Is the precious gift of conjuring dreams.
—Machado, Solitudes
The Building of the Waves of the Sea
I was walking as usual in the wide and foreign land of New York City when I saw from afar Bengal lights that erased distance and landed me in a building. I saw the Arts Cinema of The Intimate Diary of Solitude. Then I entered a magic world. I wound a music box, and out came Uriberto and Berta, Mariquita, and the Narrator—all dancing. I closed my eyes slowly to feel the fire of death. A few seconds later, I felt Death of Poetry was already over. I immediately pressed the elevator button. And its gigantic doors opened. I saw a skyrocket blast off on television. Then I dropped to my knees and prayed. I almost felt new. I had dreamed of constructing a big building in which many languages would be spoken. And I dreamed of a kingdom of steel. I saw some little butterflies, and I saw a bee and a grasshopper in the middle of them. I pressed a button and wound a music box. For a writer like myself—said the Narrator—to wind a music box is to fill a gas tank. And to allow a skyrocket to blast off in the middle of a phrase that suddenly finds itself stuck in traffic and to see from afar that memories get confused and their feet become cotton and foam comes out of their mouths. A few seconds later, I repeated a sound I had heard in the streets of New York. My hand trembled as I quoted the sound of night. I nearly died. Died from solitude. Actually, nothing had changed. The Intimate Diary of Solitude was full of people. The walls were covered with graffiti. It was all a photocopy or a recording from a long time ago. But I found the waves of the sea as I entered Rosaries at Dawn. I should have repeated the movement of the waves of the sea until I reached the farthest horizon. I pulled up the covers and lay down to sleep. I didn’t want to go ashore. I should have dived directly into the closest and the farthest. People make mistakes—I told myself. They don’t think of the sea as a building. But I’ll prove that the waves of the sea reproduce the movement of life. In the city of The Raise everything repeats the rising momentum of the waves of the sea. Everything is gold sand and water flooding the gaze. I’m writing the movement of storm and sea, not poetry. I had fallen asleep with my eyes open. I had dreamed a pure dream. And I had left that dream free. I had pressed another button without the slightest feeling of guilt, and I had seen what I never had imagined I would see. As I was lying on the tomb of my bed, I envisioned the inside of The Building of the Waves of the Sea. It wasn’t hard to go through the revolving doors. I put on my galoshes and raincoat, and through the revolving doors, I slid into the labyrinth of The Intimate Diary of Solitude. The first thing I noticed were the mannequins of Mariquita and Uriberto, Berta, and Honorata Pagan in the display window. It felt strange knowing that my manuscript was behind the facade of this building. It was almost as if the building’s architect could go through its revolving doors and slide through the kingdom of his dreams. There were stores on every floor. Selling nickels, clowns, buffoons, shepherds, doors, nights, days, and doormen. It had the facade of New York City. And it looked just like an empire. Selling the movement of the waves of the sea. The way I saw it after it went up—said the architect—it looked like the island of Manhattan submerged in the movement of the waves of the sea. Although I had always dreamed of building an empire, it was rather strange to finally stand before it. I chatted with Uriberto and Mariquita at Caffé degli Artisti. Then I left and took a long subway ride across the city of my dreams. I went into another building. I needed to enter Book of Clowns and Buffoons. Now it was perfect. At least now I knew why the magician had destroyed the circuses. And why the fortune-teller had predicted that one of the drunkards would finish Profane Comedy after he freed himself from all of death’s dreams. I made many mistakes, or laid many eggs, as Mariquita would say. But you learn from your mistakes. Some of the shepherds in Pastoral needed finishing touches. I redid their faces—said Macy’s makeup artist Mariquita Samper. Sometimes the floor even shook. I spent hours in perplexity and pain. I feared that I’d die before I had sculpted all the wrinkles on the face of my building. I’ve spent many years building the life and death of these characters and of this poetic universe. I never knew that after the construction of Profane Comedy would come the realization of The Intimate Diary of Solitude. But the death of the shepherds in Pastoral and Song of Nothingness gave birth to The Intimate Diary of Solitude. With a helmet on my head and a drill in hand, I was a contractor. I called my employees together and told them that I wanted to build The Intimate Diary of Solitude. I paid them