The Offer

In this time when cold winter pushes on
trying to replace the slowly-paced fall
and not all the leaves are fallen and gone,
you sweet lady shouldn't have come at all.


I have no tools nor proper endeavour
to make front to this pressure in my heart
and this poetry; this work, this labour
seems doomed to its failure before its start.


Sweet little princess because you in me
but a shadow, a ghost that in past would
to you have meant something worthy, now see
and not the bursting love I, offer could.


Sweetheart, yellow hang the hands of the trees
and as you pass me by, I'll just look at the full blue sky
'cause somewhere in your chest my chance did freeze.

when i think of myself
I think of a city
with all its streets

and lies
and trembling dangers

I think of my own death
and my own deaths and my own day and night

I think of
little windows embed in the flat and unlevel'd surface of the floor
as mirrors
where the sky
sees its innermost and darkest reflections.

The traps that carry
through the watery night
to the deepness within.

To the the night within.

To the secret, to the
night in the night.

When I think of myself. And of the traps.

Para Fernanda Jofré

Beauty Love and Lust

               Jaime y Trinidad iban contándonos de la vez aquella que a Jaime le dio neuritis del vestibular y andaba con vértigo, y no podía moverse para nada así que tenía que quedarse apoltronado en el sillón mientras ella le leía un libro.
              Yo me pregunté si alguna vez tendría algo así. Veníamos de vuelta de la casa de los padres de Jaime a orillas del mar. Allá me preguntaba si alguna vez tendré algo así; pero esa pregunta es indisoluble de la otra: ¿alguna vez tendré con quién tener algo así? Todo parece un poco forzoso, porque en plena sinceridad, SÍ me he enamorado y SÍ me han amado y SÍ he tenido proyectos.
              Pero parecen incapaces de durar. Quizá - a veces me intriga - es un rasgo de mi personalidad. Don't know. Lo que sí sé es que me acordé de este poema (el próximo (quiénsabecuándo en verdad) post, la traduzco, ahora me da flojera. Rifaré un premio al que adivine al autor):



Beauty Love and Lust

O please don’t get me wrong

is not the field of love

where does my search belong,

                                       Nor do i look for lust

                                   that folly four – leaf’d clove

                               which once found, never lasts;

What i want confused can

be with those fit dressings

beauty imposes to man

                                       But soon the sham is caught:

                                   shrivell’d by time’s pressings,

                               that clothing comes to nought

 

No, love’s truly a fake, and certainly lust

though may at some point seem indeed as a must

vanishes in the sea of unforgetful,

relentless, and passion-diminishing time;

beauty as is proudly announced by its soundly chime

starts to decay into an agony as dreadful

as long it takes to finally turn its poor prey

to an unimportant character to the play

Though this new individual may be made a fool

reminiscent as he is, by the old tools

even older love has at its disposal

(For no one is as naked, clueless and lost

than someone unladen of fairness last frost)

And may be tempted by dirty proposal

dirty lust has to offer and be no more free,

It’s self evident that this man is not me

O no, they transit a mostly different field

and go unheralded, the cravings I yield;

for I do prefer what mediators needs not

and truly sustains them both, lust and beauty;

from which love’s not but a minor deputy,

to lovers rage, one of the many in the lot.

Perfection of the Bodies, that’s what I need

To no less – and there can’t be more – may I plead

For its self-contained sweet exact symmetry

holds and keeps its own language and poetry.

Not defined by the will of a few many

like sad beauty is, looks down on lower lust

which often strikes the bar, to be fully cast,

of an approving companion. If any,

it holds alliance solely to Nature

from which it truly excels and She takes venture.

Muscular symphonies whose silence is speech

Sovereign over man’s works that thee can’t reach

You’re not buried or born, but live in full now

thus unlike mortal love, slave to the hour

pay no heed to time’s call, bitter and sour

nor have someone to report ‘bout when or how

because you exist on yourself, on yourself fill’d

uncapturable by eye hunterly skill’d

undisputedly at first try thee get to claim

the sorry gaze that upon you sets its aim

captive the soul on your utter perfection.

Love can be in spite of all its endearment

hurdled by body and its mobile garment;

You, unendowed with the need for affection

to the rhythm of your mean adjust your poise

and to own’s health drink your cup of rejoice

 

Arm, lovely lathed thigh

expressive charming hand

hair billowing out high,

                                       All a secret tongue speak

                                   circumscribing thought-lands

                               that upon my mind leak

that the clockwork divine

mechanic of movement,

subtle poem of the line

                                       is but an impression

                                   of that very moment

                               totalness’ expression

intersects with our plane of life

and with the sharpness of a knife

all this truth struck me;

all eternity can be bound

in an instant so short and sound

when perfection can be,

for this harmony of forces needs no mirror

and its all-sufficience can’t be any clearer

than its simple unobservance of time’s will;

it comes out from nowhere

                that being its grand power

and undisturbed by feel, writes with space’s quill

its one-lined poem. When its magic is done,

returns to eternity it came from, and is gone.

Fuentes para las fotografías:
Beauty
Love
Lust
Casa de Jaime: Trinidad.