A Solipsistic Dream

Original en español: Un sueño solipsista

eyes half open;
I see you in the distance.
I come closer slowly;
still distant,
you wave at me with your hand;
still distant,
and I wave back at you at the same time.

you see me in the distance;
your eyes half open.
you come closer slowly,
still distant,
I wave at you with my hand;
still distant,
you wave back at me,
at the same time.

I know it because I see you with my eyes,
and you know it because you see me with yours.

I see you in my mind through my eyes,
which are mine since it’s through them I see.
and you see me in your mind through your eyes,
which are yours since through them you see.

but as we get closer I see that it’s my hand that you wave in the air;
and you realise that the hand with which I wave at you is yours.
and in my mind I see that the eyes with which you see me are my own;
and in your mind you see that the eyes with which I see you are your own.

because I am you,
and you are me;
because you exist in my mind,
or I exist in yours?

Machinations

what if we were trapped?
held captive by our reality;
incarcerated in the present.

y ¿si viviéramos sin recuerdos?
encerrados en un olvido continuo;
en la apatía del desinterés.

et, si on ne rêvait jamais?
en voyant le lendemain tout flou,
sans espoir pour l’avenir.

would it be worthwhile
to follow the stream adrift..?

¿valdría la pena
seguir el río sin manantial..?

vaudrait-il la peine
de suivre la rivière sans destination..?

The sealed demon

eviscerate Life!
and hold her silv’ry entrails
in tremulous hands.

Timelessness

empires have fallen,
yet aeons after aeons,
a smile’s still a smile.

baffled and upset

agitated place;
a distant and foreign land…
I hear gibberish.

To thine own mask be true

We’re all one swashing salty sea;
And we’re the but the world, when it ponders itself
And we’re one entity, of a million identities
Because no man will be twice born,
and yet—all who are born, are one.

Viva la Revolución

Have you any idea how grave a mistake it is to mar a young mind? And no, I’m not talking about beating children, or subjecting them to brutal work. I speak of an abuse far more subtle, a slow and lethal poison that seeps through the skull and corrodes the mind, threatening to squash the humanity out of the human heart.
I speak, of course, of the educational system.

As they join the ranks of schools, youths are force-fed an assortment of over-inflated values and priorities which constitute a forlorn and frightening mindset.

Indeed, youths are force-fed, binding them to a chair of eternal conformity. They’re teaching you all you need to know to go to college and get a job and a car and a family, so why would you bother looking for knowledge yourself? School has conveniently prepared a flimsy set of answers to the questions of the world, and bullies us into memorising them all. If we refuse, school sees to it that we are shunned as uncooperative, lazy, and misguided.

As if memorising answers flexed the mind at all. The most anyone could get from witless memorisation is a feeble semblance of self-discipline, which is rendered meaningless anyway as it cannot be applied to anything which has a worthwhile practical use.

—No worthwhile use? But how, if we just said that school will get us a job and a car and a family? Yes, it will. And that’s just fine. But see, the incentive process, for an average school-goer, goes something like this: You’re in school only so you can get good grades and get into college. And you would want to go to college just so you can find a job, and proceed to climb the interminable corporate ladder. And what’s at the end of all this? I dunno. No one really knows. It’s something extremely vague, like, oh, happiness. Or self-realization. Utter bollocks.

Not that I have anything against the white-collar life, or the working class life. What irks me is the neverending toil to a an end that is wholly meaningless. Working relentlessly simply to keep up with a difficult status quo holds no true significance and very little satisfaction. The small, hollow consolations it does offer are obtained at the tolling cost of losing something as dear as the mind’s potential, or the interest to tap it.
Such an existence is glaringly mediocre at best, and I wouldn’t call it worthwhile.

But of course, it is just this existence which our school system so champions, and urges us into. It is, perhaps, like snatching newly-hatched birds from their nests and forcing them to pilot bird-sized hang-gliders to and fro in embarrassingly straight lines, instead of allowing them to learn true flight.—Unnatural, criminal!

And then there’s the teachers, the great and ruthless secret police that holds up this rotten regime. The system is such that it not only allows ignorant people to teach, it calls for them, and they do their job magnificently.
There are some scarce wonders with something good to teach, but those few are, in someone else’s words, like drops of water in the desert. For the most part, entire class hours are reduced to either bravely enduring or dozing off to stupendously incoherent lectures ridden with fallacies and examples that hardly apply. Fascinating subjects are distorted into mechanical and thoughtless penwork. Overbearing counselors coerce you into taking SAT prep and registering on collegeboard.

