NOVEMBER ARTIST OF THE MONTH: BRUNO ECHT FUSARO
Bruno Echt Fusaro is an Argentine poet who writes about dreams, cities, memories, and connections. In 2022, he moved to Austin, Texas, to pursue his college degree in Writing and Rhetoric at St. Edward’s University. Bruno loves writing poems in his free time and hopes to publish a poetry book one day. He has also worked with others’ poetry through his college education and the Sorin Oak Journal at St. Edward’s, focused on creative writing.
Bruno moved to the United States by himself, to a new culture and dominant language. While his hometown remains twelve hours away by plane, he keeps Buenos Aires and Argentine culture close to his soul. At college, Bruno discovered his love for writing as a window to memories and the lessons we learn. As a passionate explorer, Bruno intertwines the art he consumes with his experience to reflect the contradictions and evanescence of life.
After graduation, Bruno plans to attend law school, but he will continue writing poems, finding new ways to convey his emotions.
Dancer’s Dream
Elusive dance across the night,
Nectar and moonlight intertwine
From the shore to purple mountains:
A hand, two arms, three eyes, a sight.
The clouds seem to pierce the moon,
Or make the sky break in two,
The dancers sway, reach out,
and enlighten while tango excites them.
Eclipse appears in the pleasure dome.
A shadow cast over my land,
I want to be brushed every night
By purple, nectar and emeralds.
beats of eight
I’m embracing new beginnings, looking for
more dancing but less partying. Repeat the
routine once again every day, there’s no end
to achieve your goals that constantly change,
as you became more ambitious, more fulfilled,
increasing the pace, filled with confidence,
looking for new challenges that will help you
embrace new beginnings—and you better be
motivated for the change and know that ice
doesn’t melt from -3 to -2 degrees but if you
keep rising the temperature in beats of eights,
success awaits. Can you feel the bass? Life
is always in beats of eights, there’s structure
in this ordinary insanity. As you blend, mix
people, emotions, events - new elements
are added but some always fade away. My
latest addition is morning runs, thrice a week,
trying to keep the same pace. After, always
comes a rewarding breakfast, but before I
shower (in very hot water although I heard
it’s not good) and sing or count the beats to
find that it’s indeed in eights which is crazy
to think about. Most music is in eights and I
didn’t know that until I met a random guy in
his late twenties dancing, after he probably
snorted a lot of cocaine, maybe ketamine.
The weirdest combo of people are attracted
to dance but I need to stop the partying oh
gosh what if I also become an old dude
doing cocaine and ketamine until 8am.
Parc Monceau
My young cousin is diagnosed with a brain tumor
My five-year-old dog died unexpectedly,
And I sit in Parc Monceau:
Breathe the antique statues
Hear the hundred-year-old trees
Watch the French cigarette smell
Taste my patisserie and coffee
Read the sun rays in between the leaves
Hear the steps of all the wanderers
This is life, washing all the shores away.
Unexpected,
Sorrowful,
Joyful,
In an instant, I see my grandad
Ordering breakfast with me
One for each
One to split
He would be happy for me,
See all I achieved.
My parents are also happy for me,
They claim to have done something good
In between all their mess.
I return to the tree views
Everything unchanged
My cousin might die
My dog died
But I enjoy Paris,
As I welcome life
My Muse
I.
I open my door to receive you:
Your coffee aroma slaps me,
Your magnetic lights make fireworks in my eyes,
Your eclecticism makes me want to travel through all your alleys,
You taste intriguing, like cheesecake.
Oh! How I wish to be you!
Attract all the gazes like a hypnotic song.
II.
The closer I get to you, the more I doubt my choice:
Meeting you felt like buying the prettiest avocado,
But on the inside, I sense your rottening brown,
Your siren song is heartened,
As a door I am eager to open every time.
You cancel our plans every time to then hang out with others,
Whenever you want to talk, I am there for you. Whenever I want
To talk, you take too long to give me a response.
Oh! Is it too late to fix your soul?
I sense hazardous instability.
III.
Getting to know you has been my curse:
The melody of your eyes hides a putrid green truth.
You pretend to listen to others, but you can only listen to your own voice.
Walking through your foggy lights made me smell the dead rats under your skin.
