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Jorge Palma
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Paraphernalia
I haven’t put on
my ears this morning
however
the world is stunning me,
its multitude of chairs
tied together,
its stock market crashes,
that grinding of teeth
amid new shoes
and banknotes.
I think, with bullish insistence,
on what side of life
has life ended up?
The leopard skin
is trading on the market
at the price of a diamond.
Down the helter-skelter of fire
slide the passionate kisses
of lovers
falling into the spell of dark stars
with the cold days that wander
without a motherland
through tense cities
crammed with rubble.
No one whistles on the streets anymore.
And it seems embarrassing to long
for the calm blue sky
the yellow sound of wheat
the movement of water
in perfect circles
when a pebble
is thrown by a child
from the brightly-lit window of his room.
The pigeon returning
to the laid table
brings in its bloodied beak
a slap from the world.
How will I know from which direction
death will come.
The birth of the
moon
And here lies the sea
the sea
where the stench of cities
comes to
shine like stars.
V. HUIDOBRO
The sky is black
and the shirts
hanging on a wire
are ruined in the discomfort
of funeral parlours.
In this unlikely morning
(half the sky
weeps buckets, in the other half
two suns sing like goldfinches)
I take a step
to recompose myself.
In my left pocket
a beaver weighs heavily
breathing, below my eyes
a clear morning
turns its back to the tar
gluing up the estuaries.
I put myself back together
gazing at the divided sea since my body
is in seven unequal parts.
The moon goes by nervously
smoking, down the corridors
of the ocean.
The asbestos cities
shine like wax candles
in the clenched hands of the dead.
And I’m hoping.
The Drowned
If there was fire, it would burn the earth;
If
wind, it would raze it;
If
water, it would drown it;
If
God, he would sink it.
CECCO
ANGIOLERI (1260 – 1313)
And with my eyes I listen to the dead.
FRANCISCO QUEVEDO
There’s a dead man in the depths
of the sky who can’t get out
or drum the way he wants to
because it’s raining outside
and everything is drowned.
That’s why he strokes his forehead,
his cheeks, his three-day-old beard
and walks in circles
round his coffin, looking sideways
at the blue alpaca coat
without blinking
because outside it’s raining and everything
below the sky is drowned.
And the drowned watch
the dark water drift towards
the unreachable depths of a red sunset
and they lean, they stretch on their side to listen,
they walk on tiptoes
because below the dogs are howling
in the place where mud is born.
And if there was wind
and it razed it;
and if there was fire
and it burnt everything?
someone asks
at the sky’s request,
on behalf of the dead.
But I listen to the dead
singing into the small hours
and the drowned of the final
kingdom paddling about,
their souls in their arms, howling
from one side to the other of the sky.
And if there was wind
and it razed it;
if there was fire
and it burns everything?
asks the poet.
On behalf of the howling dogs
and the bones,
at the light’s request,
and on behalf of
all the dead of this world
who can’t get out
or play the drums
the way they like
or the castanets
because outside wild rain is falling
and everything is drowned.
Capital of
silence
In my trouser pockets
the uncontainable silence
of the sad capitals
roars.
In the midst of the scorching death-rattle
no one knows
how with no likelihood of any punishment
love is stabbed in a destitute lane,
a lift
or a downtown candystore
filled with artificial flowers.
The homosexual’s cry
is lost in the multitude,
splits in two,
shatters to smithereens,
as he falls down in the most expensive suburbs
of company managers
with their two lovers.
No one can speak for two
consecutive minutes without being heard;
no one can talk of the soul
or reveal their skin punctured and worn
by so much forgotten mercy.
One minute’s silence
is enough for the 130
workers crushed
by an avalanche of garbage.
The immense sea of silence
doesn’t fall from the sky,
doesn’t rise from some hell
of the earth’s dark depths;
it awakes each day,
has a piss
and survives.
Proceedings
Following the usual pattern
everything goes from bad to worse.
That’s how it is: in the marketplace of the air
how much does an angel’s pen
trade for,
how much for mercury, the caustic soda
they use to bury rivers.
The earth trembles at a quarter
to seven, fifteen minutes
before the boss
gives a thin smile to his employee
and begins to go mad of boredom
on the blocked freeway
where the moon flashes briefly, stunned
by the evil consequences
of its rockbottom salary.
What will the industrialists say
with starch on their coat-flaps
when the telephones go mad at midnight
because, with one voice, grapes
have turned to stone
on the vines of the world
and the activities on the stock exchange
have become
stardust.
Florence
Cecilia, Florence is full
of beggars, not beggars with violets
like me,
but austere counts with fallen capes,
retired generals, hitmen
dressed in mourning outside casinos
where crazed girls dream
in drunken stupor
of some white house shining
in the moon’s gardens.
Cecilia,
the world is a table of wretched
tin, riddled with loneliness
and egotism,
the bleak deck of a ship
where a drunken man staggers
but does not fall,
mutters monosyllables
hanging from the railings
when everything everything turns upside down
and he doesn’t know if the sea is flying
or the exhausted stars have sunk
and it pains him to breathe
and he doesn’t know if he’s died
or just been born
because he can’t wake up
and he’s weeping.
