Excerpt from Poelitrics
The following prose poems by Gustavo Rivera were originally released as part of Poelitrics, a self-published collection sold in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria to raise funds to benefit the victims of the storm in Puerto Rico. This excerpt from the collection was originally accepted for republication by Nightboat Books1 in early 2018. However, Nightboat never published the excerpt and hasn’t responded to Rivera’s emails requesting clarification. We’re publishing the prose poems as part of an ongoing series replatforming censored and dissappeared works.
Excerpt from Poelitrics
UNIT 1: Nature
The organic realm which surrounds and composes us, we are all but one of the same blop of protein which first interacted way back when we can only imagine and speculate
Hunchback whales change, only wood weasels will engage their tunes frequently with me, it was a chance to lay on the ground and stare towards the one’s face, I know you were opinionated but soonthereafter wanted to see what was in front of me again for the first time from each other when I’d arrived. You didn’t want to sing with me anymore, groups of bees, it’s how they arrange them making squads to find that rare worker-bee that’s different laying eggs and kill it, eat its eggs. They are rhythmic beasts, what was that smell? It’s a cultural process; it smelled like sweat, like pop music moonlight, and crushed insects and fashion. It was her a little bitty sexual opening in the human world, that wet season showed themselves. I had intercourse with forty-eight of the whales, males, females, juveniles. I killed my girlfriend’s children, which is to say I killed the children of my girlfriend, I ate them from the rest and then I forced myself upon her. They learn they can all make those sounds. She is now my different girlfriend, it’s a sexual thing so I’m unsure what this means.
UNIT 3: Culture
The influence of history on my genes in relation to the undeniable fact that time erodes
Starry expansion of melody transcendence stems from being rooted a drowning man flying my body has been harvesting this tumor for centuries this is the radio for the masses poor kids isolated from everyone you are what I am waiting for for some reason the world is more peaceful according to the numbers and I need to be with you again, the most amount of displacement with the sand between my toes, war, the length of time, the mark of disorder, this is the country I have abandoned or more accurately said the multiverse and all that is vague and expansive inside my shoes rubbing against the socks I am wearing, shit looks so sad when you look back.
UNIT 4: Spirituality
The spirit learned that moves with you within this sun-dyed shell may or may not lead
I don’t think the shopkeep is thinking ideology when he calls the police about a black-marketeer with other poor kids, I’m the born-free, I was like, ok, everything is alright selling cigarettes across the street, they just grew up learning that black is wrong with other rich kids, our sense mirrors an uneven playing field, did you mean to call people ignorant of what counts? Even in Staten Island, there’s a huge market as our kids have shriveled, there’s no law that says I have to be healthy, internet phones, black-market, early on I realized they didn’t know much, rich kids are going to school and poor kids are going to school, I can come out now, I mean unaware, you cannot run away from it, they lack savvy, it forms an integral part, rich or poor, kids from rich homes use it for more useful ways, in experience, other people can’t trust.
UNIT 5: Class
The popular events which dribble you like Lebron James, and what do you get?
Are you an example of a person my memory the fade of the light, who the high taxation fear of cigarettes drove you to being questioned to stop smoking? Do you fear of being ever-buy-loosies? Single men certainly, untaxed truthed I am a cigarette. Some political prosecution has driven cigarettes underground. Rand I am an accusation. Paul was a little uncomfortable a defensive tone-deaf in just dropping that statement. If you in telling are a smoker you should be invested in my regulation of your own story, your ability to continue this living, but we should definitely not, I know these young people, coerce them into not participating in promiscuous sex. Do not date. A politician my hockey has killed Eric Garner. Conservative players, the power, and libertarians are hitchhiking, an On the Road on adderall of the elite. In a frank natural weight tone, he admits the cops of your silence just wanted him out of there and this was the excuse needed to be watched. It’s a long road until not being babysat.
UNIT 6: Society
Our humanity in the face of it all
Leave the animals alone. Let’s talk about how a cellphone being present can affect the moment. The zoos behind getting pregnant, rich kids from college educated homes rode them all, poor kids were human beings past highschool, the hobby cops who investigate other cops, this is a point guard’s league, as long as they got the culture of the coach, the rain last night, the sun today, the CEO of a company that doesn’t pay its employees. A moral figure erases remnants of my having been sick, it’s great at brunch! Who the fuck wants low-alcohol wines? I am sorry I hurt a few animals and I am sorry I didn’t kill the entire human race, it gets really ugly if you move someone’s lawnchair. I was I to the stomach throughout Greenpoint. I’m surprised I’ve yet to lose all my ideals. That’s why we get high, say fuck the police.