by Maricela Duarte-Stern 

Jane y John Doe*
El sol brilla para todos
y mucho más
cuando en el camino
se van dejando sucesivamente
pétalos
          anhelos
                    uno mismo
 
Dicen que el desierto palpita
por eso los cactus danzan al ritmo
inquebrantable del viento
 
La noche es corta
cuando se va en busca de un sueño
el día es eterno
para quienes ya no pueden abrir los ojos
 
No hay tumba para ellos
allí quedan
mirando al cielo
 
o mejor aún
          bocabajo
en una charla inaudible con la arena
 
* Nombres dados en Estados Unidos a
cadáveres de identidad desconocida.


​
Braceros
Hay instantes
          incluso armoniosos atardeceres
en que las aves buscan a la deriva
          la urna de sus sueños
 
Sin embargo
ese golpe a la memoria
          esa imagen
no es suficiente
para liberarte del pálido hastío de la ausencia
 
Volteas tratando de alcanzar el sur
te aferras a creer
y hasta repasas metódicamente
las calles lluviosas
          y los familiares rincones
que dejaste inconclusos

Tus manos
ahora entrelazadas a la tierra
saben que estas no son tus raíces
y colocan obedientes la cebolla en la cesta
          deseando que sea la última
 
Continúas afanoso
te limpias el sudor justificando
tu mirada inalcanzable
 
Pero
¿qué hay en realidad en tus ojos?



Cuando el poeta escribe
se empeña en develar
lo que hay detrás del pesado telón
que lo sustenta
 
Quiere alumbrar con una vela
el más oscuro de los abismos
 
Se aleja como un ermitaño
más allá del canto de las sirenas
          de los sueños olvidados
 
El poeta busca
y en su travesía
sólo logra recolectar
las minúsculas huellas de la fiera
que aún ruge a lo lejos
 


Mientras escribo
nada puede hacer la tinta
al impregnarse en la hoja
las aguas del tiempo no se detienen
los pasos de la muerte hacen ruido
no permiten escuchar el vertiginoso
          transcurrir de la vida
 
Escribo otro verso
sé que al otro lado del mundo
y dentro de mí
          alguien muere

​

Maricela Duarte-Stern (Chihuahua, Chih. México 1976) Resides in Las Cruces, New Mexico since 2002. Compiler of: Rehilete, Antología Literaria para Niños. ICHICULT/FONCA 1999. In 2014 published El Gato en la Azotea, by Ediciones Poetazos. Co-author:  Voces de la hispanidad en Estados Unidos:  una antología literaria.  2018. Her most recent book of poetry: De cierta arena Ediciones La Mirada, 2019. 

"Orphan," "The Landing," "The Food's Delicious, You're Not Welcome," "The Contrition Between US" excerpted from at the foot of the mountain by Tak Erzinger.

Orphan

When your mother decides to leave,
do you tell the world?

What if everyone thinks it’s your fault?

You could pretend it didn’t happen,
never talk about it and over-compensate with many things, become an awesome painter
share your artwork full of hidden meaning.

Maybe people will forget to ask.

It will push you to develop in ways you never imagined, maybe ways she would’ve been proud of, if she’d been around.

Like how you can really dance, the way she could always dance, the way you followed her steps to the beats of all the albums she bought you,
holding hands, she’d swing you around and around, pulling you close and pushing you back,
keeping you spinning,
you’d hear, I’ll always be there for you.

It’s not what she said though.

​She was only singing.




The Landing

When they tell you, you’ve
had a nervous breakdown
you become like an astronaut

you find yourself drifting,
pleading for someone to provide you
with the right equipment.

In the right space
you can deploy like the Eagle
confronting the “magnificent desolation” resolutely.

To be able to sink your feet into the
lunatic surface will be a revelation
tip-toeing through craters formed

long before you were born.
If you run low on fuel
at least you will have finally seen

what those wounds look like
up close and personal and like
the dark side of the moon

allow the parts unseen to be
tucked back into the envelope
of your universe.

The discovery-
every exploration takes time
and patience.



​The Food’s Delicious, You’re Not Welcome

Once adults become a certain age
it’s a matter of time before they reminisce
to talk of the past
and say it was better

Ethnic food piled high
they’ll question Why, dear friend,
aren’t you afraid?
and lick their lips in satisfaction

It requires a stranger, light-skinned
without a funny surname
to offer up dishes, exotic recipes
on familiar ground

This individual, welcomed like a pet
loves the taste of cheeseburgers
heats up the grill
to fire up their lies

The irony of being accepted
the memory of a childhood
chewing her up and spitting her out
just a little taste

garlic sautéed softens
too much spice can ruin the meal
adulting in measured cups
does not guarantee the right flavour

The common denominator loves the food
but does that mean its balanced?
I’ve learnt to share those dishes while I continue
to get burned in places unseen and am
left with scorched pans, unable to replace them.



