
W atching the Knife Sharpener was

awesome. All those sparks
jumping wildly from his spinning
stone wheel, like fire works in a miniature
sky at the rear of his bicycle. Like a
thousand comets appearing and
disappearing at his will.
He usually came on Saturdays afternoon.

Our maid was already awaiting his arrival,
a bunch of knives, ice picks, and blades on
her lap. Even Grandma’s scissors made it
to the process.
He never said many words. “Will you

sharpen today, Mrs. Lopez?” “Yes, here you
are”. He then turned his bike upside down,
used the rear wheel and the pedals to
generate speed for his ambulatory
sharpening store. Spinning, spinning
around, hypnotizing the guys from the
111
barrio. A tough one puts his hand on the

sparks, “they don’t burn, try it!, he who
doesn’t is a maric∴n!” , the water dripping

to the ground, all the eyes avoiding his
gaze, nobody wants to try. Silence. The
metallic sound like razors fighting, saws
singing, shrieking ravens flying away,
scared.
The Knife Sharpener belongs to a large

gallery of personalities long gone from the
barrio. Carbon Man, Shoe Shine Boy, Curly
Oldman, Paperboy, etc.
There is no market to sharpen knives or

scissors anymore. My Grandma, Abuelita,
died in 74 and no one inherited her ability
to craft clothes. It is easier to buy them at
Sears or Letty’s, and if you don’t like them,
you can always return them. The new
stainless steel and electroplate knives are
more durable, almost immortal. If they
ever lose edge, Mom may prefer to buy a
new one or a complete set, for that
matter. Yes, massively produced.
112
The gardener’s machete sits in a corner of

the patio, rusting. There is no sharpener to
take care of it. No grass to cut, everything
is a concrete slab now, you know. No
green in our hearts, just cement and
memories. Only the wheel spinning in the
brain, and the sparks burning my longing.
113
Siblings
to my sister Lani
Altagracia was a quiet neighborhood

like seawaves in the distance, slowly
running in opposite directions,
spume dissipating in the blue,
seagulls submerging their beaks,
a fish quivering its death
but we were not supposed to talk about it,

we were expected to shut up and sleep:
the night an inhuman figure

materialized
on the street window
watching from
the bedroom
the night father vomited in the

bathroom
114
listening to pain and
anger
the day you passed me Amelia’s first

love letter, undiscovered, warm,
innocent
guarding the secret
we were not supposed to

talk
point
complain
we were expected not to break

the visitor’s fingers nor to steal
certain friend’s toys
we were to play in the attic,

walk on the cornice fifteen feet
above ground, slam the door on the
beggar’s face,
we were the ones, we were the two.
115
116
Father’s Home
“Often in thought go up and down
the pleasant streets of that dear old town,
and my youth comes back to me”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “My Lost Youth”
T his is my parent’s house, hence mine,

ours. It is located at the edge of the
city, where there is no pavement, no
bus routes, no taxis. Some would say it is at
the end of civilization. My father has to
walk each day about four miles from the
point where the bus drops him off, to the
house’s porch. The barrio is known as
Altagracia. Towards the south, or the
mountain, there are woods, and a small
rural village. Towards the north, or the lake,
there is a large dry canal that crosses the
entire neighborhood, large planted fields
extend beyond my sight. During heavy
rains it overflows and the water destroys
everything. Towards the east or arriba,
117
uptown, there are some haciendas with

cattle, and more woods. We get the daily
milk from one of these haciendas, in wood
wagons pulled by old oxen, or bueyes.
Towards the west, or abajo, downtown, a
lot of houses, and the brim of the eternal
city of Managua.
It is the year 1954. My father is celebrating

my birth, he’s getting drunk for almost a
week now. He has to work every day in
that little store he rents in the downtown.
He repairs TV sets, refrigerators, radios, and
all kind of electric appliances. He learned
by correspondence and has an assistant,
Julio, who is his apprentice. Saturdays and
Sundays, father works in the house. It has a
little porch, a small family/living room. Two
bedrooms that share a common
bathroom. In the back, there is the
kitchen/dining/utility room. A large patio,
or so it seemed all those years I lived there,
completes the house, enclosed by a six-
foot high block wall. Eventually lots of trees
will grow here. The guava tree, where the
118
swing is, the same I am allergic to. The

