A fuerza de ciudad / Jacqueline Goldberg


Jacqueline Goldberg was born in the city of Maracaibo in 1966. She has published over ten collections of poetry, including A fuerza de ciudad (Caracas: Tierra de Gracia Editores, 1989), Insolaciones en Miami Beach (Caracas: Fundarte, 1995), and Víspera (Caracas: Pequena Venecia, 2000). In 1987 she won the Premio Fundarte de Poesía. Having received her PhD from the Universidad Central de Venezuela, she currently works as a journalist and lives in Venezuela and Florida. Like Martha Kornblith, Goldberg’s poems at times address the issue of Jewish identity within Venezuelan society.

I came across A fuerza de ciudad on the same night I found Aire sobre el aire in Providence, paid for them with my last coins, and proceeded to eat books until next paycheck, happy with what was in my hands & head. In this edition, each of Goldberg's minimalist poems are given an entire two pages to stretch out in, so that one is always aware of her stanzas struggling against overwhelming blank spaces.


By City Force (selections)


I
I belong
to a race of women
who destroy themselves
at midnight

Insinuating profiles
Scratched voices

They are the ones
who possess
the sad privilege
of abandoning themselves
to the fall
They
who know
the seasons
that don’t need
to be named

drained

forgotten



II
With so many roots
beckoning
from your body
I remain
Intact
Awaiting
the challenge



III
I speak of myself

traffic of crevices
deserved flame



V
I roam filthy
For silence



VII
Those two we were
Broken image
on the shore
Everything a hallway
that doesn’t lead
taking off



VIII
Broken
at the source
Without land
Without anyone to follow me
With the only door
pierced
in my skin



IX
You resist
the familiar hour
of snares

a smallness
that warns you
from so many lovers ago



X
With the age burning
Poised
under Sagitarian skies
I repeat the dagger that sweats me
The blank page
that won’t breathe for me



XI
Regardless
we had to
Grow without finding
Ask the heavens
for another earth



XII
Pronouncing myself
Another way
of passing
below

Always gleaning
foreign water



XIII
Find myself among them
Friends
Those who speak
steel
and staircase
Those who carry themselves
under any tree
Those burning skins
that know nothing
of apparitions



XIV
Precisely this
is what it concerns
Self-aware, knotted
under tree



XV
I appear suddenly
among furious animals
animals that don’t recognize me

It is this house
This penance



XVI
They’ll forget me
for being solemn
for immersing myself
in junctures
For revealing
words
bodies
I couldn’t give anyone



XVII
I demolished silences
to arrive
hurting calmly



XX
Without that river
Without a house
nor a porch
to wait for you



XXI
On this side
the enigma
Women
and outlaws
by city
force



XXVII
I sweat
lock-ups
Bites
trafficking
streets
from my mouth
into night



XXX
I don’t know
how long
I stood
without your jungle
so close to silence
so like
mine



XXXII
This
they call flight
But
—I insist—
what hurts
what frightens
is not the shut
wound
on the table
nor in the stunned
womb
of a virgin
I speak
of swaying and
letting desire
fall
Throwing oneself
with body and all
with the tongue
roaming
a country
of null sexes
Without getting lost
Without an alias
or improper transactions

Without clinging
to the walls
sustained
in flesh
by city force