The Contrition Between Us

We are like two cats circling,
insecure, heated, fearful.

Each one vying for his place,
seeds that have scattered haphazardly

breaking cracks in the cement,
vulnerable and strong at the same time.

It’s like we’ve forgotten what brought
us to this place: the promises,

like a wide and clear spring sky, its
passing clouds, whispers tucked under

our pillows. The scent of love lingers,
over empty plates and glasses, still warm

from the summer’s evening sun
easing the tension, making us forget

​a moment about the family we will never
have.

TAK Erzinger is an American/Swiss poet and artist with a Colombian background. Her poetry has been featured in Bien Acompañada from Cornell University, The Muse from McMaster University, River and South Review, Wilkes University and more.  Her debut chapbook entitled, “Found: Between the Trees” was published by Grey Border Books, Canada 2019. Her then, unpublished poetry manuscript “At the Foot of the Mountain” was short-listed by the Eyelands Book Awards 2019 and Willow Run Book Awards 2020. It has now been published by Floricanto Press out of California, 2021.  Her first audio drama Stella’s Constellation has been produced by Alt.Stories and Fake Realities Podcasts, out of the UK.
​She lives in a Swiss valley with her husband and cats.

​Richard Blanco was selected by President Obama as the fifth inaugural poet in U.S. history, the youngest and the first Latino, immigrant, and gay person in this role. Born in Madrid to Cuban exile parents and raised in Miami, he interrogates the American narrative in How to Love a Country. Other memoirs include For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet’s Journey and The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood. A Woodrow Wilson Fellow, Blanco serves as Education Ambassador for The Academy of American Poets and as an Associate Professor at Florida International University.

Connecticut Autumn

I have seen the pageantry of the leaves falling--
Their sere, brown frames descending brakingly,
Like old men lying down to rest.
I have heard the whisperings of the winds calling--
The young winds—playing with the old men--
Playing with them, as the sun flows west.
And I have seen the pomp of this earth naked--
The brown fields standing cold and resolute,
Like strong men waiting for the end.
Then have come the sudden gusts of winds awaked:
The broken pageantry, the leaves upflailed, the trees
Tremor-stricken,
the giant branches rent.
And a shiver runs over the remnants of the brown grass--
And there is cessation....
The processional recurs.
I have seen the pageantry.
I have seen the haggard leaves falling.
One by one falling.

Otoño en Connecticut 

He visto la ceremonia de las hojas cayendo--
Sus secos esqueletos marrones descendiendo quebrados,
Como viejos hombres que se acuestan a descansar.
He escuchado los susurros de los vientos llamando--
Los jóvenes vientos—jugando con los viejos hombres--
Jugando con ellos mientras el sol va hacia el oeste.
Y he visto la pompa de esta tierra desnuda--
Los campos secos, fríos y resueltos,
Como si fueran hombres fuertes que esperan el fin.
Y entonces llegan sin avisar las ráfagas de viento que despiertan:
La ceremonia quebrada, las hojas hacia arriba agitadas, los árboles
Estremecidos, las ramas gigantes desgarradas.
Y un temblor atraviesa los restos de los pastizales secos--
Y hay un cese....
La procesión se repite.
He visto la ceremonia.
He visto a las demacradas hojas cayendo.
Una por una, cayendo.
​
Traducido por Pablo Brescia

Hiroshima

The man who gave the signal sleeps well--
So he says.
But the man who pulled the toggle sleeps badly--
So we read.
And we behind the man who gave the signal--
How do we sleep?
And they below the man who pulled the toggle?
Well?

Hiroshima 

El hombre que dio la señal duerme bien--
Eso dice, al menos.
Pero el hombre que accionó la palanca duerme mal--
Eso leemos.
Y nosotros, los que estamos detrás del hombre que dio la señal--
¿Cómo dormimos?
¿Y los que están debajo del hombre que accionó la palanca?
¿Y?
​
Traducido por Pablo Brescia

The Milkman

The milkman walks with mysterious movements,
Translating will to energy--
To the crunch of his feet on crystalline water--
While the bad angels mutter.
A white ghost in an opaque body
Passing slowly over the snow,
And a telltale fume on the frozen air
To spite the princes of terror.
One night they will knock on the milkman’s door,
Their boots crunch hard on the front-porch
floor,
One-two,
open the door.
You are the thief of the secret flame,
The forbidden bread, the terrible Name.
Return what is let; go back where you came.
One, two, the slam of a door.
A woman crying: Who is there?
And voices mumbling beyond the stair.
Is there a fume in the frozen sky
To spell that someone has been by,
Under the sun and over the snow?

