Poetry (Attempt at Definition)

Porque uno de mis profesores de seminario nos pidió definir la poesía (obvio, de una forma muy subjetiva que no va a tener calificación) o justificar una traducción. Y yo terminé yéndome por la poesía, a la que le doy un intento de definición con un intento de poema (aunque, ahora que lo pienso, hubiera sido divertido juatificar una traducción con un poema).

Pero en fin. Enjoy.



unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
-Charles Bukowski, “So You Wanna Be a Writer?”


His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one.
-F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby



Soft sweet snake, scurrying, gnawing for food at the back of the brain—
The wide eyed ghost inside the mirror, gaping silent at the unfolding scene—
Electric fingertips of nightfall: blanket for rolling plains of skin.
The moon’s quiet, ceaseless ministry, underneath the veil of blue-sky dreams.
The deep silence of prayer, crowned by laurel, yet on your knees—
Sunshine in forgotten evenings, eyes to watch the end of the day—
It sings slowly, like a shadow, lost in a hide-and-seek game:
Tunes its blue guitar and rambles through the mind-alleys again…
The crime and wishes that wander through the usual lonely streets
(For it has never been strung out of the golden milk of days)
And it dances and develops in a thousand hidden ways
Labyrinth-like, as forgotten, otherworldly pencil signs
In a mathematics notebook: they serpent and they fly,
Lost among the lines, fool the one who thinks they shall stay and never flee,
They place the magic mirror o’er the vision of the ones chosen to see.
The only proof of our existence, mournfully standing beside
Time’s friendless tombstone, watching the Milky Way die.
The illusion of, in mortality, seeing the shooting star of life.
A new world, reinvented in your cold and lying eyes.

To the gone

The villanelle of my homework. Already handed in, so not available for corrections for now. Also, I published it at Learning to Fly.



…So we get up, and dance with mercenary hearts,
Our eyes on eyes, our hand to distant past,
Till the wind brings us whispers built on sand.

Music lured the mind to open sky,
Where colors, feelings and temptation start,
So we get up, and dance with mercenary hearts.

Beyond the ballroom lies the soldier sinking ship,
Its course beyond our stained-glass water hands,
The wind shall bring us whispers built on sand.

She leaves behind the perfume of her dress,
A handkerchief, or some senseless remark.
So we get up, and dance with mercenary hearts.

It is well known that he shall leave as well,
And the one after him, to some faraway land.
The wind shall bring us whispers built on sand.

Till the ship comes and takes them all away,
We take a glass and ask for one more chance.
So we get up, and dance with mercenary hearts,
Till the wind brings us whispers built on sand.

My Welsh Name

My work, still for you to judge, published at Learning to Fly.


To Dafydd Apgwilym, author of "The Rattle Bag".


Do not play around around with my Welsh name, for the
Young find it fascinating, name from faraway
Lands, of wild dragons and of piled up books
And so they curve their mouths to say the sweet unknown "a", so with a Welsh
Name no poet steals your soul.

To every sound a jingling bell of the knapsack I
Hang around my shoulder, piled with fairy things, and the sweet sound of
O! when I take them out and stare at them and they are
Memories of other lands of wonders
And names where no one can take your
Soul.

Where pots rattle with the sweet unknown sound of something more than coins
And jewels, sweet sound of things nobody knows, of faraway
Lands, of dragons and knapsacks and unknown, where
Ever after has a Welsh name and no poet
Steals your soul.

Untitled (Producer's Cut) (Version 1.5)

Last line changed.



On the deserted pedestal
Lights go on and out. And all around
A thousand hands
Scream victory signs.
Heads nod so hard with more than understanding,
And then the symbol traced upon the heavens—
The followers of your creed. There’s no reason
To question the beliefs.
True are the word, the sighs, the spark of triumph,
The wings that grow from backs—
The wings of lovers.
Yours is the realm and yours is now the land.

Behind the shadows live
The sweet golden apostles,
The saviors of the cult,
The only ones who’re blessed. So beautiful, so young
These oh wild dreams of Eryx,
The purity in their soul
Has made them yours. Blindfolded by the light
They speak the sacred,
True cherubs of fidelity, the guardians of the sound,
All dressed up for you in the devil’s finest,
Have traded their spirits for delight,
For this moment, pray tonight alone.

