Saints and Huslers; y Faghags

Evolution

And Adam and Eve were born out of shit
Putrefying boredom burst the swamp into things
Bodies danced the symbiotic birth of mud and fumes
Flash matters in matters of shit, gas engages bodies in sin

All of us with all of you left the swamp
To look for latrines.


El Gringo Chulo y su Comadre

Oiga Compadre, perhaps
Comadre, pues bien,
I am hostile but you
The típico gringo pendejo
Le vende el alma al diablo,
lleno de sonrisas
Cuando me dijiste en tu primer mensaje,
“I will make your time worth tralalalala”
me dije, “What a fuck I am going to have”
After such an offer of services to be delivered
Not even a hard on



Masculinity

Eros appeared for the first time
With you, stern top on me with a hard on
Farewells in bed cut deeper than door kisses
A man is not a man all the time with another man
Once on top masculinity not longer lost, possesses new forms
Desires below, lightness takes hold of man topped by man, both on
Dissolve into two distinct men, peace is always soothing after man meets man..


Piercing Eyes in Quebec

One hour of life
With piercing eyes
Servicing
Like any other job
Speaking in languages
We don’t understand
Just touch
No words.
One hour of life
With piercing eyes
Grasping
Slow hands move across
Not finding the road
We can’t take
Just touch
No words
Piercing eyes
One hour to live
Leaving
The road not taken
The job incomplete
Will dance for someone else.

Loneliness was undressed
When you rubbed my back
And told me to go away
For the weekend, in Quebec
Loneliness speaks wordless worlds
In mirrors reflecting rubbed backs
And your hand.


Campus Bar
(Where desires are sold)

Desires, ten dollars each
Begs the man for more
Or less
To dance by himself
As Piercing Eyes stare
On body not to be kissed
Breath on it
Dance by yourself
No stage is too small
Dance to be alone
Begs the man for more
Or less, less
The dancing booth is closed
Desires, ten dollars each
Begs the man, no more
As Piercing Eyes dances
For another man.

Languages

A poet in Montreal unable to speak French
Danced all by himself
The city did not forgive the foreigner in dark skin
Steps of Spanish boots bought in Saint Catherine
Kept the poet from dancing with the other.

Montreal does not forgive men who dance alone
On small stages in Saint Catherine Street
Dancing tears tell stories of unfulfilled desires
a fraction of the whole truth.

Saints and Hustlers in Quebec

Gerardo Torres Rivera
New York City
July 27, 2007

                                                                 La Española Cuando Besa

When the Spanish woman kisses, were the beginning words of that popular pasodoble song heard in Puerto Rican radio during the nineteen fifties. It was dedicated to the sincerity of Spanish women when they kissed. If they kissed it was de "verdad”, an honest and truthful kiss. Not for me. Last time I was kissed by a Spanish woman it was a kiss of death. She kissed me until she got a job at the same college where I used to work, and when she believed that my positions were a threat to her career interests she decided not to kiss me anymore. “El amor y el interés fueron al campo un dia, y pudo más el interes que el amor que te tenía” were her guiding words more so that the ones in the pasodoble already cited.

She was the Spanish version of the once quite common fag hag: those women who, during the days of disco and irresponsible sex practices, would hang out with gay men; both engaged in a relationship of mutual temporary convenience and/or support. Some of these friendships would last forever; others were there until new opportunities or lovers would come by. But when these relationships extended beyond the realms of social spaces into work, the dynamics of work were stronger than mutual needs. Principles at work are as relative as perceptions of the world.

Of all the principles guiding the work place, sincerity and honesty are the ones that are most absent nowadays. To deceive and set up traps are the values to be used when working in contemporary society. If hidalguia and honor were the ones during cavalier times, and ridicule the preferred style at Versailles, to be dishonest is the value to be followed; and for some this means to be political. And to be political goes beyond the halls of government, it is found at home, at work, the Church. To be political is to be dishonest. And to be dishonest is being confused with being astute.

To be openly gay was a threat to the kissing “española”, and rather than having to take a stand against the homophobes at work she distanced herself from the openly gay man. But stranger than the politics of the kissing “Espanola” was the position taken by a feminist Birkenstock wearing lesbian and multicultural-multilingual latino professor. They both took sides with the homophobes when the openly gay man was excluded from using a progressive educational center. Since most of them were liberals claiming to support all kind of progressive causes, it seems as if they were progressive as a Chilean writer claimed, “de la cintura para arriba”.