El lechero 

El lechero camina con movimientos misteriosos,
Que traducen la voluntad en energía--
Con un crujido de sus pasos sobre el agua cristalina--
Mientras los ángeles malos murmuran.
Un fantasma blanco en un cuerpo opaco
Que pasa lentamente sobre la nieve
Y un vaho delator en el aire helado
Para atormentar a los príncipes del terror.
Una noche golpearán en la puerta del lechero,
En el piso del pórtico anterior, sus botas crujirán duro,
Uno, dos, abre la puerta.
Eres el ladrón del fuego secreto,
El pan prohibido, el Nombre terrible.
Devuelve lo prestado, vuelve a dónde viniste.
Uno, dos, el golpe de la puerta.
Una mujer grita: ¿Quién está ahí?
Y voces murmuran más allá de la escalera.
¿Hay un vaho en el cielo helado
Para anunciar que alguien ha estado
Bajo el sol y sobre la nieve?

Traducido por Ximena Gómez y George Franklin

On the Photograph of a Man I Never Saw

My grandfather’s beard
Was blacker than God’s
Just after the tablets
Were broken in half.
My grandfather’s eyes
Were sterner than Moses’
Just after the worship
Of the calf.
O ghost! ghost!
You foresaw the days
Of the fallen Law
In the strange place.
Where ten together
Lament David,
Is the glance softened?
Bowed the face?

De la fotografía de un hombre que nunca vi 

La barba de mi abuelo
Era más negra que la de Yahvé
Justo después de que las tablas
Fueron partidas en dos.
Los ojos de mi abuelo
Eran más severos que los de Moisés
Justo después de la adoración
Del becerro.
¡Oh fantasma! ¡fantasma!
Previste los días
De la ley incumplida
En la tierra extraña.
Donde los diez reunidos
Lloran a David,
¿Se enternece la mirada?
¿Se inclina el rostro?

Traducido por George B. Henson

 Coda

A recent traveler in Granada, remembering the gaiety that had greeted him on an earlier visit, wondered why the place seemed so sad. The answer came to him at last: “This was a city that had killed its poet.” He was talking, of course, of the great Federico García Lorca, murdered by Franco’s bullies during the Spanish Civil War. But are there not many cities and many places that kill their poets? Places nearer home than Granada and the Albaicín? The poets, true, are humbler than Lorca (for such genius is a seed as rare as a roc’s egg), and the deaths are less brutal, more subtle, more civilized. Against us, luckily, there are no squads on the lookout. There is no conspiracy against us, unless it is a conspiracy of indifference. But there are more powerful things in the modern world (and people who are the slaves of things, and people who are things) that move against poetry like an intractable enemy, all the more horrible because unconscious. They would kill the poet—that is, make him stop writing poetry. We must stay alive, must write then, write as excellently as we can. And if out of our labors and agonies there appears, along with our more moderate triumphs, even one speck of the final distillate, the eternal stuff pure and radiant as a drop of uranium, we are justified. For history, which does not lie, has proven that our product, if understood and used as it ought to be, is more powerful for the conservation of man than any mere material metal can be for his destruction.

[This essay originally appeared as the Preface to Plutzik’s collection, Apples from Shinar, published by Wesleyan University Press in 1959 and reprinted in 2011 on the centennial of the poet’s birth.]

Coda

Un reciente viajero en Granada, al recordar cuánta alegría le había brindado la ciudad durante una visita anterior, se preguntaba por qué lucía el pueblo tan triste esta vez. Por fín se le ocurrió la explicación: “Este es un pueblo que mató a su poeta”. Se refería, por supuesto, al gran Federico García Lorca, asesinado por los verdugos de Franco, durante la Guerra Civil de España. Pero, ¿no son muchas las ciudades y demás sitios que matan a sus poetas? ¿Sitios mucho más cercanos que Granada o el Albaicín? Claro que aquellos poetas son más humildes que Lorca (porque tal genio es una semilla más escasa que el huevo del pájaro rokh), y aquellas muertes menos brutales, más sutiles, más civilizadas. A nosotros, afortunadamente, no nos vienen a perseguir cuadrillas. No hay complots contra nosotros, a no ser el complot de la indiferencia. Pero sí hay cosas más poderosas en el mundo moderno (y gente que son esclavos de las cosas, y gente que son cosas) que asaltan a la poesía como un enemigo inmutable, aún mas horrible por ser inconsciente. Matarían al poeta—es decir, no le permitirían escribir poesía. Nosotros tenemos la obligación de permanecer en vida, de seguir escribiendo, de escribir con toda la excelencia que nos sea posible. Y si nuestros esfuerzos, nuestras agonías, producen—entre los triunfos de mediano valor—aunque sea una migaja del destilado final, esa materia eterna y radiante como una gota de uranio, eso nos justifica. Porque así la historia, que no miente, logra comprobar que nuestro producto, si se comprende y se utiliza como debe ser, puede hacer más para conservar al hombre de lo que podrá hacer cualquier mero material metálico para lograr su destrucción.