Like a ripped shack you are shallow, falling to the ground.
Oh! How did you end up so alone?
They cannot see your horrible crimes, but I know them all.
IV.
To them, you’re the cherished and magnetic one.
To me, you are no more than the trash that lives in the corner of my room for a week.
They don’t know you as well as I do.
They just see the surface of your song.
Thinking you are cool and empathetic,
They don’t realize how much harm you can cause.
I wish to get rid of you once and for all,
But you always come back,
And grapple my ears with your insatiable poetry.
Now I realize my curse is to keep opening my door to you.
looking at four darks in red
Discrete smile,
Deep mystery
of an unsung song
I look at the midnight window.
Screaming eyes,
Old desires meet your blossoming tree
Did you dream
about me?
Because I did.
Buenos Aires
I. City
Oh, my dear Buenos Aires!
I want to have coffee with you,
Your looks try to hide it all,
What is it that you express through
your blazing wide eyes?
My City of Fury.
Every day you hold boundless stories,
With your gossipy wind,
And your toxic air.
I still wonder where your roads will take me next.
II. Coffee
Beans go on and off
This industrial process
Roast, ground, brew
This is no Starbucks,
This is that lousy shithole in the corner,
The one that makes the best coffee
With the most fragile chairs
The taste of coffee
is the taste of Toxicity
Filling the stomach
Of all the wandering souls
Every corner is full of surprises,
Full of mesmerizing shitholes
Which one should I go to next?
III. Danger
There is a shadow that follows me,
In the midst of the day of the night
Always making me turn around,
It’s no shadowplay anymore.
I feel forced to turn
But I only find the wind
Smoggy toxic air,
If I do not turn it will take away,
The green blood of the trees, my soul.
If I do not turn it will intoxicate me,
I will become as furious as
this dreamy place this nightmarish place where
no one sleeps,
for a well-known reason.
IV. Jacarandas
Purple is the color of spring
Is the color of blossoming dreams.
The color of my favorite tree.
My native silent soldiers
That resisted more than I will ever do.
…or did.
I’m 12 hours away now.
And I only have these memories left.
while walking
In a black and white dream they walk
The streets of Saint-Germain-des-Prés.
He reads to her
She smiles and reads back
They lay in the sun of Luxemburg
Enjoy cherries and strawberries
As a fun Rohmer game they play
The like and not like but
The force of desire between them
Is heard by all the statues in the park
Almost everything is devastated by their desire
Never fully consummated, as an unfinished painting displayed in the Orsay
La belle dame wakes up from the dream,
Lost in the twilight view from Pont de l’Alma
He, trapped in the dream, looks for her
She is not there anymore
Rose ashes fall from the sky
To him, she is a Rodin sculpture
To her, he is a craving confusing as the Pompidou
He, forever lost in her dream
Trapped in the cobbled streets of Saint Germain
Come Look
I remember it perfectly:
You were smiling by the window,
And you told me “Come look!”
I was lying in bed thinking how beautiful you looked
With your pretty green eyes reflecting the early sun.
“Get out of bed, bring me the camera, come look at this!”
“Look how cute they look, come on look at this!”
I got up from bed, and I saw them.
I remember it perfectly:
The sun and the moon were dancing.
“They look like us,” you said.
With all the sky just for them two,
As if time there did not work.
I remember it as if it was today.
I won’t forget it evermore.
They kissed. They kissed right there,
As they grazed one another
With all the sky just for them two.
on a Dutch room
Staring at a blank page for minutes,
What should I write about?
I have been using my shirts as towels,
Sleeping on a fridge-sized room with no bed,
A 15-person bathroom.
And I awake to ugly brown Dutch buildings
And a never-ending grey sky,
And a spider resting on my roof.
Nothing gives me inspiration to show you my world
When I just start to discover it myself.
The Ephemeral Magic
You talk:
as I listen,
as I blend
my sight
in your deepest eyes,
as I discover
all your expressions
from every angle
shade
gesture,
as I graze
my hair
slowly,
as I lose
your thoughts
to only hear
your lips
moving,
as I awake
my deepest desires
to keep listening
to your enchantment,
as I crave
the smell
and skin
of your neck
as I slip
my fingers
through your legs
like honey,
as I bite
the waves
of my lips
like a mistake
I don’t regret,
as I imagine
you
in my bed,
as I wonder
about the universe
you hold inside,
as I undress
your eyes
to find you soul,
as I ecstasize
imagination,
as I taste
the curves
of your hips
from afar.
