Saturday, October 31, 2009

Alvaro Marin


A SONG FOR JUAN RULFO
.
The silence of the future ruins
gently moves to and fro in helplessness
in this place called earth
because it doesn't yet have a name
its inhabitants
have one eye on the moon of death
and the other on a burning sun
The voice
does not spring from the lips
it is the deep trance of silence
Silence is the name of this place
so-and-so is everybody's name
and stone or ash
the names we shal have in the void
.
there's geography with the footprints of the absent
the cut-down trees lose their leaves
in some term of eternity
and cover the streets of the century with dead leaves
Wind passes deaf and saying nothing
it is a murmur as imposing as midnight
but not everything begins or ends here
in this geography.
.
Colombia

Friday, October 30, 2009

Lina Zeron


TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
.
In what heaven will we end up
when, fed up and engorged with blood,
the bulimic Earth spits us out?
.
To what helll will we arrive
when this society strangles us
and only rats remain
over the Earth exhausted with selfishness?
.
Under what night sky will we be able to hide
where the stars are not soiled
with so much spilled blood?
.
Under a synthetic moon surrounded by blackness.
there
perhaps
we will meet again.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Allama Prabhu


If it rains fire
you have to be as the water;
.
If it is a deluge of water
you have to be as the wind;
.
If it is the Great Flood
you have to be as the sky;
.
and if it is the Very Last Flood of all the worlds,
you have to give up self
.
and become the Lord.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Miguel Hernandez


LOVE ASCENDED BETWEEN US
.
Love ascended between us
Like the moon between two palm trees
that have never embraced.
The intimate murmur of our bodies
made the cooing the sea swell brings,
but the horse voice was stifled,
the lips turned to stone.
The yearning to encircle moved our flesh
illuminated our inflamed bones,
but our arms' desire to reach out
died away in our arms.
Love and the moon passed between us
and devoured our lonely bodies.
And we are two ghosts who search
and find each other from afar.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Roberto Bolano


SELFPORTRAT AT TWENTY YEARS
.
I set off, I took up the march and never knew
where it might take me. I went full of fear,
my stomach dropped, my head was buzzing:
I think it was the icy wind of the dead.
I don't know. I set off, I thought it was a shame
to leave so soon, but at the same time
I heard that mysterious and convincing call.
You either listen or you don't, and I listened
and almost burst out crying: a terrible sound,
born on the air and in the sea.
A sword and shield. And then,
despite the fear, I set off, I put my cheek
against death's cheek.
And it was impossible to close my eyes and miss seeing
that strange spectacle, slow and strange,
though fixed in such a swift reality:
thousands of guys like me, baby-faced
or bearded, but Latin American, all of us,
brushing cheeks with death.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Chief Yellow Lark- 1887 A Sioux Prayer

Oh, Great Spirit, whose voice I hear in the winds
Whose breath gives life to the world, hear me
I come to you as one of your many children
I am small and weakI need your strength and wisdom
.
.May I walk in beauty
Make my eyes ever behold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made
And my ears sharp to your voice.
Make me wise so that I may know the things you have taught your children.
.
The lessons you have written in every leaf and rock
Make me strong--------!
Not to be superior to my brothers, but to fight my greatest enemy....myself
.
Make me ever ready to come to you with straight eyes,
So that when life fades as the fading sunset,
May my spirit come to you without shame.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Javier Haraud


WORD OF THE GUERILLA
.
Because my fatherland is beautiful,
like a sword in the air,
and grander now and even
more beautiful yet,
I speak and defend it
with my life.
I don't care what the traitors say,
we have closed the past
with thick tears of steel.
Heaven is ours,
our daily bread,
we have planted and harvested
the wheat and the earth,
and the wheat and the earth
are ours,
and the sea
and the mountains and the birds
will always belong to us.
.
Peru

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Leopold Staff


FOUNDATIONS
.
I built on the sand
And it tumbled down,
I built on a rock
And it tumbled down.
Now when I build, I shall begin
With the smoke from the chimney.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Martha Kornblith


PRAYERS TO AN ABSENT GOD
.
That poet who stares at me.
Every night
he leaves class,
explains a verse,
shoos the flies away from the water fountain,
drinks a sip,
shakes off his blue jeans.
And he keeps doing this, always
sad,
concise.
Sometimes
the audience cheers,
and he searches his pockets,
sinking his forehead into the theater box
while I think:
Him
and the blank page.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

San Juan de la Cruz


SONG OF THE SOUL THAT DELIGHTS
IN REACHING THE SUPREME STATE
.
Of perfection that is the union with God
by the path of spiritual negation
.
On a darkened night
on fire with all love’s longing
– O joyful flight! –
I left, none noticing,
my house in silence resting.

Secure, devoid of light,
by secret stairway, stealing
– O joyful flight! –
in darkness self-concealing,
my house in silence resting.

