…And I’m becoming old,
so irremediably old
as deadly it is to breathe.
*
O times of yore
In which my tongue was idle
And discontent…
*
Now I’m a swarming bunch of hypocrisy!
O shame on me!
I’m no beast no longer,
I’m no man anymore…
*
But why do I have to be so numb!?
And why do I have to go so low…?
O I’m irremediably old.
*
I have always nursed all cursed,
The people around me,
With a blanket of lies…
*
Acursèd I am to claim my weight
In all superior matter,
And to spot untamèd blunder
Until I become a bloody martyr…
*
Acursèd martyr…
Distorted anguish…
*
Am I to turn my face to all life’s wish?
Why do I have to be so stupid and so vain
That I cannot see but everybody’s pain?
*
I am soul and matter,
Bearing thorns and arrows
That once splattered
Sorrows from my chest…
*
Quite a deadman I’ve become…,
Quite a burden on my soul…
*
So I’m becoming old,
With growing power
To destroy all fate
From dreary face,
And to blow out my despair
And wake up dans l’enfer…
*
O soul, accursèd soul,
I am slumber and regret,
I am joy and I am pain,
I’m your sorrow and my hell…
My hell, for you that claimed me dead.
(Written originally in English)
Tristan des Mers is the pen-name for an English Literature student born in Mexico City in 1984. He is the lead singer of the Goth-Visual Metal band Nifelvein. You can check some of his work, both poetry and music, in http://tristandesmers.blogspot.com and in Nifelvein's myspace. Tristan des Mers forms part of a growing tendency in Mexican yougn artists to write and sing in English.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Poetry on the Walls
A frecuent visitor of this blog and e-mail pal, Fred from Scotts Valley CA wrote down some poems in his backyard's wall with waterproof ink. One of those poems was "Water in June's Memory", which we published in this blog a while ago. Here are some pics, I hope you enjoy them as much as we did!
In English:
In Spanish:
Overall view:
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Two Poems by Armanco Ayala Ochoa
Fractal Phrase
Why not saying dawn
and being born healthier
before memory
before losing sight
of the flowers
why not trying
to be a little less
sometimes
and floating on oil
light sorrows
earth
orange trees
That thorns would hurt us
and the daybreak would not find
any reason to give birth
to clouds
being less than less
if after all
on the route
our eyes
looked at
tons of marvels
One-thousandth Stare
…and we are less naïve
than it looks like
before afternoon as those steps
that go back
as they walk more
a cloud
a stream of dead
tension climbing up
our muscles
what is the recipe?
It seems that the leaves
Walk with us
Entangled on the doors
That inhabited us
…and we are less naïve
And however
it hurts us more
and it stops us less
the staring of the streets
and we see ourselves passing by
and so it looks
as if time
gets undone
and it gets
bigger
as the world
that was born
when we were born.
(Trans. by Aurelio Meza)
Armando Ayala Ochoa (1972) Won the 36 Punto de Partida Award.
Why not saying dawn
and being born healthier
before memory
before losing sight
of the flowers
why not trying
to be a little less
sometimes
and floating on oil
light sorrows
earth
orange trees
That thorns would hurt us
and the daybreak would not find
any reason to give birth
to clouds
being less than less
if after all
on the route
our eyes
looked at
tons of marvels
One-thousandth Stare
…and we are less naïve
than it looks like
before afternoon as those steps
that go back
as they walk more
a cloud
a stream of dead
tension climbing up
our muscles
what is the recipe?
It seems that the leaves
Walk with us
Entangled on the doors
That inhabited us
…and we are less naïve
And however
it hurts us more
and it stops us less
the staring of the streets
and we see ourselves passing by
and so it looks
as if time
gets undone
and it gets
bigger
as the world
that was born
when we were born.
