Women poets of Cuba: a selection of poems translated by Margaret Randall
Posted: July 8, 2016 Filed under: A FEW FAVOURITES / UNA MUESTRA DE FAVORITOS, Cuban women poets, English, Georgina Herrera, Lourdes Casal, Rafaela Chacón Nardi, Soleída Ríos, Teresita Fernández, Yolanda Ulloa | Tags: Cuban poets, Cuban women poets of the 20th century Comments Off on Women poets of Cuba: a selection of poems translated by Margaret Randall.
.
Here we feature a selection of poems from the volume
Breaking The Silences: an Anthology of 20th-century Poetry by Cuban Women.
[ The original edition contained biographical introductions and quotations from each poet, with editing by / translations from the Spanish by, Margaret Randall. It was published in 1982 by Pulp Press Book Publishers, Vancouver, B.C., Canada. ]
. . .
Dulce María Loynaz (born 1902)
The Traveller
.
I am like the traveller
who arrives at a port where no one waits for her:
I am the shy traveller who moves
among strange embraces and smiles
which are not for her…
Like the lonely traveller
who raises the collar of her coat
on the great cold wharf…
. . .
Premonition
.
Someone squeezed the juice
of a black fruit from my soul:
It left me bitter and somber
as mist and reeds.
No one touch my bread,
no one drink my water…
Everyone, leave me alone.
I sense something dark and wide
and desolate come over me
like night above the plains…
. . .
Mirta Aguirre (1912-1980)
All may come
.
All may come by the roads
we least suspect.
All may come from within, wordless,
or from without, burning
and breaking itself in us, unexpectedly,
or grow, as certain joys grow,
with no one listening.
And everything may open one day in our hands
with wistful surprise
or with bitter surprise, unarmed, undressed,
with the sadness of he who suddenly
comes face to face with a mirror and doesn’t see himself
and looks at his eyes and fingers
and uselessly searches for his laughter.
And that’s the way it is. All may come
in the most incredibly desired way,
so strangely far
and coming, not come
nor leave when left behind and lost.
And, for that encounter, one must gather poppies,
a sweet bit of skin, peaches or child,
clean for the greeting.
. . .
Certainty
.
I know, friend,
it is all within me as in
a sonorously mute coffer.
All sleeps within me,
tremulously quiet,
and in active rest,
in a brief palpitation of palpitating entrails,
in such sweet presence as to be barely presence at all…
I know, friend,
my friend, blinder than dead serpents,
my friend, softer than overripe fruit:
It is all within me.
.
It is all within me silent, subterranean, fused
in pale stratas of light and silence,
nourishing my life,
growing my life…
.
There are sorrows that wear red in the streets.
There is a pride that screams.
There are joys in colourful dress
and songs that rent the sun.
There are many things, my friend, many things
– my friend, softer than overripe fruit –
at the surface of its skin.
And in me all is
silent,
dimmed,
so silent I can even forget it,
as dimmed as a child dying.
All as in a mutely sonorous coffer
trembling in stillness…
. . .
Digdora Alonso (born 1921)
Two Poems for my Granddaughter
.
1
.
You’ll soon know your name is Vanessa
and then
that Vanessa is the name
of a brilliant butterfly.
Then you’ll learn other words
like
atomic bomb
napalm
apartheid
and we’ll have to tell you
what those words mean as well.
.
2
.
Vanessa asked me what a beggar is
and absentmindedly, thumbing the pages of a book,
I say:
“someone who asks for alms.”|
Then she asks again,
more insistently,
“what is asking for alms?”
.
I put down my book and look at her
I look at her long
I look at her through my tears
I kiss her and kiss her again
and she doesn’t understand why.
.
My granddaughter doesn’t know what a beggar is,
my granddaughter doesn’t understand asking for alms.
I want to run through the streets
congratulating everyone I see.
I want to go out into the streets
knocking at all the doors
and kissing everyone.
I want to go out into the streets.
. . .
Fina García Marruz (born 1923)
I too am now among the others
.
I too am now among the others
who looked at us, and with their air
of such infinite sadness, said “Go on, play”
so as to be alone. And in the lovely dusk
of those park benches, late afternoon,
what did they talk about, please tell,
and who were they?
Grownups, gods, we squirmed.
They seemed so alike, their slow
gaze, their far-off look, like a group
of trees holding an autumn day together.
.
I too am now among the others,
those we taunted from time to time
standing there like dumbells, so tired.
We, the little ones, we who had nothing
watched them unseeing, stunned
by the way they always agreed among themselves.
.
And now
that I have come slowly to their benches
forever one of them,
I too am now among the others,
the adults, the melancholy ones,
how strange, is it not?
. . .
This page too
.
The final wind will tear this page out too,
water will wet its letters til they become
impenetrable as stone, and lily-vane.
Their contours will fade like clouds
– those clouds that can no longer tell us why they move so sadly –
why they lost the key, confused the bond.
. . .
How rudely you speak to me
.
How rudely you speak to me!
Would that I understood
that lonely girl
struggling in a black sea
until exhausted she sinks,
would that I understood
the child devoured without pity
by the marine beast.
And even conciliate
his terrible cry and helplessness
with the untried flower,
in that passionless humility,
the radiance of an infinite blue sky.
. . .
You too
.
You said you were
Life,
not its master.
.
You too are alone.
. . .
Carilda Oliver Labra (born 1924)
Verses for Ana
.
I don’t have your way of staring in a mist
nor your hands like flowers on your lap;
all dead butterflies
and purple family sunsets give me pain…
.
But you, whose sadness is your crutch,
your blondness beneath the apple tree;
you know, nevertheless,
how to console the poor with the word saturday…
.
Where do you get that picture of sugar?
that warm arrangement of festive simplicity?
.
Ah, woman sustained by a musical colour,
how carefully they made your hands, half open…!
. . .
Rafaela Chacón Nardi (born 1926)
*Amelia’s Colour
.
Her delicate way
came from a blue planet
from indigo tinting
shadows or space… Dawn
open to crystal… Her own
way of taking
the first light’s secret
triumphed… And a thousand
formulas of moon and shadow,
of turquoise and of spring.
. . .
*Amelia Palaez, Cuban painter: 1896-1968
. . .
*Zoia
.
Immobile, transparent,
with neither blood nor pulsing vein
the grey gaze spent
Zoia is laid out
with the gentle gesture of a wounded dove.
.
Her tormented skull,
the pupil of her eye asleep in screams.
(When all this has passed
she will return to life
in fruits and grasses.)
.
Naked, immobile, dead,
budding light and shadows,
with her broad smile
surprising life
in triumph over root and hate and death.
.
Immobile, transparent,
with the gentle gesture of a wounded woman…
forever with us,
in you, Zoia, burning
on eternal snow:
Life salutes us!
. . .
