BiLingual

Six Poems from EL PLAZO (THE DEADLINE) by Olga Muñoz. Translated by Amparo Arrospide and Robin Ouzman Hislop

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Six poems from EL PLAZO (THE DEADLINE)

16.
Desapareceríamos todos si las abejas murieran. Por ahora somos cuatro: dos adultos y dos crías que cargar en brazos en caso necesario. Pronostican una marcha tranquila, aunque el zumbido nos alcance en las próximas jornadas. Como alimento llevamos la oscura miel de la familia, indigesta, dulzona. Los nuevos evitamos derramarla, ya que una gota perdida trae la maldición de confundir las criaturas propias. Sin olerla llegó el animalillo de nombre equivocado, en medio del camino.

16.
Were bees to die, we would all disappear. Right now we are just four: two adults and two cubs to carry in our arms if necessary. In spite of the buzz reaching us in the next few days, a peaceful march is predicted. We carry as food for the family our dark sickly sweet indigestible honey. As the newly arrived we take care not to spill a drop as a drop lost would curse us into confusing our own offspring. Not smelling the honey, a little animal with a wrong name appeared into the middle of the road.

17.
Volvemos a casa con la cría y el espacio se ha hecho redondo. Las elásticas paredes ceden a nuestras voces. Parece que el hueco estaba listo desde hace meses, pues cada objeto ocupa su espacio densamente. Sólo a la llegada nos percatamos. Despacio penetramos el aire, conseguimos traspasarlo para cobijar a los nuestros.

17.
We return home with the cub into a space that has become round. The elastic walls recede with our voices. It seems the vacuity had been prepared for months, as each object occupies its own dense space. Only after arrival do we realize it as we slowly penetrate the air and manage to cross it to find a shelter for our own.

18.
No rodará, no caerá al vacío. No lo abrazará el aire, continente escueto al principio, península improvisada, isla final. Como en los trucos de magia, existen hilos invisibles, saliva que me ata a tres cuerpos y hace de mí una marioneta ciega.

18.
It will not roll nor fall into a void nor embrace the air, a bare continent at the beginning, an improvised peninsula, an island at the end. As with tricks of magic, invisible threads exist, saliva that ties me to three bodies like a blind marionette.

19.
Cada uno aguarda su turno para respirar. No nos vemos siquiera. Ocupamos salas de cristal con cuerpos transparentes, reflejados al azar. La gran mentira, el espejismo del aire. Mientras, las crías dormitan en la madriguera, repleta de oxígeno su sangre recién nacida.

19.
We each wait for our turn to breathe. We can’t even see each other. Our transparent bodies occupy glass rooms, randomly reflected. The mirage of air, a great lie. Meanwhile, the cubs are dozing snuggled close, their newborn blood full of oxygen.

20.
Escucha a su madre leer un cuento, la historia que lo espera al otro lado. Aún lo separan unos centímetros del designio. Un jabalí descompuesto en el bosque recuerda a ese niño alumbrado a la muerte. El deseo repetido de luna en luna, la tristeza rojiza del vacío. Mujer estéril que sueña al hijo con solo apartar la mano a tiempo.

20.
He listens as his mother reads a story, a story that waits for him from the other side. Yet still a few centimeters separate him from his fate. A rotting boar in the forest resembles the birth of the child born to death. The same desire passed from moon to moon, the reddish sadness of emptiness. A barren woman who dreams her son with only the withdrawal of her hand on time.

21.
Encontraste el sedal entre la arena, lejos del lugar del sacrificio. Casi caíste, y con todo tu cuerpo –uñas, árbol, océano– preguntabas qué era ese hilo. Te dimos palabras precisas, las más adecuadas seguramente. Nos pierde la exactitud. Aún así, siguen muriendo los peces de asfixia, con ese mismo sedal de tus dedos.

21.
You found the fishing line in the sand, far from the place of sacrifice. You almost fell down, and with your whole body – nails, tree, ocean – asked what was that thread. We replied with precise words, surely the most adequate. Exactitude is our undoing. But still fish continue to die of suffocation, with that same thread from your fingers.

