El Día Internacional de la Mujer: Poemas / International Women’s Day: Poems

. . .

Qiu Jin ( 秋瑾 1875-1907, Chinese revolutionary and poet)
Capping Rhymes With Sir Shih Ching From Sun’s Root Land
.
Don’t tell me women
are not the stuff of heroes –
I alone rode over the East Sea’s
winds for ten thousand leagues.
My poetic thoughts ever expand,
like a sail between ocean and heaven.
I dreamed of your three islands,
all gems, all dazzling with moonlight.
I grieve to think of the bronze camels,
guardians of China, lost in thorns.
Ashamed, I have done nothing;
not one victory to my name.
I simply make my war horse sweat.
Grieving over my native land
hurts my heart. So tell me:
how can I spend these days here?
A guest enjoying your spring winds?
. . .
Qiu Jin
Crimson Flooding into the River
(Translation from Mandarin: Michael A. Mikita III)
.
Just a short stay at the Capital
But it is already the mid-autumn festival
Chrysanthemums infect the landscape
Fall is making its mark
The infernal isolation has become unbearable here
All eight years of it make me long for my home
It is the bitter guile of them forcing us women into femininity
–We cannot win!
Despite our ability, men hold the highest rank
But while our hearts are pure, those of men are rank
My insides are afire in anger at such an outrage
How could vile men claim to know who I am?
Heroism is borne out of this kind of torment
To think that so putrid a society can provide no camaraderie
Brings me to tears!

. . .

Mina Loy (1882-1966, Anglo-American modernist poet)
Religious Instruction
.
This misalliance
follows the custom
for female children
to adhere to maternal practices
.
while the atheist father presides over
the prattle of the churchgoer
with ironical commentary from his arm-chair.
.
But by whichever
religious route
to brute
reality
our forebears speed us
.
there is often a pair
of idle adult
accomplices in duplicity
to impose upon their brood
.
an assumed acceptance
of the grace of God
defamed as human megalomania
.
seeding the Testament
with inconceivable chastisement,
.
and of Christ
who
come with his light
of toilless lilies
To say “fear
not, it is I”
wanting us to be fearful;
.
He who bowed the ocean tossed
with holy feet
which supposedly dead
.
are suspended over head
neatly crossed in anguish
wounded with red
varnish.
.
From these
slow-drying bloods of mysticism
mysteriously
the something-soul emerges
miserably,
.
and instinct (of economy)
in every race
for reconstructing débris
has planted an avenging face
in outer darkness.

…..

The lonely peering eye
of humanity
looked into the Néant
and turned away.

…..

Ova’s consciousness
impulsive to commit itself to justice
—to arise and walk
its innate     straight way
out of the
accident of circumstance—
.
collects the levitate chattels
of its will and makes for the
magnetic horizon of liberty
with the soul’s foreverlasting
opposition
to disintegration.
.
So this child of Exodus
with her heritage of emigration
often
“sets out to seek her fortune”
in her turn
trusting to terms of literature
dodging the breeders’ determination
not to return “entities sent on consignment”
by their maker Nature
except in a condition
of moral
effacement;

Lest Paul and Peter
never
notice the creatures
ever had had Fathers
and Mothers.
.
They were disgraced in their duty
should such spirits
take an express passage
through the family bodies
to arrive at Eternity
as lovely as they originally
promised.
.
So on whatever days
she chose to “run away”
the very
street corners of Kilburn
close in upon Ova
to deliver her
into the hands of her procreators.
.
Oracle of civilization:
‘Thou shalt not live by dreams alone
but by every discomfort
that proceedeth out of
legislation’.
. . .
Mina Loy’s “Religious Instruction” from Lunar Baedeker and Times-Tables copyright The Jargon Society, 1958.

