Máscaras / Ramón Palomares (1935-2016)

Masks

And here we exist at the limits of the lie
that our life is impalpable
that these represented people belong
to an owner of another order.

We always show up on stage punctually
to face the big audience. This is how we recreate under the stars
and make it to an appointment in the winds
stepping out ahead of our parties.

Our heart has been lent to other characters,
we murmur a dream and our lips are not responsible,
we’re beautiful or noble according to circumstance.
We’re assaulted by a random delirium
and we fall onto the stages under a foreign will.

And we have no life,
since we’re always driving through an unknown country
whose flowers interest us in a frivolous manner
and whose women love us in alcoves of falsehood.

We start a fire and her blue heart
crackles with more strength than ours
as the logs burn in the manner of blood.

We let ourselves be strange. Falsifiers.
Wearing an insincere emotion.
While we walk, exiled from our body
on an interminable stroll.




1958




{ Ramón Palomares, El reino, Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 2001 }