Silvia
The women who loved me
have surely died.
They belonged to a different race.
The atmosphere of flame necessary to their bodies
disappeared one night with the stars.
And now they can only rest their hair
on the illusion of sacred brightness
that is distance.
In the time of the sun
I could recognize them
by the mere movement of their shadows.
Then I was invaded by the impetus
of running barefoot on the transparent water.
And it was you Silvia
–nothing more than your magical glance
who were able to brighten the sand
where I would lay down to escape the night.
It was you who in passing made
each park regain its blazing youth.
And when we offered ourselves to the enchantment
[of the highest streets
facing the darkest windows
it was you who would invoke and place at our feet
the inhabitants of the shade.
One evening you buried a pearl in the lawn.
It was an homage to the beautiful days of December.
And when you perceived the presence
of the vagabonds who were spying on our offering
you postponed the birth of the tree that would unite us.
You vanished the possible rose
whose aroma would equal in weight
and consistency our blood.
Because from that point on
–from that gesture
you would have helped me save
this double appearance that imprisons us.
This double calling that requires us in one time
and leaves us immobile in the empty
world of its differences.
Then I saw weeping in your face for the first time.
I saw in your hands the stones you threw at the night:
The world was alone.
You told me about disappeared beings.
About disappeared seas.
About a certain star like an only mansion
where death and life, love and hate
were facts that were barely able
to liven an afternoon’s falling.
And from then on we were ghosts
–nothing more than ghosts.
You loved me Silvia. I loved in you the defiance
against the shade facing the woods.
The defiance of the woods facing the sky.
We loved each other and it was there in love
this disappearance that will annul us begins.
The love in my hands is a force
that distances whatever it caresses.
You will have disappeared. You will be in your race
–in your star where the flame blows.
Yet I know you still exist. I know you exist.
I have contemplated the trees again.
Felt the flowers.
I walked so much because one day
–I know it well– in a sea I don’t know.
In the great distance made as it is of blue sand
of small stones and fruits that have fallen
–in a dawn beyond time I will see you
I will hear you sing from your life.
I know you exist. And one day it will be you Silvia
–nothing more than your magical glance
who will manage to brighten the painful
sand that I make for myself.
Who will recover the blazing youth
of the oldest park in the world that I am now.
Otherwise you will know I am of the world
and I will curse you and cry
because hatred will hand me over to the night calling
to nourish its starving tunnels with me.
1954
{ Hesnor Rivera, Superficie del enigma, Maracaibo: Universidad del Zulia, 1968 }
Showing posts with label Hesnor Rivera. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hesnor Rivera. Show all posts
2.02.2011
1.06.2011
Apocalipsis / Hesnor Rivera
Apocalypse
My country ruminates in secret
the water of disasters.
It rests its teeth from the wings and ruminates
–teeth that bleed
much more
than a shipwreck’s oars.
Much more than the youths beneath the stormy
August sky.
Only the lips of the eye whistle like the serpent
arrows with letters of vengeance.
Red ballads crossing the night
like errant stars.
What does the master demand? melancholic children scream
in the nights of clay. It is spelled M
before B and P as in the word Constantinople.
When one is born beside an immense lake
like the leguminous chest of the servants.
When one grows beside the chest of the water
around which
the world rotates
divided into its parts:
you tell me alligator tail
in love with the garden of petroleum’s
gelatinously blind lightning.
You tell me wolf extinguished like a lamp
by the thirst of a hairy worm of the seas.
You tell me
oh! brooding virgins
of tragic hawks.
Tell me, aren’t we born and grown for the world
and yet we sprawl like a domestic rooster
on the shores of conquest?
Aren’t we born and grown like the world
that divides into blood
of conquerors
and sores that open
like the ears of humiliating sadness?
My country ruminates in secret the water of disasters
What does the master demand? melancholic children scream
in the nights of clay.
It is spelled M
before B and P
as in the word Constantinople.
A distant ship hangs between the trunks
of the palms
like a hammock
of a monstrous king.
On the tar paving-stones
of the ports the parents are dying.
They fold themselves over the
exportable boxes of the heat
consumed by countries
intoxicated with fires.
Only at noon arrives the tribe
of the blood faces –seeking their ancient age
of gold among the rats killed by the gust
of carbide horns that ripens the plaintains.
It might be that on water
the inferno
truly begins.
The high martyrdoms
truly begin.
It might be that in the brilliant docks
of the bonfires
a man could aspire
to nourish
the insects of the forest.
A man could attempt to strangle with sex
the green fires that swell
like the seed of beasts
whose gale interior protects
the large dicotyledonous wings of the tropics.
What does the master demand? melancholic children
scream in the nights of clay.