*Zoia was a Soviet guerrillera, tortured and murdered by the Nazis. A Heroine of the Great People’s War.
. . .
Cleva Solís (born 1926)
The Road
.
You know the lark
will not abandon me
and so you judge my faith
safe in your lap.
.
I am at peace
because abandonment does not exist.
Only the road exists, only the road.
. . .
The Traveller
.
What do we know of the road
where a traveller
tries to avoid approaching the beggarwoman:
love’s perdition?
.
And so the violin suddenly
shakes off its indolence,
its useless ambiguity,
and takes leave in those
lilies, those roses,
veiled by the wind.
. . .
Teresita Fernández (born 1930)
A Fallen Needle
.
A fallen needle on the pavement,
a rose dried between the pages of a book,
a lofty selfishness…
Who am I? What is my name today?
Loneliness takes my only mirror.
Mole. Mortuary candle. Black snail.
Something like one hundred reduced to zero,
without shadow moving before
or a light within.
Dryness of an antique table.
Everything is too much in this desert.
I think of seeing you again.
Where did the perfume go?
Why does the bird come back
to peck at me?…
. . .
I escape
.
I escape from the anguish of beating
the unredeemed
and of ruminating infinite bitterness…
Agate, agate to my moan,
sphynx before my cry! Being so much
the same, I emerge
from a different pit.
. . .
Our Mother America
(To Cintio Vitier)
.
Grave mother of ours
rankled and sleeping.
Too simple,
my water’s game
cannot sustain your weight
nor comprehend the mystery
of your shore.
Now I think
of your love’s
possible eternity.
America Our Mother
I raise my open song
without the décima so ours
without the softly wailing flute
offering balm to your sorrow.
Newborn queen,
when do they leave you alone
on suicide waters
black with sin.
Upon your clean
mother indian breast,
original and eternal
as a shell,
a firefly,
the husk of an unnamed
brief and perfumed jungle,
place my poem.
. . .
Ugly things (a song)
.
In an old worn out basin
I planted violets for you
and down by the river
with an empty seashell
I found you a firefly.
In a broken bottle
I kept a seashell for you
and, coiled over that rusty fence,
the coral snake flowered
just for you.
Cockroach wing
carried to the ant hill:
that’s how I want them to take me
to the cemetery when I die.
Garbage dump, garbage dump
where nobody wants to look
but if the moon comes out
your tin cans will shine.
If you put a bit of love
into ugly things
you’ll see that sadness
will begin to change colour.
. . .
Georgina Herrera (born 1936)
Birth
.
And so the stork,
that long-leggéd bird of the grand venture,
as of today
stops working.
My reality has left her unemployed.
In the great room
so fabulously and artificially cold,
cornered by the greatest pain
and the greatest joy to come,
I work the miracle.
The Parisian
packs up her long and useless beak,
maternal bag,
her history and both her wings.
Ah, and her old invented journey.
I prefer birthing.
. . .
Reflections
.
Watching my enemy’s corpse passing before my door…
.
My enemy is at peace.
So much so,
that he can’t tell calamity from joy.
Meanwhile…what to do
in my narrow doorway,
back turned on tenderness, seeing
that he doesn’t even bother
to leave by his own account.
They take him.
At the end of this July, as laughter
fades from my mouth,
my enemy is fresh.
I ask:
to what avail
have I longed for this moment
if he can no longer rival me?
My enemy, sightless,
passing before my door, unknowing.
My enemy should be coming in soon
through a wide door,
he’d have the whole silence
of her who pleads a bit.
What a time of shame he’s had
from misunderstanding reduced to insult
to poor revenge consumed.
Better to have been
the two of us here, like this:
braided, the fingers of both hands,
the two of us alive,
working for the good,
loving.
. . .
Lourdes Casal (1936-1981)
Conversation at the Bridgeport train station with an old man who speaks Spanish
(for Salvador Ocasio)
.
Torn coat
dusty shoes
thin white hair
Strange gentleman’s stance
I think: This old man has a Unamuno head.
Trenches rather than furrows
line his olive face.
He speaks haltingly.
Moves his hands slowly.
Sixteen years, he says,
Bridgeport and sixteen years of his life.
Sixteen years without sun
for these colourless trousers
and this bitter weariness
that give his smile a steel hue.
. . .
Now I know
.
Now I know
that distance is three-dimensional.
It’s not true that the space between you and me
can be measured in metres and inches,
as if the streets might cross each other freely,
as if it were easy to hold out your hand.
.
This is a solid, robust distance,
and the absence is total,
complete;
in spite of the illusory possibility
of the telephone
it is thick, and long, and wide.
. . .
I live in Cuba
.
I live in Cuba.
I’ve always lived in Cuba.
Even when I thought I existed
far from the painful crocodile
I have always lived in Cuba.
Not on the easy island
of violent
blues
and superb palms
but on the other,
the one that raised its head
on Hatuey’s indomitable breath,
that grew
in passages and conspiracies;
that staggers and moves forward
in the building of socialism;
the Cuba whose heroic people lived through the sixties
and did not falter;
who has been
darkly, silently
making history
and remaking herself.
. . .
Magaly Sánchez (born 1940)
End of the First Act: Ovation for Théroigne de Mericourt*
.
The tricolour badge sings audacity on her hat,
pistol and knife at her waist,
her fingers threatening the enemy,
shouting, bread in her throat,
today as it rains water and
Revolution in Paris.
Théroigne de Mericourt
agitates the violent ladies of Liberty
(kitchen wenches, raging mamas,
a few of the concerned bourgeoisie),
and she captains the march of Justice
to the Royal Palace.
Théroigne de Mericourt advances,
the jubilant one, the actress,
Théroigne de Mericourt
in her best rôle of the season.
. . .
* Ana Josefa de Trevagne. An actress known for her talent and beauty. During the French Revolution she took part in the armed struggle, organizing a battalion of women.
. . .
Nancy Morejón (born 1944)
Woman in a Tobacco Factory
.
A woman in a tobacco factory wrote
a poem to death.
Between the smoke and the twisted leaves on the racks
she said she saw the world in Cuba.
It was 1999…
In her poem
she touched flowers
weaving a magic carpet
that flew over Revolution Square.
In her poem
this woman touched tomorrow’s days.
In her poem
there were no shadows but powerful lamps.
In her poem, friends,
Miami was not there nor split families,
neither was misery
nor ruin
nor violations of the labour law.
There was no interest in the stock exchange,
no usury.
In her poem there was a militant wisdom, languid intelligence.
Discipline and assemblies were there
in her poem,
blood boiling out of the past,
livers and hearts.
Her poem
was a treatise in people’s economy.
In it were all the desires and all the anxiety
of any revolutionary, her contemporaries.
A woman in a tobacco factory
wrote a poem
to the agony of capitalism.
