teaching them English so that they can progress. Last week she was in L.A. snorting cocaine with the elite fashionistas in a five-story mansion glittered with gold. Next
week she will fly to Beijing to play soccer with neoimperialists on a field covered by Chinese rocks, to then help them organize their plan to save the world. Currently I am strapped to a machine that is plugging into my soul. It is removing blood from my system. I have a thick needle stuck into my mainline. I sit on a reclined leather chair and read Tennessee Williams on row with other poor people reclined in leather chairs. Whites, blacks, students—poor. Each chair, to its side, has a machine. The machine removes our blood and mixes it with an anticoagulant which separates the white blood cells, our energy source, from the red blood cells. The machine keeps our energy and deposits it, now called plasma, into a plastic vesicle. Our plasma will be sold to science studies and the Army. To save lives, we’re told. I will receive twenty-five dollars. Next time I come I will get twenty dollars. If I donate eight times in a month I will get thirty dollars on the eighth donation. The machine returns our red blood cells to our bodies. When the process is done with me I am another person. I become cold and indifferent. I am an asshole. I have no soul. It’s been depleted. I will eat a burger along with five beers in an attempt to regain my soul. I might receive a message from the girl I love. I will ask her what time it is wherever she might be. She will eventually answer and the time will be very different. Just like her and me. Maybe when she returns she will allow me to have her. But it won’t be real. I have heard that racism is dead in America. That is bullshit. But if it were true—we still have class. Color was an excuse. Class difference shall always exist. Poverty is a race. To be born wealthy is a race. Complacency is a race. I will always be there for the girl I love, but she will never be mine because I am poor and she loves to travel.
Who is Rey Emmanuel Andujar?
Andujar is the Dominican acting on stage. “Una pequeña ceremonia” from Andujar’s debut short fiction collection Amorcidio has been translated into English by the Riverbed and has been published at the Jargon. Check that out HERE.
The Riverbed has been translating Andujar’s debut collection and it will be published in December as Amoricide. Look out for that.
Also on the Jargon, a new Riverbed poem, “Censorship (for the sake of foreign opinion) is a disgrace” has been published. Check that out HERE.
***UPDATE NUMERO DOS***
The Riverbed has a piece of flash fiction called "Hector Valdez" published in the second issue of LitChaos Print. It's about illegal immigrants fucking trannies. Check that out HERE.
PLUS!!!
Damaged, the debut Andy Riverbed collection is on sale for seven dollars. Check that out HERE.
Cootie Shot
Cootie Shot’s debut EP is available to download HERE.
Listen to the songs
"Blue Tooths"
and a cover of La Cara Oculta’s "Pizzeria Fatal."
Dennis Mahagin’s Ebook
Available to buy HERE.
Cofre
The Riverbed’s poet-homeboy, Alfredo “Cofre” Perezjurado has a blog now. Check that out HERE.
The Riverbed and Cofre once worked at el Nuyorican café in Old San Juan together. They once worked on a screenplay about Reaggaeton and its rise into the mainstream. They once smoked lots of weed and snorted cocaine and read poetry together. Those were good days then on the island, their home. Now they are both displaced. They are the same but in different points on this Earth.
Magdalen Powers
The Riverbed’s first writing teacher at UF, Miss Magdalen Powers, who also happens to be the author of the story collection, The Heart is also a Furnace, put out by Future Tense Books, has a show playing in a band with an ex-member of the MC5. Check that out if you’re in Oregon or something.
Also out from Future Tense Books is Chelsea Martin’s Everything was Okay until Whatever. Check that out HERE.
Circus Circus, Andy Riverbed, Mystery Books Tour
Circus Circus, Andy Riverbed, and the Mystery Books will be playing shows in Orlando and in Puerto Rico for the last weeks of June.
The first Circus Circus show will be in a free art exhibit where the major young Puerto Rican artists will be painting in groups divided by themes. There will be more than 15 bands playing that day. Check out details HERE.
The other shows will be on June 26th as Mystery Books and Andy Riverbed along with DJ Spik Jagger at a TBA location, June 27th as Circus Circus along with Antisociales at a TBA location, and on June 28th as Mystery Books and Andy Riverbed at Libreria Isla en Rio Piedras along with Rey Emmanuel Andujar.
***UPDATE NUMERO UNO***
CIRCUSCIRCUS' "The Don't Sleep on Your Moon EP" is ready. Check that out HERE.
Radiation Newsletter
Is still looking for submissions. Check that out HERE.
Sincerely, it’s an awesome publication and Matty puts a lot of himself into it. It’s your opportunity to decide its content.
Newamba Flamingo
Is kind of weird, but also kind of cool.
New Translations!
Te voy a patear la cara y luego te la besare
Te patearé la cara y luego le daré besos.
He practicado mis patadas aéreas todos los días.
Por lo menos tres o cuatro veces al día las he practicado.
Eso significa que he practicado mis patadas aéreas con mas frecuencia que cualquier otro humano.
Eso significa que cuando te de esa patada a la cara te darás cuenta de lo poderoso que soy.
