Flying through Drunken Universes

(The title is a quotation from my English translation of an erotic poem written by an Ecuadorian writer whose name I've forgotten)

March 11, 1999
Guapulo, Quito, Ecuador

Coca tea at 6 a.m., unburnt matches on my dusty floor, Solomon Islands chanting from the CD player, a bus starts up outside, Tania long gone, I tripping with Dad to Banos - Riobamba - Cuenca, visa problems, dreamt the other night I wasn't too lazy to write, where's my brain anyway, it's just an old black and white TV set in an old wooden barrel in a harmonic hurricane, may I have another lid for my coffin, please, and a nail made of a white rose to go with it? Grind me up like hamburger and fry me on the skillet of a new dawn.

Morning blue twilight through rain-moist windows. White rainbow sheets on the mattress on the floor here in relative solitude, the blankets a mess, in the room I rent from Hector for $18 a month. The dragon that gnaws the roots of the Tree of Life was heard to mutter, "I tried to keep this thing pruned, but it just keeps on growing."

A slender blue light, the sad day beginning, another day of riots in the land of the falling economy. I cock my head and listen to the sound of bamboo flutes from the Solomon Islands flying through drunken universes. Meanwhile, the tiny hairs of your mustache sway like seaweed in the tide of the solar wind.

If you are reading this, you are in the future. Here in the past, I am strong, energetic and capable. My power of observation extends to the invisible. My perception snares the imperceptible. When I was a kid, I had a girlfriend who was a killer whale.

A small pot is hissing on the stove. A small dragon is inside. It is understood that the dragon is a metaphor for coffee. Soon the dragon will be alive, flexing its wings to dry them, its needle-sharp teeth exposed in a yawn.

My short nails and the near-white of the late dawn. I open the window. A songbird is weeping in the back yard. The bird and I throw our thoughts into the wind like confetti, flying through drunken universes.

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