(Manuel Ocampo, via Tyler Rollins Fine Art)
FROM THE SEWERS OF LITERATURE: Lucas de Lima’s poetry is a hot mess. Spittle comes out of its mouth. Blood is contaminated, the flesh inflamed. It is a thing of feathers, teeth, scales and primordial black gunk. The manuscript from which these poems are excerpted recently earned the distinction of being rejected by the Minnesota State Arts Board, who found de Lima’s treatment of the propelling event—the killing of a close friend in 2006 by an alligator—melodramatic” and “inappropriate.”
They didn’t get it. As de Lima has contended elsewhere, poetry is “obscene adornment” in which “we lose control of our narratives, and inevitably end up thwarting not just our intentions for a poem, but also the way we conceive of ourselves and our bodies.”
De Lima’s spiritual and political cousin can be found in the fever dreams of artist Manuel Ocampo. His paintings, with their baroque phantasms of Catholic iconography, Nazi symbolism, monster roaches and Klansmen are the bastard products of history. Similarly, De Lima’s poems tear a hole through accepted feeling and reason to inhabit the “SPACE WHERE WRITER & READER BLEED THROUGH PAPER.”
In his transfiguration of his friend’s death, the tabloid-ready luridness of it all, de Lima locates the ‘HOLY UNCAGING” of the American immigrant and the immigrant artist, who are “NEVER DONE CRYING, LAUGHING, SPURTING, DYING” in the face of the fear of foreign bodies thrashing in our midst: “LIKE THE GATORS UNDERNEATH NEW YORK/WE CLOG THE SEWERS OF LITERATURE.” Or to bastardize the headline from Time magazine’s June cover story, “We are poetry. Just not legal.”
—Lisa Chen (author of Mouth [Kaya Press, 2007]. She lives and works in New York City.)
I FLY INTO GOD’S FACE
& ASK HIM ABOUT MY DEAD BEST FRIEND
THE ALLIGATOR IS ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD WHEN I’M IN THE MIDDLE OF
THE HIGHWAY
I FEEL CONTIGUOUS WITH THE LANDSCAPE
LIKE ANY FLATTENED BIRD WHO SNEEZES BACK TO LIFE AFTER GETTING RUN
OVER BY A TRUCK
I AM LEARNING TO STRAIGHTEN MY SPINE
WHEN I WALK I WALK TOWARD LOVE FOR THE GATOR
ANY QUESTION I ASK GOD ANSWERS BY CREATING A MEADOW FILLED WITH
ORPHANED BEASTS WHO
TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER
I, LITTLE BIRD WHOSE FEATHERS ARE TARRED
WANT TO GIVE BIRTH TO A BABY GATOR
AN ALBINO
I KNOW THE COLOR OF MY BABY IS IMPORTANT
IT MATTERS WHICH SPECIES I FUCK
BUT IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT
IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT
THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE BIRD IS A BULLET’S
I SHOOT MYSELF INTO EVERYONE
WHEN I PICK SOMEONE
TERRORIST DIVA
ANA MARIA’S CLOSE FRIENDS CONSTELLATE AS NEW BIRDS IN THE SKY TO
TELL ME I’M NOT THE ONLY SACRED FIGHTER.
OK, I SAY. LET US CHANT IN A WINGED PROCESSION UNTIL OUR VOICES ARE A
TIDAL WAVE OF
WE LOVE ANA MARIA EVERYDAY.
ANA MARIA’S FRIENDS NOD, WRINKLING CLOUDS, BUT A BEAM OF SUN
PARTS THE CLOUDS
TO MOCK MY CATCHY REFRAIN.
THIS IS A HIGH-PITCHED POWER BALLAD, I TELL THE SKY.
MY BODY BLOWS UP ON A CRUCIFIX. I NEED A FLOCK TO WITNESS MY
MIRACLE &
A SURPLUS OF FEATHERS TO DISPERSE WHEN I DIE.
MY EXPLOSION MIMICS THE SUNRISE IN LIGHT OF THE LIGHT
ANA MARIA
DESCENDED FROM.
UNITED ANIMALS
PLOP THEMSELVES DOWN.
