By FERNANDO RIOS*
I
who is the body?
property or owner?
master or slave?
a minotaur body with a bow and arrow
that kills everything and everyone
hurts kills sets fire?
a cornucopia body
that is offered in bread wine
fruits mead tenderness affection?
II
is the body an alphabet?
is the body a numerology?
is the body a letter?
is the body a word?
is the body a dictionary?
is the body a library?
is the body solid?
is the body liquid?
is the body gaseous?
is the body natural?
the body is handmade
(made by how many hands)?
is the body an animal?
is the body mineral?
is the body vegetal?
is the body rational?
is the body emotional?
is the body irrational?
is the body aggressive?
is the body violent?
is the body cruel?
is the body grammar?
is the body syntax?
is the body semantics?
is the body war?
is the body dance?
is the body a hurricane?
is the body a breeze?
the body is brutality?
the body is tenderness?
Is the body a good or bad topic?
is the body physics?
is the body chemistry?
the body is biology
Is the body a soul that inhabits a body?
Is the soul a body that inhabits a soul?
the body responds:
“I am all that… and much more…
I am always an immense fortress
I am always an immense fragile age
living between birth and death
not always enough
to tell my story
great lives happened to me
did not happen
happen will not happen
many thousands millions of me have slaughtered
and were slaughtered
ad majorem gloriam of someones
and they still kill and are killed
for whose greater glory?”
III
is the body efficient? is the body deficient?
he is champion because he stands on the podium
or because he is a survivor?
Whose body is the master?
Whose body is a slave?
How many bodies does it take to make humanity?
How many humanities fit into a body?
How many bodies does it take to make or unmake a celebrity?
IV
humanity walks on bodies
How many bodies did Alexander the Great build and deconstruct?
How many bodies did Genghis Khan build and deconstruct?
How many bodies did Napoleons build and deconstruct?
How many bodies did Hitler build and deconstruct?
on how many bodies is capital built?
and we remain anesthetized
maybe by ourselves
but we must abandon lethargy
you have to wake up from a nightmare
that darkens our day
a body plus a body plus a body
and another and another
form some and how many human ages?
in each one part
many stories
written with much bile, much blood
and how much honey?
V
the body loves and hates
and in front of the mirror
is outlined
eros thanatos narcissus?
that bodies cannot stand in unison?
must be mastered?
must be mastered?
there is room for an idyllic equality
in the face of so much iniquity
of so much machismo in masculinity?
VI
in front of the mirror
you don't look at the time
look in the mirror
time does not move
what magic does the mirror bring?
in the infinite day by day?
mysterious alchemy
that does not transform the body
in front of the mirror
the body does not change, it does not (trans)form
only the portrait reveals the marks of chronos
how much space from the primal scream
to the spasm of present anguish
to the astonishment that the agony senses
a body at rest?
a body at the ready?
in front of the mirror
the same body exists daily
but time sculpts the body
and makes him happy or sad?
VII
the body kills and gives birth
the body embraces and tortures
the body kisses and bites
the body caresses and crushes
humanity multiplies
body to body
in strange and loving irony
demographics grow
VIII
in the geography of the body
what better place than the skin
to record memories
tell and retell stories
past present future
remembered forgotten imagined
that (re)turn in gestures
sleeping words
good evil (re)twisted
forged in time
what better tattoo
is the good memory engraved on the skin?
What body does not expose its memory?
he impregnates memories
makes a birth of rings
transforms wound into flower
makes the wine overflow
stops bleeding and pain
be able to choose good memories
it is power more bigger better
XI
the body has a head trunk limbs
nails hair
is the body hollow by any chance?
in its interiors
do you do it out of the blue?
who breathes
the brain or the lung?
who sings
throat or heart?
Does the body happen to float in the immensity?
what's around you?
another body, other bodies, how many bodies?
how many times and spaces
tattoo your body in your solitude?
how many clothes shoes laces
trap the body in a reality?
what he does with his will
to quench and avoid an ancestral thirst
that builds and destroys and builds and destroys?
X
the body speaks
the body communicates
the body whispers
the body screams
how many screams
for humanity to hear?
XI
a body is not furniture
doesn't decorate anything
but it is not a shroud either
there is always that
transform the body into a blanket
that covers another body and soothes
XII
what bodies we feel
far away from the party?
holocausts genocides
Where do they enter?
are we anesthetized?
who anesthetizes?
streamings, news?
the Internet?
the silence of the other?
the absence of the other?
the loneliness
in the middle of the connected crowd
in the middle of the abandoned crowd
How many bodies monologue without an answer?
XIII
can a healthy body
save a sick humanity?
How does this body feel?
have we lost sensitivity?
Have we been anesthetized against barbarism?
we look around
and we don't even feel chills
they are migrants, they are homeless, they are hungry
and we passed by
we see bombs on everything and everyone
mere worms memes video games?
we see calmly
thousands of lives exploding
mere otherworldly films?
we destroy our body nature
How do we destroy our body nature?
do we swallow the dialogues?
do we shout monologues?
do we vomit blasphemies?
what have we done with words?
ammunition raw materials?
