A Phantasmal Voice
It was talking and
talking in a low voice
and without stopping
and sibilant
to the winds of the plateau.
Summer was arriving.
The storm was tearing apart
the trees of the forest.
It was talking and its voice was
a very dry murmur
amid the shadows.
It was emerging, no one knows,
from what unknown place.
It was something like that, hoarse,
as if flowing
from the limitless edges
of the earth.
It was something vain.
A voice that was heard
down below
from the depths of the dust.
A phantasmal voice.
With its nails, it was scratching
the walls. Our
ghosts, said Valle
Inclán, are the noises
that are produced inside
ourselves by
our own remorse.
{ Francisco Pérez Perdomo, Eclipse, Caracas: Edición de autor, 2008 }
10.25.2011
Luis Uhland / José Antonio Ramos Sucre
Ludwig Uhland
Ludwig Uhland was one of the most eximious poets of the 19th century. A sagacious critic contrasts him against the acerbic Heinrich Heine, because of the contrary character of his tender and gentle poetry; and later on explains the origin of their respective inspirations in this manner: due to the pleasures of wine Euterpe set aside her gravity, and transformed herself into a bacchant. Crazed, she descended to earth, and with a kiss communicated unhealthy inspiration to an adolescent, who eventually became the unfortunate Heinrich Heine. When she regained her serenity, the muse hoped to compensate for the influence of her funest action, infusing with another kiss and in another mortal a beneficial breath. So she descended to the country of Swabia, and rewarded Ludwig Uhland with the gift of a happy poetry.
First published in Renovación, no. 3, Caracas, 20 May 1916.
{ José Antonio Ramos Sucre, Obra completa, Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1989 }
Ludwig Uhland was one of the most eximious poets of the 19th century. A sagacious critic contrasts him against the acerbic Heinrich Heine, because of the contrary character of his tender and gentle poetry; and later on explains the origin of their respective inspirations in this manner: due to the pleasures of wine Euterpe set aside her gravity, and transformed herself into a bacchant. Crazed, she descended to earth, and with a kiss communicated unhealthy inspiration to an adolescent, who eventually became the unfortunate Heinrich Heine. When she regained her serenity, the muse hoped to compensate for the influence of her funest action, infusing with another kiss and in another mortal a beneficial breath. So she descended to the country of Swabia, and rewarded Ludwig Uhland with the gift of a happy poetry.
First published in Renovación, no. 3, Caracas, 20 May 1916.
{ José Antonio Ramos Sucre, Obra completa, Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1989 }
10.18.2011
La ciudad de las puertas de hierro / José Antonio Ramos Sucre
The City of Iron Doors
I was combing through the vestiges of a fortress edified, three thousand years earlier, to divide the floor of two continents. The towers were rising just slightly above the walls, according to the Asiatic custom. The antiquity of that architecture declared itself through the absence of the arch.
The passage of Alexander, conqueror of the Persians, had disseminated in that country an imperishable rumor.
I observed, from a lookout in the ruins, the dispute between Sergio and Michael, two idlers of Russian origin. They were accused of having killed and despoiled a gentleman, while they were guiding him through a plateau. They would appropriate the cattle wounded by the neighboring hunters. They surpassed the perfidy of the Jew and the Armenian.
Michael retired after inflicting upon his adversary a funest blow and he locked himself in the guesthouse where I was lodged. No one else had become aware of the case.
The wounded man died the night of that very day, uttering insults and curses. Michael was unable, at such a great distance, to conciliate sleep and he would call out loud to his lodging companions to save himself from the constant hallucinations. I contributed to pacifying him and persuaded him to wait, without fear, until morning.
We left him alone when he was starting to fall asleep.
We returned to his presence well into the day. We found him drowned by some ferreous hands, different from his own.
Las formas del fuego (1929)
{ José Antonio Ramos Sucre, Obra completa, Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1989 }
I was combing through the vestiges of a fortress edified, three thousand years earlier, to divide the floor of two continents. The towers were rising just slightly above the walls, according to the Asiatic custom. The antiquity of that architecture declared itself through the absence of the arch.
The passage of Alexander, conqueror of the Persians, had disseminated in that country an imperishable rumor.
I observed, from a lookout in the ruins, the dispute between Sergio and Michael, two idlers of Russian origin. They were accused of having killed and despoiled a gentleman, while they were guiding him through a plateau. They would appropriate the cattle wounded by the neighboring hunters. They surpassed the perfidy of the Jew and the Armenian.
Michael retired after inflicting upon his adversary a funest blow and he locked himself in the guesthouse where I was lodged. No one else had become aware of the case.
The wounded man died the night of that very day, uttering insults and curses. Michael was unable, at such a great distance, to conciliate sleep and he would call out loud to his lodging companions to save himself from the constant hallucinations. I contributed to pacifying him and persuaded him to wait, without fear, until morning.
We left him alone when he was starting to fall asleep.