. . .
Mina Loy
No hay Vida o Muerte
.
No hay vida ni muerte,
sólo actividad.
Y en lo absoluto
no hay declive.
No hay amor ni deseo,
sólo la tendencia.
Quien quiera poseer
es una no entidad.
No hay primero ni último,
sólo igualdad.
Y quien quiera dominar
es uno más en la totalidad.
No hay espacio ni tiempo,
sólo intesidad.
Y las cosas dóciles
no tienen inmensidad.
.
Traducción del inglés: Michelle (de MujerPalabra)
. . .
Mina Loy
There is no Life or Death
.
There is no Life or Death
Only activity
And in the absolute
Is no declivity.
There is no Love or Lust
Only propensity
Who would possess
Is a nonentity.
There is no First or Last
Only equality
And who would rule
Joins the majority.
There is no Space or Time
Only intensity,
And tame things
Have no immensity.
. . .

Marge Piercy (nac.1936, EE.UU. / poeta, novelista, activista social)
Ser útil
.
Aquellos que yo amo mejor
se meten de cabeza en su trabajo
sin demorar en el bajío;
y nadan ahí fuera con brazadas seguras,
casi fuera de la vista.
Parecen ser nativos de eso elemento,
las cabezas negras lisas de focas
que rebotan como balones semi-sumergidos.
.
Me gustan los que se enjaezan: bueyes a una carreta pesada;
búfalos de agua que jalan con un temple masivo,
que tensan en el barro y la ciénaga para avanzar las cosas;
quienes que hacen lo que debe hacer, una y otra vez.
.
Quiero estar con la gente que se sumergir en la tarea;
que va en los sembríos para cosechar;
que trabaja en línea y que difunde los costales;
hombres y mujeres que no son generales del salón y desertores del deber
sino mueven en un ritmo común
cuando tiene que traer el alimento o necesita apagar el fuego.
.
La tarea del mundo es algo común, generalizado, como el barro.
Si hacemos una chapuza, embadurna las manos y se desmigaja al polvo.
Pero la cosa bien hecha
tiene la forma que complace, algo limpio, sencillo, evidente.
Ánforas griegos por el vino o el aceite,
y jarrones por el maíz del pueblo hopi,
están colocados en museos
– pero sabes que eran cosas hechas para utilizar.
El jarro llora por el agua a llevar
y la persona por el trabajo que es auténtico.

. . .
Del poemario Circles on the Water © 1982 / Traducción del inglés:  Alexander Best

. . .
Marge Piercy (born 1936, American poet, novelist, social activist)
To be of use
.
The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.
.
I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.
.
I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlour generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.
.
The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

. . .

Marge Piercy
Para las mujeres fuertes
.
Una mujer fuerte es una mujer esforzada.
Una mujer fuerte es una mujer que se sostiene de puntillas
y levanta unas pesas mientras intenta cantar Boris Godunov…
Una mujer fuerte es una mujer “manos a la obra”
limpiando el pozo negro de la historia.

Y mientras saca la porquería con la pala
habla de que no le importa llorar,
porque abre los conductos de los ojos…
Ni vomitar, porque estimula los músculos del estómago…
Y sigue dando paladas, con lágrimas en la nariz.

Una mujer fuerte es una mujer con una voz en la cabeza,
que le repite: “Te lo dije: sos fea, sos mala, sos tonta…
nadie más te va a querer nunca”.
“¿Por qué no eres femenina,
por qué no eres suave y discreta…
por qué no estás muerta…?“

Una mujer fuerte es una mujer empeñada
en hacer algo que los demás están empeñados en que no se haga.
Está empujando la tapa de plomo de un ataúd desde adentro.
Está intentando levantar con la cabeza la tapa de una alcantarilla.
Está intentando romper una pared de acero a cabezazos…

Le duele la cabeza.
La gente que espera a que haga el agujero,
le dice:”date prisa…¡eres tan fuerte…!”

Una mujer fuerte es una mujer que sangra por dentro.
Una mujer fuerte es una mujer que se hace a sí misma.
Fuerte cada mañana mientras se le sueltan los dientes
y la espalda la destroza.
“Cada niño, un diente…”, solían decir antes.
Y ahora “por cada batalla… una cicatriz”.