Florence isn’t Damascus
or Morocco or Andalucia,
it’s a museum of pink stone
where I rot,
a monument to the loneliness
of art,
a mausoleum of yellow fever
convulsed by the insolent rain
of tourists.
And I’m exhausted from paddling against the flow.
And tonight in some dark way
demons surround me
as my blood shivers
and a sinister bird
crosses my forehead,
I’m nailed in the throat
by your joy
and the world is so large and wide
my love
that if you died
I couldn’t close your eyes
with a howl
or beat like a madman
against the closed door of your coffin,
from the other side of
this table of cheap tin
where I write
to stop myself dying
and so that you
won’t die.
Everyday life
One would like to die
for each one of the dead
of this world
nevertheless it’s never happened
that way
One runs to the nearest
chemist to salve
an everyday wound
or feels like savouring
his short holiday by the sea
while his nearest and dearest’s heart
is shipwrecked
or on the fifth row
of the housing block
a small girl brings into the world
a thin root of light
or maybe rain
in quantities
never imagined before
not even
in the worst nightmares
of the flesh.
It was in autumn
For my mother
And you thought,
dreamily, who is this man who’s come
whistling and
with flowers at the
hour of siesta.
I return to the white silence
of the red house
and it’s dawn.
A boy stands up and drinks
a man’s apprenticeship
dreams, accumulates images
keeps in a pocket
the silhouette of a fabulous fish
crossing the sky
of his room, for that
incomprehensible day
death already keeps
for his destiny.
These are the days
that leave no traces on the skin
with no duels in the sky
foreseen by the soul
no adulteries
no knives wandering
directionless
some insomniac dawn
down lightless streets
till meeting
the dumb profile
of a man
a tree
some child or other
lost
in a field of mud
foreseen three years before
in the feverish eyes
of a beggar.
And what do you say then
of the time marked
in fire
by the colour
of a season,
when my mother knitted
and sang
and there was no frost
on the balconies
no amulets
no birds trapped
in telephone boxes.
The light of the patio
was blue
as dawn entered.
And the dining room
was yellow:
it was my house.
The cabala and
life’s mysteries
There was no music in his
soul; only an empty herbarium of
metaphors and
artful cleverness,
of the worship of
sophistries and disdain
for the human and
what lies beyond the human.
J. L. BORGES
I always enjoyed
walking down that street to the sea, the sweet river,
worn out by love
or wounded in the groin
by gentle rain or a downpour
and that man, bent
over a book, was trying to decipher
heaven’s codex.
But in the field
opposite
tall reeds grew
lovers stirred at dawn
secretly drenched
by the dew and the resurrection
while a faun on fire
ran behind
two boys
and the old women
of the next millennium
were singing of happiness
after love
displaying sheets
on the clotheslines
of the world.
And that man
was trying to reveal
the mystery of the centuries,
with a leg
on each side of the torrent
with one foot on each bank
of the moving river
the river of fire, water
and sky,
empty of kisses
eyelids and the warm
legs of women
falling headlong into the pit
filling it one by one
with bones.
But
in the field opposite
other men went up
to a boat of iron
and never returned.
Hospitals were populated
with gangrene
wombs grew
in loneliness
and cities multiplied
in the ancient
extensions of dust.
While that man
who sniffed out
the roots of darkness
disappeared
in the changing breeze
of the last sunset.
In this same place
where messenger doves
now nest.
World
At this very moment
of happiness
as you silently kiss
my eyelids
asking me for a child
they are killing
a man
on the other extremity
of your skin.
The working
class don’t go to paradise
The working class don’t go to paradise -
they travel crammed into the entrails
of a thunderbolt or worse: inside the wing-blow
of a lightning flash, slender-bodied,
bold-faced, or topless.
The working class knit the sky’s wounds
in the workshops of time
as well as on looms, dreaming,
depending on who reads this and where, depending on
who hears this, who understands it,
what might be their personal flag
or the homeland’s flag, the north
of each individual, their entire life.
Depending on who’s looking at it, how it’s seen.
Here or in China the working class
does not go to paradise: they travel in torment
in the entrails of a lightning bolt crammed
inside the entrails of a chicken
struck dumb in the wingless breeze
which with a soundless blow
evaporates in the air
as a flash of lightning evaporates
in the heavy air of a storm
and vanishes
amid the old looms
of the sky.
The drunken boys
Yesterday, if my memory isn’t wrong,
they were going down to the river,
some drunken boys
hollering out with the voices of men.
They went by slashing the hot breeze
in a cloud of dust
that, from time to time, proclaimed
the dark outline
of thunder.
They went running
through the suburbs
of the sky
while their throats burned
with a forgotten taste
of bitter wine
and it was dawn.
Immortals
Those who at the request of darkness
go up to the platforms
and before the towers of heaven
justify their skimpy salary.
Those who, knowing in advance
that they will lose everything including their lives,
take charge of their discontent
and stand up,
walking down the streets
beating their chests,
covering billboards in the slogans of blood.