In the joy of night,
in secret so none saw me,
no object in my sight
no other light to guide me,
but what burned here inside me.

Which solely was my guide,
more surely than noon-glow,
to where he does abide,
one whom I deeply know,
a place where none did show.

O night, my guide!
O night, far kinder than the dawn!
O night that tied
the lover to the loved,
the loved in the lover there transformed!

On my flowering breast,
that breast I kept for him alone,
there he took his rest
while I regaled my own,
in lulling breezes from the cedars blown.

The breeze, from off the tower,
as I sieved through its windings
with calm hands that hour,
my neck in wounding
left all my senses hanging.

Self abandoned, self forgot,
my face inclined to the beloved one:
all ceased, and I was not,
my cares now left behind, and gone:
there among the lilies all forgotten.
.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Octavio Paz


T BIRD
.
In the rested on
transparent space
the transparency
of silence.
The light of heaven
calmed the growing
weeds in stillness.
.
Animals of the earth
were among the stones
and under the same light
they were stones.
At the minute a
sated weather
in the absorbed quiet
noon was consummated.
.
And a bird sang,
thin arrow
a vibrating chest of silver,
wounded heaven
moved the leaves,
herbs awoke....
.
And I felt that
death was an arrow.
.
It is not known
who fired and
in the twinkling of eyes
we died.
.
Mexico

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Raquel Chavez


PRAYER I
.
But where are the
fathers of the
soul words?
.
those who departed
in search of perfection,
tell me,
what have you found?
I have seen you
in strange lands,
the Canto lost.
May you come back!
May you find the path!
.
Paraquay

Monday, October 19, 2009

Lord Byron


I would to heaven that I were so much clay,
As I am blood, bone, marrow, passion, feeling -
Because at least the past were passed away -
And for the future - (but I write this reeling,
Having got drunk exceedingly today,
So that I seem to stand upon the ceiling)
I say - the future is a serious matter -
And so - for God's sake - hock and soda water!

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Marina Tsvetayeva


THE MOUNTAIN WAS MOURNING
.
The mountain was mourning, (and mountains do mourn)
their clay is bitter, in the hours of parting).
The mountain mourned: for the tenderness
(like doves) of our undiscovered mornings.
.
The mountain mourned: for our friendliness, for
the unbreakable kinship of the lips.
The mountain declared that everyone will
receive in proportion to his tears.
.
The mountain grieved because life is a gypsy camp
and we go marketing all our life from heart to heart.
And this was Hagar's grief. To be
sent far away. Even with her child.
.
Also the mountain said that all things were a trick
of some demon, no sense to the game.
The mountain sorrowed. And we were silent.
leaving the mountain to judge the case.
.
Russia

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Louisa May Alcott


A SONG FROM THE SUDS
.
Queen of my tub, I merrily sing,
While the white foam raises high,
And sturdily wash, and rinse, and wring,
And fasten the clothes to dry;
Then out in the free fresh air they swing,
Under the sunny sky.
.
I wish we could wash from our hearts and our souls
The stains of the week away,
And let water and air by their magic make
Ourselves as pure as they;
Then on the earth there would be indeed
A glorious washing day!
.
Along the path of a useful life
Will heart's-ease ever bloom;
The busy mind has no time to think
Of sorrow, or care, or gloom;
And anxious thoughts may be swept away
As we busily wield a broom.
.
I am glad a task to me is given
To labor at day by day;
For it brings me health, and strength, and hope,
And I cheerfully learn to say-
"Head, you may think; heart, you may feel;
But hand, you shall work always!"

Friday, October 16, 2009

Eunice Odio


CONSUMMATION
.
Like white nocturnal animals
your arms gather
where my soul beats softly.
.
Your voice
flickers by my side
like a piano of deep silver
simple as—when alone—the sea
arranges shipwrecks of fish and wine
for the next season of water.
.
Then,
my love slides beneath your voice
My sex floods like the world
and holds birds,
.
Doves and naked bodies burst from my breast.
.
Already within you
I cannot find myself,
falling in the path of my body,
.
With a submerged and tender
dense vocation,
With collapsing breath
and final shape.
.
You lead me to my body,
and I arrive,
expanding my womb
.
and its vast dampness,
where gentle mangers grow and white lilies
and a small animal,
suffering and transient.
.
II
.
Ah,
if only I could find you one day
placidly on the verge of my death,
arousing my ear with your love
through which water runs
without re-birth . . .
.
If only I could find you one day
—so close to death and so celestial—
at the border of this slope
all that suddenly remains with the afternoon.
.
Ah,
Comrade,
.
How I love you at times
for your man's name
.
And for my neck where your soul rests.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Juan Sanchez Pelaez