Una mujer fuerte es una masa de cicatrices
que duelen cuando llueve.
Y de heridas que sangran cuando se las golpea.
Y de recuerdos que se levantan por la noche
y recorren la casa de un lado a otro, calzando botas…

Una mujer fuerte es una mujer que ansía el amor
como si fuera oxígeno, para no ahogarse…
Una mujer fuerte es una mujer que ama con fuerza
y llora con fuerza…
Y se aterra con fuerza y tiene necesidades fuertes…

Una mujer fuerte es fuerte en palabras, en actos,
en conexión, en sentimientos…
No es fuerte como la piedra
sino como la loba amamantando a sus cachorros.
La fuerza no está en ella,
pero la representa como el viento llena una vela.

Lo que la conforta es que los demás la amen,
tanto por su fuerza como por la debilidad de la que ésta emana,
como el relámpago de la nube.
El relámpago deslumbra, llueve, las nubes se dispersan
Sólo permanece el agua de la conexión, fluyendo con nosotras.
Fuerte es lo que nos hacemos unas a otras.

Hasta que no seamos fuertes juntas
una mujer fuerte es una mujer fuertemente asustada…

. . .

Traducción del inglés:  Desconocida/o

. . .
Marge Piercy
For strong women

.
A strong woman is a woman who is straining.
A strong woman is a woman standing
on tiptoe and lifting a barbell
while trying to sing Boris Godunov.
A strong woman is a woman at work
cleaning out the cesspool of the ages,
and while she shovels, she talks about
how she doesn’t mind crying, it opens
the ducts of the eyes, and throwing up
develops the stomach muscles, and
she goes on shoveling with tears
in her nose.
.
A strong woman is a woman in whose head
a voice is repeating: I told you so,
ugly, bad girl, bitch, nag, shrill, witch,
ballbuster, nobody will ever love you back,
why aren’t you feminine, why aren’t
you soft, why aren’t you quiet, why
aren’t you dead?
.
A strong woman is a woman determined
to do something others are determined
not be done. She is pushing up on the bottom
of a lead coffin lid. She is trying to raise
a manhole cover with her head, she is trying
to butt her way through a steel wall.
Her head hurts. People waiting for the hole
to be made say: hurry, you’re so strong.
.
A strong woman is a woman bleeding
inside. A strong woman is a woman making
herself strong every morning while her teeth
loosen and her back throbs. Every baby,
a tooth, midwives used to say, and now
every battle a scar. A strong woman
is a mass of scar tissue that aches
when it rains and wounds that bleed
when you bump them and memories that get up
in the night and pace in boots to and fro.
.
A strong woman is a woman who craves love
like oxygen or she turns blue choking.
A strong woman is a woman who loves
strongly and weeps strongly and is strongly
terrified and has strong needs. A strong woman is strong
in words, in action, in connection, in feeling;
she is not strong as a stone but as a wolf
suckling her young. Strength is not in her, but she
enacts it as the wind fills a sail.
.
What comforts her is others loving
her equally for the strength and for the weakness
from which it issues, lightning from a cloud.
Lightning stuns. In rain, the clouds disperse.
Only water of connection remains,
flowing through us. Strong is what we make
each other. Until we are all strong together,
a strong woman is a woman strongly afraid.

. . .
Fehmida Riaz (Pakistani poet who writes in Urdu / born 1946, Uttar Pradesh, India)
Come, Let us create a New Lexicon
.
Come let us create a new lexicon
Wherein is inserted before each word
Its meaning that we do not like
And let us swallow like bitter potion
The truth of a reality that is not ours
The water of life bursting forth from this stone
Takes a course not determined by us alone
We who are the dying light of a derelict garden
We who are filled with the wounded pride of self-delusion
We who have crossed the limits of self-praise
We who lick each of our wounds incessantly
We who spread the poisoned chalice all around
Carrying only hate for the other
On our dry lips only words of disdain for the other
We do not fill the abyss within ourselves
We do not see that which is true before our own eyes
We have not redeemed ourselves yesterday or today
For the sickness is so dear that we do not seek to be cured
But why should the many-hued new horizon
Remain to us distant and unattainable?
So why not make a new lexicon
If we emerge from this bleak abyss?
Only the first few footsteps are hard
The limitless expanses beckon us
To the dawning of a new day
We will breathe in the fresh air
Of the abundant valley that surrounds us
We will cleanse the grime of self-loathing from our faces.
To rise and fall is the game time plays
But the image reflected in the mirror of time
Includes our glory and our accomplishments
So let us raise our sight to friendship
And thus glimpse the beauty in every face
Of every visitor to this flower-filled garden
We will encounter ‘potentials’
A word in which you and me are equal
Before which we and they are the same
So come let us create a new lexicon!
. . .

