28 November XXXV





firetongue fans her face in the flute the cup
which singing to her gnaws at the blue stabwound
so attractive seated
in the bull’s eye
inscribed in his head adorned with jasmine
awaits the swelling the candle the fragmented crystal
the wind enveloped in the collar of the broadsword
gushing caresses
divides the bread for the blindman and the lilac-
covered dove
and bursts open its utter cruelty against burning lips
the devious horn
that frightens with its gestures of goodbye the cathedral
that faints in her arms without a cry
bursting in her glance the threatening radio
that photographing in the kiss a nuisance of Sun
devours the aroma of the hour that falls
and transgresses the page that flies
undoes the little branch that carries immersed between
the wing that breathes
and the fear that smiles
the knife that jumps from contentment
leaving her still floating as she wants and
in whatever manner
at the precise and necessary moment
in the mouth of the well
the cry of the rose
strapped by the hand
like a small almsgiving



Pablo Ruiz Picassso

                                      Sleepwalker’s Romance




                        Green how I want you green.
                        Green wind. Green branches.
                        The boat out at sea
                        and the horse in the mountain.
                        With a shadow across her waist,
                        she dreams in her bannister,
                        green flesh, hair of green,
                        with eyes of cold silver.
                        Green how I want you green.
                        Under the gypsy moon,
                        those things are watching her
                        and she cannot see them.


                                              *



                        Green how I want you green.
                        Great starch stars
                        come with the shadow fish
                        that opens the route to dawn.
                        The fig tree rubs its wind
                        with the sandpaper of its branches,
                        and the mountain, conniving cat,
                        raises its bitter hackles.
                        But who will come?  And from where?
                        She remains in her bannister,
                        green flesh, hair of green,
                        dreaming in the bitter sea.
                             


                                                    *



                       Brother, I want to exchange
                       my horse for your house,
                       my saddle for your mirror,
                       my knife for your blanket.
                       Brother, I come bleeding
                       from the mountains of Cabra.
                       Young man, if I could,
                        I would seal this contract.
                        But I am no longer myself,
                        and my house is no longer my house.
                        Brother, I want to die
                        decently in my bed,
                        of iron, if it can be,
                        with sheets from  Holland.
                        Can’t you see my wound
                        from my chest to my throat?
                        Three hundred crimson roses
                         stain your white shirt.
                         Your blood seeps and reeks
                          about your waist.
                          But I am no longer myself,
                          and my house is no longer my house.
                          Let me climb at least,
                          let me climb, let me,
                          up to the green bannisters.
                          Balustrades of the moon
                          where the waters resound.


                                                               *



                          Up climb the two brothers
                           toward the high railings.
                           Leaving a track of blood.
                           Leaving a track of tears.
                           Tin lights tremble
                            in the treetops.
                            A thousand crystal tambourines
                            rend the daybreak.


                                                               *




                             Green how I want you green.
                             Green wind. Green branches.
                             The two brothers climb.
                             The strong wind leaves in the mouth
                             a strange taste of honey, of mint, of basil.
                             Brother!  Where is she, tell me?
                             Where is my bitter girl?
                             How long she’s waited for you!
                             How long she will wait,
                             face fresh, black hair,
                             in this green bannister!



                                                                 *




                             On the face of the cistern
                             the gypsy rocks.
                             Green flesh, black hair,
                             with eyes of cold silver.
                             A lunar icicle sustains her
                             over the water.
                             The night becomes intimate
                              like a small plaza.
                              Drunken civil guards
                              bang on the door.
                              Green how I want you green.
                              Green wind.  Green branches.
                              The boat out at sea.
                              And the horse in the mountain.
                                           
                                   
               


Federico Garcia Lorca              

The eye that you
see is
not an eye because
you see it; it is
an eye because it
sees you.





Antonio Machado

                      She


She took two steps forward
Took two steps back
The first step said good day, Sir
The second said good day, Ma’am
And the others said how is the family
Today is a handsome day like a dove in the sky

She wore a burning blouse
She had eyes of the grinding of seas
She had hidden a dream in an obscure armory
She had encountered a corpse in the middle of her head
When she arrived she left the most beautiful part of her far
     behind
When she went something formed itself at the horizon to
     meet her

Her glances were wounds that bled on the hillside
She had wide breasts and she sang the shimmering of her years
She was beautiful like a sky beneath a dove

She had a mouth of iron
And a mortal flag drawn between her lips
She would laugh like the sea that senses carbon in its gut
Like the sea when the moon sees itself drowning
Like the sea which has tasted all the shores
The sea that spills out and falls in the emptiness
         of abundant times

When the stars wrinkle over our heads
Before the north wind opens its eyes
She was beautiful in her horizons of bone
With her burning blouse and her glances of an exhausted tree
Like the sky horseback among the doves


Vicente Huidobro

translated by Julian Ball

                                 
                   Desespediente



The dove is filled with fallen papers,
its chest is marked by gum and days,
by blotters whiter than cadavers
and astonished inks of sinister color.