Traducido por Rhina P. Espaillat

(Este ensayo apareció en su origen como prólogo al poemario Apples from Shinar (Manzanas de Sinar), publicado por Wesleyan University Press en 1959 y reeditado en 2011 para conmemorar el centenario del natalicio del poeta.)

Hyam Plutzik was born in Brooklyn on July 13, 1911, the son of recent immigrants from what is now Belarus. He spoke only Yiddish, Hebrew, and Russian until the age of seven, when he enrolled in grammar school near Southbury, Connecticut, where his parents owned a farm. Plutzik graduated from Trinity College in 1932, where he studied under Professor Odell Shepard. He continued graduate studies at Yale University, becoming one of the first Jewish students there. His poem “The Three” won the Cook Prize at Yale in 1933.

After working briefly in Brooklyn, where he wrote features for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Plutzik spent a Thoreauvian year in the Connecticut countryside, writing his long poem, Death at The Purple Rim, which earned him another Cook Prize in 1941, the only student to have won the award twice. During World War II he served in the U.S. Army Air Force throughout the American South and near Norwich, England; experiences that inspired many of his poems. After the war, Plutzik became the first Jewish faculty member at the University of Rochester, serving in the English Department as the John H. Deane Professor of English until his death on January 8, 1962. Plutzik’s poems were published in leading poetry publications and literary journals. He also published three collections during his lifetime: Aspects of Proteus (Harper and Row, 1949); Apples from Shinar (Wesleyan University Press, 1959); and Horatio (Atheneum, 1961), all three of which were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. To mark the centennial of his birth, Wesleyan University Press published a new edition of Apples from Shinar in 2011. 

In 2016, Letter from a Young Poet (The Watkinson Library at Trinity College/Books & Books Press) was released, disclosing a young Jewish American man’s spiritual and literary odyssey through rural Connecticut and urban Brooklyn during the turbulent 1930s. In a finely wrought first-person narrative, young Plutzik tells his mentor, Odell Shepard what it means for a poet to live an authentic life in the modern world. The 72-page work was discovered in the Watkinson Library’s archives among the papers of Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar, Professor Odell Shepard, Plutzik’s collegiate mentor in the 1930s. It was featured in a 2011 exhibition at Trinity commemorating the Plutzik centenary.

For further information, visit hyamplutzikpoetry.com.

​Hyam Plutzik nació en Brooklyn el 13 de julio de 1911, hijo de inmigrantes recién llegados de lo que ahora es Bielorrusia. Habló solo el yídish, el hebreo y el ruso hasta la edad de siete años, cuando se matriculó en la escuela primaria cerca de Southbury, Connecticut, donde sus padres tenían una granja. Plutzik se graduó en Trinity College en 1932. Continuó sus estudios de posgrado en la Universidad de Yale, llegando a ser en uno de los primeros estudiantes judíos allí. Su poema “The Three” ganó el Premio Cook en Yale en 1933. 

Tras haber trabajado un breve período en Brooklyn, Plutzik pasó un año thoreauviano en la campiña de Connecticut, escribiendo el poema Death at The Purple Rim, que le valió otro premio Cook en 1941. Durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial sirvió en la Fuerzas Aéreas del Ejército de los Estados Unidos en el Sur Estadounidense y en Norwich, Inglaterra; experiencias que servirían como inspiración para muchos de sus poemas. Después de la guerra, Plutzik se convirtió en el primer miembro del cuerpo docente judío en la Universidad de Rochester, donde ocupó la Cátedra John H. Deane en la Facultad de Inglés hasta su muerte el 8 de enero de 1962. Los poemas de Plutzik fueron publicados en destacadas revistas literarias y antologías oéticas. También publicó tres colecciones durante su vida: Aspects of Proteus (Harper y Row, 1949); Apples from Shinar (Wesleyan University Press, 1959); y Horatio (Atheneum, 1961), el cual lo convirtió en finalista del Premio Pulitzer de Poesía ese año. Para conmemorar el centenario de su nacimiento, Wesleyan University Press editó una
nueva edición de Apples from Shinar en 2011.

En 2016, se lanzó Letter from a Young Poet (The Watkinson Library at Trinity College/Books & Books Press) que revelaba la odisea espiritual y literaria de un joven judío estadounidense por el Connecticut rural y la Brooklyn urbana durante los turbulentos años treinta. En una narración de primera persona finamente forjada, el joven Plutzik le dice a su mentor, Odell Shepard, lo que significa para un poeta vivir una vida auténtica en el mundo moderno. La obra fue descubierta en los archivos de la Biblioteca Watkinson entre los papeles del profesor Odell Shepard, ganador del premio Pulitzer y mentor universitario de Plutzik, y tuvo un papel destacado en una exposición que conmemoró en 2011 el Centenario del poeta.

