The possibility
of crossing the     border

whether     carried  out
          or       not

licenses    dreams

          and  permits
the incestuous
          cohabitation

of  different  orders

    of

r e  a   l    i     t      y       .


                             [Debra A. Castillo]

---

there are borders and there are borders and
there are borders and there are borders .

"the border" to San Diegans means only
one thing : Tijuana

"the border" to Tijuanans means only one
thing : the United States.

make of that difference what you will, but remember I am technically
lying because I said it in English (wrote it, rather) and almost
all Tijuanans think in Spanish

so I               translated, not
                   necessarily
                   lied

though all theorists of translation may
or may
not                agree

twas     a         l i e

" n e v e r t h e l e s s "
  we came down the un-navigable river

  Herr Kapitan

                   (the African Queen)

and yes, most Tijuanans
especially intellectuals

are very well aware
of Hollywood lore

movie
classics           Quotes

More than I am .

AFTER ALL, "Tijuana" is, to some extent, a creation of two dream factories, one in Hollywood and the other in Mexico City. Tijuana, as image, name, identity in the brain of all the world, is, as Manu Chao says, "Welcome to Tijuana" is, as the young woman says in Santitos, "Why else would anyone go to Tijuana" - i.e. to prostitute themselves, herself, myself, to chase the dream of the rich woman who starts out selling cigarettes of flesh and ends up with a mansion with a refrigerated room full of fur coats.

No, no, I don't know her, she is a myth, so don't go thinking she is anyone.

Except maybe me.  Literature-istically speaking that is what I am doing here, 
throwing myself  poetic warts and all   and varicose writing veins and all 
and hypertext mangling sins of the pen father  and   all ,     throwing my self
myself out onto the great global stage street page  of   this     inter-net
and saying who will buy, who will buy my chile, who will buy my chile chili chilly
con cagney jeewhiz edgar robinson neo-monroe marilyn doctrine yes, humphrey clark
kate jimmy etc

only the golden oldies none of the brat pack
or new wave bad girls
                   you love
                   you love to
                   you love to notice

no .

---

Ay Jesse, where are you? Jesse Garcia, best friend of my year and a half in Los Angeles, Santos Jesus I pray where have you gone and how did I ever lose track of you? Do you remember when we climbed the towers of Century City and walked the streets at night? When we snuck into the swimming pool at midnight? When we discovered the glass houses and hidden orange groves...?

Love, and friendship, are such precious commodities. Treasures of spirit and emotion. How many times I have let them disappear. Ralph and Michael and Beth. And earlier, Jesse. Ay mi amigo yo recuerdo the oddest little things from our year together in west LA - how we used to prowl the campus at midnight, and where once we ran into the nightime shooting of a TV movie and you recognized the actor but I didn't. "But it's your thing, your major" whatshisname said was with us that night (whatshername that used to be Cleopatra).

Then how we watched the entire cast and crew eating lunch at One A.M. and fantasized that they were only here (there) to film themselves eating midnight lunch under that instant tent on grassy Royce plaza

I still remember the words carved in plaster - like the stucco of a Maya palace I think now - carved in plaster over the proscenium of Royce Hall theater

education is learning to use the tools which the race has found indispensable

and already I was rebelling in my heart, still rebelling like through all high school, grunting and growling against the sublime forces of social control and peer pressure and

loving only a blank piece of paper for its challenge to open my soul
that academically forbidden word
to open my soul into words on page

and look     ma          now there is a new kind of page

h y p e r

super page         " go  over   page "
                                        my dead father said in dream one year after died

as
   in

         o v e r     d r i v e

         on column #10

That night, watching them eat, watching with you and whatshisname
I began to understand I did not want to keep on studying this industry

that I did not want to work in that godawful bloodsucking moneygrubbing
industry that makes you work sixteen twenty hours a day and night and
then dumps you out on the street with no other role in sight in site

no, better I should make poetry on paper, some how  some   way .

Four years alter later I thought I saw you on Telegraph avenue in Berkeley
on the very night I drank from the three-headed fountain in Strawberry creek
and told Satan to eat himself Ouroburos tail first into nothingness and
changed my mind to Washington D.C. instead of the Army in Germany, but

it was not you only some kid who looked like you.  No, the young man said,
said, not him




and I moved away to the Nation's Capital.






how utterly ironic that now I finally want to make videos and films
in this megalopolis at the end of the earth on the corner of our world





oy Jesse where are you

now

come have dinner with my wife and me




remind me of my ancient youth





dit ca tu fait oh toi que voila
pleurant sans cesse

dit ca tu fait oh toi que voila
de ta jeunesse

                        (Rimbaud?  Verlaine?


            yeh, I think it was Paul Verlaine
                        but how can I explain memory's bane
                                     to carry verses around in my head and forget


who      wrote            t h e m         )







adios mi querido Santos
te extraño más que nunca

sí es cierto


ya