monthly with gifts. All the work was the artistry of dreams. I gave them instructions. A concrete ideology was unnecessary. There are no ideas in the world—I told them. We are not Marxists, or capitalists, or feminists, or whatever else is in fashion. If anything, we are workers for the empire of the poet-artist. And if we can identify with anything, it is with revolution. For which we had to destroy and rebuild ourselves. Our revolution is not about self-complacency. It is about constant self-criticism. We detest all kinds of egocentrism. We detest power, success, and especially the opportunists of the world. We are honorable men. And we are honored by work and the finished product. We do not love gods. We detest the infinite and immortality. We create the empire of the world and the empire of death. Life is born from death. From the death of Assault on Time came the birth of Profane Comedy, and from the death of Profane Comedy came the birth of The Intimate Diary of Solitude. And what will be born will later die. The dying will reach the limits of the undying. This is the poet-artist’s doctrine that made the construction of The Intimate Diary of Solitude possible. This doctrine has the movement of the waves of the sea. I was born on an island, so every character acting in any show in this building also depends on the movement of the waves of the sea. We imitate the nature of the sea. Our building is a mirror of the life of the sea. My eyes have been lost in the movement of the waves of the sea ever since I was a child. My art is a product of this solitary movement that produces both storms and days of great peace and tranquility. It’s summer for me on the island of Puerto Rico even though it’s winter for us on the island of Manhattan. I am an Odysseus. And I say, as Odysseus once said, that the greatest feeling is going home after a long journey through the city of dreams. My art is the art of exile. I’ve raised The Building of the Waves of the Sea so I wouldn’t feel further removed. I’m proud of having been born in this building and of having built each one of its stores. I wish you were as happy as I am. I make happiness work. I am the producer of happiness. That’s why I’m giving you all my stores. I’ve created the sea, as well as movies, love, happiness, grief, clowns, cards, The Raise, the city of dreams, Caffé degli Artisti, Manifesto on Poetic Eggs, poetry, prose, night, day, elevators, doormen, sadness, solitude, joy. Mention whatever you want. I’ll give you more things yet. I’m not done building this building. I’ve created three symphonies and have six left. I’m still gazing at the facade of my building. Forgive my rejoicing. It’s not egocentrism or pride. It’s joy. I’m the architect of this world, and I’m still not done with it. I think that all art is representation. Come to my place. You’ll see I live alone on the 7th floor, and from there I see all that the world represents. It’s winter outside. And it’s warm inside my building. I’m still sliding with my galoshes through the city of my dreams. I’m about to go through other revolving doors into the bank of The Intimate Diary of Solitude.
Mariquita Samper’s Financial Statement
I confess my financial state—said Mariquita Samper. I confess all that could have been different and was different. I confess all the things that I believed to be different from what they really are. All of Profane Comedy’s poetic eggs have constituted the fortune of The Intimate Diary of Solitude. Would you believe—Mr. Banker—that in Book of Clowns and Buffoons I went bankrupt? I thought I’d lose my mind. I had to take a sabbatical after I wrote it. I took a year off. And then I went back to work. I took out a loan for $2 million to write it. I ask myself—Our Father who art in heaven—if the financial statement of other writers is like mine. I have been mist
aken so many times. And I confess my mistakes. All my losses have turned into enormous gains. Did you know that I lost all my earthly possessions for love? Or that I’ve already finished writing The Building of the Waves of the Sea? Or that I’ve just laid some more eggs because I thought that the building would come earlier? But see how strange poetic architecture is. You erect a building with the site in mind. And then you find out you’re wrong. What is never wrong is the poem’s logic. The building had chosen its own site even though I had thought it would exist somewhere else. The poet of Assault on Time used to call it the mandate of things—and I think she was right. Things choose their space. Things rule the world. They are in charge, even though you’d like to think that you can order them around. Of course—Mr. Banker—egocentrics don’t understand this logic. They impose their own logic on poetry. And that is the basis for the explosion or the schism between the worlds of writers like Mariquita Samper, who obey the mandate of things and who