Editor’s Note: These poems are available exclusively in English and Portuguese. Click here to read in Portuguese.
The Clown
he twirls and cracks up laughing
at his poor drab life
gangly he leaps, jokingly
he kisses slutty men
plays dress up, camouflages pain
in smeared makeup
on his mind marchinha
bands cheers and streamers
empty after four days of
short and colorful happiness
he traces a melancholic smile
yanks off his tie and cries
Liquid Thoughts
he likes thoughts
in wordform
written or spoken
strained through supple lips
plugged up in ears with
verblike viscosity
he spews canned speeches
with a measly drop
of seventy proof liquor
bar philosophies suspicious
glances ideologies long
expired forgotten at
rock bottom of a poet’s glass
logic be damned
liquified
Espresso Poem
i beg your pardon
if i may recite a little poem
from the old school
i need a man cigarette
tenderness weed book and
a cup of piping hot sex
whip up a double Carioca
full-bodied strong and steamy
hold the sweetener
but a teaspoon of sugar
yes, to go, and a shot of poet
please
Lyrics
i found a scratch
on the record i sensed
your guilt
but it was better to
pretend i thought
quietly mouth shut
withstanding assaults
struggles marking
my skin for days on end
i cried humiliated
by a tiny bit
of love
nothing
but scratches
the music lacked
harmony with each
verse wearing down
wearing weary
until the needle breaks
and i? scared
to touch the record player
waiting
for a useless fix
i try
too tired
to sing i screamed
your name
timeworn melody
How to Exorcise Monsters & Demons
for Ronaldo Serruya and Fabiano de Freitas
repeat after me:
i am not a virus
come on repeat:
i am not a
virus
i tell people i am insane so that those who are afraid of crazies don’t
get close to me
Leão told me
i have adopted the same method
to living with hiv
promiscuous perverted fag
i collect labels and toss them in with the fine print patient pamphlets
that fill my dresser drawers
at least i have managed to understand
who i am amidst the cd4 tally and virus count in my blood that
they use to classify me
undetectable
i can fuck without a condom and not infect anyone
affirm the doctors
infect not contaminate, i relearned to say
as well as how you shouldn’t say aids carrier
a word snarled in stigmas
my mother[’s]
tongue is infected with hiv-aids
Not her tongue, but my ass—Copi bellows through Carrera’s mouth
with his difficulty of self-expression that still reverberates in my ears
it’s my ass!
velvet muscle sung by Piva
hindmost-vows-devil’s-backdoor
i have exorcised monsters &
demons
on the daily
with valiant prayer
i placed my biases on the altar
watched them, prayed
to later curse them each one
in tears for three years
until I vomited them up in shamanic rituals
scouring myself inside and out
full of fear
becoming creaturely
a jaguar that licks its own wounds
or a two-headed snake
injecting the cure
while i participated in my own wake
without tear or candle
and left my library in Marona’s name
how many deaths in this discursive epidemic?
40 million deaths worldwide
disguised as a beggar Dionysian danced with me to poetry cosmic and nameless
I used to trim back my fears with throat slits
and slice off
bits of my desire to single out
culprits
Dolutegravir Sodium + Tenofovir Fumarate + Lamivudine
Caio + Leonilson + Cazuza (better this way)
at noon on an empty stomach
keeping time in pills
my body becomes clogged with toxins
still we count the dead
smiling even
trying to believe in the chronicity of days
reinventing narratives
strolling along with the incendiary fear
of Al Berto
Perlongher’s songs of illusion
and the viral language of Burroughs
on nights of maritime
insomnia
