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Miguel Felix |
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LEAVE THE SKIN TO THE WIND
He said,
“You look beautiful.”
She
said, “And that’s it?”
turning
your back to the city
you find
all sides of the sylvan solitude
to be
the scariest place on earth
so cold
and windy
lonesome
and desolate
sagging
and desperate
bitter
but
sooner or later
after
some lifetimes
one
gives up on the savior
one
gives up on the devil
one
gives up on love
and
being
understood, or understanding it
now you
might ask
what is
found there, then
in this
bold, unlit reality
uninterpreted, uninterrupted?
I say
precisely:
the end
of conditional love
and
every other
approximately beautiful thing
--------------------------------------------
THE OBJECT LESSON, FOR ALL OF MEXICO
Swollen Fertile Thighs
a dancer from Tlatilco the Olmec head was eight feet high a shock among the conquering Spaniards was also a giant stone rack the tzompantli on which many thousands of human skulls were displayed A tourist attraction for thousands
became a battleground for hundreds
when Bluejackets engaged Mexican defenders at Veracruz
in April, nineteen-fourteen
Maximilian and his Mexican general Miguel Miramon were executed on the Hill of Bells after the massacre at Cholula Tata Vasco successfully experimented
with a utopian Indian village, for one
whole year
the Lacandones resisted Christian domination
with a great tenacity and ferocity
& Cortes always dressed in only half the armor used for battle used only half a halberd sat on half a horse, who likewise wore half a chamfron, over his long menacing face when coming into the valley of Popocatepetl it was there that the audacity of their scheme
became abundantly clear
the grand prospect, picture of the lake cities
laid out before them, required the
conqueror
to spend his entire evening
soothing the fears and wiping the tears of all the wanderers in his party And some years later Hidalgo would find himself, with rabid rebel army and Virgin of Guadalupe at his back at the exact same spot and in the exact same way he would peer down into the spectre of Tenochtitlan only, with awe and humility, but for love and compassion but for the flag taken at Atotonilco the priest spared the city for he knew the rebel’s rage was uncontrollable & their passions unsoothable those passions which are, after all essential to usurping empires Hidalgo turned his back on the silver cities the eagle, the cactus, and the serpent and was soon captured and tried in Chihuahua found guilty, defrocked and decapitated in Guanahuato War dragged on for eleven more years & Fastened to a pole Atop a charred wall In Guanahuato granary The holy man’s head Was made into the object lesson, for all of Mexico
--------------------------------------------------------------
THE ART OF PAINTING
swallowed by my own mouth
it came
roaring out
of a
tabernacle
which
lie betwixt
two
ancient columns,
long
marble poles, also of my own face
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