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Manuel Maples Arce
Translated from the Spanish by KM Cascia
I'm a still point in the middle of the moment,
equidistant to a star's castaway shout.
A handlebarred park goes shadow numb,
the wound-down moon
oppresses me in shop windows.
                                                       Golden daisies
                                                       wind-plucked.
Rebel city of luminous news
afloat in almanacs,
and where, from time to time,
electricity bleeds in the ironed street.

Insomnia, like a vine,
embraces vert telegraph scaffolds,
and noises pick locks while
night grows thin licking memory.

Yellow silence sounds over my eyes.
Prismal, my diaphonous one, to feel everything!

I left her hands,
but in that gray
train station hour,
her wet words were flung at me,
and a locomotive,
thirsty for distance, snatched her from my arms.

Today her words sound more frozen than ever,
Edison's madness in hands of rain!

The sky an obstacle for an inverted hotel
refracted in shadowed mirror moons;
violins rise like champagne,
and while ears hear early morning,
bony winter shivers on coat racks.

My nerves pour out.
                          Memory's star
shipwrecked in water
of silence.

           You and I,

                       coincide
                       in terrible night,
meditation on a theme
plucked bare in gardens.

Locomotives, shouts,
arsenals, telegraphs.

Love and life
today for Labor,

and everything expands in concentric circles.

 

Prisma

Yo soy un punto muerto en medio de la hora,
equidistante al grito náufrago de una estrella.
Un parque de manubrio se engarrota en la sombra,
y la luna sin cuerda
me oprime en las vidrieras.
                                                    Margaritas de oro
                                                    deshojadas al viento.
La ciudad insurrecta de anuncios luminosos
flota en los almanaques
y allá de tarde en tarde,
por la calle planchada se desangra en eléctrico.

El insomnio, lo mismo que una enredadera,
se abraza a los andamios sinoples de telégrafo,
y mientras que los ruidos descerrajan las puertas,
la noche ha enflaquecido lamiendo su recuerdo.

El silencio amarillo suena sobre mis ojos.
Prismal, diáfana mía, para sentirlo todo!

Yo departí sus manos,
pero en aquella hora
gris de las estaciones,
sus palabras mojadas se me echaron al cuello,
y una locomotora
sedienta de kilómetros la arrancó de mis brazos.

Hoy suenan sus palabras más heladas que nunca,
y la locura de Edison a manos de la lluvia!

El cielo es un obstáculo para el hotel inverso
refractado en las lunas sombrías de los espejos;
los violines se suben corno la champaña,
y mientras las ojeras sondean la madrugada,
el invierno huesoso tirita en los percheros.

Mis nervios se derraman.
                                      La estrella del recuerdo
naufragada en el agua
del silencio.

                          Tú y yo

                                                  coincidimos
                                                  en la noche terrible,
meditación temática
deshojada en jardines.

Locomotoras, gritos,
arsenales, telégrafos.

El amor y la vida
son hoy sindicalistas,

y todo se dilata en círculos concéntricos.

from the book STRIDENTIST POEMS/ World Poetry Books
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