And you talk:
as you wonder
when
will I break the ice,
as you learn
the playfulness
of this irresistible art,
as you thirst
I do not stop
this hypnotic song,
as you sketch
how I will break the ice
even if it will be this night,
as you obey
my leading,
as you liberate
your talk
to be tied up
in the mystery of my face,
as you ignite
your darkest passions,
as you follow
the electricity
of my guitars,
as you forget
you are reading a poem.
Nightmare
Hot summer wind enters
the fifth-floor apartment
as I am forced to choose
between mom and dad.
Both flawed but full of love.
They always try their best
even when their judgment
hurts. The last remnants
of my childhood sorrows at the
the unsettling lights. Back then
I had to choose: mom or dad.
The reflection of the sun hits
hard on the palm of my
hands as I wake up in my
bed next to my dad, nice
hotel, nice vacation with
him. But he is mad at my
reasoning for choosing one
over the other. Fuck, I talked
while dreaming again. He
knows all I truly think of him
his flaws; his tobacco smell.
It was just a dream, mom also
has flaws. As I asphyxiate on
my own words and thoughts,
I am forced to choose between
my divorced parents
The cold breeze of the air conditioner wakes me up.
Monterroso al Mare
La ciudad despierta entre el canto de sirenas
Entre las olas turquesas el sueño desvanece
Solo lo encuentras en lo más profundo del mar.
El rayo de sol encuentra un cigarrillo entre cenizas
Se van y no vuelven
Vuelven y se van
El anhelo más dulce quedo perdido como en un naufragio
Traffic Light from Downtown
I’m so tall I see everything pass by:
Howling big cars erupting from the corner of my sight,
Quiet small ones slimming down under my neck,
Happy people trotting like butterflies,
Gloomy eyes hiding their sight from the street,
Even wrecked pink cars and broken hearts.
The symphony of steps, honks, growls is the sweetest melody
And I am the conductor.
They love me, they respect me.
If they ignore me, they get punished by the blue and red cars,
They make me infuriating red.
But at the end, they show me respect and love once again.
I love seeing everyone,
They make my moods change all the time:
Red
Yellow
Green
One day I wish to see a tree,
The others tell me all about the chirping of the birds,
And the movement of the leaves.
Can you imagine me walking through this furious city?
Commanding all the stops and goes.
What a sweet dream.
Labyrinthic Predators
Felines with big chests,
Light grey and soft fur,
Powerful padded paws,
Hiding their claws.
Savage ambush predators,
Pumas are not your everyday cat.
Living in the hills, they come down to the farms.
Not for fun, but for dinner and lunch.
In the yellow wheat fields,
I liked to wander around,
Have childish fun with my sister,
In between the tall blonde crops.
“Be aware of the pumas when sowing and reaping!”
My grandma used to say.
“They might run around you when you least expect it,”
“Especially during the night.”
Oh! How right my grandma was.
My young sister always behind my back,
Will follow my track. Annoyingly copying me,
She will proudly follow me, his old brother.
How much I love and miss my sister.
The labyrinth it was,
Our labyrinth,
Running and running in the morning,
not thinking of cats, pumas and such.
My uncle will always think of animals,
He loved to hunt, hurt them
For fun, dinner and lunch.
Then is he bad? Or only one more predator in this land?
One night it rained so bad,
The thunder made the lights go out,
The icky sticky warmth made
me sweat so much.
My sister cried, scared of the dark.
The next morning up to the labyrinth
We went, only to find haunting prints
Of puma sprints. Rapidly, scared the
puma will jump and eat me and my sister
alive, away we went. Never coming back again.
Only in dreams, I am haunted by the puma,
Jumping over my little sister. Helplessly, there’s
Never a way to help her get rid of the puma.
Even as a big brother, protecting her haunts.
My imagination since the day I left her to
Pursue a future in a far away land. Does it
Make me another predator in the land?