Yes sir.
But neither her comrades nor her neighbours
guessed the essence of her life.
And they never knew about
the poem.
She had hidden it, surely and delicately,
along with some caña santa and cáñamo leaves
between the pages of a leather-bound volume of
José Martí.
Minerva Salado (born 1944)
The News
.
All arguments break down before the news.
The church remains to offer an ave maría,
its brief tower searching the hollow space of loneliness,
who knows: perhaps a gothic paradise
hidden beneath the monks’ skirts.
It seems that deep among the minor bourgeoisie
there’s always some adverse sentiment;
Marx predicted escapism and flight,
but lovers don’t,
those still anxious and hopeful witnesses.
Now where we move at this implacable spot
a collection of intentions will flower,
another word in your vocabulary,
a song repeated by multiple jugglers,
a new place for a poem in peace
– innocence, the sinuous noun,
language’s useless home.
. . .
Special Report for International Women’s Day
.
A woman is on fire.
She’s twenty and her body goes up in flames.
Her belly pulsates
her white breasts embraced and upright
her hips dance
her thighs simmer.
Anh Dai’s body
is burning.
But it’s not love.
It’s napalm.
. . .
Excilia Saldaña (born 1946)
Autobiography II
.
If we have to begin I want to tell you everything;
it’s not worth keeping it secret anymore.
I was born one August 7th, in 1946,
a year and a day after Hiroshima
(remember? our neighbour’s great achievement).
I was born because all attempts at abortion failed.
And because I was stubborn, even in that
my father was a playboy
(that’s what they called them in those days,
when the son of the family was a no-good-bastard).
Well, it wasn’t his fault,
like it wasn’t his fault that he smoked marijuana,
gambled and screwed around.
Imagine the context:
my trembling mother,
the proverbial cavity.
The thing is – as I was saying –
my father was a bit of a playboy…
And I was born.
When they saw me everyone knew what I’d be:
my mother, a doctor;
my grandfather, a druggist (the family name);
my grandmother, a teacher.
The dog barked; maybe she wanted me to be a bitch…
I grew chubby and cross-eyed,
abominably silly,
samaritan by vocation,
sister of charity, guardian angel
to birds, cockroaches and beggars.
And one fine day, when my
“high-yalla” future was all but set,
The Revolution came to power
(yes, I know you know all about
Agrarian Reform and Socialism).
.
I’m not going to talk about that,
but about my small anonymous life
collecting bullets and buttons,
listening to the arguments of the adults.
I want you to know I didn’t understand a thing,
but Fidel’s hoarse voice sent shivers down my spine.
I want to tell you my father slapped my face
the day I shouted “Homeland or Death!”
(Can you understand what that means
when there’s never been an embrace?)
I want to tell you the blue birds are moulting,
there’s unjustified mourning this tedious dawn.
The gods are so angry,
and there’s so very much lost
– and so much
– and even more.
Albis Torres (born 1947)
Caguayo
.
The long wooden steps
are ripe with pine needles,
an occasional travelling spider,
and the blue-green of the caguayo lizard,
dreaming himself a sphinx among the boards.
.
Lord and master of the planks,
passageway and railings;
tenacious; holding his poor kingdom
against poles and stones.
.
No one knows how long he’s lived,
running on the railings,
and when death descends from all his years,
no one sweeps his rotting corpse away,
opening and drying on the wood.
.
Caguayo
prints his obstinate figure
in the memory of passageways.
. . .
Coffee Field Dorm
(To Amarilys Rodríguez)
.
Ancient legends
of the coffee fields
conspire against us.
Some lost mule’s bell
sounds in the night.
Who knows
where he balked,
tired and frightened,
before the mocking
rustle or hiss?
.
But our laughter is stronger
than all the legends.
It’s us, compañeras,
rousing day among the leaves
and coffee beans,
dripping the night’s last yawn.
.
The cold, the toil,
the coffee jug from mouth to mouth,
rebuilds us as a single body.
.
Coffee field dorm,
woman’s good arm
against all that silence kills.
. . .
Mirta Yañez (born 1947)
Reminder
.
Always
keep in mind
that posterity is for
future students
– frivolous and curious passersby –
to take advantage
of the living flesh
poor poets have left
in their letters,
in their miserable sheets,
their gaze hanging from a tree.
But keep in mind – as well –
that poets dream
with their posterity
for which they build cathedrals
and poems.
. . .
Springtime in Vietnam
.
Ho Chi Minh,
winter won’t come to your verandah anymore.
.
Small citizens,
pale army wounded and fighting
beside the fuse,
the green fields in flames;
they return from battle,
in peace they hold the tide,
the roads,
the birds,
the peasant air.
There
Ho Chi Minh waits for them,
astonished spring.
.
You’ve fanned the buds
with a single flash
of your legendary hand.
. . .
Yolanda Ulloa (born 1948)
She went, she said, losing herself
.
“If I write this poetry
it’s not just for my delight
but rather to give a fright
to that sinister treachery.”
Violeta Parra
.
For Violeta was the name
of a flower,
an Andean woman,
her guitar.
.
Violeta, the name of a bird
that sings in the country’s hills,
that sings in Chillán.
.
Bass guitar,
and song made of wine,
copihue buried
in so much solitude.
.
Violeta alone, fighting
tears, sweat, the laughter and shouts
in her search for bread,
for a way to say mountains,
to tell the Mapuche
beware of the beast.
.
Alone once more and always she moves off
with the mist
of the Bío-Bío in her hair,
tall, perennial, strong as the jungle of the Americas,
as its deep oils.
.
Children danced a cueca about her,
lending joy to her soul,
her captivity.
.
Cautín River, Lautaro, Villa Alegre,
her body wounded but free
as an uncaged bird on the plain,
or the wind’s breast
rent as it crosses the peaks.
.
Because she filled memory
with image, bloom and song,
its limits in absence.
.
She stayed, beneath her poncho,
free from all:
bandore and bass guitar against her death.
.
Violeta was also the name of a shiver
of trees that grow,
their birth and death
under the fire of the earthquake at Chillán.
Soleída Ríos (born 1950)
Difficult Hour
.
The smoke traces its figure over the papers.
The smoke dances magically
around exhaustion and coffee cups.
.
I’m about to write:
“Uvero, December 6th, 1971.
Raúl, I’m reminded of your name –
daybreak and I are with you…”
.
But I’m awake.
Time wants to win this set from me.
.
In War Scenes it says
that after the surprise at Alegría
we came down
by the dog’s tooth,
and that once in a while a plane
circled over the sea.
That the worst thing was the thirst…
.
If I can’t untangle the knot of days that followed,
up to high ground and all that happened then,
I won’t be able to talk to the children
about The Republic of Cuba,
the great human victory at Girón,
nor the relative peace with which right now
I close my eyes again for an instant,
and open them to go on…
watching the smoke dancing its magic figures on the papers,
on this table, in this hut, by the light of this candle.