mango tree, the one that gives enormous
fruits, colored in yellow, green, orange and
purple. The whispering pines, the plantains,
the green oranges, the lemon trees, the
almond tree, and many others forming a
penetrable jungle where we all play
together or alone.
Saturdays and Sundays he keeps building

with his bare hands a little piece of the
house. One day he completes the roof,
the windows, and the doors. Another, he
paints walls, installs electrical connections,
plumbing fixtures, and excavates the
septic tank. My mother watches after us,
we got to be seven kids, five girls and two
boys. Two maids help her out, one is
pregnant, and the other has twelve
children. One day, he will build a second
story, with two bedrooms, one for me, one
for my elder sister, Lani, who will always
keep it locked, singing Elvis Presley songs
and dancing nude. I will keep mine
119
locked too, in revenge, writing love letters

to my ten year old novia, girlfriend, who I
will never kiss or even hold hands with.

Don Antonio, the neighbor cattycornered,
comes to help him once in a while. He has
seven children too, but one of them is ill.
She doesn’t speak and spends her entire
day babbling, smiling strangely, her saliva
falling from her mouth, her innocent eyes
looking lovingly to yours. One day, he will
finish the garage, big enough for three
cars, that will eat up a large chunk of the
patio, but what the hell, we have too
many trees anyway, and we now need
two cars, and the ping pong table has no
place, but here. Two iron doors can keep
the chogotes, the bums, from asking for
food too much, (Lani and I will smuggle it
to them anyway), and with a proper roof
this can be another play area for the kids.
In 1972, the second story will be destroyed

by the earthquake, we will have moved
out the month before to the newest house,
120
which was also semi-destroyed by the

earthquake. But my dreams,
remembrances, fears and happy moments
will remain in the house of Altagracia. Its
block walls, fixed glass windows, zinc roof,
wooden second story, all copied from an
American blueprint bought by mail, will
accompany me forever. This is the womb I
came from, the uterus I grew up in, the
open arms and the strong hand holding
my child years. There will never be another
house.
121
Terra Incognita
I was born in a city that is not Miami

it had a barrio with dirt streets and
wandering
dog packs
there were gray cows and carts pushed by

dingy kids
there were blind, limping beggars
and peep toms in the back yards
there was a canal overflowed with filthy

waters and garbage
and small plank shacks about to fall apart
there was a paper boy with chellings in a
leather bag
and barefooted girls with tortilla baskets on
their heads
there was a knife sharpener and a fat
bread baker, both on bicycle
there was a neighbor with a retarded

daughter and a married one
122
there were hogs playing on the mud and a

poet dreaming with Victor Hugo
there were convenience stores brimming
with tin toys and candy
and wagons with milk containers pulled by
a pair of drooling oxen
there were schools for the pauper and a

meager Catholic church
there was the Vatican Embassy surrounded
by masonry walls and Mercedes Benzes
and the nearby Pious XII School where I
kissed for the first time
I often ask myself what animals would my

sling shot have hunt
had I been born in Madagascar
or what games would I have played
had some Stevenson replaced Jose
or what buses would I have raided had the
Metro Paris run by the corner of my house
or what moons would I have admired with
Amelia
had some Edvika Krηger been my friend
123
I ignore what innumerable destinies I would

have lived inside tired bodies or hostile
places
or what arrows nailed my silent chest
or what Arab fighters cut my right hand
I know this longing stare would

accompany me in arduous combat
and all solitary roads in Cairo already took
me to Gnosos and Karnak
I know my fingers drawed those faint
buffaloes in Altamira
and in a remote place of Alpha Centauri,
Tahor showed me
the Sacred Crystal on which The Spirit
revealed to him
the Holy Secrets of the Cosmic Mind
124
Epilogue
Poetic practice can be a dangerous

game or a perpetuating way of life. We
manifest in verse form dreams not
accomplished and crude realities.
To the mystic, a poem is essence. To the

practical, a waste of energy. To the poet,
a source of force. To the masses a boring
form of expression.
Is it a Cosmic Mission? Is it a legacy? Is it a

pastime? Is it to be shared? Each poet
has his or her own motives to write, and to
me that is good enough.
My mother, Vilma, gave me my first book

of poetry. My father, Adolfo, gave me my
first book of science. Both write poems.
My uncle, Alberto, gave me my first book

of science-fiction. He also wrote prose.
125
This tool, poetry, has been with me ever

since. In it, science and letters blend.
Poetry relates me to others and to myself. I
learned to write in order to survive.
D.L. Miami, Florida 1996
Epilogue 2
Quite often, time passes by us. We watch

people, events, things, places,
opportunities, and our own selves walking
by. Paralyzed, we acknowledge the
passage of time-space and do nothing to
accomplish our dreams.
This book took a long time to see the light.