Para mayor información, visite hyamplutzikpoetry.com.​

​Pablo Brescia was born in Buenos Aires and has lived in the United States since 1986. He has published three books of short stories: La derrota de lo real/The Defeat of the Real (USA/Mexico, 2017), Fuera de Lugar/Out of Place (Peru, 2012/Mexico, 2013) and La apariencia de las cosas/The Appearance of Things (México, 1997), and a book of hybrid texts No hay tiempo para la poesía/NoTime for Poetry. He teaches Latin American Literature at the University of South Florida.

Pablo Brescia nació en Buenos Aires y reside en Estados Unidos desde 1986. Publicó los libros de cuentos La derrota de lo real (USA/México, 2017), Fuera de lugar (Lima, 2012; México 2013) y La apariencia de las cosas (México, 1997). También, con el seudónimo de Harry Bimer, dio a conocer los textos híbridos de No hay tiempo para la poesía (Buenos Aires, 2011). Es crítico literario y profesor en la Universidad del Sur de la Florida (Tampa).

Ximena Gómez, a Colombian poet, translator and psychologist, lives in Miami. She has published: Habitación con moscas (Ediciones Torremozas, Madrid 2016), Último día / Last Day, a bilingual poetry book (Katakana Editores 2019). She is the translator of George Franklin’s bilingual poetry book, Among the Ruins / Entre las ruinas (Katakana Editores, Miami 2018). She was a finalist in “The Best of the Net” award and the runner up for the 2019 Gulf Stream poetry contest.

Ximena Gómez, colombiana, poeta, traductora y psicóloga vive en Miami. Ha publicado: Habitación con moscas (Ediciones Torremozas, Madrid 2016), Último día / Last Day, poemario bilingüe (Katakana Editores 2019). Es traductora del poemario bilingüe de George Franklin Among the Ruins / Entre las ruinas (Katakana Editores, Miami 2018). Fue finalista al concurso “The Best of the Net” y obtuvo el segundo lugar en el 2019, en el concurso anual de Gulf Stream.

George B. Henson is a literary translator and assistant professor of Spanish Translation at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. His translations include works by some of Latin America’s most important literary figures, including Cervantes Prize laureates Elena Poniatowska and Sergio Pitol, as well as works by Andrés Neuman, Miguel Barnet, Juan Villoro, Leonardo Padura, Alberto Chimal, and Carlos Pintado. Writing in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Ignacio Sánchez Prado called him “one of the most important literary translators at work in the United States today.” In addition to his work as translator and academic, he serves as a contributing editor for World Literature Today and Latin American Literature Today.

George B. Henson es un traductor literario y profesor de traducción en el Middlebury Institute of International Studies en Monterey. Sus traducciones incluyen obras de algunas de las figuras literarias más destacadas de América Latina, entre ellas las galardonadas con el Premio Cervantes Elena Poniatowska y Sergio Pitol, así como las
obras de Andrés Neuman, Miguel Barnet, Juan Villoro, Leonardo Padura, Alberto Chimal y Carlos Pintado. Escribiendo en la Los Angeles Review of Books, Ignacio Sánchez Prado lo calificó como “uno de los más importantes traductores literarios en ejercicio en los Estados Unidos hoy en día”. Además de su labor como traductor y académico, es editor colaborador para las revistas World Literature Today y Latin American Literature Today.

Rhina P. Espaillat is a Dominican-born bilingual poet, essayist, short story writer, translator, and former English teacher in New York City’s public high schools. She has published twelve books, five chapbooks, and a monograph on translation. She has earned numerous national and international awards, and is a founding member of the Fresh Meadows Poets of NYC and the Powow River Poets of Newburyport, MA. Her most recent works are three poetry collections: And After All, The Field, and Brief Accident of Light: A Day in Newburyport, co-authored with Alfred Nicol.

Rhina P. Espaillat, dominicana de nacimiento y bilingüe, es poeta, ensayista, cuentista y traductora, y fue por varios años maestra de inglés en las escuelas públicas secundarias de New York. Ha publicado doce libros, cinco libros de cordel, y una monografía sobre la traducción. Ha ganado varios premios nacionales e internacionales, y fue fundadora del grupo Fresh Meadows Poets en NYC y el grupo Powow River Poets en Newburyport. Sus obras más recientes son tres poemarios: And After All, The Field, y una collaboración con el poeta Alfred Nicol, Brief Accident of Light: A Day in Newburyport.​

​Reconocimiento 
 
Hacía bocetos.
Aquí y allá una palabra.
Después todo fue simple,
un fuego interior que lo consumió de golpe.
Al poco tiempo, un exilio impuesto.
Después un cambio de fotografías
y un borrón en la fecha de nacimiento.
Bordes geográficos desvaneciéndose y confundidos
en garabatos infantiles, y voces,
voces infinitas en asedio.
Esperas.
Reconstruyes tu perfil y tu acento,
vuelves a entrar en tu pasado,
permaneces en uno de sus rincones,
recorres los barrios de sus excesos,
y nunca eres un huésped inoportuno,
eso nunca te lo perdonarías.
 