Fehmida Riaz (Poetisa paquistaní, nac. 1946, Uttar Pradesh, India)
¡Ven, creemos un nuevo léxico!
.
¡Ven, creemos un nuevo léxico!
Uno donde el sentido de cada palabra
(que no nos gusta)
está insertado antes.
Y traguemos, como un veneno amargo,
la verdad de una realidad que no es nuestra.
El agua de vida que estalla de esta piedra
conduce un rumbo que nosotros solos no determinamos.
Nosotros – que son la luz murienda de un jardín decrépito;
nosotros – llenos del orgullo herido de nuestras ilusiones;
nosotros – que han superado los límites del autobombo;
nosotros – que lamen cada herida nuestra sin cesar;
nosotros – que hacen circular el cáliz envenenado,
nosotros – que llevan del uno al otro solo el odio,
y, sobre nuestras labias secas, nada más que palabras del desdén.
No llenamos el abismo en el interior;
no vemos con nuestros propios ojos lo que es auténtico en frente de nosotros;
no nos hemos redimido ayer o hoy;
porque nuestra enfermedad es tan preciada que no buscamos un tratamiento.
¿Pero por qué el horizonte de muchos tonos debe permanecernos como
remoto y inalcanzable?
.
Entonces, ¿Por qué no creamos un nuevo léxico?
Si resurgimos de este abismo austero,
solamente las primeras pisadas serán duras.
Las extensiones ilimitadas nos atraen al amanecer de un nuevo día.
Inhalaremos el aire fresco
del valle abundante que nos rodea.
Purificaremos de nuestras caras la mugre de aversión de uno mismo.
El vaivén, el auge y caída – son estos el juego que juega el Tiempo.
Pero la imagen que vemos en el espejo del Tiempo
incluye nuestra gloria también nuestros logros
– pues alcemos la mirada hasta la amistad,
por lo tanto entrever la belleza en cada rostro
de cada visitante en este jardín de muchas flores.
Nos encontraremos con ‘potenciales’,
una palabra en que tú y yo son equitativos;
una palabra en que nosotros y ellos son iguales.
Entonces,
¡Ven, creemos un nuevo léxico!

. . .

Traducción del inglés:  Alexander Best
. . .

Fehmida Riaz
Chador and Char-Diwari
.
Sire! What use is this black chador to me?
A thousand mercies, why do you reward me with this?
.

I am not in mourning that I should wear this
To flag my grief to the world
I am not a disease that needs to be drowned in secret darkness
.

I am not a sinner nor a criminal
That I should stamp my forehead with its darkness
If you will not consider me too impudent
If you promise that you will spare my life
I beg to submit in all humility,
O Master of men!
In your highness’ fragrant chambers
lies a dead body—

Who knows how long it has been rotting?
It seeks pity from you
.

Sire, do be so kind
Do not give me this black chador—

With this black chador cover the shroudless body
lying in your chamber
.

For the stench that emanates from this body
Walks buffed and breathless in every alleyway
Bangs her head on every doorframe
Covering her nakedness
.

Listen to her heart-rending screams
Which raise strange spectres
That remain naked in spite of their chador.
Who are they ? You must know them, Sire.
.

Your highness must recognize them
These are the hand-maidens,
The hostages who are halal for the night.
With the breath of morning they become homeless
They are the slaves who are above
The half-share of inheritance for your
Highness’s off-spring.
.