We returned to his presence well into the day. We found him drowned by some ferreous hands, different from his own.
Las formas del fuego (1929)
{ José Antonio Ramos Sucre, Obra completa, Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1989 }
10.16.2011
Rapsodia / José Antonio Ramos Sucre
Rhapsody
Juno releases, from celestial heights, the deformed son, opprobrium of divine beauty.
The fog hurries to the infant’s rescue and lays him down on the elastic surface of the ocean, moderating the impetus of the fall.
The child descends in a nacre carriage, prepared by sirens, to an apparent home, fantasy of the artists of the abyss, situated at the end of a vegetation of corals and madrepores. The shameful light of the depths circulates through the lodgings.
The infant conceives the love of beauty, proven eventually in the forging and in the engraving of resplendent jewels, in his dealings with the sunken beings, in a capricious manner. He admires the presumptuous medusa and her mane accumulated under the disc of her applied parasol.
He owes, likewise, the agreeable nature and peaceful habits, which distinguish him from his companions in immortality, to the teachings of defenseless creatures. He listens to the advice of the versatile eel, of the sedentary sponge, of the orbicular fish with a comic physiognomy.
Vulcan’s elegance smooths the afflicted face and mitigates the resounding voice of tragedy.
Las formas del fuego (1929)
{ José Antonio Ramos Sucre, Obra completa, Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1989 }
Juno releases, from celestial heights, the deformed son, opprobrium of divine beauty.
The fog hurries to the infant’s rescue and lays him down on the elastic surface of the ocean, moderating the impetus of the fall.
The child descends in a nacre carriage, prepared by sirens, to an apparent home, fantasy of the artists of the abyss, situated at the end of a vegetation of corals and madrepores. The shameful light of the depths circulates through the lodgings.
The infant conceives the love of beauty, proven eventually in the forging and in the engraving of resplendent jewels, in his dealings with the sunken beings, in a capricious manner. He admires the presumptuous medusa and her mane accumulated under the disc of her applied parasol.
He owes, likewise, the agreeable nature and peaceful habits, which distinguish him from his companions in immortality, to the teachings of defenseless creatures. He listens to the advice of the versatile eel, of the sedentary sponge, of the orbicular fish with a comic physiognomy.
Vulcan’s elegance smooths the afflicted face and mitigates the resounding voice of tragedy.
Las formas del fuego (1929)
{ José Antonio Ramos Sucre, Obra completa, Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1989 }
10.12.2011
El domicilio del eider / José Antonio Ramos Sucre
The Eider’s Domicile
The contaminated butter, the rancid food provisions, the fetid fish were provoking scurvy and scabies on the secret island. The natives were congratulating themselves for their longevity. I met more than one elderly person with a devoured face.
The fishermen were easing my nostalgia by pulling me away from the iron coast in their sharp skiffs, on an impassive sea.
The straggling sun, the one from an anomalous latitude, was varying the colors of the ice floe amidst a surface of cobalt and was delighting in the religious amethyst and in the opal of Byzantium.
I was returning from maritime wanderings to hide desperation in a singular home. The bones of a whale had served for its fabrication.
I was fruitlessly struggling to reconcile sleep after repeating a moaning psalm. A king had banished me from Denmark.
I would turn my mind to the maiden of my affection and celebrate her bravery in the act of encouraging myself for exile. A wart-covered frog, in the clumsy mud, was lifting his voice in honor of the moon and of the fatidic aureole of its sadness.
The maiden of my affection had attained the visions of Saint Bridget and often felt the voice of the Crucifix. Her imperishable cadaver reposes in a glass coffin, in view of some nuns with celestial souls.
El cielo de esmalte (1929)
{ José Antonio Ramos Sucre, Obra completa, Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1989 }
The contaminated butter, the rancid food provisions, the fetid fish were provoking scurvy and scabies on the secret island. The natives were congratulating themselves for their longevity. I met more than one elderly person with a devoured face.
The fishermen were easing my nostalgia by pulling me away from the iron coast in their sharp skiffs, on an impassive sea.
The straggling sun, the one from an anomalous latitude, was varying the colors of the ice floe amidst a surface of cobalt and was delighting in the religious amethyst and in the opal of Byzantium.
I was returning from maritime wanderings to hide desperation in a singular home. The bones of a whale had served for its fabrication.
I was fruitlessly struggling to reconcile sleep after repeating a moaning psalm. A king had banished me from Denmark.
I would turn my mind to the maiden of my affection and celebrate her bravery in the act of encouraging myself for exile. A wart-covered frog, in the clumsy mud, was lifting his voice in honor of the moon and of the fatidic aureole of its sadness.
The maiden of my affection had attained the visions of Saint Bridget and often felt the voice of the Crucifix. Her imperishable cadaver reposes in a glass coffin, in view of some nuns with celestial souls.