XIV
there is chaos walking around every corner
there is debris that increases and piles up
there are bodies many anonymous bodies
that will never be embodied again
it is possible to be happy
in the face of these (in)human ages
but aren't they also so human?
Nazi fascists listened to Beethoven
next to the gas chambers
Today they toast with wines
and bathe in pools of champagne
watered with blood dripping from winged bombs
it is possible to walk in life
How do you walk on the street?
we have a body dressed in armor
that guards an empty soul or vice versa?
where are the seeds
of peace, of happiness, of joy
buried and fertilized
in the war industry of carnage?
Does agribusiness benefit?
deforest, plant, ecocidally?
who makes strange seeds
of aggression, of violence, of cruelty?
In which beds are they planted?
What fertilizers make them always so lush?
XV
the dove of peace is scared
the dove of peace is cornered
the dove of peace is tired
can't land
without a nest your eggs burst into the air
the dove of peace is caged
prey can't even fly
and when it escapes and flies
resentful
lands on a body support mat
mas ...
becomes a target
in the sights of the rifle missile
or dizzy at random
victim of a stray bird bullet
the dove of peace does not avoid
the flight of the war bomb
the dove of peace
escapes wounded from gunfire in Ukraine
sheds tears at the massacre in gaza
does not understand the black wars of Africa
produced by white musks greedy for minerals
for your digital toys
It's hard to be happy when you have so little luck
that not even art arouses
seeing so many dead lives
and others by a hair's breadth
nobody owns anything
not even from your own nose
at what pace does the algorithm move
that changes your/my desire your/my destiny?
it's getting harder and harder
create courage to live
about atrocious cities
and tell your children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren
how to believe in a utopian horizon
XVI
all humanity
works with strange scales
almost always unbalanced
on one side, love, affection, care, life
on the other, hunger, torture, evil, death
which side does the scale tip on?
where is the hope?
lost in the shooting
among so many wakes
of countless ages
where there is no time even for longing
Are there greenhouses for good seeds?
Are there beds and fertilizers for good harvests?
Are there shootings in offices?
Is there violence in schools?
how many vain humanities can we bear?
lions don't drive tanks
not even condors carry rockets
only capital wields its darts
deadly rains over the east
gas chambers transform immense scaffolds
Israelis and Palestinians, Ukrainians and Russians
that painful neighbors cultivate strange destinies
where everything is washed with blood
where revenge floods the rivers
where words turn into screams and laments
the body that murders
is it a body that loves and caresses?
where is my body
in the middle of the massacre?
is any joy possible?
how many marielles franco
will have to live their fate
How many will fail to see the day?
there is still a human age
that portends a good time at least?
a rant is not enough
it is necessary to plant
what, where, when, with whom?
It's time to summon
this is the call
are we anesthetized?
who anesthetizes us?
I don't want this injection
I want my autonomy
my freedom
my song of freedom
I don't want an absent body
empty digital body
even if it is fatal
I prefer my geographic body skin
marked with tattoos
my skin is my map
my heart is my compass
my messages
signs sounds letters images looks
that jump out of me
of my silence
and even my smooth body
is an expression of my cry
it is impossible for a body alone
have a beautiful northern summer
but it could be a good sign
XVII
my body is my standard bearer
my body is my master of ceremonies
with it I write my plot
with him I compose my music
and even without rehearsing
parade on the avenue of life!
with tuned or out of tune music
he always arrives first
It is at the parade that he shows himself completely
this samba school
called life
it is much more than an avenue
has a beginning, middle and end
and it gushes immensely right in the middle
XVIII
How many colors does the body have?
What do they do with the body?
do they just color?
why is the body called white
sends more than a black yellow red body
sends more than a rainbow body
and all how many other colors?
XIX
how many lives can the body withstand?
knowing that death is just one
and how many deaths are necessary
to drive away our anesthesia
of looking blindly around
and without any euphoria
close your eyes even more
empty the body and fill the glass
XX
the thing the body likes most
It's a hug
hug that does not spare affection
friendly hug
in a warm body to body
fused in body and soul
ingested every day
as food of life
There is also another hug
that of the torrid love of the torrid passion
where each one has his own
erupts and overflows
inside and out
and sails and flies and sails and flies
a body without a hug
it's a poor poor body
lost, without destination
a body at random, a body without a sky
without a compass, disoriented
that only a good hug can take away
XXI
at any moment
the body will claim its corporeality
to say that it builds and is built
in a day to day that will come
and his samba school
command all avenues
all forests
all deserts
all poles
all cities
that day will come
but we need to start…
that dionysus and bacchus
identical conjoined twins
fused into a single body
MY BODY YOUR BODY
under the blessing of eros
help us build beautiful avenues
so that we can conduct ourselves
tenderly
XXII
a body asks for passage
amidst so many conflicts
in the midst of so many storms
a body asks for passage
not to plant genocides
not to build scaffolds
a body asks for passage
to establish oneself as owner
to be built in a collective effort
to transform lonely crowd
in a supportive crowd
any year any month
any day any time
It's time to bulk up
join bodies in symphony
celebrate memories
hug each other affectionately
who knows one day it might be too late
with many, many eager bodies
the world dawns embraced
*Fernando Rios is a journalist, poet and artist.
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