Postcard Sorceress in Spanish. My mother, Caracas-raised,
helped me translate. The Spanish version is more hopeful
because in Spanish to be hopeless is to be dead. There's little
language for the gray area. Despair is big in Latin America,
but not hopelessness.

Vittorio, on a 2004 car ride from Mexico City to San
Miguel de Allende (where we would take a dawn balloon ride),
taught me of the bruja en las colinas de la selva
y el chupacabra.

Tarjeta Postal Bruja

Nina tuvo un sueño cuando era joven
Escorpiones llegaron a jugar
Ella se despertó descubriendo tener una hija
Y 2 tickets para el tren de Punta Mita

Ella se pasa la vida haciendo joyas para turistas
Trabajando en el Café Revolución
Ella sabe que ya no se puede huir
No se pierde nada cuando no hay nada que ganar

Cada día Nina se detuvo a leer un anuncio
Detrás del estante de tarjetas postales en el café
Decía “Puedo exorcizar cualquier demonio!”
Mostrando el camino a una cueva a través de la selva

Un par de años más tarde, Nina dio su hija a un vecino
Dijo que volverá en un par de días
“Voy a dar un paseo por la colinas de la selva
Para que mi bebé nuca sepa de mi dolor.”

Empacó una bolsa con dinero y cigarrillos
Y el cuchillo de su abuela, por si acaso
Ella desapareció en el dosel de la selva
Dejando el pueblo polvoriento en su estela.

La bruja utiliza el cuchillo para mezclar un elixir
Dijo que ya había visto este dolor
Ella dijo: “Nina, la verdad flota en el tiempo.
Beba, y ya no soñaras más.”

Nina pasó su vida haciendo joyas para turistas
Trabajando donde todos los demás se escapan
Ella sabe que ya no tiene que huir
No tiene nada que perder cuando elige otro tren

01.09.2009-01.14.2009

I could not record today.
My studio is not soundproof enough sometimes for a city daytime
Contractors hired by an aspirational Brooklyn property developer
are down the block stamping underpinnings
for a cantilevered condo
That will be 4 times the size of the
60 year old 2 family that the developer
Demolished a month ago

On the opposite side of my apartment from the recording studio
The back of a post office is across the street
The carriers often shout at each other
In the loading dock
While jumping up and down on postal truck roofs
One of them, a man with a bird voice, likes to sing
Arias from Norma
As a mechanical gate opens and closes to let the trucks
In and out, he gives
the gate a mournful movement

Night brings its own challenges
The Bingo Hall on 5th Avenue allows its patrons
Access to its rear alley, which shares
The north side of my Condo complex
The alleyway is the de facto smoking lounge
Where winners coming out to smoke
Make on-a-lucky-streak noise
The ones on a losing tail fall off towards the streetside of the
Alleyway and smoke in silence
As passing headlights echo through
The flickering alleyway’s security gate

Tomorrow I’m going to mail packages
That have been sitting on my dining room table since before last holiday
I look at the gifts meant to be given,
Gifts that people have no idea they are going to receive
I’ve created a purgatory
Between loneliness and not loneliness
But to me these gifts have become
When your partner isn’t talking, the soft rustle of a paper
Or a sweater against a sofa…
Things that mean everything that you don’t notice
If you’re not standing still
Or trying to record

i always wanted to write a song about a bruja. this one's a
nod to Manu Chao and Carlos Santana via fastball.
cut a Spanish version, too, fwiw...

Postcard Sorceress