 
Recognition 
 
He made sketches.
Here and there a word.
Later on it was all-simple:
an inner fire gobbled him up.
A little later, an imposed exile,
Later on, different photographs
and a blotch over his birthdate.
Geographic lines faded and interchanged
over infantile scribbles, and voices,
infinite voices laying siege.
You wait.
You redesign your profile and your accent,
you reach the past,
you settle into one of its corners,
you stroll the neighborhood of your excesses,
and you're not an inopportune guest,
you'd never forgive yourself that.

​El oratorio de Aurelia 
 
La primera mirada es una mano en movimiento. Una gaveta se abre, otra se cierra, y así combinaciones imposibles del cuerpo. Un trapecio de lo familiar, del perchero y la colcha de la abuela. Cortinas donde se esconde la niñez, esas cortinas rojas del teatro, y el show del circo imaginario para mayores de ocho años. Sabiduría del acróbata y del pintor en su gotear de rojos y esos verdes y esos amarillos. Casi se pueden tocar. Entonces, los waltzes pirotécnicos, los abrigos y vestidos con vida propia, la música de acordeón, tangojazz, y trombón, eso parece. Y cuando todo se ha vuelto un Magritte, el timbre de un móvil desata una pelea violenta entre los otros, audiencia de marionetas crueles.
 
Fin de la primera parte.
 

Aurelia's Oratorio
  
At first glance, it's a hand in motion. A drawer opens, another closes, and thereby impossible body combinations. A trapeze of the familiar, of the hanger and Grandma's bedspread. Curtains where childhood hides, those red curtains of the theater, and the show of the imaginary circus for those over eight. Wisdom of the acrobat and the painter in his splashing of reds and those greens and those yellows. You can almost touch them. Then the pyrotechnic waltzes, the coats and dresses coming to life, accordion music, tangojazz and trombone, that's what it's like. And when everything has turned into a Magritte, the ring of a cellphone unleashes a violent fight among the others, audience of cruel marionettes.
 
End of part one.
 
 
The poem “Aurélia’s Oratorio” alludes to the theater piece of the same name, a combination of a magic surreal show and acrobatics created and directed by Victoria Thierrée Chaplin that her daughter Aurélia Thierrée performs with extraordinary mastery and grace in theaters around the world.

Nueve poemas para Charlotte
 
1. Agrietadas de pasión, las manos del titiritero descansan.
Sólo en un pestañear, las marionetas se mueven y se confunden,
y se enredan en sus cuerdas. Conmoción de un instante.
  
2. Dentro del armario, la sombra de un antiguo Pinocchio es una marca
perenne. Así se hace la memoria y eso es lo mejor de todo, dejar que
el corazón se fragmente con el tacto. Lo inexistente ha dejado un recuento.
  
3. Sus labios en una taza de té. Un sabor verde de Himalayas
se confunde con la vasija terracota curtida por el uso.
Capas y capas de residuos, testigos impregnados en el barro.
Pone a un lado su diario. Mapa Mundi.
  
4. Su nombre reaparece en diferentes formas. En caligrafía es trazo
llamado Tao. Su efímera inscripción lleva la espiritualidad de los sentidos.
Digo y cuento, aunque raras veces es también toque de inscripción propia.
  
5. Puertas hinchadas de aguas a destiempo, como si la torrencial lluvia se hubiese vuelto un dulce y pegajozo delirio mientras observas las vestiduras extraviadas de la madera. En la ventana, una silente figura vacila. Y de pronto, el espacio de sonidos se confunde con grises, blancos y verdes.
Lo de afuera entra y roza tus manos.
  
6. Ella, la que eres tú en ciertos días, deja un rastro de bruma y se reclina sobre varios senderos. Atrapar lo inasible se vuelve aquí furor y apatía.
  
7. Pasas bordeando voces. No quieres quedarte en la orilla de la muerte.
Como un animal ebrio de miedo te enroscas hasta que la lluvia cese.
Palabras en desorden. Trabalenguas.
  
8. Tú misma eres una abstracción. Todos los remedios disolviéndose. Noches de insomnio cercanas a la locura. Así tu cuerpo. Las treguas conjuradas. La parálisis un abismo de telas. La corrugada pesantez de tu espalda mancillada por bloques terapeúticos.
  