Olga Muñoz Carrasco is author of the books: La caja de música (Madrid, Fundación Inquietudes/Asociación Poética Caudal, 2011), El plazo (Madrid, Amargord, 2012), Cada palabra una ceniza blanca (Valencia, Ejemplar Único, 2013), Cráter, danza (Barcelona, Calambur, 2016), 15 Filos (Madrid, Cartonera del escorpión azul, 2021), Tapiz rojo con pájaros (Madrid, Bala Perdida, 2021) and Filo (unpublished). Her editorial work is linked to the Genialogías collection at the Tigres de Papel publishing house and the Lengua de Agua collective. She completed her doctoral studies in Philology in Madrid, USA and Peru, and is currently a professor and researcher at Saint Louis University (Madrid Campus). In Lima she published her monograph Sigiloso desvelo- The poetry of Blanca Varela (Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, 2007). She prepared Blanca Varela’s anthology Y todo debe ser mentira (Barcelona, Galaxia Gutenberg, 2020) and in France she has just published her study Palabras para un canto. La escritura en espiral de Blanca Varela (Paris, Belin Éducation/Humensis, 2022). In recent years, her works have appeared in the field of Spanish-American and Spanish poetry. She is part of the research project “El impacto de la guerra civil española en la vida intelectual de Hispanoamérica” (“The impact of the Spanish civil war on the intellectual life of Latin America”) , which led to her book Perú y la guerra civil española. La voz de los intelecturales (Madrid, Calambur, 2013). She also teaches at the José Hierro Foundation (Madrid) and at the Diploma Course on Appreciation and Poetic Studies, Caracas (Venezuela).
 
 
Amparo Arróspide (born in Buenos Aires) is an M.Phil. by the University of Salford. As well as poems, short stories and articles on literature and films in anthologies and international magazines, she has published five poetry collections: Presencia en el Misterio, Mosaicos bajo la hiedra, Alucinación en dos actos y algunos poemas, Pañuelos de usar y tirar and En el oído del viento. The latter is part of a trilogy together with Jacuzzi and Hormigas en diaspora, which are in the course of being published. In 2010 she acted as a co-editor of webzine Poetry Life Times, where many of her translations of Spanish poems have appeared, she has translated authors such as Margaret Atwood, Stevie Smith and James Stephens into Spanish, and others such as Guadalupe Grande, Ángel Minaya, Francisca Aguirre, Carmen Crespo, Javier Díaz Gil into English. She takes part in poetry festivals, recently Centro de Poesía José Hierro (Getafe).
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times his publications include All the Babble of the Souk and Cartoon Molecules collected poems and Key of Mist the recently published Tesserae translations from Spanish poets Guadalupe Grande and Carmen Crespo visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds) .

Francisca Aguirre, National Literature Prize 2018, Poetry, Translated from Spanish by Amparo Arróspide & Robin Ouzman Hislop

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Francisca Aguirre, Premio Nacional de las Letras 2018 El jurado la ha elegido “por estar su poesía (la más machadiana de la generación del medio siglo) entre la desolación y la clarividencia, la lucidez y el dolor”

Francisca Aguirre, National Literature Prize 2018. The jury chose it “because its poetry is (the most Machadian* of the generation of the half century) between desolation and clairvoyance, lucidity and pain”

* In the tradition of Antonio Machado

https://elpais.com/cultura/2018/11/13

Francisca Aguirre was born in 1930 in Alicante, Spain and died in Madrid in 2019, she had fled with her family to France at the end of the Spanish Civil War, where they lived in political exile. When the Germans invaded Paris in 1942, her family was forced to return to Spain, where her father, painter Lorenzo Aguirre, was subsequently murdered by Francisco Franco’s regime.

Aguirre published Ítaca (1972), currently available in English (Ithaca [2004]), when she was 42 years old. Her work has garnered much critical success, winning the Leopoldo Panero, Premio Ciudad de Irún, and Premio Galliana, among other literary prizes. Aguirre was married to the poet Félix Grande and is the mother of poet Guadalupe Grande.

Excerpts from “NANAS PARA DORMIR DESPERDICIOS”

LULLABIES TO LULL THROWN AWAYS

by FRANCISCA AGUIRRE

NANA DE LAS SOBRAS A Esperanza y Manuel Rico Vaya

canción la de las sobras, eso sí
                      que era una nana para dormir el hambre.
Vaya canción aquella
                      que cantaba mi abuela con aquella voz
que era la voz de la misericordia
disfrazada de voz angelical.
                             Porque la voz de mi abuela
nos cantaba la canción de las sobras.
                             Y nosotras, que no conocíamos el pan,
cantábamos con ella que
                             las sobras de pan eran sagradas,
las sobras de pan nunca se tiran.