INTERVALOS
.
INTERVALS
.
The decanted route
that emerged from our shore
was the great river
is a prairie, a diamond that covers us
here is its exact plane:
the rigor of its openings and closings,
its unfathomable lucidity when
the afternoon is fading,
when everyone has left and the house
is empty,
and the puppeteer and children
pretend to be adults.
.
Venezuela

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Constantine P. Cavafy


THE FOOTSTEPS
.
Eagles of coral
adorn the ebony bed
where Nero lies fast asleep --
callous, happy, peaceful,
in the prime of his body's strength,
in the fine vigour of youth.
.
But in the alabaster hall that holds
the ancient shrine of the Aenobarbi
how restless the household deities!
The little gods tremble
and try to hide their insignificant bodies.
They've heard a terrible sound,
a deadly sound coming up the stairs,
iron footsteps that shake the staircase;
and, faint with fear, the miserable Lares
scramble to the back of the shrine,
shoving each other and stumbling,
one little god falling over another,
because they know what kind of sound that is,
know by now the footsteps of the Furies

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Eunice Odio


DECLENSIONS OF THE MONOLOGUE
.
I am alone
completely alone
.
between my waist and my dress
alone with my entire voice
.
with a cargo of slight angels
like those caresses which collapse
alone through my fingers.
.
A confused child of sand
seeks a blue canoe
amid my floating hair.
.
He holds his tribes of scent
with a pale thread,
.
thirteen pilgrims rush
to my profile of rose
at the quietest corner of my eyelids.
.
II
.
I arch slightly over
my heart of stone and flower
to see it,
.
to wear my arteries
and my voice
in a given moment
.
when someone arrives
and calls to me . . .
.
but now I don't wish to be called,
I fit in the voice of no one,
do not call,
.
because I'm descending to the depths of my meagerness
to the satisfied roots of my shadow,
.
because now I'm descending to the anguished
touch of a miner, carrying his half-open flower on his shoulder
and a big sign of love on his belt.
.
I descend further
.
into the immediacies of air
.
Hurriedly waiting for the letters of its name
to be born perfect and habitable
.
I descend even further,
.
Who shall find me?
.
I wear my arteries,
(what great haste I have)
.
I wear my arteries and my voice
I wear this heart of stone and flower,
.
so that in a given moment
when someone arrives
.
and calls to me
.
and not finding me
lightly arched over my heart, to see it,
.
I will not have to go and leave my great voice,
.
and my high heart
of stone and flower.
.
Equador

Monday, October 12, 2009

Miguel Hernandez


FINAL SONNET
.
For un-feathering the glacial archangels,
the barbed-lily snowfall of slender teeth
is condemned to the weeping of fountains
and the sadness of well-springs.
For diffusing its soul into metal,
for the fire to grant its sunrise to iron,
the torrential blacksmiths’ draw it
to the sorrow of harsh anvils.
To the painful sting of the thorn,
to the fatal discouragement of the rose,
and the corrosive action of dying,
I see myself given, and all this ruin
is for no other misfortune, no other reason
than loving you, and only loving you

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Ikkyu


A MEAL OF FRESH OCTOPUS
.
Lots of arms, just like Kannon the Goddess;
Sacrificed for me, garnished with citron, I revere it so!
The taste of the sea, just divine! Sorry,
Buddha, this is another precept I just cannot keep.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Eugenia Sanchez Nieto


ESPACIO HABITADO
.
INHABITED SPACE
Someone moves discreetly in the night
he smokes deeply while the sound of a harmonica
seeps into bodies and walls
the proximity of an unknown being observing the hills
would frighten off at night any serene soul.
.
Sudden moves startle my rest
my galloping heart throws me down
a clumsy woman comes out into the corridor
beings of night people my space
absolute stillness, shining eyes pursue the shadow
I advance, I advance
I kick red apples that roll as I pass.
.
Someone at the back of the room
under the light of the moon writes:
Give yourself up to the man positioned in your room
I am the night you are solitude
desire is a tree in which light drowns
all that we possess is in this fire
.
Colombia

Friday, October 9, 2009

Ruben Dario


THE DEATH OF A POET
.
Only the Swans that day
Saw the high maker of our thoughts embark
And on the Lake Mysterious fade away
In the black ship that crosses to the dark.
.
The poet's robe was his,
Embroidered with illustrious fleurs-de-lys;
And laurel leaf and thorn
His sad prefigured forehead did adorn.
.
Afar God's City rose,
Where everlasting Peace her throne has reared
Above the poppy-meadows of repose;
And as the coat of his desire he neared,
He proved divine delight, knew grace untold,
Beheld the Cross uplifted and, before
That sacred Conqueror,
The fallen Sphinx, a corpse already cold.
.
Nicaragua

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Dirty Old Man


Wind swept attorney the focus over the plier jack
almost a death for people of the bridge, they're so wise
lofts out of barns got super expensive at the knock down
the real booze lies in a horse sleeping the floating hair
bicycle stairway all covered with manicure and doubt
the treasure is the speaking all out loud as proclaimed
your turn is butt boy at the track final matron on ice
the peer at the dome crusher fatal mix a cure instantly.

