Marking Time
José Pérez presents ten poems
La Desintegración de la Persistencia de la Memoria [The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory] (1954) by Salvador Dalí; oil on canvas, 10 x 13 in. Source: Collection of The Salvador Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, FL (USA); Gift of A. Reynolds & Eleanor Morse
POET’S NOTE
Surrealism is one of my favorite avant-garde movements, and Salvador Dalí’s The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory (1954) is one of my favorite pieces of art. People confuse it with The Persistence of Memory (1931)... I wish I still had the poem I wrote to the “Disintegration” painting! Lost the poem after making an unfortunate stop in solitary confinement.
My poetry comes from a place of deep pain, created in dark places for the purpose of illumination and healing. At the age of 16, I was faced with twenty years to life in prison and struggled with suicidal thoughts. As living proof that writing and reading poetry can be catalysts for change in life, I believe in the Arts wholeheartedly. Poetry is the language I use to get back in touch with my humanity and that of others, and I hope these poems offer a small glimpse into its power.
–José A. Pérez, 2023
I Wish I Was Me
From “Jose Perez on Poetry and Prison,” The Sanctuary for Independent Media, WOOC 105.3 FM , Hudson Mohawk Magazine, October 2021
Ode to Art
Art…
you bring out the arms I walk into
I live in love
Among ideas in a smoke-filled room,
my mother’s dilated eyes
I live in potential...died there, too
I am counted
I stand there naked
Living in the only time in my life I think of nothing
Law requires man to molest me
under the guise of searching for things
that can hurt the contraband
Art
you help me cope as I open the curtain and see him
you bring out the cold in me
the lonely words I dig deep for to heal
to write in a notebook filled with lines
that don’t confine my mind
By nourishing my cheeks
Holding me as I try to perch my voice
above gun towers.
Art
Lyrics born from my world
suspend space and time
I lay my wet cheeks on your bosom
as your figure disappears
Others decide to love you as I do
reading you as I do
standing there naked
we think of everything for them
Art
you bring out the silent screams
the loud thinking
the clang kissing
the edge of my dreams
Madonna of Port Lligat (1949) by Salvador Dalí; oil on canvas, 48.9 x 37.5 cm. Dalí submitted the painting to Pope Pius XII for approval, and it was granted. Source: Collection of the Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University
Where I’m From
Where I'm from?
Where I'm from hides me under domino tables
on the corner, excavating for memories I lost,
‘cause these memories cost me
scars and torn scarves,
covering me in New York frost.
I'm lost as chatter attacks my teeth.
Grinding words cut my tongue through chapped lips.
I left bloodstains on my father's kiss,
waving La Bonita Bandera around,
charging the microphone amp with a
balled fist gripping the mic,
I am from
filtering lyrical lips lusting lovingly on her.
And she don’t like that shit.
I am from
funneling thoughts through images,
musical theory through thinking MCs.
I am from
revolutionizing poetic prose,
probing and pointing
to the horizon of capitalism.
I am from
capturing caged caskets
for the masses,
full-metal jacket shattering
the window to her dollhouse.
And I am from
where Papi screams,
"Whose gonna feed my chill'ren?!"
La Bodega,
on the corner,
by the gutter
is where I am from.
Phantasmagoria (1929) by Salvador Dali; oil on panel 69 x 44 cm. “Dali was well versed in Freudian psychoanalysis. From Dali's writings, we can tentatively identify some of the characters in this and other paintings…his mother (the jug-receptacle bust, in the middle), his father (the ferocious lion head), and Dali himself (the horizontal anamorphic profile with the bleeding nose).” Caption and photo: Mark Mauno
Sense of Mind
When one of my senses backtracks
I fall in place
Walking through
A field of mines
that produces those should’ve(s) in confrontations
that make my lungs open wide
I never look at the “I tried”
I look at the “I died”
Which is good
Never satisfactory
What can I claim as my glory
But claim as the story
Of how a sick mind’s escape to serenity
Landed me in iron and steel
That keep my legs bound at a limit
With which I can never be finished
Take this image and hold it for twenty years
I can never believe it
As I look at the field and wonder
Whether I could ever grow like the corn
Could fly through these words
Could ever be on time when
The blow of a horn
Sounds like pieces being torn
From everybody’s garments worn
Will I really know when I've been born?
Glimpse of a night
Glimpse of an aim
An objective to title each lane
Glimpse of a way
A vision to stay
But I’ll be off
Out of my way
To chase a cat
Just get the urge off my back
It’s like that
So when you're at the peak of the mountain
You expect your words to stand still in motion
They never do
You study each crack and each wrong or right
But YOU ALWAYS LOSE
You know I knew
The little holes I can go through
And show you
Where you first spoiled
The idea of you being loyal
To the pavement
I say that to understand what today is
I observe to complete the man in me
So that I won't degrade his
What is today?