9. Mientras intocable hasta en la palabra, la presión de dedos y el aire denso de lugar a lugar, a tus labios coarteados les frotas unas gotas de miel y los pules como si fueran un desgarrón purpúreo. Así tus huesos, nervaduras de sombras chinescas lanzadas al piso. Tú.
 


​Nine Poems for Charlotte 

1. Cracked by passion, the puppeteer’s hands rest.
With only a blink, the marionettes move and are baffled,
and get tangled in their cords. The commotion of an instant.
  
2. Inside the wardrobe, the shadow of an ancient Pinocchio
is a perennial imprint. This is how memory is made and that’s the best of it
all, to allow the heart into pieces if touched. The non-existent has left a trace.
  
3. Her lips sipping a cup of tea. A Himalayas’ green flavor
is fused with the terracotta cup stained by use.
Residual layers and layers, witnesses impregnated in the clay.
She puts aside her diary. Mapa Mundi.
  
4. Her name reappears in different ways. In calligraphy it’s a pen stroke
called Tao. Its ephemeral inscription carries the spirituality of the senses.
I say and tell, although rarely it’s also a touch of self-inscription.
  
5. Doors swollen by untimely waters, as if the torrential rain had become
a sweet and clinging frenzy while you observes the lost garments of the
wood. In the window, a silent figure hesitates. And suddenly, the space of
sounds blends with grays, whites and greens.
The outside comes in and grazes your hands.
  
6. She, the one you are on certain days, leaves a trace of mist and bends,
over several paths. Here to grasp the unreachable is fury and apathy.
  
7. You stroll around voices. Not wanting to remain on the verge of death.
Like an animal drunk with fear you huddle until the rain stops.
Words in disorder. Tongue Twisters.
  
8. You are yourself an abstraction. All solutions are dissolving.
Nights of insomnia close to madness. So is your body. Conjured ceasefires.
Paralysis, an abyss of cloths. The corrugated and heaviness of your back
sullied by therapeutic blocks.
 
9. While untouchable even by words, the pressure of fingers and the
misty air from place to place, onto your cracked lips you rub some drops of
honey and you polish them like a purplish tear. And your bones, too, Chinese
shadows nervures tossed on the floor. You.

Bosques de Bélgica 
 
Voz suelta. Pura respiración.
Labios de breves heridas.
Después, un tañido.
 
Boca sobre el metal. Voz hueca
y los labios un pico abierto de pájaro.
El aire es murmullos, rumores, silbidos,
y marca permanente en la cámara interio.
Rapidez del movimiento de la vara, privilegio de una mano.
La mano tiene forma de U. Es una U.
 
En el cielo de Berkeley hay pocas nubes,
decías lentamente.
Cierto, el aerófono es latón ligero,
tríptico en un cuadro donde un trombón de vara
parece pájaro en vuelo y alas de ángel.
 
¿Quién recuerda el nombre del cuadro?
¿Cómo se llamaba el pintor?

 
Belgian Forests 
 
Voice unleashed. Pure breathing.
Lips of brief wounds.
Then, a note.
 
Mouth to metal. Hollow voice
and lips a bird's open beak.
The air murmurs, whispers, whistles,
and permanently marks the inner chamber.
Rapidity of the valve's movement
privilege of a hand.
The hand is U shaped. It’s a U.
 
In the Berkeley sky, here are few clouds,
you were saying slowly.
True, the aerophone is a light brass
triptych in a painting where a valved trombone
looks like a bird in flight, and angel wings.
 
Who remembers what the painting is called?
What was the painter's name?

​Carlota Caulfield is a Cuban-born American poet, writer, translator and literary critic. She has published extensively in English and Spanish in the United States, Latin America and Europe. Her most recent poetry books are Cuaderno Neumeister / The Neumeister Notebook (2016) and Los juguetes de Bertrand / Bertrand’s Toys (2019). She is the recipient of several awards, among them The International Poetry Prize Dulce María Loynaz and The Ultimo Novecento, Poets of the World. Caulfield has also published
widely on Argentine poet Alejandra Pizarnik, as well as on other Latin American and Latinx poets, including Magali Alabau and Juana Rosa Pita. She is the co-editor of A Companion to US Latino Literatures (2012 &2014) and Barcelona, Visual Culture, Space & Power (2012 & 2014). She is Professor of Spanish and Spanish American Studies at Mills College, Oakland, California. 

​Mary G. Berg, a Resident Scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University, Boston, Massachusetts, has translated poetry by Juan Ramón Jiménez, Clara Roderos, Marjorie Agosín and Carlota Caulfield and novels by Martha Rivera (I’ve Forgotten Your Name), Laura Riesco (Ximena at the Crossroads), Libertad Demitropulos (River of Sorrows). Her most recent translations are of collections of stories by Olga Orozco and Laidi Fernández de Juan.