Siempre recordaré su hermosa voz
cantando aquella nana mientras el hambre nos dormía.
                                         **
LULLABY FOR LEFTOVERS                                                          To  Esperanza and Manuel Rico

 

Well, a leftovers song,
                    that truly was a lullaby to lull hunger to sleep.
Wow, that song 
                    my grandmother sang with a voice
that was the voice of mercy
disguised as the voice of an angel.
                              Because my grandmother´s voice
sang for us the leftovers song.
                              And we, who did not know bread,
sang together with her that
                              bread leftovers were holy,
bread leftovers shall never be thrown away.

 

I will always remember her beautiful voice
singing that lullaby while hunger lulled us to sleep.

 

**

NANA DE LAS HOJAS CAÍDAS
A Marián Hierro
Casi todo lo que se pierde tiene música,
una música oculta, inolvidable.
Pero las hojas, esas criaturas parlanchinas
que son la voz de nuestros árboles,
tienen, como la luz, el agua y las libélulas
una nana secreta y soñadora.
Lo que se pierde, siempre nos deja
un rastro misterioso y cantarín.

Las hojas verdes o doradas
cantan su desamparo mientras juegan al corro.
Cantan mientras los árboles las llaman
como llaman las madres a sus hijos
sabiendo que es inútil, que han crecido
y que se han ido a recorrer el mundo.

****

LULLABY FOR FALLEN LEAVES
 To Marián Hierro

Almost everything which is lost has a music,
 a hidden, unforgettable music.
But leaves, those chattering creatures
who are the voices of our trees
 have — like light, water and dragonflies —
a secret dreamy lullaby.
 That which is lost to us, always leaves
 the mysterious trace of its song.
Green or golden leaves
sing of their neglect as they dance their ring a ring of roses.
They sing while trees call to them
as mothers do calling their children
knowing it is futile, as they have grown up
 and left to travel the world over.

**

NANA DE LAS CARTAS VIEJAS

Tienen el olor desvalido del abandono
y el tono macilento del silencio.
Son desperdicios de la memoria, residuos de dolor,
y hay que cantarles muy bajito
para que no despierten de su letargo.
En ocasiones las manos se tropiezan con ellas
y el pulso se acelera
porque notamos que las palabras
como si fueran mariposas
quieren bailar delante de nosotros
y volver a contarnos el secreto
que duerme entre sus páginas.
Son las abandonadas,
los residuos de un tiempo de desdicha,
relatan pormenores de un combate
y al rozarlas oímos el tristísimo andar
de los presos en los penales.

**

LULLABY FOR OLD LETTERS

They give off the helpless smell of neglectfulness
and the emaciated tone of silence.
They are memory´s cast offs, residues of pain
 and should be sung to in a low croon
so as not to awaken them from their lethargy.
Sometimes your hands chance upon them
 and your pulse races
because we realize that words
 wish to dance before us
as if they were butterflies
and tell us again the secret
 sleeping inside their pages.
They are the neglected,
 the remnants of unhappy times,
recounting the details of a struggle
 and as we brush them we hear the saddest steps
of prisoners in jails.

**

NANA DEL HUMO

La nana del humo tiene muchos detractores,
casi nadie quiere cantarla.
Muchos dicen que el humo los ahoga,
otros piensan que eso de dormir al humo
no les da buena espina,
que tiene algo de gafe.
El humo no resulta de fiar:
en cuanto asoma su perfil oscuro
todo son malas conjeturas:
se nos está quemando el bosque,
aquella casa debe de estar ardiendo.
El humo es un extraño desperdicio,
tiene muy mala prensa.
Es un abandonado,
es un incomprendido;
casi nadie recuerda que el humo es un vocero,
un triste avisador de lo que se nos avecina.
Y por eso, cuando lo escucho vocear con impotencia
yo le canto la nana del silencio
para que no se sienta solo.

**

LULLABY FOR SMOKE

The lullaby for smoke doesn´t get many supporters,
almost nobody wants to sing its song.
Many say smoke stifles them,
others think to lull smoke to sleep
makes them queasy,
that it´s a bit of a jinx.
Smoke is not trustworthy:
as soon as it rears its dark head
it conjures up conjectures
— a forest fire,
a house burning down.
Smoke is a weird remain,
it´s got bad reports.
It´s a reject,
it´s a misunderstood thing;
almost nobody remembers smoke is a herald,
a sad forwarner of what looms over us.
That´s why, when I hear it calling out helplessly,
I sing to it the lullaby for silence
so that it doesn´t feel so lonely.

