Translated from the Spanish by Ron Hudson

Poetic Art

A cow grazes in our memory
blood escapes from the teats
the landscape is killed by a shot

The cow insists on its routine
its tail scares away the boredom
the landscape revives in slow motion

The cow abandons the landscape
we continue hearing the lowing
our memory grazes now
in that immense loneliness

The landscape leaves our memory
the words change name
we are left weeping
on the blank page

The cow grazes now in the emptiness
the words are mounted on her
the language makes fun of us

—

 Memories Of The Future

My sister awoke me very early
that morning and said to me
“Get up, you have to come and see this
the sea has been filled with stars”
Marveled by this revelation
I hastily dressed myself and thought
“If the sea has been filled with stars
I should take the first plane
and gather all the fishes from the sky”

—

 The Daughter Of Rimbaud

The girl with the open dress
rises at the hour
in which the words are celebrating
for she herself is a celebration
when she stretches her thighs to the sun
and the wind caresses her
with its infinite fingers
A tricycle of crystal awaits her
next to the flowers in the yard
and a nest of blind butterflies
that are undressing among her bones of honey
And in her bed of blue feathers
she hangs her braids of wheat
and counts her dead bees
until falling asleep
while the evening envelopes her
with its yellow lips
The girl with the open dress
awakens at the hour
in which clocks dream
because she herself is a dream
when she opens her dress
and the sparrows flock
crazy with love
above her paper breasts

—

Scars Of War

At times
when I get drunk
words take me home
on an old wooden tricycle
And far from removing my shoes
and putting me to bed
as would normally happen in these cases
they leave me sprawled in the garden
covered with ants
and with my face stuck to
the garden lamp
“That’s what you get for writing bad poems”
they tell me
and go off singing and laughing
hugging
my last beer

—

The Sinatra Clan

All of the cats in my neighborhood
are Sinatra fans
they begin to la-la-la his themes
a soon as I put on the CD
and the voice flows
between the ceiling and the brick walls
At times they beg me
to repeat some single
then the sound of My Way
New York or Let Me Try Again
pricks up their whiskers
and throws them headfirst against the glass
This does not happen when I read my verses
they stretch, yawn
look away
or chat amongst themselves
in a lamentable display
of ignorance and sabotage
“You do not understand me”
I tell them
And I put on the CD again
so that Sinatra sings
and those cats are filled with poetry

—

Unfinished Pedagogy

The child asks his father
if words grow old
The father responds to the child
that words remain as young
as on the first day
The child runs to his grandfather
to bring him the good news
And the elder abruptly opens
the word drawer
so that they will tell him the secret

—

The published poems were included in the book Notes for a Legend by Mario Meléndez