Here lies the golden god
Just for the ones who listen. And back home on hell
Sly smiles call you fake.
But yours is now the key
Of all worldly dominions,
The power of a Genesis, a new land,
The power of this peace and this redemption,
All for you, you skinny dirty angel.
The freedom for the cursed, Albion in silver,
The promise of a man other than you
To stand up high and give away a sign for battle
In darkness bathed in diamonds until sunrise.

The Most Poetic Girl in the World

Work for you to judge. Please do, for this poem has met critics that either love it or don't seem to convinced, so I really don't know what I should do. Of course, it was written just for fun, as you will see.



One day I was out on the street I met this unique girl,
Believe me that she was the most poetic girl in the world.
She had long and full grown golden strands of wheat for hair,
Two flashing diamond stars tucked where eyes should have their lair.
Her poor pink cheeks were roses, she might just need to water them,
Maybe with her lips; they were wine and could not stand.
Her teeth were pearls; that they rolled off made her worry.
She could not speak, because her tongue was a big ripe strawberry.
Her skin was a soft mixture of cotton, silk, and lace;
She had to be pulling it or it fell about the place.
I didn't think her beautiful; I only thought her funny,
I sold her to a freak show and I made a lot of money.

Immaculate Daydream

Finished work. With luck, it shall be published in Rio Grande Review Magazine.



To Percy Bysshe Shelley


“A damsel with a dulcimer/in a vision once I saw...”
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Kubla Khan”


I say, good morning, Alastor.
How nice of you to drop by.
Would you like a cup of tea? Or prefer a glass of wine?
Your face has grown thinner ever since
Your ship has kept on running down a dream.
Whatever she is, it’s all the same to me.
Well, so, anything else to drink?

How far had you run home by yesterday,
Chasing your sparkling horizon-line?
They stand on clouds, and so hide from your sight,
Nothing but shadowplays of
Your mind. What, you say, want to ask where
She’s gone? To a region such as time.
Spare a dime for something else to drink.

For they all have the same deceiving eyes,
And the same flowing hair, the clichéd
Heart of ice. Little visions call the mind their mother,
Whelpéd by a sacred womb of gold,
But still their souls like ours shall be sold,
Their humors meant to smell, a mouth with words that bother,
She’ll drink more than we do, and leave you for another.

Say, have another glass, Alastor.
Don’t stare at me all the way whiskyfied—
Or mystified, I say. I have traveled and tried,
Have even seen the shores of the fountain of life:
It don’t taste any better than that glass.
Eternal life is also bound to pass.
They crawl out of their azure aura and die.

"For I have known already, known them all"
All ladies with a thousand
Dulcimers and lyres, and have felt
The silk roughness of their skin,
Alastor, have felt them slip through my fingers like sand,
Like old candy, they lose their taste, they can!
A toast to their brief beauty. Yet again.

Such a shame you have to go right now,
Alastor, to sail the night again upon your ship.
Shooting stars don’t fall upon this earth,
Remember, please, through crimson mist of gin.
You seem to have grown thinner by the second;
Your lady, too, is the original sin.
Go off to die: your memory is redeemed.

I will bury the lesson on these streets,
Bury her smile, her treason and her tears,
I never touched her—pure, here she remains
A dream—

Untitled (Producer's Cut)

Poem for you to judge. First published in Learning to Fly (www.circlingsky.blogspot.com).



On the deserted pedestal
Lights go on and out. And all around
A thousand hands
Scream victory signs.
Heads nod so hard with more than understanding,
And then the symbol traced upon the heavens—
The followers of your creed. There’s no reason
To question the beliefs.
True are the word, the sighs, the spark of triumph,
The wings that grow from backs—
The wings of lovers.
Yours is the realm and yours is now the land.

Behind the shadows live
The sweet golden apostles,
The saviors of the cult,
The only ones who’re blessed. So beautiful, so young
These oh wild dreams of Eryx,
The purity in their soul
Has made them yours. Blindfolded by the light
They speak the sacred,
True cherubs of fidelity, the guardians of the sound,
All dressed up for you in the devil’s finest,
Have traded their spirits for delight,
For this moment, pray tonight alone.

Here lies the golden god
Just for the ones who listen. And back home on hell
Sly smiles call you fake.
But yours is now the key
Of all worldly dominions,
The power of a Genesis, a new land,
The power of this peace and this redemption,
All for you, you skinny dirty angel.
The freedom for the cursed, Albion in silver,
The promise of a man other than you
To stand up high and give away a sign for battle
In darkness, darkness bathed in diamonds until sunrise.