Wire Matters

Cross–wires give arms to wooden poles,
The electric Small talk, Big talk, and talking Dreams travel through wires
Tightly above hot concrete streets, and walking heads.
My wires don't cross, because they fell apart before the age of six.
Instead, Could–Have–Beens are the wires installed in my head.
All talks travel in the same wire, and they never cross.
Straight Lines which only life has the fingers to cross.
But that is not the way my story is weaved, so I try to do it myself
Only to choke in the process.
I change the fiber optic–electric cable into my own mix.
Resulting in a fit of irritation from my heart that twists my tongue
Which rolls out all my problems from a sea of words at the tip of anger.
I am divided into two, one in English, the other in Portuguese (the Brazilian edition).
Like two never growing flowers an inch apart, competition thrives.
Only to flower a champion on the soil above my gravestone.
Until then, the poles gossip the Portuguese self without English.
In clustered hills, rich in oranges and coffee, I imagine life to be more human.
I would be the one walking below the tangled wires, and have stories
That beam through, from pole to pole. I wouldn’t have to twist
My own wires, or change them, or make them my own,
Because there would be all heart.
Among the everyday there would be no split.
That thought is present in both languages.
But one cries louder in one than the other.
What is left is a question and a soul,
That within his head plays telephone.
And jumbles out regret after regret, with no clear path.
On the English side, temperament is like sleeping on a cradle.
It is here where the wires are built, and tightly locked.
Long tall wooden posts build a cathedral of pines and wires,
That bolt, and never leave, bolt, and never leave.
How hollow and dry the desert has evolved back at the chest,
With everything drained into the wires, all that is left is an earthquaked self,
That is felt layers deep within the shrunken parts below the head.
That is the divide Could–Have–Beens produce.
The cross–wires never move, and keep their matters open.
Wire matters I attend myself by dreaming in and feeling out.

Artwork by Tarsila Do Amaral, "Opérarios"