These are the Bibis
Who wait to fulfill their vows of marriage
In turn, as they stand, row upon row
They are the maidens
On whose heads, when your highness laid a hand
of paternal affection,
The blood of their innocent youth stained the
whiteness of your beard with red.
In your fragrant chamber, tears of blood
life itself has shed
Where this carcass has lain
For long centuries, this body—

spectacle of the murder
of humanity.
.

Bring this show to an end now.
Sire, cover it up now—

Not I, but you need this chador now.
.

For my person is not merely a symbol of your lust:
Across the highways of life, sparkles my intelligence;
If a bead of sweat sparkles on the earth’s brow it is
my diligence.
.

These four walls, this chador I wish upon the
rotting carcass.
In the open air, her sails flapping, races ahead
my ship.
I am the companion of the New Adam
Who has earned my self-assured love.
. . .
Translation form Urdu: Rukhsana Ahmed

. . .
Halima Xudoyberdiyeva (born 1947, Boyovut, Uzbekistan)
Sacred Woman
(Translation from Uzbek: Johanna-Hypatia Cybeleia)

.
Your lovers have thrown flowers at your feet,
In solitude they have tasted honey from your lips,
And they have sold it to anyone at all,
You are sacred anyway, sacred woman.
.
First they came to fill your embrace, and told you to shine
You did not consent, woman, though people said the opposite
Unable to reach you, they turned their faces and called you bitter
You are sacred anyway, sacred woman.
.
You flutter your wings slowly and you lay your head down,
It’s been thousands of years, your eyes sparkle with tears,
A thousand and one criminals will hurt you with stones,
You are sacred anyway, sacred woman.
.
Though you come silently when summoned, though you come uselessly,
Though you come humbly to the drunken circle, though you come pleading to scoundrels,
Though you come oppressed to the scoundrels, though you come humbly,
You are sacred anyway, sacred woman.
.
In fact you’ll have amusements where you go,
Good and bad stories where you go,
You’ll have men like wild horses where you go,
You are sacred anyway, sacred woman.
.
Your silk-perfume body has the marks of stones,
Your bosom has the traces of heads that have leaned there,
You have the remnants of suns whose sun-fire has burned out,
You are sacred anyway, sacred woman.

. . .

Halima Xudoyberdiyeva
Water Flowing in Front of Me
.
To live in ease, to live in torment,
Not uselessly inclined away from you another sky,
My lifetime of hunting for hearts is over with,
There’s not even any thought of you going away.
.
Water flowing in front of me, my unappreciated water,
Enjoying myself for once in my life, I don’t feel relieved.
Ongoing sympathy, my secret water;
Until it dried up, I was not noticed.
.
I tell others don’t go away from me,
I go to find them in the dawn and evening time;
I offend others, telling them don’t show up;
I don’t even think anything about your going away.
.
I ran to others in cities, in towns,
You didn’t turn back or get sarcastic once.
Here I am, I’m the prey; here I am, I’ll go away,
Saying why didn’t you remind me once?
My mother, O my mother?!
. . .

Water Flowing in Front of Me in the original Uzbek:

.

Oldimdan Oqqan Suv
.
Yashamoq farog’at, yashamoq azob,
Bekorga egilmas Sizdan boshqa ko’k,
Ko’ngillarni ovlab umrim bo’pti sob,
Sizning ketishingiz xayolda ham yo’q.
.
Oldimdan oqqan suv, beqadr suvim,
Umrida bir yayrab, yozilmaganim.
Bor turishi shafqat, bori sir suvim,
To qurib qolguncha sezilmaganim.
.
Boshqalar yonimdan ketmasin debman,
Vaqt topib ularga boribman tong-kech,
Boshqalarga ozor yetmasin debman,
Sizga ham yetishin o’ylamabman hech.
.
Boshqalarga chopdim shahar, kentda man,
Bir qaytarib yo bir kesatmadingiz,
Manam g’animatman, manam ketaman,
Deb nechun bir bora eslatmadingiz?
Onam, onam-a?!

. . . . .