Come with me to the shadow of administrations,
to the weak, delicate pallid color of the Masters,
to tunnels deep as calendars,
to the painful wheel of a thousand pages.

Let us now examine the titles and conditions,
the special acts, the sleepless ones,
the demands with teeth of a nauseous autumn,
the fury of ashen destinies and sad decisions.

It is a portrait of wounded bones,
bitter circumstances and interminable suits,
and stockings turned sharply serious.
It is the deep night, the head without veins
from where the day falls suddenly
like a bottle broken by a lightning strike.

They are the feet and the watches and the fingers
and a locomotive of moribund soaps,
and a  yellow river of smiles.

Everything arrives at the finger’s tips like flowers,
at nails like lightning, at withered couches,
everything arrives at the ink of death
and at the violet mouth of the bells.

We cry the dysfunction of earth and fire,
the swords, the grapes,
the sexes with their harsh dominion of roots,
the ships of alcohol navigating amongst ships
and the perfume that dances of night, of knees,
dragging a planet of perforated roses.

With the suit of a dog and a stain on the forehead
we fall into the depth of papers,
at the ire of words enchained,
at manifestations tenaciously deceased,
at systems enveloped in yellow leaves.

Come round with me to the offices, to the uncertain
odor of ministrations, and tombs, and seals.
Come with me to the white day that dies
uttering shouts of a murdered bride.


Pablo Neruda

                                                       The Waltz






  You are beautiful like the stone,
oh my dead one;
alive, oh alive, you are beautiful like the nave.
This orchestra that agitates
my cares like a negligence,
like an elegant welcoming of fine tone,
ignores the hair of the pubis,
ignores the laugh that bursts from the sternum like a great baton.


   Some waves of bran,
a little sawdust in the eyes,
or by chance on the temples,
or perchance adorning the tresses.
Some large skirts built from crocodile tails.
Some tongues or smiles made of
      crab shells.
All that is sufficiently seen
can surprise no one.

The women guard their moment seated on a
          tear,
dispensing humidity by force of an insistent fan.
And the gentlemen abandoned at their backs
long to attract their glances by force of their
          mustaches.

      But the waltz has arrived.
It is a beach without waves,
a clash of shells, of heels, of foam or
        false teeth.
It is everything that reverts that arrives.
      Exuberant chests with trays in arms,
sweet tarts fallen on sobbing shoulders,
a langour that draws back,
a surprised kiss in the instance that would make “hair
       of an angel”
a sweet “yes” of crystal painted green.

    A sprinkling of sugar on foreheads
lends a candid whiteness to polished words,
and the hands that shrink crimped more than ever
as the vestments wrinkle, formed from beloved weeds

       Heads are clouds, music is a large gum,
the leaden tails almost sail, and the clamor
has devolved in hearts and surgings of blood,
in liquor, if white, that knows by memory or date.

     Goodbye, goodbye, emerald, amethyst, or mystery;
goodbye, the instant has arrived like a giant ball,
the precise moment of the naked head below,
when the hairs go to pinch the obscene lips that
         know.
It is the instant, the moment to utter the word that explodes,
the moment when the vestments will become words,
the windows screams,
the lights a cry for help,
and the kiss that was (in the corner) between two mouths
becomes a thorn
delivering death that says:
I love you.




Vicente Aleixandre

                      Blind Panorama of New York




If there are no birds,
if there are no birds covered in ash,
if there are no twins who beat on the windows at the wedding
there will be delicate creatures of the air
that unleash the new blood by an untiring darkness.
Because the birds are at the point of becoming oxen;
they can be white rocks with the help of the moon
and there are always wounded girls
before whom judges lift the curtain.
Everyone understands the pain that enters with Death
but the true pain is absent in the spirit,
it is not in the air of our lives,
nor in the terraces filled with smoke;
the true pain that sustains awake those things
is a small infinite burn
in innocent eyes of other systems.

An abandoned suit weighs heavily on the shoulders
such that at times the sky
groups them together in rough crowds
and those that die at birth know in the final hour
that all sound is stone and each footprint beaten.
We ignore that the thought has outskirts
where the philosopher is devoured by slaves and caterpillars
and some idiot children have encountered by the kitchens
small vagabonds with suitcases
who knew how to pronounce the word love.
 
No, there are no birds.
there is no bird that can express the fever of the lagoon
nor the aching of the murdered that oppresses us at every moment,
nor the metallic sound of suicide that animates us
         at daybreak;
there is a capsule of air where the entire world pains us,
there is a small space insane with the unison of light,
there is an indefinable scale where clouds and roses forget
the shouting slave who boils at the quays of
          blood.

Many times I have lost myself
searching for the burn that keeps these things
           alive
and I’ve only come to know sailors thrown against
           railings
and only creatures of the sky buried under snow
but the pain that was in other plazas
where the crystallized fish agonized in the
            trunks,
the plazas of a strange sky for antique statues unharmed
and for the tender intimacy of volcanos.

There is no pain in the voice.  All that exists is the earth.
The earth and its everlasting ports that carry the blush
              of fruit.






Federico Garcia Lorca