Eso significa que esa patada tendrá mas impacto que si otro te hubiese pateado la cara.
Luego de patearte la cara, te la besaré.
Habrán muchísimos besos—
tantos que me odiarás por no darte espacio y estarás vagamente espantada.
Pensarás que soy un psicópata.
Y yo no sentiré nada, ninguna emoción, cuando te bese la cara.
Será algo que estoy haciendo por hacerlo, nada más.
Te besaré la cara en repeticiones,
majormente por la área de tus chachetes,
pero aveces en la puntilla de tu nariz y aveces en tu frente.
Y a veces mi boca estará abierta.
A veces mis dientes delanteros tocarán tu piel por accidente.
Y te prometo abrir mis ojos para asegurarte que si eso pasa,
cuando sientas el toque de dientes contra tu piel, y luego abres tus ojos, mis ojos estarán abiertos.
Pero no detendré mis besos a tu cara.
Tus ruegos de que renuncie serán ignorados.
Al día siguiente despertarás con tu cara contra la almohada, tu cara que ha sido pateada y violentamente besada.
Te va a doler la cara.
La tocarás y vas a sentir lo mucho que duele.
Estoy practicando mis patadas aéreas; mis besos ya son de alta calidad.
Te dare uno de lo primero y muchos de lo segundo.
Tú me significas nada y me eres nadie.
Eres una migaja en mi ombligo.
- Translated from English by Andy Riverbed with proofing done by Marina Reyes Franco
I am going to jump-kick your face and the kiss it
I am going to jump-kick your face and then kiss it.
I have been practicing my jump-kicks every day
I have been practicing my jump-kicks at least three or four times a day.
That means I have performed more jump-kicks than the average human.
That means when I jump-kick your face you will notice my power.
That means when I jump-kick your face, it will mean more than if someone else did it.
After I jump kick your face I will kiss it.
There will be many kisses—
an amount that will eventually become annoying and vaguely frightening to you.
They will seem mad.
And I won't even feel emotion while I'm kissing your face.
It will just be something I am doing.
I will kiss your face repeatedly,
mainly in the cheek area,
but sometimes on the nose and sometimes on the forehead.
And sometimes my mouth will be open.
Sometimes my front teeth will touch your skin but it will be accidental.
And I promise to open my eyes to assure you if that happens,
when you feel teeth and then open your eyes, mine will already be open.
But I will not stop kissing your face.
The pleas to stop will not be obeyed.
The next day you will wake up with your face against the pillow, your jump-kicked and violently kissed face.
It will hurt.
You will touch it and feel how it hurts.
I am practicing my jump-kicks; my kisses are already pretty good.
You will get one of the former and many of the latter.
You mean nothing and you are nobody.
You are a crumb in my bellybutton.
- Sam Pink
el hombre de holanda
me llama por teléfono:
dice que quiere que le autografíe
todas las revistas literarias
en que he aparecido
y se las mande
por correo.
voy a comenzar
un archivo
de tus trabajos
dice
mientras estoy aqui sentado
en la oscuridad
y una cucaracha
se pasea para arriba
y para abajo
por mi pie descalzo.
de chamaquito
nunca quise
ser famoso:
solo quería
ser aceptado
quizás amado:
nada de eso
ocurrió.
el hombre de holanda
también dice
que quiere publicar
una colección
de mi poesía
en carpeta dura
lo cual debería
acariciar
mi ego
o por lo menos
elicitar alguna
emoción
(he leído
relatos recientes
de poetas llorando
al recibir
esta clase de noticia)
pero mis huesos
estan llenos de
humo azul:
en mis sueños
se me caen los dientes
en lo que
un perro chapotea
hacia delaware:
y este hombre de holanda
dice que
quiere
archivar mis trabajos.
la cucaracha
se pasea para arriba
y para abajo
por mi pie descalzo.
comienzo a
reirme
descontroladamente.
- Translated from English by Andy Riverbed and Marina Reyes Franco
the man from holland
calls me on the phone:
says he wants me to autograph
all literary magazines
i've appeared in
and mail them
to him.
i'm going to start
an archive
of your work,
he says
as i sit here
in the dark
and a cockroach
hikes up
and over
my bare foot.
as a kid
i never wanted
to be famous:
all i wanted
was to be accepted
maybe loved:
neither of which
panned out.
the man from holland
also says
he wants to publish
a full length
hardcover book
of my poetry
which should
stroke
my ego
or elicit
some
emotion
(i've read
recent accounts
of poets weeping
upon receipt
of such news)
but my bones
are full of
blue smoke:
in my dreams
all my teeth fall out
as i
dog paddle
to delaware:
and this man from holland
says he
wants to
archive my work.
the cockroach
hikes back
and over
my bare foot.
i start
laughing
uncontrollably.
- Justin Hyde
2 comments:
ou get $25 for the cells, what's a burger and 5 beers cost? Zero sum game?
burgers at nother's on wednesday are 2 dollars. 3 with bacon and cheese, and high-lifes are a buck each.
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