THINGS IN A GAP
By Eduardo Escalante

Again Google, Mo Gawdat lines on happiness



Lemons or magnet for us?
Rational smells with an old story:
What part of my glass would I drink?
Would I be a different actor?
On the edge,
Still, I prefer: Step back step forward to growth
Probably some steps back — settling for good enough.
A few pauses, breathe, reflect, and then the step
And wait for a sudden illumination, not an equation
Or remain happy eating my orange and should not
Invest in failing or loosing. I should

Lemons or magnets or smiles for us?
petals smell with an old story:
What part of my glass would I drink?
Would I flow like a different actor?
Plato still in a shadow
On the edge,
A few pauses, breathe, reflect, and then a touch
Right left back forward up down
Probably some touch back — settling for good enough.
Wait for a sudden land, tree, wave, woman, not an equation
Or remain happy eating my orange and should not
Invest in failing or loosing or crumbling. I should not.

Human Fatigue

1. close into symbols
The city looked full
artery of Santiago choked with cars
a tatted man
was standing in front of a tree
Affirmed to a symbol
in this street
there was no crosswalk
his body jumped
It seemed 3d drawing
We can leave we can look
the tattoo is the sign because he jumps
2. the boy with the gun
The morning opened obscure
The sun had eye closed
I walked for different streets
An old lady looked at me from her window
When the church
men with revolvers assaulting a car
One looked at my head
he was fourteen years old
And with a bullet touched my shoes
While a bus passed
3. winter city
Poor looks poor
Shoes too big
He did have a hat
He lacked affection in his arm
He scratched his head again and again
The city is always indulgent
4. being in the city
it is like swimming in the swamp
it does not walk away
The pain is there
suffering seems a fate
tighter tighter tighter
against an endless swirl of human wind.
the whole world comes to spectacle,
arrive all private woe and
we see the public farce.
Samples of oligarchy even if they are plastic
too much people fill their hearts and lungs with ashes
It is difficult to be a part
of a policy signed and sealed.

A Rushed Account and Daily transmission

A place full of people and full of boredom and nonsense
there are no impressions only activity
not even anger only movements full of nothing and tedium
repetition repetition
people blinking and blooming and looking down the floor
the information is so simple It doesn’t hurt  
words dry and every day the same ornaments
the tongue is stuck in the jaw
the globe shrunk tight. Now.
a sliding screen between places
Divining what they know before the speed of data
nothing in the limit separating this world with the next
nobody pleading for the signal
making to believe beyond reason
The wind licks the wounds of left fractured emotions
some contemplated the future founded in silence
crystals of mercy in a lucid green corner of a lucid green landscape
do not give up slink into the garden’s wounds to dream
traces of beautiful things you worked for nickel-plated and golden, crystalline
write in another universe, in this, the ink doesn’t work
away from dust without melody
sunlight even if days with heavy stones
It’s interesting because it’s real. It’s a real



Digital Frenzy

Calls have been turned off, where am I, who am I
I do not know more about me. In the viewer he moves away from where I was, I stayed there, even for a moment,
the wi-fi transports the load by invisible waves
momentarily treasured digital I hit your digital window: it’s me. Do you recognize me?
On the other side, you hear
That breaks heads you have armed!
A ringtone, cries out mercy, wants to be heard.
How many pixels of masks blink as
pornographic lights They show what is seen and what is said without saying it. Solipsist chants accompany the trip.
Frantic review of images is the glow in the midst of emptiness. The instantaneous erasures obscure what could last.
Nothing else exists. There are no squares with statues, the earth is no longer moved,
Flowered gardens are not the landscape. There are no old people who retire to tell their past.
Memories are flashes of the camera.
The mirror recalls the past, now a double mirror.
You look at me, they look at me. I see myself. Yes, you are unappealable.
You, not from the darkness, but from the spectacle that is made.
Maybe I find what I want to be. I did not have it, now I can have it. I need a fragment of my existence to stop what fades in endless ritual.
Lucid camera,
pretentious, sometimes obscene by the detail, punctures. You witness the countenance,
you say there is something, there where there is not.
One by one the intimate portraits that hung on the wall of secrets fall. It is empty. Prehistory has been erased. With digital armor, the world is negotiated from the visible.
St. Augustine was right, the visible and nothing go hand in hand with perverse passion.
Palo extended to infinity and beyond, looking portrait with a Gothic look, the rear-view mirror remembers: the objects are closer than they seem.
The look and the one that looks at me, the new Leviathan. The look does not carry shame, there are no inner monsters. It is not necessary that you look for me to see me, I make you see me.

Something To Consider

Beauty, rare word,
name of hunger.
You want the fruit intact
nothing, pure look,
the skin tastes like desire,
and the desire, to what?

You wait for hunger,
breeze enclosed,
craving waits
the caress
of the eye.

Stubborn outline
the body ─the fruit─
aroma or paraphrase

or desire, voracity
of the eye that, blind, looking at you,
see who you are

The beauty that does not hold anything, lives on air …

as one in loving

About the Author:

Eduardo Escalante

Eduardo Escalante is a writer and researcher living in Valparaíso, Chile; he publishes regularly in Hispanic Reviews (Signum Nous, Ariadna, Nagari, Espacio Luke, Lakuma Pusaki, among others);  and reviews in English (StlylusLit, Writer Resits, Spillwords, Slamchop and in Gramma Poetry).