. . .
I also sing of myself
.
“I celebrate myself, I sing.”
Walt Whitman
.
I sing of myself because by force of love
I stand,
squeezing this curve of time
between my hands.
.
The morning stretches out over silence,
and my steps call back the high sounds.
.
I sing of myself and beyond,
I sing of what I will become
when night is rent by sun
and another music fills my footprints as I go.
.
I sing of myself
for having come from the breath of a summer
among these palms that will watch over me.
I take my place among the living,
I make infinite my thirst,
striking myself,
I sing.
. . .
Other poets not included in our selection here, but who were also featured in the 1982 book, are:
Milagros González, Lina de Feria, Enid Vián, Reina María Rodríguez, Zaida del Río, Marilyn Bobes, and Chelly Lima.
. . .
From the 1982 book’s foreward:
Margaret Randall has been living and working in Cuba for more than a decade. Her other books include: Women Now; Part of the Solution; Doris Tijerino; Inside the Nicaraguan Revolution; and Carlota: Prose and Poems from Havana. Since early in 1981 she has been in Managua, Nicaragua, where she is now working with the Women’s Association.
. . .
Margaret Randall was born in 1936 in New York City, USA.
She is a writer, photographer, activist and academic.
When she was in her 30s and 40s she lived in México, Cuba, and Nicaragua. In a 1987 interview, upon her return to the States, she said of the years she spent in Cuba, that she was wanting “to understand what a socialist revolution could mean for women, what problems it might solve and which leave unsolved.”
. . . . .
Luis Rogelio Nogueras: “Canta” y “Pérdida del poema de amor llamado Niebla” / “Sing!” and “The loss of a love poem entitled Mist”
Posted: June 29, 2016 Filed under: English, Luis Rogelio Nogueras, Spanish, ZP Translator: Alexander Best | Tags: Cuban poets, Poetas cubanos Comments Off on Luis Rogelio Nogueras: “Canta” y “Pérdida del poema de amor llamado Niebla” / “Sing!” and “The loss of a love poem entitled Mist”Luis Rogelio Nogueras (1944-1985)
Canta
.
Canta, amigo mío, la canción de mañana.
Mira el crepúsculo, escucha el viento
que barre la gran plaza asoleada donde
anoche nos reunimos para oír los más hermosos discursos.
Ven, canta una canción que se escuche en el confín del mundo;
una canción que sea al mismo tiempo
un canto de guerra y un canto de cuna,
un himno y un íntimo, delicado canto de amor.
Amigo mío, ven y canta el instante en que
la mañana más hermosa de la vida calienta las corazones;
canta al mar,
a la Revolución,
al rostro de esa muchacha que hunde los dedos en la tierra de tu alma
– y siembra una semilla.
Canta a la noche y canta a los martillos
que cuando amanece
comienzan a golpear el hierro al rojo vivo
para moldearlo a nuestra imagen y semejanza.
Canta al coraje,
al álgebra,
al amor,
al trabajo,
a la dialéctica.
Firma todas las libretas escolares
y endurece tus manos
hombro con hombro
con el fuego.
Escribe el verso de este tiempo, amigo mío,
para que seas un poco el humo que anuncia en lo distante
las grandes siderurgias,
los grandes complejos industriales,
los grandes incendios.
. . .
Luis Rogelio Nogueras (1944-1985)
Sing!
.
Sing, my friend, the song of tomorrow!
Look at the dawn, hear how the wind
sweeps across the grand sunny plaza where
last evening we gathered together to hear the most beautiful speeches.
Come and sing a song that may be heard to the outer limits of this earth;
a song that may be all at once
a song of war, a lullaby,
a hymn and an intimate, a delicate, love song!
My friend, come and sing this moment in which
life’s most beautiful tomorrow warms the heart;
sing to the sea,
and to The Revolution,
and to the face of that girl whose fingers delve into the earth of your soul,
there to plant a seed.
Sing to night, sing to the hammers
that start striking red-hot iron at dawn,
molding it to a resemblance of ourselves.
Sing to courage,
to algebra,
to love,
to work,
to dialectics: the battle of words!
Finish with / sign off from your scholastic notebooks
and, shoulder to shoulder / side by side,
harden your hands to the fire!
Write poetry about this time, my friend,
so that you might be but a curl of vapour announcing, far off,
the big iron foundries,
the great industrial complexes,
the grand conflagrations!
. . .
Pérdida del poema de amor llamado “Niebla”
(para Luis Marré)
.
Ayer he escrito un poema magnífico
lástima
lo he perdido no sé dónde
ahora no puedo recordarlo
pero era estupendo
decía más o menos
que estaba enamorado
claro lo decía de otra forma
ya les digo era excelente
pero ella amaba a otro
y entonces venía una parte
realmente bella donde hablaba de
los árboles el viento y luego
más adelante explicaba algo acerca de la muerte
naturalmente no decía muerte decía
oscura garra o algo así
y luego venían unos verso extraordinarios
y hacia el final
contaba cómo me había ido caminando
por una calle desierta
convencido de que la vida comienza de nuevo
en cualquier esquina
por supuesto no decía esa cursilería
era bueno el poema
lástima de pérdida
lástima de memoria.
. . .
The loss of a love poem entitled “Mist”
(for Luis Marré)
.
Yesterday I wrote a magnificent poem;
(pity, I’ve lost it – don’t know where.)
Now I can’t recall it;
but it was superb.
It was saying, more or less,
that I was in love;
it said it, of course, in another way;
I’m telling you now, it was excellent!
But she was in love with another man…
And then came the really beautiful part
all about the trees and the wind –
and further along it explained something about death
(it didn’t say death – naturally – it said the dark talon or something to that effect).
And later came some extraordinary verses,
and approaching the ending
it recounted how I’d walked along the empty street,
convinced that my life could begin anew – on whichever street corner.
It didn’t put it in such a cheesy, affected way (of course);
it was a good poem.
A pity, that loss.
Pitiful memory.
. . . . .
Poetry and The Revolution: Cuban poems from the 1960s
Posted: June 27, 2016 Filed under: A FEW FAVOURITES / UNA MUESTRA DE FAVORITOS, Cuban poetry and The Revolution, English | Tags: Cuban poetry from the 1960s, Cuban poets Comments Off on Poetry and The Revolution: Cuban poems from the 1960s.
We have chosen the poems featured below from the anthology Cuban Poetry: 1959 to 1966.
The anthology was published by The Book Institute, Havana, in 1967.
The book’s prologue (Foreward) and biographical sketches were written by Heberto Padilla and Luis Suardíaz.
Editorial supervision for the book was through Claudia Beck and Sylvia Carranza.