El cielo de esmalte (1929)
{ José Antonio Ramos Sucre, Obra completa, Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1989 }
10.04.2011
El hallazgo / José Antonio Ramos Sucre
The Find
The mariners had lain me down in the sycamore coffin, fitting me for subterranean sleep. They absented themselves after testing on me an onion plant, with a nauseating smell. They made me drink the juice from its hairy leaves and its root, of the width of a finger. It was paid from the unirrigated ground and its flowers fed the voracity of a swarm of double corselet insects, stocked with an executioner’s gear.
The headache and a mild frenzy assaulted me after the cessation of drowsiness. I saw nothing but images of fright and cruelty. A bird was tormenting its child.
I have unknowingly broken the cipher of an inexpressible thought, drawn on the forehead of a monolith, and I watched a series of indignant statues, with enamel eyes, rising in front of me.
I have discarded, suspecting perfidy, the ship loosed in the neighboring river of mud, amidst a withered jungle.
I forced my steps in demand of a serene mountain, where the happy numens of the place were born and had put down the fugitive plant, once they were banished.
I discovered a memorial stone adhered to an inaccessible spot of the slope, and I reached it dragging myself and panting. It displayed, in the manner of a signal, a human figure finished in the beak of a rapacious bird. It easily gave way to a push from my hands and revealed a humid and phosphorescent chamber.
I have hidden from the unfaithful companions the secret of my inexhaustible wealth.
Las formas del fuego (1929)
{ José Antonio Ramos Sucre, Obra completa, Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1989 }
The mariners had lain me down in the sycamore coffin, fitting me for subterranean sleep. They absented themselves after testing on me an onion plant, with a nauseating smell. They made me drink the juice from its hairy leaves and its root, of the width of a finger. It was paid from the unirrigated ground and its flowers fed the voracity of a swarm of double corselet insects, stocked with an executioner’s gear.
The headache and a mild frenzy assaulted me after the cessation of drowsiness. I saw nothing but images of fright and cruelty. A bird was tormenting its child.
I have unknowingly broken the cipher of an inexpressible thought, drawn on the forehead of a monolith, and I watched a series of indignant statues, with enamel eyes, rising in front of me.
I have discarded, suspecting perfidy, the ship loosed in the neighboring river of mud, amidst a withered jungle.
I forced my steps in demand of a serene mountain, where the happy numens of the place were born and had put down the fugitive plant, once they were banished.
I discovered a memorial stone adhered to an inaccessible spot of the slope, and I reached it dragging myself and panting. It displayed, in the manner of a signal, a human figure finished in the beak of a rapacious bird. It easily gave way to a push from my hands and revealed a humid and phosphorescent chamber.
I have hidden from the unfaithful companions the secret of my inexhaustible wealth.
Las formas del fuego (1929)
{ José Antonio Ramos Sucre, Obra completa, Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1989 }
10.01.2011
Montería / José Antonio Ramos Sucre
Hunting
I had fatigued myself running after the wild sheep.
I had to alleviate my thirst in a well of salubrious water. I hoped to reestablish myself there from having been rammed. The salt had crystallized on the edges, in the form of nacre.
The young men of my age had likewise been mistreated when they chased those irreducible animals. None had been victimized or caught in a trap. They were assigned a tenacious life.
I concealed the damage received in the course of the hunt and didn’t refer it to my companions. I gathered myself in my country estate when the afternoon fell and hoped to wrap myself in the smoke of a juniper bonfire. I singularly enjoyed that perfumed firewood and had gathered a sheaf of its branches when I returned from the hazardous incursion.
The aroma exhaled from the fire inspired in me a dominant intoxication and opened in my presence an avenue of monumental statues. The stylized heads exactly imitated those of the beasts stolen from my persecution.
I recognized, disconcerted, a passage from Thebes, the city of a hundred doors.
Las formas del fuego (1929)
{ José Antonio Ramos Sucre, Obra completa, Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1989 }
I had fatigued myself running after the wild sheep.
I had to alleviate my thirst in a well of salubrious water. I hoped to reestablish myself there from having been rammed. The salt had crystallized on the edges, in the form of nacre.
The young men of my age had likewise been mistreated when they chased those irreducible animals. None had been victimized or caught in a trap. They were assigned a tenacious life.
I concealed the damage received in the course of the hunt and didn’t refer it to my companions. I gathered myself in my country estate when the afternoon fell and hoped to wrap myself in the smoke of a juniper bonfire. I singularly enjoyed that perfumed firewood and had gathered a sheaf of its branches when I returned from the hazardous incursion.
The aroma exhaled from the fire inspired in me a dominant intoxication and opened in my presence an avenue of monumental statues. The stylized heads exactly imitated those of the beasts stolen from my persecution.
I recognized, disconcerted, a passage from Thebes, the city of a hundred doors.
Las formas del fuego (1929)
{ José Antonio Ramos Sucre, Obra completa, Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1989 }
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