MEMORIAL


for  Woody  McGriff, dancer
1957-94

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed....
-- W.B. Yeats

​
An obsidian wing glanced my shoulder
Amid the languid trance of cicadas
Seething in the midday heat.

It fluttered like an errant leaf
And summoned the splendor of your dance,
Flight frozen like a Rodin bronze,
Fixed by a flash of incorruptible light.

But the heavy tide drew you under,
The once supple leaps reduced
To a lumber toward a distant sea.

the pull of the road

            The land was dry yet green, mountainous and heavy with vineyards.  From a mere look I awoke and my thoughts were pulled open which had remained closed for so long.  For what I saw, I never did rest.  The road from Valparaíso to Santiago, beautiful and peaceful—a calming magnificence…

pebbled bridge
ridged like a wall,

connecting mountainside
to mountainside

––

a lane by the
highway to itself,

a horse pulling a

wagon carrying bags
stuffed and a hatted man

––

dusty hilly,

a shack town in
the range and trees

––

standing to stretch to touch
their toes alongside the road,

a couple guy ramblers
study their options,

burn dry in the open sun

––

flying as if
two wings,

the speed of the motorcycle
two wheels

––

a bus on the shoulder,
backside open and

luggage tossed and
flipped and sorted

––

making the hilltop taller,

the posture of pines
points to and is the sky

––

a lone cow on
the hill range slant,

a black spot in
the green of bush

and brown of dust

––

strolling a stroller and risky,

a woman push baby
down highway middle

––

the eyes at
her car unhappy,

the hood up
the engine smoking

––

mountains rocky become
mountains green,

the change through
the tunnel pass

––

the valley of vineyards,

straight line and many file
and endless patch and around

a mountain circle hugs

––

a house flat on
a mountain summit,

built to survey to impress

––

clear sky to the south,
cloud thick to the north

mountains grow taller,
tops grow fainter

––

four walls no roof of

a shack halfway down
a sloping hill slide,

privileged view and abandoned

––

the big blue in the valley,
a lagoon waters rows of

identical but colorful
planned homes and towns

––

the might of the snowy

andes pokes through the
santiago thrown up smog

over the distance
  
≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈
  

light in a shroud of fog
  
’Tis a sea change...know I not
to what sea to what change...


passing through the alley, a pretty
vine covered house and a sun low
morning, crisp air wakes

––

collapsed over the moor brick tangled
in weeds a lavender blossom among
lavender wilting, a bush passes its season

––

a brief wind, quivering the
trumpet vine drops its extant bloom to
the pavement, rose sallow skin

––

bobbing in the sea in
shimmers, city light in
evening, swallows in fog

––

tidy in bed of hills
blanket of clouds, morning
city white in flat waters

––

fresh lemonade and brownies,
a first day of work for
three young girls, sunday smiles

            I woke naturally at an hour earlier than custom.  The dimness evaporating into lightness, I was helpless.  I am a man of my day and affected by a recent encounter…

in a chilly haze hovering,
coming on a dim light
rising, the morning a wing

––

a face to the over bay sun adrift
into mist alone on the rooftop
a flower full in bloom, others anon

––

a pale blue sky over a flood
rich earth, a light fine white
sun passing, rain clouds clearing

––

on tiptoes on rooftop in window
peeking, wee bird a chirp and
bright morning sun yonder

––

a tree sawn bare, branch once
rested on roof rested on earth,
torn leaves wither

––

sun in a fog setting,
clouds charcoal and withering
sky blooms, blasts magenta

––

the autumn sun leaves
waves of rose tint
evanescent, a memory lingers

            The weeks of ending autumn and the leaves of the tree had changed to a sunbeam yellow.  A pool of leaves lay crisp and clean at the wind of the alley below.  I reached down and grabbed some like gold.  The gold slipped from my hand back to the pool.  It made the walk down to the bottom of the hill inviting…

beneath a ginkgo bearing
gifts golden leaf collects,
a pool of sun afoot

––

in brisk pierce of winter
sweet tingling scent, spring
to bloom lavender bud

––

a spray of rain, atop
a bump of a hill,
a snow of pink blossom

––

a cloud soft couch on a sunny day,
was fogged over as I crossed
the hill to the day off café

​Gonzalo Adolfo, an American of Bolivian descent, the author of the short novels, No Rush For Goldand Golden Rushes, has published several volumes of photographic portraits of his travels;Cuchi Cuchi Time: a Portrait of Los Cabos is the most recent. He can be found in and around Berkeley, California, where he lives, sketching with graphite and other materials and dabbling in music–pairing the harmonica with the Bolivian charango is his current favorite diversion. Gone To War, his first volume of poetry, and his other works are available in hardcover and e-book on his website, www.bumhew.com.