***
Translated by Amparo Arrospíde & Robin Ouzman Hislop

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Amparo Arróspide (Argentina) has published five poetry collections: Presencia en el Misterio, Mosaicos bajo la hiedra, Alucinación en dos actos y algunos poemas, Pañuelos de usar y tirar and En el oído del viento, as well as poems, short stories and articles on literature and films in anthologies and international magazines. She has translated authors such as Francisca Aguirre, Javier Díaz Gil, Luis Fores and José Antonio Pamies into English, together with Robin Ouzman Hislop, who she worked with for a period as co-editor of Poetry Life and Times, at Artvilla.com a Webzine. Her translations into Spanish of Margaret Atwood (Morning in the Burned House), James Stephens (Irish Fairy Tales) and Mia Couto (Vinte e Zinco) are in the course of being published, as well as her two poetry collections Hormigas en diáspora and Jacuzzi. She takes part in festivals, recently Transforming with Poetry (Leeds) and Centro de Poesía José Hierro (Getafe).

robin-portrait-july-sotillo-2016-by-amparo

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Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times ; at Artvilla.com his publications include

All the Babble of the Souk , Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals, Collected Poems, and the recently published Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems, as well as translation of Guadalupe Grande´s La llave de niebla, as Key of Mist and the recently published Tesserae , a translation of Carmen Crespo´s Teselas.

You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

Almost A Nocturne. A Poem by Noni Benegas Translated from Spanish by Amparo Arrospide and Robin Ouzman Hislop

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Editor’s note: this poem is a lengthy text, the translation is given first & then the original follows & finally the relevant bio info.
 

                                Almost a nocturne

                                                – and out of dark of night, 
                                   One thing alone grows darker – our eyes. 

                                                          Marina Tsvetaeva 

                “This Minister, in spite of his frivolous air and his polished manners, 
                 was not blessed with a soul of the French type; he could not forget the 
                 things that annoyed him. When there was a thorn in his pillow, he was 
                 obliged to break it off and to blunt its point by repeated stabbings 
                 of his throbbing limbs.”

                                                  Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma

Guilt is an argument
to feel alive...
Fear, another.
Defense, any improvised defense
is another;
being smarter than someone else
(and being told so)
is yet another.
To remember
how we had prepared everything
to write without guilt
instead of loafing about
is perhaps the best argument.
not to sleep a wink
and feel life slip by.

To worry about distant friends
who do not call, not knowing 
if they' re still alive
yet another,
but the maximum argument
to feel alive is to feel
that you're wasting your time.

Any incentive that heals
the "malheur de vivre"
is a force driving the guilt
of being alive
but insufficiently.

To think that nobody cares,
that there is no friend 
aware of you
makes us prone to guilt
which in turn lets us
experience being alive.

I refuse to speak in the first person
because I don't know
if I'm an individual
alive
outside language.

It's the time when wolves
go out to howl at inhospitable
nature …

I barely feel my toes
scratch the edge of the bed
rub each other
like sticks on distant drums.
Their percussion reverberates
through  my body with waxed ears
of a mummy
but more alive,
than Clarice's clock
pounding at dawn.

Nothing makes sense,
Would it,  if I'd lived with you,
X, H or J of my past, present, or future?

And here, I survive
without a dog or cat
or a clock.

But even so
even  if
I waste time on this
my mental calculator
catches on
and condemns me
to experience
the guilt that makes me feel alive
in a bad way...

In this uncertain
existence, to the friend who feeds us
to reinforce their link
while feeding ours,
I reply with warmth
but no tea,
because it keeps you awake
and makes you think
which prevents
living
as something natural.

Living is natural …

Like this light coolness
on my back
and this slight discomfort
of a quilt too warm,

making you successively 
put off and on
words with their doubts, meanderings:
live, living, surviving.

Little by little 
an appetite is born.

I continue living
as I begin to wake up
turning in bed
-left , right-
wanting day to come
promising  “ficar bonito”.


I begin to understand
St John Perse's list of posts ...
It must have been
at dawn,
scattered  like a man's crumbs
through his long lined verse
whose sum make the poem.

