3/9/19

In Translation | Poetry | Jose Manuel SÁNCHEZ


                                                                     

Sabin Balasa, Atlantis, Wikiart 

                                                    





                                                ESCOMBRU

Quiciabes dalgún día
                                                lleas les mios pallabres.
                                                Entóncenes,
                                                nun sedrán pallabres.
                                                Entóncenes
                                                atoparás namái l’escombru
                                                d’esti poema
                                                que surdió pente la borrina
dende’l pasáu,
                                                comu les pantasmes.
                                                Aporta la nueche sele.
                                                Degola’l día ensin dexar güelgues,
                                                comu esti versu…
                                     










                                                RUBBLE
                                                

                                                Maybe one day
                                                you will read my words.
                                                Then,
                                                they will not be words.
                                                Then,
                                                you will find only the rubble
                                                of this poem
                                                which has emerged
                                                from the fog,
                                                from the past,
                                                like the ghosts.
                                                Night comes gradually.
                                                The day goes away
                                                without leaving traces,
                                                like this verse…
                                                 



                                                 




                                               XENTE / SOLOMBRES
                                               

                                               Delles persones
                                               aseméyense
                                               a les solombres.
                                               Nun pescancien
                                               lo que ye la lluz
                                               -la poesía-
                                               de la que tan feches.
                                               Quiciabes, nel fondu,
                                               nun seyan persones.
                                               Quiciabes, nel fondu,
                                               la lluz namái seya
                                               la braera Atlántida
                                               qu’enxamás
                                               apaez nos mapes.
                                              
                                              
                                              







                                               PEOPLE  / SHADOWS
                                               

                                               Some people
                                               are similar
                                               to the shadows.
                                               They do not understand
                                               what is the light
                                               -poetry-
                                               of which they are made.
                                               Perhaps, ultimately,
                                               they are not persons.
                                               Perhaps, ultimately,
                                               light is only
                                               the real Atlantis
                                               which never appears
                                               in the maps.


         

3/7/19

Two Poems | Mazarine Treyz

Winslow Homer, Indian Village, Wikimdia Commons

Light sensations

To put among the stars
A constellation
Reaching out
A chartreuse wave runs
Eagerly touching
The mountains on Jupiter
It houses itself
In a dormant stage
These little balls blown hither and thither
Bursting their coats
Naked again
A flower spreading its petals
Lipping outward rippled edges
Dramaturgy in small things
A skirt throwing itself
Into a dance
Around and around
Spinning and looking
Who will I thrust myself into next
To play with the patterns of existence and
Arrange them in new and original ways
So you induce the dark to emit
So many gleaming nuances
In a purple sky, in green lightning flashes
You show the aching pulse of each passing moment
I notice your simplicity
And your activity
In the service of images that fill you
They lead you mysteriously onward
And somehow I am discovering you-
With the point of my pen





Certainly Not

I am certainly not thinking of
The luxuries of your table
The sausages, cheeses, olives
Lamb, chicken skewers, salad or anything so delicious
Nor am I thinking of the beehive inside my dress-
Living in perpetual fluctuation, excitation and tension
At a high temperature, with an animating self-heat
Closely packed, vibrating incessantly
Putting into luminous form
What the multitude inarticulately feels-
Jostling inside: conflicting impulses to get
An intimacy and spiritual nearness- or run away
A heroic passion or fantastical daring-causes us to
Approach but then reject
the couch
For sensual gratification elsewhere
Certainly not remembering
Your excited eyes and smile-from time to time
Anarchy from above
So far we have hardly mentioned your body- This was intentional for
You are a world unto yourself
That we must explore slowly!
Then your tongue between my thighs
My arms outstretched, back arched, crying out
Is it a fact, or is it a problem?
Does it slide between being one and being another?
Rashly I fall on you, and the inexhaustible
Foaming joy of your body, overripe and sensual
Breaks apart under my fingers

3/3/19

Prose poems | Alex Stolis


 pc: Internet Archives





The man on the radio says, today we should ask our friends the open-ended question;
'So what was it like?'

It was like a sonic boom with the sound turned off. It was like a puffed
up robin shivering in a tree. It was like nothing we’d seen before. It was
everything we never expected it to be. It was not it but something else.
The something we were searching for. The something that felt like being
lost; lost in someone’s voice, lost in between the molecules that make up
the air we breathe. The something that became it; the something that got
our skin to tingle, our stomachs to churn and our mouths to go bone dry.
It makes us hard and wet; it makes us want need desire yearn. Go ahead.
Tell us what it feels like.  







The man on the radio says this next song is for you

as if he knows you. As if he saw you in the front yard
in a worn pair of jeans, dirt on your hands planting for
spring. As if you slept next to him in nothing but an old
t-shirt, one leg wrapped around the bedspread. Does he
know the scar on your back, does he remember the day
your mother died; how you love to make up backstories
for people you see on the street. I try to recall the last
time we met. I try to remember the sound of your voice,
the curve of your jaw; I’ll try to find you, left of the dial.




The man on the radio laughs because the man on the radio fucks a model too

If this were a screenplay there would be a slight break in the action;
time for a little narrative exposition. Time to make the scene some-
thing right out of a movie; complete with neo-noir dialogue, a verite’
look and killer soundtrack. If this were anything but what it really is
it might not be artificial; it would be colored inside the lines, names
redacted. This is the last leg we will stand on before the credits roll
us over: Me wondering where the hell I went; you, all blearing eyed
and wet, waiting for another chance to reshoot the final scene.





 The man on the radio says it is a beautiful night out there

It’s a square room. There’s always more to the picture than meets
the story; more to a smile than glossy lips, intentionally exposed
bra straps and ice-cold fresh wet martinis. We imagine there are
corners; rounded, sharp or hidden. We imagine blind intersections,
imagine the person next to us making small talk knows when to hit
the brakes. We hit the skids, we circle the square room. Find where
we’re made; who we’re made to make it with. Imagine a slow wind
crashes the party, imagine we don’t want to get lucky; that we mint
our own luck. Imagine there’s more to our story than this picture.