Milarepa


THE PROFOUND DEFINITIVE MEANING
.
For the mind that masters view the emptiness dawns
In the content seen not even an atom exists
A seer and seen refined until they're gone
This way of realizing view, it works quite well
.
When meditation is clear light river flow
There is no need to confine it to sessions and breaks
Meditator and object refined until they're gone
This heart bone of meditation, it beats quite well
.
When you're sure that conducts work is luminous light
And you're sure that interdependence is emptiness
A doer and deed refined until they're gone
This way of working with conduct, it works quite well
.
When biased thinking has vanished into space
No phony facades, eight dharmas, nor hopes and fears,
A keeper and kept refined until they're gone
This way of keeping samaya, it works quite well
.
When you've finally discovered your mind is dharmakaya
And you're really doing yourself and others good
A winner and won refined until they're gone
This way of winning results, it works quite well.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Ileana Malancioiu


ANTIGONE
.
A frozen mound, white body of a dead man
fallen in hard battle and left above the Earth.
Hungry dogs come to bite the treacherous snow
and another winter comes, too, to take its bite.
Let a pure woman appear to break the command,
to wrench the forsaken body from the dogs
and hide it as a dear brother--
while those near her wash their hands of it

and allow her to be buried alive in the earth
clothed in unreal white,
for as the emperor lost his great battle
she wept and buried her frozen mound
.
Romania

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Ernesto Trejo


TONIGHT THIS HOUSE SPEAKS
.
Tonight this house speaks to me
through the creaking in the cupboards
and the refrigerator's humming.
Believe me, when this house shakes
under my feet
it isn't because of the train.
There's something in the basement.
I don't know what, I've never been there,
I'm afraid of the empty room
that leads to it.
.
Tonight I'm a hearing machine.
Beer bottles are crashing
in the dusty corners.
Even the spiders
are hesitant.
The crack in the ceiling
is a fissure in the brain
for all I know,
this kidney ache might be a sign
of rusty pipes, the cricket's
clicking has been the song
of my ventricles
all these years.
.
Thank God the water goes on at 2.
Then I sleep
while the plum tree drinks on,
a water full of sounds.

Monday, October 5, 2009

Rosario Castellanos


THE OTHER
.
Why pronounce the names of gods, stars,
froth of an invisible ocean,
pollen from the most distant gardens?
If life aches us, if each day comes
tearing us apart, if each night
falls convulsed, assassinated.
If the grief of an unknown person
grieves us, but he is
always present, and is the victim
and the enemy and love and all
that we need in order to be whole.
Never say that the darkness is yours,
don’t drink joy down with a single swallow.
Look about you: there is the other, there is always the other.
The air he breathes chokes you,
what he eats is your hunger.
He dies with the purest half of your death

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Gregory Corso


THE MAD YAK
.
I am watching them churn the last milk they'll ever get from me.
They are waiting for me to die;
They want to make buttons out of my bones.
Where are my sisters and brothers?
That tall monk there, loading my uncle, he has a new cap.
And that idiot student of his--
I never saw that muffler before.
Poor uncle, he lets them load him.
How sad he is, how tired!
I wonder what they'll do with his bones?
And that beautiful tail!
How many shoelaces will they make of that!

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Ho Chi Minh


At 2pm the cages are opened
to clear the air,
All the prisoners raise their faces
look up at the free sky.
Free sky is the home of immortals,
Do they know
that in this cage
is another immortal?

Friday, October 2, 2009

Charles Cimic


IN THE LIBRARY
.
There's a book called
"A Dictionary of Angels."
No one has opened it in fifty years,
I know, because when I did,
The covers creaked, the pages
Crumbled. There I discovered
.
The angels were once as plentiful
As species of flies.The sky at dusk
Used to be thick with them.
You had to wave both arms
Just to keep them away.
.
Now the sun is shining
Through the tall windows.
The library is a quiet place.
Angels and gods huddled
In dark unopened books.
The great secret lies
On some shelf Miss Jones
Passes every day on her rounds.
.
She's very tall, so she keeps
Her head tipped as if listening.
The books are whispering.
I hear nothing, but she does

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Martha Kornblith


PRAYERS TO AN ABSCENT GOD
.
That's why we dedicate our books
to the dead.
Because we carry the hopeless conviction
they listen to us.
We, accomplices to
less innocent careers,
believe we will be gods
in other worlds
because we think happiness
is the miracle's distance
when we dream of one word,
when we watch airplanes rising......