At Parque Del Centenario

Birds flying, flocks, people feeding them.
They are a nuesence in a day long chase of mating season
buzzing by your head

there is a circle of six drummers
who have been banging mallets for as long as i have been here.

two women, sprawled in the grass, tanning in their bra and underwear

a man in cargo shorts, with a fanny pack, skate shoes
is laying mangled, face
down beside his toppled bike

the wind is rising, people are putting
their shirts on, moving from
the grass, walking, inhaling the benchings
surrounding a pond

for a second the drumming has
stopped. I can now hear the jazz
with a non-distinct origin
inflating the park birds
pulse of sirens
low end engine roar.

beside me there are a pile of bikes,
five people practicing
the coreography for a movie scene with martial arts.
it is smooth like a dance: one kicks high,
the other
ducks and slide-kicks low.
There are five people doing this,
a constant rotation with two groups of two.
They are side by side moving to their own music.
none of them are wearing shoes, the only girl
is in a tank-top.
She has frayed hemp bracelelts around her ankles.

a man with the materials for a business suit
is laying arms akimbo
mummified in the grass.
His jacked is neatly folded by his side.

a women has come and sat at my bench by my side.
She is very pregnant.
She is watching the edge of the pond.
After she has been there for long enough she rises and continues on.

At parque Chacabuco

Thick with the mass of bodies. It is impossible to tell a tale without drawing conculusions: snipping off everything that is hypothetical until the body of it is either compressed until it breaks or is spread too thin.

The day is an opened vault, spilled sunlight, sidewalks, pool glimmer. Everybody is revolved around a park bench.

There is a woman with a stroller and two children. She has to lift the stroller over each step of this park that is built of stairways. She wants to be back home, too many sun-drenched tiles, she can´t see straight. Then she is hit by a soccer ball! She collapses to the pavement, even though it barely hit her. She is laughing now. The child who hit her is laughing too.

A swimming pool that is empty, children are playing baseball in it, or is it hockey?

A tree with graphiti on it.

A running track that is full of people, one man is running with street clothes.

A group of teenagers smoking joints under a tree.

Dogs chasing each-other.

Everything is moving and i cannot sit still: a wind rushed pick and grab. These instants I inhale briefly, as if there were too much air, I am having trouble breathing. A clock-tower´s hands are motionless at 8:28.

A Pathetically General Description of Parks in Buenos Aires

There are tons of statues from the 18th and 19th centurys that honored the triumpth of conquistidors, but are now splattered with spray paint, dried urine and shit from flocks of birds which seem to be getting bigger by the day. The birds seem to like all of the old ladys who throw out handfulls of rice, or bread crumbs. The other day i saw a pigeon that was perched apon an old lady´s lap as she was petting it. it was very cute, and a little bit strange.

There are many parks here, and they are very precious since they have such a large versitility of uses. In the mornings they are frequented by elderly people who have dogs which they never clean up after after they shit on the sidewalk. By early afternoon all of the park benches are taken up by couples, of all ages, who make out all day long. After school there are children everywhere who play games with no particular structure that i can understand- one of which is a mix between soccer and frisbee and climbing a jungle gym. By the time that the sun sets, there are hookers all over the place, pickpockets and drug dealers. By midnight most of the parks are empty and if you decide to go hang out in one you have a good chance of getting robbed. The best time to go to a park in Buenos Aires is on a weekend. On the weekends all of the types of people who I have already mentioned are in the parks at the exact same time.