And I'm already awake,
while tire wheels roll
like waves on the sidewalk,
behind a closed glass
with a drawn curtain
already standing 
already rhetorical.

Haven't you ever thought of having children
friend ?
you wouldn't be able to sleep at night
for their screams.

But a part of you could do it
although another's life
isn't an argument
to lose sleep over
	or recover it.

There are borders between us,
jagged boundaries as between
	stamps.

I turn off
and on...

the coolness on my back persists...
as if after so much searching
my back was the dark side of the moon
my feet explore
at the bottom of galaxies
through black holes
tunnelling under the quilt
at the edge of the bed.

Between turning on and off
there is a photogenesis of night
that appears
at will.
Click, clack
René Daumal
click, clack
Lota Macedo
click, clack
Oscar Manesi
click, clack
Alejandra Pizarnik
click, clack
me you him
blasphemy
error.

An association is like placing a carriage on a track
to set it in motion...

Thus night rolls
with a click 
like Clarice's clock;
the clock is a camera filming
passing time.

What a big animal
in the dark!

I don't know my limits ...
I turn on the light
for the shameful life
of that autonomous hand
filming
on paper, with pencil,
the poet´s task,
the one who writes
as a movie shot
in which I'm absent.

Only the coolness
and the instep of my right foot
as it molds my left leg's calf
gives me back my limits.

How disgusting life is
when you want to go to the toilet!
But it's just a plane traversing
your hollow belly over the Gulf of Mexico
before the storm
is unleashed.

Not disregarding
that being alive ...
is a way of being
harassed
by terrestrial functions.

Body drifting ...
But there is too much light
to say so.
Night fails
and is rhetorical.
Darkness 
orders and disorders the world
at the same time.

I would like to be hungry
or pee to stand up again
not this coolness without limits.

She/he lied to me
and now they pay the price
by losing the meaning 
of their lie.

The only reason
for being alive
is to whisper these things
	in my ear.

Night is a field
of phosphenes and barbed wire
that starts in  the frontal lobe. 

As long as my mouth
pours this fluidity
from above
I will believe in a soul,
click, clack,
and in Madrid
I switch on
the light
in my Paris room
knowing 
through this touch
I exist
click, clack,
at dawn.

I want to roll myself up in the quilt
in an interspatial rocket
riding the coolness of galaxies ...
Not this earthly
red light
but the dust of stars
precipitated  suddenly blue.

How relative
language is…

Little by little I recover
to form a notion of reality,
to breath for my frontal lobe
so it becomes night once more.
My only privacy
is with myself.

At times I'm so far
I don't  recognize myself,
but they talk to me, watch me
and there I am,
at times I'm so close
I can spare knowing me.

In the morning I will recover
myself
like one who puts her toes
inside the quilt's capsule
so that they form a whole,
so that they complete a whole.

	To the traitor/ess
I do not recognize you
as a person,
you're not on my path
or maybe yes, as one more mask.

This I know now.
I don't  know if I'll know later

when the various layers
of myself 		
	overlap
and I fly over the cosmos
in the space capsule
of my quilt.

But my balance is so delicate
that I can try to be me
again:
some do try again
for the pleasure of recognizing ourselves...

By Noni Benegas. Original: CASI UN NOCTURNO

Translated by Robin Ouzman & Amparo Arrospide

 

                                  Casi un nocturno

                                          y en la noche oscura
                                          nada se cierne más oscuro sobre nosotros
                                          que nuestros propios ojos

                                                        Marina Tsvetaeva

                        "Ese ministro, a pesar de sus modales ligeros y brillantes, no tenía 
                         el alma a la francesa; no sabía olvidar las penas. Cuando en su almohada 
                         había una espina, tenía por fuerza que romperla y gastarla a fuerza de 
                         herir con ella su cuerpo palpitante"

                                                  Stendhal, La cartuja de Parma. 

La culpa es un argumento 
para sentirse vivo…
El miedo, otro.
La defensa, cualquier defensa improvisada
otro;
ser más inteligente que alguien
(y que lo digan)
también.
Recordar cómo habíamos preparado todo
para escribir sin culpa
en vez de haraganear,
el mejor, quizás.
a fin de no pegar ojo
y sentir la vida pasar.