Beneath its crazy lobster ceiling sun
the city
also hears
its own birth.
Around the coconut groves it was growing
and circling like a little donkey.
Around the temple of the thieves it was growing.
Around the fire of the swamps.
It was growing around the desolate miners
inside their skeletons
with orbits of agonizing lanterns.
The city was growing –it always grows
around the golden victims.
Of the dead that surround their memories
with oral violets. It only grows around
the excavations
where the dead
tend to hide forever.
My country ruminates in secret
the water of disasters.
Under that sun with black skin an island
builds itself alone at dawn.
From the heights of the jungle
rivers of purple oranges depart.
Dead avalanches of pewter animals depart.
The cattail
with its slimy
centipede feet.
So then an island is not a nest
of blessed
corals.
It is not an open door to the moon
that drives with sinister threads
the lightning’s cruelty from all the skies.
An island is the obscure
center
of the zone under surveillance.
Plump spadices sustain
the luminous eggs
of a somber fauna.
And finally a meaningless story
ends up denouncing the wake
of the always ancient woman
by which the gramineous shack could participate in the party.
What does the master demand? melancholic children
scream in the nights of clay.
It is spelled M before B and P
as in the word Constantinople.
Maracaibo, 1952.
{ Hesnor Rivera, El Salmón: Revista de Poesía, Apocalipsis: Año III – No 7, Caracas: January-April 2010 }
My country ruminates in secret
the water of disasters.
It rests its teeth from the wings and ruminates
–teeth that bleed
much more
than a shipwreck’s oars.
Much more than the youths beneath the stormy
August sky.
Only the lips of the eye whistle like the serpent
arrows with letters of vengeance.
Red ballads crossing the night
like errant stars.
What does the master demand? melancholic children scream
in the nights of clay. It is spelled M
before B and P as in the word Constantinople.
When one is born beside an immense lake
like the leguminous chest of the servants.
When one grows beside the chest of the water
around which
the world rotates
divided into its parts:
you tell me alligator tail
in love with the garden of petroleum’s
gelatinously blind lightning.
You tell me wolf extinguished like a lamp
by the thirst of a hairy worm of the seas.
You tell me
oh! brooding virgins
of tragic hawks.
Tell me, aren’t we born and grown for the world
and yet we sprawl like a domestic rooster
on the shores of conquest?
Aren’t we born and grown like the world
that divides into blood
of conquerors
and sores that open
like the ears of humiliating sadness?
My country ruminates in secret the water of disasters
What does the master demand? melancholic children scream
in the nights of clay.
It is spelled M
before B and P
as in the word Constantinople.
A distant ship hangs between the trunks
of the palms
like a hammock
of a monstrous king.
On the tar paving-stones
of the ports the parents are dying.
They fold themselves over the
exportable boxes of the heat
consumed by countries
intoxicated with fires.
Only at noon arrives the tribe
of the blood faces –seeking their ancient age
of gold among the rats killed by the gust
of carbide horns that ripens the plaintains.
It might be that on water
the inferno
truly begins.
The high martyrdoms
truly begin.
It might be that in the brilliant docks
of the bonfires
a man could aspire
to nourish
the insects of the forest.
A man could attempt to strangle with sex
the green fires that swell
like the seed of beasts
whose gale interior protects
the large dicotyledonous wings of the tropics.
What does the master demand? melancholic children
scream in the nights of clay.
Beneath its crazy lobster ceiling sun
the city
also hears
its own birth.
Around the coconut groves it was growing
and circling like a little donkey.
Around the temple of the thieves it was growing.
Around the fire of the swamps.
It was growing around the desolate miners
inside their skeletons
with orbits of agonizing lanterns.
The city was growing –it always grows
around the golden victims.
Of the dead that surround their memories
with oral violets. It only grows around
the excavations
where the dead
tend to hide forever.
My country ruminates in secret
the water of disasters.
Under that sun with black skin an island
builds itself alone at dawn.
From the heights of the jungle
rivers of purple oranges depart.
Dead avalanches of pewter animals depart.
The cattail
with its slimy
centipede feet.
So then an island is not a nest
of blessed
corals.
It is not an open door to the moon
that drives with sinister threads
the lightning’s cruelty from all the skies.
An island is the obscure
center
of the zone under surveillance.
Plump spadices sustain
the luminous eggs
of a somber fauna.
And finally a meaningless story
ends up denouncing the wake
of the always ancient woman
by which the gramineous shack could participate in the party.
What does the master demand? melancholic children
scream in the nights of clay.
It is spelled M before B and P
as in the word Constantinople.
Maracaibo, 1952.
{ Hesnor Rivera, El Salmón: Revista de Poesía, Apocalipsis: Año III – No 7, Caracas: January-April 2010 }
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