Poems

Dreams are born in those momentsWhen the mind opens itselfAnd with the heart as its centerThe imprint of the vision bloomsWith the pedals of thought exposingThe anther of our heartsrevealing sweet pollen of hope and visionDelicate filaments that extend themselves,To the chance exposure of theImprinting instanceWhere we see our callingWhere we fall in loveWhere we see the self completeDreams are carried throughAnd nurtured within the safekeepingOf gardens carved on terracesInside the chasm of the soulIn places we guard zealouslyWith the elastic strength ofLabirynthic walls and delicatelyCrafted masks, constructedTo deflect the passing glimpsesOf occasional lovers andMisplaced passionsDreams are fulfilledIn pieces, much of the timeRevealing themselvesAs fractions, making the wholeSometimes unnoticeableA mysterious constructionThat harvests the ripened bloomsWithin our inner crevicesDeliberately, almost secretlyDreams are sometimes destroyedBy wind whipping through the cavernousCoils of thought and emotionCold wind of disappointmentArctic storms carrying the whispersOf lies, deceit, and carelessly spoken wordsUnderstood by our inner gardens as deep truthsUnderstood as richening soil for dream roses and rhododendronsThat soon after wither and dieSometimes the pedals fall, ashesTo give sustenance to a hybrid dreamWiser, stronger and with thornsSometimes remains of frigid breezesCarry them off to unspoken placesPlaces where denial sinks a landscapeInto dark valleysAnd no seed or remnant escapesDreams are not captive to the ruminationsOf one’s own personal geographyDaily depending on strong soil of good lifecircumstancesTo survive the daysInstead, dreams arise in the strangestOf places, giving birth in numbers to thoseWho are strong enough to open themselvesTo the promise, the beauty of the moment,The imprinting instance of chance and melodyThe meekest, the poorestCan carry the deepest gardensAllowing delicate openingsThe poverty of an anther’s exposure.

In Lima, we learned to flinch young.When soldiers passed, we turned our facesto the Pizza Parlor in Miraflores.We focused on Pepperoni and Mushrooms,avoiding eye-contact and spent ammunition.

When they took Luis, we were silent.No one told us to be. We just were.When he came back. He wasn't the same.We understood.

At School, Pedro sighed -graduation postponed, again.Another bomb threat.

When the city of 7 million went black, it wasn’t news.You sat still, like a prayer waiting for its godto forget.

When death threats came,you didn’t tell your friends. You satand watched another movie,eyes fixed on the screen.

Alert, but pretending it was normal.

Ricardo made jokes.It was funny.There was no otherway to see it.

but dark humor cut theinsanity into smaller,more edible chunks.

When we saw the bank blow up,we turned to walk slowly, back towardsSan Isidro.

We were quiet.Avoiding sirens,Hiding from the army trucks.

Closer to home, we laughed.It was a fragile sound,full of anxious release.

Another night in Lima,another night of absurd living.

At twenty-one, in Alabama, the cop pulled me over.My voice cracked like dry maize.I handed him my passport.He laughed. I laughed. It wasn’t funny.Casually, I watched his partner's fingeron the safety.

Old habits die hard.

The shrapnel still in my calf pulsatedAs he said 'Be safe now'and left me alonewithout asking for a bribe.

The gas station pump asked me a questionI didn’t understand. I stared at itlike a wounded manback in Limawaiting for the Senderistas to pass.

At the grocery store, 32 kinds of cereal.Where is the safety in choice?

In Peru, violence had a way of behaving.You suspected who carried the guns.You knew not to speak Englishon the wrong street. You knewwhat silence bought you.

In America, the rules are airless.The violence wears khakisand asks how your day’s going.

The disappearance happens in slow scrolls:in the job interview,in the look on her face when I saidI’d never had a checking account.

I miss the clarity of Lima’s dusk.The barking of dogs before a bombing.The way danger felt honest.

Here, I don't know where the guns are.Or the gods.

No one warns youabout the hidden threatsin America.

One day you wakeand realize no one is missing.

That’s how it starts.The war here is memory.And the time and space to forget, then remember.

We were young once.Not just in age,but in the way we believedthat nights could last foreverif the music kept playing.

“Blue Monday” shook the floor.We didn’t talk much then—just moved,motion like energy exchanged,our bodies fluent in somethingwe didn’t yet know would fade.

Later, “Cuts You Up” came on,and it did.But not the way we thought.Not the drama of heartbreak—just the slow erosionof knowing someone so wellyou stop looking.