Those who despite fear
lack of faith
globalization
and uncertainty
go on believing in the heart’s reasons
eternal love
and absolutes.
Those who blinded by
incomprehension’s light
continue sowing daisies.
Those who were struck
by lightning and fire
and never cease
feeding doves.
Those who build plazas with hammocks
where people once rigged up bombs.
Those who shake away the dust
from abandoned tables
and lay out the tablecloth with 100 plates.
Those who wash the flags
(even though protocol says the opposite)
Those who shit on protocols.
Those who get married 17 times
so that love may be everlasting.
Those who hold out against the prod
the camp
the submarine
and returned to life
qualify as teachers
and build a school.
Those who
despite universal deafness
construct musical instruments.
Those who believe the sea
doubles as a handkerchief.
Those who believe it’s possible
to paint stars on the distant sky.
Those who believe the sky
is not so distant
and sometimes, on extraordinary occasions,
can be touched by the hand.
Those who love too much
and instead of adopting
Vietnamese children
go out to the suburbs
to work with those who have no sky.
Those who build boats in the desert.
Those who paint birds
in jail.
Those who dream of flying
with the birds.
Those who dream.
Those whose heads
are filled with birds.
Those who keep birds
in their heads.
Those who consider wrinkles
on the skin as decorations.
Those who cry each time
an old man dies
because at that moment one more library
goes up in flames.
Those who forsake comfort
and a warm stove
and, in a full-on asthma attack,
walk off into the forest
to change everything.
To change everything.
To change it.
Salaries
Is the salary
of an ant
the same as that of a drug trafficker?
And that of a parish priest/ a nun/
a bishop/ a cardinal on fire?
Who pays? Who gives orders?
Is the salary of a hitman
the same as that of a doctor
a postman / a baker /
the same as an old
mournful gravedigger?
Who pays? Who gives orders?
What salary does God get
for administering the tasks
of the world?
Who pays? Who gives orders?
Who pays God?
Child and leopard
If with a mere
snap of the fingers
I could prevent you from suffering. . .
Or with my shoulder
brush aside your obligatory quota of pain;
the iron clouds that are
destined for each of us,
whether you move this way or that
will drench us in either case.
Neither can I teach you
what fear is, since sooner or later
you’ll understand it yourself,
though maybe you’ll manage
to endure it in some
less dramatic
way
than did your parents
grandparents, and distant ancestors
whom you will never meet.
Maybe then you will discover
that you’ve got saved up for you
a real fistful of wrinkles
and premature grey hairs
that come like a factory stamp.
For now I watch you drawing
with the assurance of a pure artist
driven only by the dazzling
of a world you’ve just begun to know.
Outside the leopard goes by,
silent and hard as a diamond.
Meanwhile, my daughter,
I look after your wings
and pray that you don’t miss anything,
especially air and likewise
your joy which I defend
at whatever price
though it cost me my own light.
This is the time
we are summoned to live.
Outside the room
the leopard goes by
and the square where the hammocks swing
is
empty.
It’s cold
and I watch you drawing
on the misted glass of your window:
a house with its chimney,
a flower,
a yellow bird crossing
(so you say)
the sky of your room.
And I can’t teach you
what fear is or stop you
from suffering, my dearest one, even if I drag
the sky and its clouds
somewhere else,
even if I take in
your share of destined rain
with this body wasted by love and years.
All the same
I’ll try with a snap of the fingers
and see if I succeed.
Translated into english
Peter Boyle
Australia
He has coordinated and led workshops on literature and creation (narrative writing and poetry).
As regards poetry, he has published “Between the wind and the shadow”, 1989. “Forgetfulnes”, 1990 “The Milky Way, 2006. “Diaries of heaven”, 2006. “Place of Utopias”, 2007. The poem “The destruction of blood” was included in the anthology Aldea Poética (selection of unpublished poetry from 29 countries, published by Opera Prima, Madrid, 1997).
Some of his poetry has been translated into english, french, italian, germany, arabic,
macedonian, romanian and hungarian. Translated poems were published in Shearsman Books of London, Akzente of Munich and Al-Ayyam (Ramallah) of Palestine. His poems have appeared at different times in the virtual journals like Letralia, of Venezuela, Periódico de poesía, of Mexico, Arabic Nadwah of Hong Kong, Writestuff of Nigeria, Cinosargo of Chile, 400 Elefantes of Nicaragua, Lucreziana 2008 of Italy and Poesía Salvaje.
He is also the author of “Artificial Paradises”, 1990, a book of short stories. The short story “Someone is breathing in the shadows” was part of the anthology
(The Dark Side of the Moon, Young Storytellers of Uruguay), Linardi Risso, 1996.
He was a guest at the 14th International Poetry Festival in Havana (Cuba), the 48th Struga. Poetry Evenings (Macedonia), VI International Poetry Festival in Granada (Nicaragua), 14th Poetry Africa (South Africa) and the 35 International Festival Poetry Trois-Rivieres in Quebeq (Canadá).
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