It is finally here. I read somewhere, “so
many books, so little time”. This is true
regarding the reading of books, but also
the writing of them.
D.L. Detroit, Michigan 2000
126
Epilogue 3
Of all my books in the English language,

this is my favorite. It offers a wide angle
view of my poetry from its early beginnings
in the 1970s to my search of the 1990s.
It also closes a cycle and opens a new

one. Where it will lead me, I do not know.
This is the good thing about poetry, it is a
continuous journey to the outside world,
and to the inside self. Poetry reconciles
both, and makes them one.
I believe in a poetry without compromises,

perhaps because I have made so many
myself. I believe in a poetry that will raise
our spiritual standards as human beings. I
hope these writings and tryouts contribute
a little bit to bring joy to those who have
the patience to read them.
D.L., Dallas, Texas 2004
127
Born in Nicaragua
in 1954, Danilo
Lopez resided in
Miami, Florida from
1985 through 2002,
and moved to
Dallas, Texas in
2003. His work has
been published in
English and
Spanish in many
literary magazines
throughout the
United States and
abroad. An
architect, poet,
anthologist, and
translator he is
currently searching
for new art forms.
128

God, Woman &amp; Country

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God, Woman, and

Published by ACE Industries

All rights reserved

This book may not be reproduced by any means

Second Edition, 2004

Cover Painting: © Blanca Beatriz Caraballo

For the gunshot deviated by a rib,

For the uncle you were, are, and will

Also by Danilo Lopez:

• Dona Nobis Pacem

• The Furies at the Deaf Man’s

6. The Smell of Lavender 46

Dans ma tΛte un oiseau chante toute

In my head a bird sings all year long.

The author thanks and acknowledges the

“Condega”, Third World;

“Out of the Doldrums”, Midwest Poetry

“Houses”, Writer’s Exchange;

“The Smell of Lavender”, Poet’s Review;

“Illusion”, The Poet’s Pen;

“Ging Seng” and “Ivgav”, Star*Line;

“Norwich”, Hayden’s Ferry Review;

“Raelian Muse” and “Sacred Places”,

“On Stupidity” and “On Similarity”,

“Rough Sketch”, Midnight Zoo.

The following web sites have published

“...Paz que llevo dentro, paz que todavía

“...Peace I carry inside, peace that still

“...El origen de las cosas no es anterior sino

“... The origin of things is not preceding but

“Of Men and Visions” , the darker Danilo

“We live in time so little time

Robert Penn Warren, “Bearded Oaks”

W hen I awoke Before and After

Bilad-as-Sudan is land of sand, jungles and

playing without preoccupations, they had

Great gods did great things: space is

by webs, germinated by water... the Great

He loved us in Ile-Ife, and prior to us, He

He created man from mud, He shaped him

astute more than the monkey and the

God in the heights, Man on Earth. That is

I saw the destruction from within, maybe

God gave me a name, I gave myself a

T he idea of similarity, its concept and

However, in Sumer, hundreds of years

the like. Close to the other extreme, stands

In Peru, Manco Capac developed a

The center, the middle, the navel, had

To Einstein, the shortest distance between

Similar, other, history cycles that repeat

Maybe the true difference lays in the

A ccording to popular wisdom, gossip

Napoleon and Josephine were masters in

Churchill during World War II, and Hitler,

At high governmental spheres, but

It was nevertheless, the communist secret

economic systems reached new levels

Today, with centuries of gossip on our

The secrets of the universe, with their point

“I gnorance can be eliminated; the

During his many travels and casual

When Darwin wrote the manuscript of his

was a reference to the “natural selection”

God, Woman & Country

God, Woman & Country