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lila downs at summerstage was the TROOF. she was all kinds of fierce aztlan warrior-sage. her band showcased a full drum kit, harp, keyboards, violin, electric guitar, hollow cello, trumpet, sax, electric bass and ms downs on marching drum, guiro, maracas and acoustic guitar and her vocals ranged from opera, mexican maricachi, rap and a wonderful growl that rocked my world.

las ondas marteles also rocked my house doing justic to poeta cubano miguel angel ruiz. the lead singer had that low key flirt voice that some guys can rock (cough, Merovingian, cough) to the fullest.
Merovingian: I am picturing how we would look spooning in the morning.
Señorita: You are just too cute!

some time in the middle of the concert i go to take a water break and local artist, jose luis ortiz hands me this sketch he did of me enjoying the music.

all this and a visit back to spanish harlem (what you know about el barrio, kid???) good food, good company & a great chess game.

best part, my chess partner didnt need to be told what all the pieces do and was ultra-patient which is critical to playing with me cuz i treat every move like life and death. i think this game clocked in at about 40 minutes. my beginning and middle game was aight but my end game still needs a lot of work. i hope to get my room mate to play some more but if anybody out there wants to get a game going online. let a brother know!

con muchisma gracias a mi padre(!) que me alludo con las primera revisiones con mi primer soneta. me dicen que la soneta es bien addictiva y una ves que completas una, toda tus futuro poemas se convierten a sonetas– ay peores castigos en el mundo.

attempter a esribir una soneta del estilo shakespeare pero mis sonetas favorita vienen del maestro neruda, so sigue el camino logico y aqui esta el resulto.

ps- si ay una traducion de la poema en mi mente pero usteds tiene que espera un ratito porque traduciones van hacer parte de un nuevo projecto en mi mente loca

te amo como pablo ama a catorze lineas

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mad props to my dad(!) who helped me with MORE EDITS (ding! the inside joke bell) to my first sonnet. i am told that sonnets can be pretty additive and once you write one, the form starts to infect all your poems. there are worst fates.

i started by trying to write a more classic sonnet but my favorite sonnets come from neruda so i followed his lead instead and here is the result.

ps- yes, i can translate this in my head but y’all are gonna have to wait for the translation since thats wrapped up in another crazy project of mine.

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SONETA 1

QUIERO SABER DE TU PELO
RECOJER PEDASOS DE SU PASADO
Y LEER TU HISTORIA VIEJA
EN UN RINCON DE OSCURIDA

TE LLAMAN LA MUJER OSCURA
DICEN QUE TU MUNDO DE POEMAS
SON DIFICIL Y PELIGROSO
COMO FUEGO DE UN ANGEL PERDIDO

Y YO, UN HOMBRE VESTIDO
EN LA SOMBRA DEL GARDIN URBANO
ESPERANDO A LORCA APARECER
EN MI CORREO A DIRGIRMER

A SU HILO NEGRO– UN CONCIERTO
DE CONCHAS, BRILLANTE Y BELLO

____________________________________________________
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http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs

i decided to miss out on the urbana slam in favor of good dining. i had a goat cheese/roasted tomato/seared onions/basil crêpe as the main course and then a fresh strawberry/nutella crêpe as dessert. ah hell yeah. chevre is one of my serious guilty pleasures. actually, i am a huge cheese fan. havarti (especially dill), gouda (not smoked), english & vermont cheddars (white over yellow) and danish blues are among my favorites though i am not a big fan of brie (unless its en croute) and dont dig the aftertaste of most swisses.

the spot is cafe la pallete and i seriously recommend it but get there early on the weekends cuz they get PACKED for brunch.

afterwards i checked out Wedding Crashers which was all kinds of funny. lemme say that vince vaughn has been crackin me up ever since Swingers.
YOU’RE MONEY BABY, YOU’RE MONEY AND YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW IT

matt gave me the quick wrap up about the slam which i already knew before hand. the nuyorican (i actually guessed team-brooklyn but you know… semantics) wins by ignoring urbana’s “new poem” rule as louderARTS & urbana go down in flames since they actually come to this slam with new work.

for the life of me, i dont know why urbana goes through this same farce year after year. i’ve been going to these things since 2002 and every year its the same thing. the REAL funny shit was when nuyo didnt come to urbana with new work but then half the team slammed with new shit the next night.

leading us to tonight and the fact that i will mos def be at the nuyo since team acentos 2005 (luis cartagena, raj & kyra wolfe) will be in effect. these three have been consistent readers at the acentos open mic and some of the best writers out there. i know they will bring both the hotness & passion to the slam stage.

there is a nice chunk of my ego that would love to make the louderarts team one year. i think it would be the bomb to walk into nats repping out my home venue but the more i continue writing poems with an eye towards publication and real posterity, the less interested i become about slam.

slam is about winning and the bottom line is i only have maybe six poems that embody the elements of slam which include but are not limited to use of narrative, political commentary, anaphora, humor, rhythm and of medium length. as of late, i havent been writing these poems as much as i used to and that doesnt bother me a bit.

for the last few years acentos has participated in these regional bouts with the same attitude. we dont care about winning, we just care about bringing good poems to the slam stage and you can bank on this year being the same. we are going to be the fly in the ointment that will make judges freak the fuck out and once out of their comfortable shells they will probably give us low scores since the common reaction to unrecognizable art is dismissal.

scratch my previous statement, slam isnt about winning its about the lowest common denominator and acentos plans to be the anomaly in that equation. werd.

Axis by Octavio Paz

Through the conduits of blood
my body in your body
                    spring of night
my tongue of sun in your forest
                                        your body a kneading trough
I red wheat
                    Through conduits of bone
I night I water
                    I forest that moves forward
I tongue
          I body
                    I sun-bone
Through the conduits of night
                                                                         spring of bodies
You night of wheat
                                        you forest in the sun
you waiting water
                                        you kneading trough of bones
Through the conduits of sun
                                                            my night in your night
my sun in your sun
                                        my wheat in your kneading trough
your forest in my tongue
                                                      Through the conduits of the body
water in the night
                                        your body in my body
Spring of bones
                                        Spring of suns

Octavio Paz