Preocuparse por los amigos lejanos
que no llaman y se ignora si aún viven
también sirve,
pero el argumento máximo
para sentirse vivo es sentir
que se está perdiendo el tiempo.

Cualquier aliciente que cure
del malheur de vivre
es un propulsor de la culpa
del hecho de estar vivo
sin estarlo lo suficiente.

Pensar que a nadie le importa
y no hay amistad
que se interese,
nos hace proclives a la culpa
que a su vez permite
la sensación de estar vivos.

Y me niego a hablar en singular
porque no sé si yo,
fuera del lenguaje,
estoy viva
en particular.

Es la hora en que los lobos
salen a aullar a la naturaleza
inhóspita…

Apenas percibo los dedos de mis pies
que arañan el borde de la cama
y se frotan entre si
como palillos sobre lejanos tambores.
Su percusión reverbera
en mi cuerpo con oídos encerados de momia
más vivo,
sin embargo,
que el reloj de Clarice
palpitando en la madrugada.

Nada tiene sentido.
¿Lo tendría si viviera contigo,
X, H o J de mi pasado, presente, o futuro?

Y aquí
sin un perro ni un gato
ni un reloj a mi alrededor
sobrevivo.

Aún así,
si pierdo el tiempo
la máquina calculadora de mi cerebro
barrunta la falta
y me condena
a la culpa que me hace sentir viva
de mala manera…

Al amigo que nos da de comer
para reafirmar su vínculo
y alimentar el nuestro
le replico, en esta incertidumbre
de existir, con simpatía
pero sin té,
porque quita el sueño
y te hace pensar,
lo cual impide vivir como algo natural.

Vivir es natural…
Como este ligero frescor
en la espalda
y la leve molestia
del edredón demasiado cálido,

que hace que te quites y pongas,
sucesivamente,
las palabras con sus dudas y recovecos:
vivo, viviente, sobreviviente.

De a poco nace
el apetito.

Sigo viviendo
a medida que despierto
y volteo sobre la cama
-izquierda, derecha-
con ganas de que venga el día
y pueda
ficar bonito.

Empiezo a entender
la enumeración de oficios en Saint John Perse…
Tiene que haber sido
de madrugada,
mendrugos de hombre
desparramados en el versículo
cuya suma hace el poema.

Amago levantarme
mientras ruedan neumáticos
como olas en la vereda,
tras el cristal cerrado
con la cortina echada,
ya de pie
y ya retórica.

¿No has pensado tener hijos
amiga ?
no podrías dormir de noche
por sus gritos.

Pero una parte tuya sí podría hacerlo;
aunque no es argumento
la vida ajena
para perder el sueño
        o recuperarlo.

Hay bordes entre nosotros,
límites dentados como entre
        las estampillas.

Apago
y enciendo…

y sigue el frescor en la espalda…
como si después de tanto buscar
fuese el lado oscuro de la luna,
que los pies investigan
al fondo de las galaxias
por los agujeros negros,
túneles bajo el edredón,
hacia el borde de la cama.

Y entre encender y apagar
hay una fotogénesis de la noche
que aparece
a voluntad.
Clic, clac
René Daumal
clic, clac
Lota Macedo
clic, clac
Oscar Manesi
clic, clac
Alejandra Pizarnik
clic, clac
yo, tú, él
blasfemia
error.

Y una asociación es como poner un vagón en una vía
y echarlo a andar…

Así la noche con el clic
rueda
como el reloj de Clarice;
el reloj es la cámara que filma
el tiempo que pasa.

¡Qué animal tan grande
en la oscuridad…!

No conozco mis límites…
Enciendo
para la vergüenza de vivir
de esa mano autónoma filmando
sobre papel, con lápiz,
la tarea del poeta,
del que escribe como una toma de película
en la que no estoy.

Sólo el frescor
me devuelve mis límites,
y el empeine del pie derecho
cuando moldea la pantorrilla
de la pierna izquierda.

Qué asco vivir
cuando tienes ganas de ir al baño!
Pero es sólo un avión que atraviesa
la oquedad de tu vientre como el golfo de México

antes de desencadenarse
una tormenta.

Sin perder de vista
que estar vivo…
es una manera de estar
acosado
por las funciones terrestres.

Cuerpo a la deriva…
Pero hay demasiada luz
para decirlo.
Falla la noche y es
retórico.
La oscuridad
desordena el mundo a la vez
que lo ordena.

