Incessant Carriage of Night
In high temperatures I lift the stem
above the contrary winds
thrashed by electronic ghosts very certain
of joining the incessant carriage of night
to the nucleus of what will never be free
perverse fires tied by my vertebrae
smoke carnivorous plants floating countries mirages
ineffable matter of living
in these immediate spaces
with no end to the marine retreat or its voices
Days of July and frogs rule
along with birds and strong crews
I contemplate that debris those geological faults
the dazzling beacons that submit all rigors
to the vice of the unknown
crawling bites of language
my buzzing is an outrageous image rebounding from heaven
This fragile invention hosts me in the earth like a tiger
I don’t rest when I open the door
Foolishness subjugates
my limit sinks but is resolute
Fiesta fiesta for me who love and wager against shadows
Delta
To Wilda
There will always be a hiding place
so we don’t destroy the sky
and leave it there in good hands
forever
I have an exact idea of extermination
but I frequent this absolute joy of you
which is another illusion as perfect
as death
In the dream you have another name another waist
other worthy springs so perfectly white
another poisonous invention another native beginning
sometimes confused with the terrible depths of my
waters
the ones that were my sins for a while
I solicit affection from that time and it exiles me
to the same habitual herbariums
to the single madness
of the already impossible to understand return
When I speak of you reality resists the melancholia
of visible torment and ferments like a liquor
drunk in that indelible Delta.
Translator’s Note: Luis Camilo Guevara was born in the city of Tucupita, Delta Amacuro state, in 1937. During the 1960s and 1970s he formed part of the literary group La Pandilla de Lautréamont (The Lautréamont Gang). He died in Caracas on September 3rd, 2014. These two poems were originally published in the magazine Libre (Paris, 1972).
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