. . .
Excerpt from the Foreward:
This is not an anthology of all contemporary Cuban poetry. It takes in only the period from 1959 to 1966; and only the poems of authors of several generations who have had at least one book published in those years.
We have selected the years beginning with the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, because during this period an extraordinary change has taken place in the life and work of our poets. It is easily discernible that the poetry written in these last seven years sharply breaks away from the poetics which to a large extent dominated our literature. A new universe of expression has dawned, a new truth, a new life.
We have been guided in our selection by the Revolution’s impact on our poets, and by the unique characteristics that make them outstanding in our language. It is an impact that delves into everyday reality, analyzing it and reflecting it in all its dimensions. Whenever possible, we have preferred a criterion of historic evaluation rather than an aesthetic one. Each poet is represented by those poems that we have considered to be more characteristic of his works, of his themes; but we have chosen with special care those that express the problems set forth by History. This does not mean that this selection of poetry is solely social or militant; reading it will prove just the opposite. It is simply the poetic testimonial of men of different ages and different literary backgrounds that carry out their work and are participants in one of the most intense and moving periods of our entire history.
. . .
Cuban Poetry: 1959 to 1966 focused on the verse of poets born between 1894 (Manuel Navarro Luna) and 1944 (Nancy Morejón – one of only two female poets – the other being Belkis Cuza Malé – included in the selection).
. . .
Translations from Spanish into English of the poems which follow were done in 1966 and 1967 by:
Claudia Beck, Rogelio Llopis, Sylvia Carranza, Stasia Stolkowska, and R. Frank Hardy.
. . .
Alcides Iznaga
(born 1914, Cienfuegos, Las Villas)
Presence
.
Time stands still in the school patio
amid fenced-in almond and cedar trees,
under a sky fraught with heavy rain,
between old and stately walls,
burning blindly,
non-committal and innocuous,
immutable, independent,
unattached to the trees,
to the fences and walls,
to the sky and the vertical air,
so free from corrosion
and so intense
that it fills to the brim the patio and the sky.
. . .
Sister
.
I remember you as the river we have lost and kept;
because we are impotent.
Now these birds are chirping.
Now the wind escapes.
Now the doves are flying
and I am sitting by the Hudson.
.
Some passers-by hurry along
and I ask myself whether their rush will get them anywhere.
I feel downcast,
and you have died so hastily and unexpectedly.
.
I see people dragging along the leash
lap dogs, mean looking and toy-like,
or listening to their toy-like, jabbering transistor radios,
completely unaware of Riverside’s charms at this time of day,
and I am touched by the way the wind seems to spur them on.
.
I cast a look on Time
and before losing what I lose
and giving what I give,
I know the reverse.
But we are impotent;
we are not the returning wind;
we are doves,
birds that chirp for a while
and are heard no more.
. . .
Loneliness
.
I see the afternoon take shape before me silently
but I have withdrawn to my airless room.
The afternoon has not diminished its brightness;
it brings out the green in the trees,
the marble-like whiteness in children’s cheeks,
the contrasting colours of nearby buildings;
but all this will last out an instant,
because the trees, the children and buildings
are one with the tremulous afternoon in my heart.
.
I pass my finger through its hair,
and touch a flower visibly withering
like the flower which yesterday bloomed everlastingly
and has now become minutes of ashes.
. . .
Within
.
Very few Sundays did we have for us,
very few nights, too.
Behind the table we would seek refuge in ourselves:
joking, roughhousing,
and the pointless strolls on the Prado.
Why did we then waste away
those times so beautiful and ours?
.
I was somewhat hesitant toward you,
timorous – as I’ve always been –
instead of letting you seduce me.
Now all of me is in you, within you
– attentive to your every throb, even the least perceptible;
to your eyes that always dream;
to your eyes somewhat sad;
to your eyes so deep.
. . .
Day’s Story (A Variation)
(for Isabel Castellanos)
.
The day throws off its shell,
it rises and starts on its way
distributing winds, surge of waves, tenderness;
distributing songs and tearing down bastions
belonging to the absurd stage of our history;
slowly, it has to make a stop;
it transpires and smiles
and begins shaking hands with its friends;
and all begins to change,
and the taxi’s fare rejects the back seat
and sits in front with the driver;
and they both talk amiably
as though they were old friends;
on all this the day looks on quite pleased.
.
Some basilisks,
some executioners,
some businessmen,
some generals
try to block the successful day,
but it just slips away from them
like water through disabled fingers;
and only when its mission is fulfilled
does it make its voluntary exit,
colouring our thoughts with its irrevocable accomplishments.
. . .
Eliseo Diego
(born 1920, Havana)
Only This
.
Poetry is nothing more
Than conversation in the shadows
Cast by an ancient stove
When all have gone,
And beyond the door
Murmur the impenetrable woods.
.
A poem is only a few words
One has loved,
And whose order time has changed,
So that now
Only a suggestion,
An inexpressible hope,
Remains.
.
Poetry is nothing more
Than happiness, a conversation
In the shadows
After everything else has gone
And there is only silence.
. . .
Jesús Orta Ruiz (Indio Naborí)
(born 1923, Guanabacoa)
Exposure and a Way
.
The new roof was not to have
Fifteen gutters deflecting rain.
The roof had to be only rain.
.
The moon did not appear;
Hidden were the stars.
.
But even so,
That night was a clear night.
.
We saw that men who differ
Go opposing ways,
And we struck out on ours.

A revolutionary soldier caught on camera by chance as he was struck by the bullet that killed him_Tirso Martinez_Cuba, 1958
Roberto Branly
(born 1930, Havana)
Reminiscence: January ’61
.
The Year of Education has hardly begun
and already we are hustling off to the trenches.
.
It was like the strategy of golf;
the manoeuvre followed by the tin-horn heroes,
by Wall Street’s golf strategy.
.
Hardly had we time
to whiff at the gunpowder from our rifles
and already the salt spray from the sea
and the gusts of winds announcing rain
were upon us;
we were like sentinels, with our eyes glued to the night.
.
We rested our mouths on the butts of our rifles
and bit into them during our sleepless wait;
we had a drawn-out taste of military life,
under the light of the stars,
amid the dew-covered, knee-high grass.
. . .
Antón Arrufat
(born 1935, Santiago de Cuba)
Tempo I
.
I look at your face
Before our fingers begin the work of love.
Love is a futile crime,
Much like death herself,
Because we always die too late.
I must stagger under
The cruelty of that presence
And that punishment
Beneath the sun.
(Snow never comes to console us in the tropics.)
. . .
Domingo Alfonso
(born 1936, Jovellanos, Matanzas)
People like Me
.
People like me
daily walk the streets,
drink coffee, breathe,
admire the Sputniks.
.