are enslaved by writing, versus the writers who impose themselves on things. Of course, added the Narrator through Mariquita Samper’s mouth, when you read the Berta Singermans of the world, you feel that they’re derided by the very things they’re trying to ride. They’re killed by irony. That’s why they never reach the category of deathless. Do you know what happens to them, Mr. Banker? From wanting to be above things, they end up underneath them. The writer who doesn’t write, but allows writing to write itself, leaving things as they are, and erasing himself from the map of existence, remains ironically within them. This theory comes from the poet-artist’s theory of the perishable. Only what is fated to die is capable of living. Only what dies lives. Why do you think Christ was killed? They killed him to prove that he wasn’t a god. But in killing him, they immortalized the perishable and transformed man into a god. Remember Vallejo’s verses? “The day I was born, God was sick.” He also said, “There are blows in life like the hatred of God.” Note, Mr. Banker, that Vallejo deprives God of his immortality. He humanizes God. Imposes death upon him. Imposes the perishable. God is sick, as I am. God hates, as I do. And in doing so—believe me, Mr. Banker, in humanizing him, what he does is immortalize his humanness. I’m not interested in gods, Mr. Banker, I’m interested in human beings. And yet, the gods envy my death. Gods can’t create as I do because they’re immortal and incapable of dying in order to be reborn. That’s why they can’t create different things. They’re condemned to live the dream of the imperishable. I’ve told you many times that I’m a golden worm. I declared I was an egg in Poems of the World. Now I affirm that I am that egg. I’ve died many times, Mr. Banker. I’ve been destroyed time and again by the mandate of things. And I’ll be destroyed over and over again. If I keep creating or laying eggs as I’ve done up to now, I’ll have no choice but to be ready to die in order to be ready to live again. Amen. Forgive me, Mr. Banker, for mistaking you for a priest, but aren’t you supposed to have economic healing powers? And I—Mariquita Samper—am just about broke. I’m a nickel. I’m the body of Empire of Dreams. I’m money. And I confess my financial statement. It’s in pretty bad shape, eh, Mr. Banker? You remind me of the stupid Narrator. Allow me to pay you with a check. I still have something in my account. I’ll see you tomorrow, same place, same time. Rest in peace, sinner. Rest in peace, Mr. Banker. And let me leave you. In peace. In peace. In peace.
Requiem for Solitude
Have you noticed how the characters in this book have disappeared? It’s as if only the sea were left remembering the dreams of all these characters. A while ago, when I was at one with the sea with all my thoughts in its waters, I saw how the end of Empire of Dreams was filmed. All the characters of Assault on Time, Profane Comedy, and The Intimate Diary of Solitude were standing in the water. Holding burning torches. Illuminating the night. I couldn’t make out their features because their faces were besmeared with makeup. But they spoke. Or rather, they made noises that caused the movement of the waves of the sea during the spectacle of the night. I’ll never forget how there was no light except for the torches. Torches that looked as if they were suspended in midair because I couldn’t see anyone holding them. All the characters were sighing or groaning or screaming or crying. They looked like souls torn from their bodies. And it wasn’t because their bodies were torn from their souls, but because their souls had been torn from their bodies. And, above all, they wept. They were like abandoned echoes. Like the echo of seashells. Let’s keep in mind that their voices simulated a chorus of echoes. And the idea of a chorus is essential. Because I felt they were singing Requiem for Solitude. And I felt they were living all its movements. Solitude is not a voice, just an echo. When I say that it’s just an echo I don’t mean that it imitates, but that it projects the voices of solitude with an unwonted repercussion. These characters were dead. And yet they had come to life. They were suddenly feeling the fire of death over the movement of the waves of the sea. They were bringing death’s movement to their own movement, slowly, while the ship of fools sailed on. I’d dreamed of bringing to this rhythm a final dance that would invade the maritime continent of this book. But I’m not even sure what my writing is capable of writing. I’m the hand that writes the writing of the world. Other fragments that I haven’t even noticed have passed by me over the waves of the sea. I’d like you to listen a while longer to the writing of the reading of this book. I still haven’t found in the waves of the sea the end of the movement of the last wave in the outlet of the manuscript of life.