Quisiera tener hambre
o pis para reincorporarme
y no este frescor sin límites.

Me mintió
y ahora paga su mentira
con la desaparición del objeto
de su mentira.

La única razón
de estar viva
es poder dictarme estas cosas
              al oído.

La noche es un campo
de fosfenos y alambradas
que empieza en el lóbulo frontal.

Mientras la boca esté derramando
ésta liquidez de arriba
creeré en el alma,
clic, clac,
y aprieto el interruptor
de mi cuarto en París
en otra lámpara
en Madrid,
y sé que existo
por este tacto
clic, clac,
en la madrugada.

Me quiero arrollar en el edredón
con forma de cohete interespacial
para surcar el frescor de las galaxias…
No esta luz colorada
de la tierra
sino el polvo de estrellas,
precipitado súbitamente azul.

Cómo relativiza
el lenguaje…

De a poco me recupero
y cobro noción de lo real;
respiro para mi lóbulo,
para que sea de noche otra vez.
No tengo intimidad
más que conmigo misma.

Y a veces estoy tan lejos
que no me reconozco,
pero me hablan, y miran,
y ahí me encuentro.
Aunque a veces estoy tan cerca
que me eximo de conocerme.

Por la mañana me recuperaré
como quien mete los dedos de los pies
en la cápsula del edredón
para que formen un todo,
para que completen el todo.

     Al traidor/ra
No te reconozco
como persona,
no estás en mi camino
o tal vez sí, una máscara más.

Esto que sé ahora
no sé si lo sabré luego

cuando diversas capas de mi
             se superpongan,
y en la cápsula espacial
de mi edredón conmigo
sobrevuele el cosmos.

Pero mi equilibrio es tan delicado
que yo puedo volver a ser yo:

algunos volvemos a repetirnos
por el placer de reconocernos…

 

 
Noni Benegas, born in Buenos Aires and resident in Spain since 1977, is the author of seven books of poetry; a selection is collected in El Ángel de lo súbito, Ed. Fondo de Cultura Económica, (Madrid, 2014). Burning Cartography, Ed. Host, (Austin TX, 2007 and 2011) is a selection of these poems in English, and Animaux Sacrés, Ed. Al Manar (Séte 2013) in French. She has won the Platero Prize from the UN in Geneva; the Miguel Hernández National Prize for Poetry, as well as Vila de Martorell award, the Rubén Darío Prize from Palma in Mallorca, the Esquío Prize in Galicia. She is the author of the influential anthology of contemporary Spanish women poets Ellas tienen la palabra, Ed. Hiperión (Madrid, 2008, 4th edition) whose introductory essay, with a new prologue, articles, interviews and an epilogue has been recently collected by Ed. Fondo de Cultura Economica in 2017 with the same title. Ellas Resisten. Mujeres poetas y artistas (1994-2019) is a selection of her essays on women writers and artists published by Ed. Huerga & Fierro
 
Editor’s Note: see also Poetry, National Literature Prize 2018, Francisca Aguirre, Translated from Spanish by Amparo Arróspide & Robin Ouzman Hislop
 
 

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Amparo Arróspide (Argentina) has published five poetry collections: Presencia en el Misterio, Mosaicos bajo la hiedra, Alucinación en dos actos y algunos poemas, Pañuelos de usar y tirar and En el oído del viento, as well as poems, short stories and articles on literature and films in anthologies and international magazines. She has translated authors such as Francisca Aguirre, Javier Díaz Gil, Luis Fores and José Antonio Pamies into English, together with Robin Ouzman Hislop, who she worked with for a period as co-editor of Poetry Life and Times, at Artvilla.com a Webzine. Her translations into Spanish of Margaret Atwood (Morning in the Burned House), James Stephens (Irish Fairy Tales) and Mia Couto (Vinte e Zinco) are in the course of being published, as well as her two poetry collections Hormigas en diáspora and Jacuzzi. She takes part in festivals, recently Transforming with Poetry (Leeds) and Centro de Poesía José Hierro (Getafe).

robin-portrait-july-sotillo-2016-by-amparo

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Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times ; at Artvilla.com his publications include

All the Babble of the Souk , Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals, Collected Poems, and the recently published Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems, as well as translation of Guadalupe Grande´s La llave de niebla, as Key of Mist and the recently published Tesserae , a translation of Carmen Crespo´s Teselas.

You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)