And as opportunist corporate gluttons make millions by administering rubbish tests and other services, the students must suffer a watered-down parody of education in order to be able to support their businesses.

The system is deteriorated and doddering, severely entangled in faux-bureaucratical rules and regulations. Aptitudes are caricaturised and curiosities are squashed.
The very joys of life are rudely confiscated, one by one, as the system tries to take itself seriously.
And the very epitome and most cherished treasure of mankind—thought, of course—is mercilessly bastardised.

Come now, comrades, the system must be done away with. The time for revolution is nigh.

With that said, congratulations, graduates— you, who have braved classes and still retain a love for knowledge, are heroes; emerging triumphant against the perversity of the system.

tempus fugit

Time flees mortal hands,
rapidly slipping away;
just like grains of sand.

se escapa el tiempo,
como granos de arena
entre los dedos.

le temps s’envole
doucement entre les doigts
—sables du désert.

Bomb shelter, with no bomb call.

If you bear with me, I wish you to picture in neat colours several images, and make of them what your heart thinks is becoming of the case.

A person bending their knees, and then sprinting, amid a roaring battle-cry, into a massive flying kick, only to crash bluntly against a wall of steel, without making as much as a scratch unto it, whilst sustaining several fractures.

A paper airplane dashing, airborne, with grace and elegance unto an open classroom, only to meet with closed shutters, activated at the time of arrival. The paper is rendered crippled and bent, losing its beauty between two plastic blades.

A hammer raised unto the sky, shining with the afternoon sun, whilst taking careful aim at a nail that awaits the blow. The hammer dives in a swift movement unto the nail, only to bend it into a most weird shape, useless and less rigid than butter on a midsummer day. The wood is most certainly not pierced, and it waits in disappointment, contemplating the epic failure produced thence.

You decided what to make of them? Dumb question, I understand.  I will just elaborate on mine thoughts.

Fresh ideas have so many tints and colours, textures, shapes, fragrances… Upon the beholder’s eyes, some are dark purple, with blotches, oval shaped, and carry this putrefactive smell of a flat’s residues, rotting in the sun; some are perfect circles with an olive-green hue, and smell of roses and of far green countries under a swift sunrise. Splendid, bland, incomplete, or simply dull, as it is, ideas fly upon this world, turbo-sped with rockets.

What happens, then, when an idea collides with a mind that has been closed with heavy locks, dusty and rusty on its hinges, that will not take any visitors, will suffer no guests, will have none of it? There is a huge explosion at the doorstep of the mind, and the idea evaporates with the smouldering blazes that are swept away by the wind. The idea verily might go to waste, unto uncharted skies where no one will ever look upon again…  That is the fate of some great ideas that have flown into closed gates.

What if the idea was positively worthy?! That is terrifying, that a fantastic idea collides against a closed mind and vanishes from this world.

But wait, there is more. The explosion lasted for an instant, less than a simple heartbeat, and the smoke vanishes into thin air with blinding speed. There is nothing… And yet the mind is alert of such by-gone intruder, and immediately flees into a bomb shelter, without previous bomb call. No wail of warning filled the sky, but the mind is already in motion, locked even further, deep in a bunker, dragging what it can into the walls, positively quivering in fear despite never having seen the nonexistent mayhem.

This is mindless ranting, so if you bear with me for a moment, let us wrap this up in a nifty envelope. The mind is to have its gates open, welcoming foreign riders for an ale and at least letting them sit upon the hall table and share their views of the world. Now, it is to have a stead fast determination and some judgement, for when the foreigner draws blade and tips the table in an insulting fashion or something not becoming of a proper guest, it ought to be thrown out by the citadel guards. However, the mind is to listen at least, open its vaults of knowledge and light the beacons, for as annoying, brazen, rude, charming, eloquent, astute, etc. the foreigner may be, there is a bit to learn from its words ere it departs.

Open those gates!! Do not let the idea crash upon the gates! Do not flee, enveloped in panic, when the rider comes hence. You know not for sure what accompanies it. There is no bomb call wailing.

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The most raucous musical box

The host with a flourish bids everyone welcome
to the gaudy and grandiose banquet alfresco
that is Life when unmasked.
The crackers surrender their colorful prizes
as hanging piñatas hide garish surprises.
The band is cacophony chiming delightful,
the names on the place-cards all parody spelling.
The wine is served lukewarm and sour!

But if still you should want to attempt the endeavor
of deducing some order from turmoil so lively
Alas! Then you leave empty-handed.