The Movement of the Waves of the Sea
How strange—said Mariquita Samper. And she went to the kitchen and turned off the light. Then she turned off the light in the living room and the dining room. Leaving only her desk light on, she looked down, closed her eyes, concentrated on one spot, opened her eyes, and saw that her pen was writing on that spot of the page. You see, I’ve felt lost watching the movement of the waves of the sea. I’ve touched the heart of a star. At other times of my life, the rising sea only gave voice to waves that came by storm. I’ve always written about the waves of the sea. They always assumed different voices when speaking to me. Even when they sensed that the fury of calm had come after the storm. Peace is airy. In the wake of the waves, everything can sound the same or entirely different. I often considered writing the fragment I’m writing right now, but it never came out this way. I’m afraid to lose what I’m writing. Things are what they are when they have already stopped being what they are. It’s so strange. I’m writing this whole Empire of Dreams on my water bed. Sleeping. And writing while kneeling. Praying. But to write dreams as I’m doing now is to let the poetry-writer run and flood me with dreams and memories. I’ve never believed in time or dreams. What do people mean when they talk of existence? What is the basis for saying that I exist? What is the basis for saying that everything continues when everything is dead? In what book or fragment of world history is it said that men exist because they die? Has anyone really gotten close enough to existence to be able to say that anyone who exists without a notion of death exists without a notion of life? A curious idea just occurred to me. I’ll let things swim over the waves of the sea for now. You shouldn’t force the movement of the waves of the sea. Be at the mercy of things. Do you mean to tell me that if a wave knocks me down and drags me away, I should let it? Yes, you should stay wherever it leaves you, so you’ll discover distance. Then I’m only a puppet of destiny. Maybe all of Profane Comedy’s clowns and shepherds came about this way. To be at the mercy of the waves is to be at the height of existence. To allow things to exist. I said that it was all so strange. Now I don’t feel like swimming over the waves of the sea or under the waves of the sea. Do you know what I’m doing now? I’m floating. To survive is to float. Wait a minute. I don’t like this stuff about surviving. I don’t want to be above life. I want to be even with each moment of my life. And what do you think? To be floating with life is to be even with life? I could never do this before. And I’m not sure that in the near or distant future I’ll be able to do it again. I’m not eve
n sure that I’ll be able to write another word. In my life everything is fortuitous. Everything is gratuitous. I used to impose order on things as part of my discipline. Now I let the sea’s lack of discipline impose its discipline on me. It’s all so strange. As a child, I devoured books. The same passion I had for reading I now have for writing. Now my reading has become my writing. I write the same way that my eyes penetrate someone else’s line. By writing, I’m reading what I write. By writing, I used to read my past, my present, and even my future in my writing. Even when I walked along the sand of the beach this summer, I felt that I was reading as I was contemplating the sea in the wandering of my eyes. It was as if the infinite were momentarily condensed. The infinite isn’t divine—it’s human—absolutely quotidian and real. Even as I was writing this fragment, I felt that my grounds had been invaded. My writing’s point of reference had nothing to do with my reading’s point of reference. But my life has always been full of sudden changes. And I’ve had to include those changes in my writing. In the morning, I run through part of my building. Take a subway to another world, to another building. And then head back to my building as I’m walking through the life of the other building. Running through the city of dreams. I almost always know when I can and cannot write. Some books are written in anguish or despair. This book is written when I’m feeling lost. But even that lost feeling is lost. It’s misplaced or transformed. In order to write how the sea moves, I’ve had to cry and I’ve had to suffer. As I was walking around New York City alone today, I walked into The Intimate Diary of Solitude. I had a cup of coffee at Caffé degli Artisti. I watched some clowns and buffoons who were performing the poem of the fortune-teller and the poem of the magician. Then I got lost in the labyrinth of dreams. I no longer felt my name was Mariquita Samper, let alone Giannina Braschi. I felt like losing myself on the seashore. And I lost myself in all the waves of the books that I’ve written. I didn’t know where I was. This happens to me often. I came across Uriberto Eisensweig, who asked me to go with him through all the stores of my building. So I went. He changed his costume and dressed up like a shepherd. He asked me how he looked. I said he didn’t look right. After being Uriberto you can never be a shepherd again. And yet, there were many other men who dressed like shepherds, clowns, and buffoons, and their costumes suited them well. The difference was obvious. We were in other periods of our lives. I feel I can now represent the movement of the thoughts of my solitude. The dislocation that I feel when I’m writing is part of the intimacy. Intimacy, deep down, is solitude. A toy began dancing in my diary. I didn’t notice its movement when I was writing these pages in the building. It’s true that things are beautiful when they work. Art is function. Forgive me for having danced so much. I always excuse myself. But my excuse is a way of imposing my way of thinking. Or of letting things impose their mandate. My handwriting adapts itself to the architecture of each one of my books. Let them dance. Or let them show the power of their movement. Only then will you notice the flash of their explosion. Soon they’ll stop singing. And they’ll die. Like the waves of the sea. And they’ll rise again. Don’t let them lie still forever. I’ve just run out of gasoline. At the end I always have to stop at a station. And fill my tanks. All that begins is an ending. And I say as a sailor once said in a romance of the solitude and the sirens of the sea:
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