People like me
with a nose, with eyes,
with marital troubles,
who take a bus,
and one fine day
sleep underground,
unnoticed by all.
. . .
Crossing the River
.
The oxen and the horses wade through the waters of the river.
A yellowish, foam-capped streak of water rhythmically laps the river banks.
The horsemen goad the herd, make nervous use of their spurs.
The sweaty beasts are water-drenched.
Blood begins to stain the water.
A little girl is heard crying.
We do not know why.
. . .
Señor Julio Osorio
.
Señor Julio Osorio remembers every day the good old times
when not a year passed without his travelling to New York.
Those were the times my father was out of work,
and my sister Rita was the victim of old Doctor Beato’s offspring,
while my mother sewed pants on a Singer
for private tailors with a meagre clientele.
.
Now I work, my sister is about to graduate from High School,
and little do we care whether Señor Osorio
makes his yearly trip to New York or not.
. . .
A Love-Affair at Forty
.
Carlos never had a wife.
Luisa never had a beau.
Carlos longed to marry.
So did Luisa.
Luisa was thirty-five,
Carlos almost fifty.
.
Carlos and Luisa were united in wedlock.
.
Luisa was not in love with Carlos;
but had no use for spinsterhood.
Carlos was not in love with Luisa;
but was in need of a wife.
. . .
Poems of the Ordinary Man
.
I am the ordinary man;
during certain hours, like millions,
I go up and down elevators,
then I have lunch like everyone,
talk with students
(I carry no cross on my shoulders);
day in and day out I meet up with many people,
people who are bored, people who sing;
next to them my insignificant figure passes;
the soldier suffers, the stenographer stoops.
I sing simply of the things felt by
the ordinary man.
. . .
As Hard as Myself
.
As hard as myself
is that small man,
my constant companion;
inflexible, strong;
he weighs, he analyzes;
he judges every single thing.
.
But now and again
he lets me down;
he cuts a flower.

Dausell Valdés Piñeiro_born 1967_Cuban painter: “They are dreams still” (Son los sueños todavía)_acrylic on fabric
Luis Suardíaz
(born 1936, Camagüey)
When They Invented God
.
When they invented God,
Words hadn’t gotten very far;
The alphabet was still unborn.
This was at the beginning.
.
When they turned out the first books,
They stuffed them with metaphysics
(not even very well thought out)
And the bludgeon of the supernatural
.
It is a thankless task –
Launching forays against the outworn creeds
Of men long dead –
An ineffectual tactic.
Let’s put the angels in their place,
Consigning celestial vapours to oblivion,
And the fine biblical precepts
To the crucible of class struggle.
.
We materialists feel sorry for
That host of believers graduated from Oxford,
And stockbrokers who invent a hundred swindles
– and meanwhile go about their rituals,
Pressing their suit with heaven.
.
When they invented God,
Things were different.
Now we have to put our house in order.
In the beginning there was matter.
It was later on there came
All this mix-up about the heavens and the earth.
. . .
Song
.
How much love
In a cup of coffee shared.
.
In hands
Fused in a single melody.
.
In the dusk
Opening and closing before the eyes of lovers.
. . .
The Seed
.
They told us,
“This is beauty.”
So that we
Might not see her for ourselves
Or create her for ourselves.
.
So now it is hard to say,
“This is beauty.”
And we refrain,
Since we would make a fatal mistake.
. . .
Armando Alvarez Bravo
(born 1938, Havana)
Concerning a Snapshot
.
Quite so, it is myself among them
In the snapshot,
And then it comes back again:
A peculiar mania we have:
The zealous hoarding of Time’s faces.
.
Still, I do not remember
Exactly, I have forgotten
That day, the light
Of that morning,
What we were talking about,
Who we were,
The wherefore of that picture.
.
Time has passed – thousands of years.
Days linked to one another in a chain.
.
Past is the time of facile reference.
And I learn suddenly
How terrible, how simple, how beautiful and important
Were the words, the names,
I got from books, from movies,
from the letters of that friend,
Who,
Passing hungry days in an ancient European city,
Invited me
To share his pride of exile.
.
Thousands of years have passed.
I am no longer this double,
Looking out at me, so alive,
Frozen forever on a landscape
Where some, perhaps, move about
Through comfortable force of habit,
Unconscious of erosion’s transformations.
.
Something has happened between us,
Making us different, separating us.
Our times are incongruent.

Wilfredo Lam (1902- 1982): La Barrière, or: The Barrier or The Obstacle or The Gate_oil on canvas_painted in 1964
A Bit of Metaphysics
.
There we find ourselves again,
At home, sitting in the livingroom,
As though none of it had ever happened.
Outside, the over-reaching trees
Dig themselves into the night.
The silence – almost perfect.
Suddenly the rain begins,
As when one of us told the first lie.
. . .
David Fernández
(born 1940, Havana)
A Song of Peace
.
[ Associated Press: Redwood City, California, November 17th:
Only four days after reading a letter from their son in which he told them that his luck was running out, Mr. and Mrs. Silvio Carnevale received a telegram telling them of his death in Vietnam.
“I feel sick; sickened by what I’ve done and by what has happened to my friends,” said the letter. “I feel as if I were a hundred years old…My luck is running out. Please do whatever you can for me…Dad, I don’t want to die. Please get me out of here.” ]
.
I
.
Perhaps some time or other,
under rosy California orange trees,
stolen by your grandfather from our grandfathers,
you dreamed you might become
President of your nation,
or, perhaps, only an honest citizen.
Possibly the simpler dream only
spurred on your great-grandfather,
and when he fled from distant Italy,
and here founded family, homestead and new hopes
in North America, the new and promised land.
.
II
.
(I am only imagining,
only leafing through your possible history,
making up a future
you will never have,
since the promised land
has appointed you a grave
far away, very far
from your orange groves.)
.
III
.
Also, perhaps,
you never even knew
about this corner of the world,
known as Vietnam
where daily you are dying,
daily you feel how lost
your interrupted childhood,
where you lose all sense of logic,
where you wield a rifle,
(I know why but you do not),
no longer now in play.
Here arraigned against you
are the shadows and the trees,
the wind, the roads, the stones,
the very smoke from your campfire,
and the silence of the mountains,
none of them yours – nor to be.
And the drinking water, heat and rain.
And, of course, the bullets ––
the things you took there turned against you.
.
IV
.
Perhaps you never thought
it could happen.
This is not a dream;
this is breaking something in you,
blotting out the orange groves
of your grandfather,
which are so far away.
Perhaps you would like to be there now,
sitting in the shade with your friends,
in the shelter of a song of peace,
because you are already fed up with the whole thing.
You never knew why
they cut off that song of peace in the middle.
Yet here you are, following after
others like yourself,
who came to destroy
the homes, the families, the budding hopes of this people
– this people named Vietnam.