The best part
The star
Where are the scrolls landing
If what pedagogy is ramming
You can't stand
The truth
Because when I first heard it
I couldn't see
The truth
Knowledge of self gave me
My sense of mind
So why try to be insane
When the last time that happened
The outcome was a cage
La main (Les remords de conscience) [The Hand (Remorse of the Conscience)] (1930) by Salvador Dali; oil and collage on canvas, 41.3 x 66 cm. Photo: Mark Mauno
The Temptation of St. Anthony (1946) by Salvador Dalí, The Temptation of St. Anthony (1946) by Salvador Dalí, the first of his pieces to exhibit his interest in the intermediates between Heaven and Earth. Source: Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium (RMFAB), Brussels / Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí / Société d'Auteurs Belge – Belgische Auteurs Maatschappij (SABAM) Belgium
Composition à la jambe (1944) by Salvador Dalí; watercolor, pen and ink, gouache and collage on card laid on board; 13.4 x 10.2 in. Photo: cea +
Graffiti Love
The gun goes off
The handball hits the wall
and the rock rims out
An open hand moves through thin air–PIMP!
And French-manicured hands on hips
Heels got her standing tall
and the screams tune down
noses are busted tying their shoe strings
With dreams caked up in their fingernails
like soot branding hard times
I write about the streets with the lights out
Nocturnal eyes creating pictures with words that lash out
I imagine me meshing with darkness
Still dreaming to become one with the lamp post glow
Behind the plexiglas sto’
My man bombs my name on the universe
Fighter
I live in a world where
believing is a form of freedom
believing is a form of rebellion
And silence is so loud
Being the greatest means being willing to be free
Free to stand up and scream
Float like a butterfly, sting like a –
Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire (1940) by Salvador Dalí; oil on canvas, 18 1/4 in x 25 3/4 in. The painting uses the “double image” technique and depicts Voltaire, French writer and philosopher known for his opposition to slavery. Source: Collection of The Salvador Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, FL (USA); Gift of A. Reynolds & Eleanor Morse
The 13th for Me
I see the wind blowing off orange and red leaves
A short tree I can reach to
touch the strange fruit and naked branches
Fruit resembling my chin and chest
Seeing it happening to me through steel bars...
steel bars on my humanity
justified by The 13th
My heavy eyes drag against the past
Pinpointing to the nothing I became
I became convicted...since I was 3 to 16
The nothing which is really something nullified
As my dreams were hog-tied by Daddy’s belt slapping my skin
Steel clinging to the thin skin of my wrist
When my mom disappeared
my hands froze from the reaching
my tears fell and disappeared
my hope shards falling into abyss
I can still see me through its pieces
I’m only 16
inside a dungeon
I see me
Inside a moment
where shame and regret
Germinate in the soul of thoughtlessness.
I don’t think the authors of The 13th thought of me...
or did they?
Mirror of Me
Swans Reflecting Elephants (1937) by Salvador Dalí. Oil on canvas, 51 x 77 cm. Source: Salvador Dalí Art Gallery
I saw your face in my eyes,
staring into a mirror of Mes and Yous
sprawled out like reels of Us
from the beginning…
…and then tears…
...and then tears paved through
the moments when I was alone
and no one was there but me…
and as I sift through pictures in memories
I arrive here with those words to me…
I hope you come back, I wrote.
I write, I hope she came back
and then…
…and then…
…here you are
with your strawberry fields
where I can reside…
I’ve always resided somewhere but never lived
Thought it was someone but not
Maybe home will never be a place,
Maybe home can be You.
The prodigal dream presses unto me
like anecdotes of my identity
peeling back layers of skin
It wasn’t you. You were not the dream
I've buried
and when exposed to you
brought me to the moment of our departure
It made me close my eyes and flee…
but if only I had subplanted my feet
and just closed my eyes
I would have seen you trying to be the dream
I had always wanted
Just not sure if it’s still my dream.
“Purple Freedom” by José A. Pérez, National Poetry Month “Poetry of Returning Citizens” event, Sing Sing Prison Museum, April 2022.
Purple Freedom
Maybe freedom is purple
Ruined skin absorbing the blows
from the Shakespearean tale becoming
Maybe love is intimidated by the unknown
The looming potential that my touch
Will electrify but never does
Maybe love is purple
Purple in pursuit of freedom
Delighted to travel up yellow-brick roads
Where hopefully
I’ll meet you
To see if your fears are just as real as mine…
…and maybe, well, kiss
Underneath an epiphany
And come to terms with Us
Maybe freedom is shining
Stardust slowly rising from my skin
My body glowing from ideas and desire
To move to and from places that exist in dreams
Pain plants its roots
and freedom suddenly looks like
the unknown…like a cloud of gray smoke
forming into a being that resembles me
And I am here
Inside a place where I can reach out
And touch what encases me
Have you ever touched what cripples you?
Have you been kind to the person
Who went out of their way
To burn your skin?
Maybe freedom is fire
Reaching your soul
Flames kissing the backs of your eyelids
Taken aback as they instigate
A stream down your face
And a smile
Maybe freedom is one morning
Its sunrays kissing me hello
Its power holding me close
Its song whispering
sweet
nothings
into my ear
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