I LAY DOWN MY CROSS & GUN.
WE ALL BRING OUT EACH OTHER’S BEAUTY, THE ANIMALS & I, AS PIECES
IN ANA MARIA’S ART INSTALLATION.
THERE’S A DEAD GAY ARTIST HOLDING HANDS WITH THE GATOR.
A GOWNED CONGOLESE CHOIR PROVIDES MUSICAL ACCOMPANIMENT &
MORAL TENOR.
BABY APES GLITTER AGAINST MOTHER’S TONGUE.
EVERYONE GATHERS AT THE MOUTH OF A CAVERN WHERE ANA MARIA
IS BURIED:
THE MOUTH OF OUR CREATOR.
AS SOON AS WE BEGIN TO UNCOVER HER A SPARROW FLITS BY.
ANA MARIA HAS RISEN, THE SPARROW SINGS. ANA MARIA HAS RECOVERED
HER SPINE. ANA MARIA LIVES WITHIN THE EYE OF A TORNADO STRIKING THE
NEARBY SLAUGHTERHOUSE.
OUR MENAGERIE THEN TURNS INTO A MOTTLED ORGY.
BETWEEN FEATHERS & SCALES, WE CELEBRATE
THE HOLY UNCAGING.
I FALL IN LOVE WITH EVERY SPECIES I FUCK.
“PREPARA TU ESQUELETO PARA EL AIRE”
ANA MARIA & I SLEEP WITH THE PHONE OFF THE HOOK. WE DREAM
TOGETHER AS TEENS. SHE DREAMS OF A STARTIP IN HER SIDE & WAKES UP
WANTING TO GO SWIMMING. IN SACRED WIND THE BORDER BECOMES A
BIRD’S NIGHTMARE OR DREAM. A BIRD FORMS AN ENCLOSURE OF WOUNDS
BY INVITING 230 PAPER CUTS & NEVER BANDAGING THEM. A BIRD UNRAVELS
THE SKY, STAINS ITS BABY BLUE SURFACE, BOMBS THE ARTIFICIAL DOME
UNTIL NO COUNTRY IS SHRINKWRAPPED ANYMORE. ALL CHARACTERS BLEED
INTO ACTORS BECAUSE I ROOST IN A NEST AMONG ANA MARIA’S FAVORITE
FRUIT. POMEGRANATES, HER ORGANS EXPLODING. WHILE A NECROPSY
REGISTERS THE GATOR’S HEARTBEAT HOURS AFTER HE DIES, NATIONAL
GEOGRAPHIC NOTES THE TEARS OF CROCODILIANS WHEN THEY EAT. ONLY
MOTHER LORCA PENETRATES ME AS MUCH AS THE GATOR & ANA MARIA. HER
RUISEÑOR FLIES INTO MY CAGE OF FLESH HANGING OPEN LIKE A JAW,
FROTHING & BUBBLING IN THE GATOR’S IRISES.
THE GATOR-ANA MARIA-LUCAS BODY
ON A CRYSTALLINE MORNING OUR BODY CLIMBS A BARBED WIRE TO
HEAVEN
& SLIDES BACK DOWN INTO MUD.
WE ARE SUCH A HEAVY BOOK THAT WE POUND TILES WHEN YOU
DROP US.
WE ARE NEVER DONE CRYING, LAUGHING, SPURTING, DYING:
ALL POLITICS ARE REDUCIBLE TO US.
WE ARE GOVERNED BY A WAVE CRUMBLING THE SHORES OF THE AMERICAS
& YOU DIGEST OUR BODY AS YOU READ,
ALL THE FEATHERS, SCALES, TEETH,
BREASTS, BLACK
MUDSLIDE GUNK.
LIKE THE GATORS UNDERNEATH NEW YORK
WE CLOG THE SEWERS OF LITERATURE.
WE MAKE FRIENDS WITH THE MOLE PEOPLE WHO TOSS RATS INTO OUR
BOOK-BODY.
RODENT CORPSES ROUND OUT THE FAT
UP OUR SLEEVES.
For more Lucas de Lima: www.montevidayo.com.