Off Axis Angles: Scene Two.

Gugliel-Moni, Linda Maria Rodriguez

"Say, young fella," he said, "what's the thing with you? ... What's the matter?" "Caramba, chaplain," I said, "I don't dig it myself."

--Piri Thomas

32. Great, Man, Great; I'm Thinking Like a Stone Philosopher

Down These Mean Streets

"Parte Cotto hacia Atlantic City para su defensa"

EL VOCERO DE PUERTO RICO

lunes, 14 de abril de 2003

As we land at Luis Munoz Marin International Airport ... Liberan a Siete Soldados EE.UU ... I wonder when it will be our turn as we slide on our Mickey Mouse backpacks while more weighty packages stumble forth from above ... Fuerzas Iraquies entregan a prisioneros de guerra ... we shove our own swollen feet towards the exit ... Utilizan muestras de ADN en la busqueda de Hussein ... DNA has shown 50%+ of us had a great-great-great-Taino-grandmother ... well, we do like yuca, and infinite plates of bacalao ... Comienza la Semana Mayor ... half the island will drive to the west coast beaches ... lugging collapsible chairs from Sam's and Medalla-filled coolers, grilling widening hips and hotdogs, warming up army-sized aluminum calderos de arroz con pollo, Coca-Cola or una bien fria making the fat more soluble ... Decenas de feligreses participan en la procesion del Domingo de Ramos en el Viejo San Juan, ... after morning mass grandmothers braided their palm leaves hanging them on kitchen walls ... actividad que marca el inicio de la Semana Santa ... the others will line up boarding a Ferry destined for Vieques to wade among half-discarded weapons systems ... and very much doubting my luggage has made it, I stand around ... MISION BORICUA EN IRAK ... in some hangar Puerto Rican soldiers smile behind grey camouflage daintily holding to their breasts high-powered guns ... while teenagers have uncensored sex on the beach ... El mal de nuestro pueblo ... la falta de ahorro ... and their grandmothers in their Sunday best bet their Social Security checks in the casinos till the bell strikes midnight . . . Banco Popular apoya proyecto en Palmas del Mar ... and upscale men melt on the driving range while their unguarded wives overcook the family's credit, and as I turn my LA-jet-lag-eyes to catch an echoing scream, I see a curly haired toddler clench a fist and drive a solid one straight into the strawberry blonde's left knee.

9:13 am

4/ 15/ 03

cabo rojo, pr

Linda Maria Rodriguez Gugliel-Moni was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and has lived in England, Washington, D.C., Michigan, and California. She studied at Georgetown, Dijon, Oxford, and the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. Her visual poetry collection, Metropolitan Fantasies--textos errantes, was published in 2001. She edited Enlaces: Transnacionalidad--El Caribe y su Diaspora--(2000), proceedings of the Seventh International Conference of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars, a project she directed and for which she received an NEH. Her work has appeared in From Totems to Hip-Hop, The Caribbean Writer, Sargasso, Mango Season, MaComere, and Thamyris. In 2002 she was awarded an Associate Artist position at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, where she worked with Ishmael Reed, and in 2004 completed a Residence with Elmaz Abinader at the Voices of Nations Arts Foundation. Her short story, "The Galician," was the 2006 winner of The Raymond Carver Best Story Award by a Non-North American Author and also was awarded third prize by the Society for the Study of the Short Story at the 9th