Time does that.You wake one dayon opposite shores,waving across a distanceneither of you meant to make.

And still—somewhere in a grocery store,Camouflage’s “That Smiling Face" playson a speaker no one notices.And I pause.Just long enoughto feel the light from back then.Brief.Undeniable.

We do not curse the fading.That’s not the kind of love we had.But we do carrythe ache of the echo.We are the oneswho remember the songafter the room has emptied.

Keter – The Crown / The Inheritance of Silence

Dijeronme ke la fe sería mi ancla.

Baruj HaShem, dijieron, komo si el peso fuera promesa.

La luz en la frente, el deber en los talones,

una cadena dulcemente envuelta en oración.

Pero aprendí, kon suspiros y sombras sin nombre,

Has ve’Shalom, ke algunas anklas no están echas de hierro,

sino de manos ke parezen karisias,

pero te empujan abaxo kuando el alma empiesa a subir.

Kuando alzas la kara al shamayim,

i sientes la respuesta detrás del velo,

te akusan de romper lo sagrado.

El raḥum veḥanun, yo nunka rompí sus orasiones,

pero no supe yorar kon ellas sin mentirme.

⸻

Tiferet – The Heart / The Refusal to Be Contained

Ay orasyones ke se sienten komo bardas.

Rak sheket… rak sheket…

Ay amores ke demandan silensyo,

ke solo valen si tú no dezis ni una.

Lo aleinu.

Ansí ando yo.

No por estar perdido,

sino porke el aire afuera del relato

es más puro—más emet, más ruaḥ.

Yo no soy el personaje ke pintaron,

ni el hijo ke kayeron en los libros.

Mi neshamá no se firma en el margen.

⸻

Malkhut – The Dust / The Chosen Among the Exiled

I si so eskogido,

chas veShalom, ke no sea por torres ni títulos,

ni por siluetas en vitrales olvidados.

Sino por el kamino de polvo,

kon los exilados i los exkomulgados,

debaxo del silensyo de la atardesida.

A la par de las almas ke florezen

en las fendas del kuento ofisyal.

Amen ve’Amen.

Amen ve’Amen.

Amen… (pause)

ve’Amen.

One night, after wine and Turkish coffee,I asked my immigrant friends why they came here.

They said - - -

We came because silence in our homelandwas not peace, but the echo of boots.Because our names were called last,or never. Because truthwas a locked room,and fear its doorman.

We came from citieswhere your vote bought nothingbut suspicion,where the policeman knew your daughter’s nameand not from kindness.

We came from marketswhere bread cost a week’s sweat,from nights lit by generators,not stars.

Where neighbors disappeared,and no one knocked.We fled uniforms without faces,laws without reason,churches burned for speaking the wrong prayer.

We left behind the kiss of corruptionand the grip of inherited sorrow.

Here, the air tastes different.Here, a stranger might help.Here, you can say the president is wrongand not wake in a cell.

We came not for riches,but for a name on a lease.A birthday cake in a quiet kitchen.A future unmarked by the past.A dog that doesn’t barkat midnight raids.

We came to stand in lineswhere everyone waitsthe same.To work three jobs,and still smileat the sound of our childrenlearning a new word:safe.

This place is not perfect.But it lets us breathewith both lungs.

Lets us lovewithout apology.

And sometimes,when no one’s watching,we weepfor what we lost.And thenfor what we found.

This thick fog lays out its gaseous tendrils,and nothing is to be seen clearly,not even yourself.

Wading through such blindnesswears you so thin,you feel the exhaustionin your moist brows,but you continue to search for visionbecause you know it's all you have left.

So you twist and you turn,a silent dance of desperationwith this deafening mist.At least that which embraces youin its thick blanket of nothingnesskeeps you warmwith its wisps of heavy moisture....

Condensation derivedfrom chaos...but it makes sense to you -it stands in your way,it envelopes you in nothingnessit bars you from your own meaning.

Outside, all of it seems so random,so full of nothingbut the fog comes up against you and leaves youfalling, tripping on unseen crevices.In your heart it all seems so contrived...Fate, hiding its consciousness in the mist of circumstance,has pitted its greatest minions against you,and to struggle against this mantle is to create moredelusion through your sweat.

Still you struggle, still you sweat,because you know vision lies outside of circumstance,and to let the mist control you would lead to a walkthat falls upon itself...so you strive for something you know is true,yet you're not sure what this vision will bewhen you find it,but you know the weight of meaningis lighter than theweightlessnessof being lost in the fog.