You probably never heard of it
until that dark day when they sent you,
together with your buddies,
without a word to tell you why,
over to this land where now,
undone by the very arms you brought along,
you are dying, dying;
daily, hopelessly, endlessly dying.
. . .
Guillermo Rodríguez Rivera
(born 1943, Santiago de Cuba)
Working Hours
.
And now that things have settled anew
And can move toward their likely destiny
The grieving image will take another form.
.
That voice
Will not be heard again.
The presumably right way of doing things then
Will not be mentioned again.
.
One will pick himself up from that handful of dust,
From that terror of darkened stairways,
From the rains that made him shudder in the afternoon;
And will utter the word made flesh just now.
And will find that it suffices.
. . .
Discovery
.
You will use words from stories you have read,
You will talk of seafoam, roses,
All in vain.
For you will understand that
This story is different
And cannot be written that way.
. . .
Víctor Casaus (born 1944, Havana)
We Are
.
Unquestionably
We are.
.
We are
Above the yellow
Words of the cables
In this shining island
Which was built the day before yesterday.
.
We are,
Even with our eyes red from the dew,
With the fist and the shortcoming
And the mistake and the man who doesn’t know –
And the man who knows but has made a mistake.
.
We are underneath the weak
Smiles of the bland and defeated
Butterflies. We are forever in
This small zone we live in.
.
(To be,
simply to be,
is – in this place and in this latitude –
a by-no-means trifling victory.)
Nancy Morejón (born 1944, Havana)
A Disillusionment for Rubén Darío
.
“A white peacock passes by.” / “Un pavo real blanco pasa.” : R.D.
.
If a peacock should pass by me
I would imagine your watching over
its figure, its legs, its noisy tread,
its presumed oppressed walk,
its long neck.
.
But there is another peacock that doesn’t pass by now.
A very modern peacock that amazes
the straight-haired poet in his suit weatherbeaten by the saltspray of the ocean.
.
But there is yet another peacock
not yours,
which I destroy in the yard of my imaginary house,
whose neck I wring – almost with sorrow,
.
whom I believe to be as blue as the bluest heavens.
. . .
Miguel Barnet (born 1940, Havana)
Ché
.
Ché, you know everything,
Each nook and cranny of the Sierra,
Asthma over the cold grass,
The speaker’s rostrum,
Night tides,
And even how
Fruit grows, how oxen are yoked.
.
I would not give you
Pen in place of pistol,
But it is you who are the poet.
. . .
Revolution
.
You and I are separated by
A heap of contradictions
Which come together,
Galvanizing all my being.
Sweat starts from my brow,
Now I am building you.
. . .
Barnet’s poems in the original Spanish:
. . .
Che
.
Che, tú lo sabes todo,
los recovecos de la Sierra
el asma sobre la yerba fría
la tribuna
el oleaje en la noche
ya hasta de qué se hacen
los frutos y las yuntas.
.
No es que yo quiera darte
pluma por pistola
pero el poeta eres tú.
. . .
Revolución
.
Entre tú y yo
hay un montón de contradicciones
que se juntan
para hacer de mí el sobresaltado
que se humedece la frente
y te edifica.
. . . . .
Fayad Jamís: “At times” and “For this freedom” / “A veces” y “Por esta libertad”
Posted: June 22, 2016 Filed under: English, Fayad Jamís, Spanish, ZP Translator: Alexander Best | Tags: Cuban poets, Poetas cubanos Comments Off on Fayad Jamís: “At times” and “For this freedom” / “A veces” y “Por esta libertad”Fayad Jamís (1930-1988)
A veces
.
A veces,
en el silencio del pasillo, algo salta,
rompe alguien algún viejo nombre.
La mosca enloquecida cruza zumbando, ardiendo,
lejos de la telaraña luminosa.
Esto es así, tan solo, pero tan lleno de sorpresas.
Caserón de fantasmas sin hijos, en que el polvo
hace nuevas ventanas, nuevos muebles y danzas.
No, tú no lo conoces, tú no me has visto mucho las pupilas
y por eso te llenas de lágrimas.
Escúchame:
mi casa no se fuga; está lejos siempre.
Por estas escaleras se sube hasta lo negro.
Uno no se cansa de subirlas y jadeando se duerme
sin saber ni los días, ni la fiebre, ni el ruido inmenso
de la ciudad que hierve al fondo.
A veces,
en el silencio del pasillo, alguien nace de pronto,
alguien que toca en la puerta sin número y que llama.
No, tú no has estado aquí jamás. No, tú no vengas.
Mi palabra es abrir, pero es que casi siempre
ando de viaje.
. . .
Fayad Jamís (1930-1988)
At times
.
At times,
in the silence of the corridor,
something leaps up,
someone breaks apart an old name.
The ‘loco’ fly, made mad, buzzes by,
far from the gleaming spiderweb.
Being all alone this is how it is – yet so full of surprises.
A big giant house, a house of ghosts and no kids,
where the dust makes novel windows – furniture – dances.
You don’t really know it here, no.
And you haven’t truly seen the pupils of my eyes;
and so you well up with tears.
Listen to me:
my house doesn’t break away, it’s always been distant.
Via these stairs one can climb down into the dark;
one never tires of the stairs; one falls asleep, panting,
not knowing what day it is – or which fever – nor
what that immense noise is of the city,
seething there in the background.
At times,
in the silence of the corridor,
someone is suddenly born,
a someone who knocks on a numberless door,
a someone who’s calling.
You have never been here, no;
you do not take revenge.
My words are an “opening”,
but almost always
I’m off travelling somewhere.
Por esta libertad
.
Por esta libertad de canción bajo la lluvia
habrá que darlo todo.
Por esta libertad de estar estrechamente atados
a la firme y dulce entraña del pueblo
habrá que darlo todo.
Por esta libertad de girasol abierto
en el alba de fábricas encendidas
y escuelas iluminadas,
y de tierra que cruje y niño que despierta,
habrá que darlo todo.
.
No hay alternativa sino la libertad.
No hay más camino que la libertad.
No hay otra patria que la libertad.
No habrá más poema sin la violenta música de la libertad.
.
Por esta libertad que es el terror
de los que siempre la violaron
en nombre de fastuosas miserias.
Por esta libertad que es la noche de los opresores
y el alba definitiva de todo el pueblo ya invencible.
Por esta libertad que alumbra las pupilas hundidas,
los pies descalzos,
los techos agujereados,
y los ojos de los niños que
deambulaban en el polvo.
.
Por esta libertad que es el imperio de la juventud.
Por esta libertad
bella como la vida,
habrá que darlo todo
si fuere necesario;
hasta la sombra
– y nunca será suficiente.
. . .
For this freedom
.
For this freedom of songs in the rain
one must give one’s all.
For this freedom of being intimately bound up with
the strong yet gentle essence of the People
one must give one’s all.