(Trans. by Aurelio Meza)
Armando Ayala Ochoa (1972) Won the 36 Punto de Partida Award.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Blue in Green by Daniel Malpica
There was an evening
─I think I remember─
when we were together
Perhaps you were an encounter
.....................................with the dregs
or the lonely afternoon
─like your own name─
where maple hairs
─long looped curtains
.........................on a cloudy day─
wet the asphalt
On that crust
evening
I put a sad record on
─incense voice reproducing your look─
Kind of Blue – Miles Davis
On that evening
there was a lot of rain
─yes
I think I remember─
I was alone
............just me
............─trumpet solo like a sip on the rim─
............and an almost empty little cup of coffee
─I think I remember─
when we were together
Perhaps you were an encounter
.....................................with the dregs
or the lonely afternoon
─like your own name─
where maple hairs
─long looped curtains
.........................on a cloudy day─
wet the asphalt
On that crust
evening
I put a sad record on
─incense voice reproducing your look─
Kind of Blue – Miles Davis
On that evening
there was a lot of rain
─yes
I think I remember─
I was alone
............just me
............─trumpet solo like a sip on the rim─
............and an almost empty little cup of coffee
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Three Poems by Marduk
THE CITY is boiling,
beasts aggrieve with water mist,
they lurk,
they lie in wait for the mob’s shadows.
Then I set the table,
we sit down
and we get along as if this was the last time.
The nightly swipe doesn’t forgive anyone
neither in the wagons,
nor in the cupboard,
nor among high, gray sentinels,
We are not safe anywhere anymore.
……………………………………………………………
THE ASPHALT'S smell between my temples
the journey’s slithering through the vertebrae,
a roar
like the one statues make when they crush
are
a wasted reflection
of which won’t happen again.
……………………………………………………………
I WILL not wait for a firefly’s pulse,
like the streets of this map
in which things are packed and scattered in comets,
neither will I look for a sign of repudiation among the tracks
for every image of the past is tricky.
I will not talk,
I won’t say anything,
and my silence will be a protest,
it will wash itself black up to the celestial page,
it will get your ankles-whirlpool wet
it will say about frontiers:
ship’s traces
in cartographic plan.
(trans. by Aurelio Meza)
We don't know who Marduk is. We just know it is a pseudonym for a young Mexican poet, who has published his texts in some literary blogs, but that's it. Any useful information will be rewarded.
beasts aggrieve with water mist,
they lurk,
they lie in wait for the mob’s shadows.
Then I set the table,
we sit down
and we get along as if this was the last time.
The nightly swipe doesn’t forgive anyone
neither in the wagons,
nor in the cupboard,
nor among high, gray sentinels,
We are not safe anywhere anymore.
……………………………………………………………
THE ASPHALT'S smell between my temples
the journey’s slithering through the vertebrae,
a roar
like the one statues make when they crush
are
a wasted reflection
of which won’t happen again.
……………………………………………………………
I WILL not wait for a firefly’s pulse,
like the streets of this map
in which things are packed and scattered in comets,
neither will I look for a sign of repudiation among the tracks
for every image of the past is tricky.
I will not talk,
I won’t say anything,
and my silence will be a protest,
it will wash itself black up to the celestial page,
it will get your ankles-whirlpool wet
it will say about frontiers:
ship’s traces
in cartographic plan.
(trans. by Aurelio Meza)
We don't know who Marduk is. We just know it is a pseudonym for a young Mexican poet, who has published his texts in some literary blogs, but that's it. Any useful information will be rewarded.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
"Flowers" by Yaxkin Melchy
Everything in the same poem
Everything in the same, abandoned poem
Algae grow on it, and flowering animals.
A stripe―a coiled-up reading
A plaited snake,
It is the reading that reads the braids
Like black thunders.
Prose runs from the wagons
The thighs of the poem get ready,
The poem is to lily the field
And our lives, repeated themselves on the flowers.
You stroll about a field
Wrapping yourself with dry ink,
I don’t understand but night is a flower already in bloom
And far in the horizon
The bud of its death leans out.
