Immersion
I was a small island in the ocean
populated with the song of swallows
and the joyful whisper of the woods.
Now I’m a continent,
where dust has a lease on the land,
chained to the banisters of silence,
I’m the intimate friend of the darkest nights.
Forgive the pulse of burden
in each word
budding from my throat.
But I’m sinking slowly
beneath rough waves
that rise
where loneliness ends
and oblivion begins.
(Cambridge, January 2017)
Endangered
Much time has passed without tears
or rain
in these regions of disenchantment.
Only stones
hardened faces
and some heaps of sand
that the sun licks
once it shows its face
through the blinds of daybreak.
We don’t know why
they’ve confiscated all the mirrors
and the worn-out blankets of our illusions.
Perhaps a way to make death human?
What’s certain is that we’re still here
in the vortex of aridity
with our eyes fixed
on all the messages
the orator dispatches in bulk
without the strength to weep
and waiting for the promised storm.
This Poem
This poem
with its dose of gunpowder
and double-edged swords
is written to split the hand
pushing me to a dark
and deserted place.
This poem
that stutters with the glint of pearls
is written to arrive at the summit
of any one of my dreams
and show the world
that joy has not died.
This poem
is also a flower that smells of you
from its first lines
until its final end
which marks the beginning
of a new astonishment.
(Cambridge, November 2016)
Armed
What appears to be an object worthy of the museum
clutched in my drunken fist
is a real pistol
I am close to
and at the same time far from my target
the arm a straight line
the gaze fogged
by doubts
of passing one more night
without your words running
to some of the seven doors
of my refuge
following these detonations.
Way Out
In one of the stone-ridden labyrinths
I retrace daily
with the steps of a wounded man
I see the tenuous budding of flowers
at the edge of my path.
A still-distant image
my eyes bind to,
triple-knotted.
As I advance, the petals grow
with light galloping over their surfaces.
I stumble, but manage to regain
the rhythm of my strides.
I fall face forward and get back up
like a spring.
Nothing will detain my triumphal march
to what appears to be
a half-open door.
(Cambridge, November 2016)