Danilo Lopez, architect, Ph.D. in Philosphy, is currently enrolled in the MFA Program at University of Texas - El Paso. He is the author of seven poetry collections [in English and Spanish] and editor of three anthologies. His work has appeared in LRR, Hayden's Ferry Review, Horizontes, Baquiana, Midwest Poetry Review, Crescendo, Midnight Zoo, Neologisms, Linden Lane, and elsewhere. He has been a featured poet at the Dallas, Miami, Houston, and Austin international book fairs.

Winter 2007

Table of Contents - Vol. III, No. 4

rubrics

with a trembling hand
borges mimics a signature
on the first page of my red book
   -argentinean embassy, Lisbon 1985-
hands it back to me
some other time I will stamp the date

penta hotel
rafael alberti sits, overjoyed
besides me
shouting the name of my country
euphoric
stroking his long hair, places his glass of wine
on a side table

and signs my 1985 ochre agenda

palacio de queluz, alvaro cunhal enters
and we conjuncture the political evaluation
of a communist paradise in nicaragua

i have forgotten what i did
to compare terms is insufficient

to confide in others, inconvenient

my clients are strange children
using stationary artifacts
impossible to classify,
could it be that the need is mutual and that
   -grammatically speaking-
the abysses that unite us
depend on the sense of adventure
we continually neglect?

(the redheaded poet is a rare orchid in
this flowering midnight)

as long as work permits
we will create the corresponding pamphlets
we will make them circulate among live people

and the beauty of time will
confirm so many isolated pronouns
so many culprit desires
so many family desertions

life lowers our expectations
and to live in the united states of america
imposes a toll on lost words
killing ten or twenty poems at once

diabolical artists     anti-war demonstrations
old dictions and styles   new confusing syntaxes

i would give all my fortune away
to have my language again

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