An orange-beamed flower
And finally you see it, the same poem lying down,
With the letter of another day:
Omnia iam vulgata
Virgil said it two thousand years ago: everything’s already said.
And I planted 2 000 new flowers for the years
And 730 000 flowers for the days
That it cost me to write this poem.
Yaxkin Melchy Ramos (Mexico City, 1985) studies Hispanic Literatura and Industrial Design. He recently won the second prize in the Punto de Partida Poetry Award. He manages the blogs http://destruccionmasiva.blogspot.com/ and http://lacasadeyaxkin.blogspot.com
Everything in the same, abandoned poem
Algae grow on it, and flowering animals.
A stripe―a coiled-up reading
A plaited snake,
It is the reading that reads the braids
Like black thunders.
Prose runs from the wagons
The thighs of the poem get ready,
The poem is to lily the field
And our lives, repeated themselves on the flowers.
You stroll about a field
Wrapping yourself with dry ink,
I don’t understand but night is a flower already in bloom
And far in the horizon
The bud of its death leans out.
An orange-beamed flower
And finally you see it, the same poem lying down,
With the letter of another day:
Omnia iam vulgata
Virgil said it two thousand years ago: everything’s already said.
And I planted 2 000 new flowers for the years
And 730 000 flowers for the days
That it cost me to write this poem.
Yaxkin Melchy Ramos (Mexico City, 1985) studies Hispanic Literatura and Industrial Design. He recently won the second prize in the Punto de Partida Poetry Award. He manages the blogs http://destruccionmasiva.blogspot.com/ and http://lacasadeyaxkin.blogspot.com
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Own Goal by Ricardo Castillo
I was born in Guadalajara.
My first parents where Mum Lupe and Dad Guille.
I grew up like a clover in the garden,
like a five-cent coin, like a tortilla.
I grew up with denied reality in the kidneys,
with corny words in love’s cabin.
My mother cried between the chinks
with her anger in the dark, with groping violence.
My father died looking at me in the eyes,
dying in the slow bed of years,
demanding to life.
And then my grandfather’s blindness, the brothers,
my cousins’ sexual helplessness,
the barrio among the shadows
and then myself, so prying, so melodramatic.
I have always been a good for nothing.
I have not done anything but to count the anihilation.
As someone once said to me: What a Fucker.
(trans. by Aurelio Meza)
Ricardo Castillo was born in 1954. I know he is not that young now, but I just couldn't help it. This poem has got me. I read it for the first time in the bilingual anthology Connecting Lines/Líneas conectadas, which gathers American and Mexican poets born after 1945. I don't remember the name of the translator (and I don't have the book right now), but I do remember his excellent choice for the last two words: "Valgo Madre." I don't think my translation is better than that of Connecting Lines. This is just an excercise for the sake of poetry.
My first parents where Mum Lupe and Dad Guille.
I grew up like a clover in the garden,
like a five-cent coin, like a tortilla.
I grew up with denied reality in the kidneys,
with corny words in love’s cabin.
My mother cried between the chinks
with her anger in the dark, with groping violence.
My father died looking at me in the eyes,
dying in the slow bed of years,
demanding to life.
And then my grandfather’s blindness, the brothers,
my cousins’ sexual helplessness,
the barrio among the shadows
and then myself, so prying, so melodramatic.
I have always been a good for nothing.
I have not done anything but to count the anihilation.
As someone once said to me: What a Fucker.
(trans. by Aurelio Meza)
Ricardo Castillo was born in 1954. I know he is not that young now, but I just couldn't help it. This poem has got me. I read it for the first time in the bilingual anthology Connecting Lines/Líneas conectadas, which gathers American and Mexican poets born after 1945. I don't remember the name of the translator (and I don't have the book right now), but I do remember his excellent choice for the last two words: "Valgo Madre." I don't think my translation is better than that of Connecting Lines. This is just an excercise for the sake of poetry.
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