For this freedom of the sunflower a-bloom
in the dawn of factories going full tilt
and schools all lit up;
of the earth a-crackle and the child awakening
– one must give one’s all.
.
There’s no alternative but freedom,
no other road, no other homeland,
no more poems ––
without the violent music of freedom.
.
For this freedom
that is the terror of those who always violated freedom
in the name of lavish squalor.
For this freedom
that is night for the oppressors
and the definitive dawn for all the now-invincible People.
For this freedom
that lights up caved-in eyes,
barefoot, shoe-less feet,
rooves full of holes,
and the eyes of the children
who were roaming in the dust…
.
For this freedom
that is the empire of youth.
For this freedom:
beautiful as life!
If necessary one must give one’s all
– even our own shadow
– and it will never suffice.
. . . . .
Poemas de un desterrado: Raúl García-Huerta
Posted: June 20, 2016 Filed under: English, Raúl García-Huerta, Spanish, ZP Translator: Alexander Best | Tags: Cuban poets, El Día Mundial de los Refugiados, Poetas cubanos, World Refugee Day Comments Off on Poemas de un desterrado: Raúl García-HuertaRaúl García-Huerta (nace 1929)
No puedo…No quiero
.
No puedo olvidar, no puedo
la tierra donde he nacido,
la brisa que me ha mecido
cuando sentí el primer miedo.
Yo canturreaba muy quedo
canciones que me aprendía
desde el alba al mediodía
de mi abuela y de mi madre
mientras slbaba mi padre
una triste letanía.
.
Frágiles alas de un ave
provocaban un suspiro
oyéndose un son guajiro
al repicar de la clave.
Una melodía suave,
en el momento oportuno,
la volvía en son montuno,
sin que diestros bailarines
desde los cuatro confines
perdieran compás alguno.
.
Yo quiero sus huracanes,
picada de su mosquito
y un manjuarí dormidito
con mordidas de caimanes.
Entre hojas de guayacanes,
si me retuerce la pena,
cristales veo en su arena
rajando el mar en su playa
y en el puerto una talaya
con el nombre de Carena.
.
No quiero volver, no quiero
porque ella no es ya la misma.
No huele igual su marisma
ni moja igual su aguacero.
Volver a verla no espero
como era al despedirme.
Si vuelvo, tendré que irme
herido por su recuerdo
y la nostalgia que muerdo.
¡Mejor…prefiero morirme!
. . .
Raúl García-Huerta (born 1929)
I cannot…& I don’t want to
.
I cannot forget – I cannot –
the land where I was born,
and the breeze that rocked me
when I first felt fear.
From dawn through the day
I’d hum gentle songs I learned
from my grandmother & mother,
and my father
– he’d whistle his own sad refrain.
.
The fragile wings of a bird
invite a sigh, if one is
listening to the music of our countryside*
in its afro-cuban rhythm*.
A pleasant melody
at the opportune moment
becomes the mountain-music sound*
without which even skilled dancers
from the four corners
might lose the beat!
.
I want Cuba’s hurricanes;
to be bitten by her mosquitoes
and a drowsy needle-nosed gar-fish;
and the caiman alligator!
Apply leaves of the guayacan tree
if I’m twisting in pain!
Crystals I see in her sands,
when I’m slicing through the sea by her beaches;
and in the port there’s a watchtower
with the name Carena.
.
I don’t want to return – don’t want to –
because she’s not the same Cuba now.
Her marshes won’t smell as they did
and her downpours won’t feel as before.
I hope not to return, not to see her
as when we bid farewell.
If I should go back…yet I’ll
have to go away wounded by her memory
and a longing which gnaws at me.
Better that I––
I prefer to––
Die!
. . .
son guajiro = the music of our [Cuban] countryside*
la clave = afro-cuban rhythm*
son montuno = the [Cuban] mountain-music sound*
. . .
Un siglo después
.
¡Qué ganas tengo que cien años vuelen
para esfumar todo recuerdo mío
abandonado a orillas de este río
con su caudal de penas que me duelen!
.
Donde olvidé que los jacintos huelen
y el cauce supe medir hondo y frío.
En sus riberas amansó mi brío
como los años dominarlo suelen.
.
Yo necesito generar olvido,
garantizarme con la paz, futuro,
borrar mi rastro por haber vivido.
.
Este camino ha sido largo y duro.
Para aliviarme el corazón herido
quisiera un siglo de silencio oscuro.
. . .
A century afterwards…
.
How I feel like a hundred years might fly
before all my recollections could fade
– abandoned at the banks of this river
with a wealth of sorrow
that torments me!
.
Here where the water hyacinths are fragrant
and the riverbed’s depth and coolness I knew the measure of.
On these banks I soothed my spirit,
and with the passing years went on to master it.
.
I need to generate oblivion
– guaranteeing for myself some peace, and a future –
by the erasure of my face (for having been worldly).
.
This road’s been long and hard.
To ease my wounded heart
would require a century in darkness and silence…
. . . . .
Antonio Acosta: “Mi poesía es la pura esencia de mi vida” / “My poetry is the pure essence of my life”
Posted: June 17, 2016 Filed under: Antonio Acosta, English, Spanish, ZP Translator: Alexander Best | Tags: Cuban poets, Poetas cubanos Comments Off on Antonio Acosta: “Mi poesía es la pura esencia de mi vida” / “My poetry is the pure essence of my life”Antonio Acosta (nace 1929)
Mi Poesía
.
Mi poesía
es la pura esencia de mi vida;
raíz y simiente de mi infancia.
Es el clamor que busca una salida,
la gardenia que cuida su fragancia.
.
Mi poesía
es puerto donde carenan naves rotas,
es refugio de paz y de añoranza,
donde alzan su vuelo las gaviotas
buscando un nuevo grito de esperanza.
.
Mi poesía
lleva en cada verso su decoro;
no obedece a colores ni linaje,
no valora al hombre por su oro,
ni por su posición ni por su traje.
.
Yo quisiera
con mi vocablo endurecer el brazo,
pero jamás encallecer el corazón.
Unir en un binomio, en fuerte lazo,
la justicia humana y la razón.
. . .
Antonio Acosta (born 1929)
My Poetry
.
My poetry is
the pure essence of my life,
root and seed of my childhood.
It’s the cry that seeks a way out,
a gardenia safeguarding her fragrance.
.
My poetry is
a port where broken vessels sway,
a refuge of nostalgia and peace
where seagulls rise in flight
to call out with fresh hope.
.
My poetry
carries in each verse a decorum all its own,
adhering to neither colour nor lineage,
and esteeming a man not for his position,
nor for his garments or gold.
.
I would wish with my words
to strengthen the arms
but never harden the heart;
and that they join together,
in a solid-bond coupling,
both human justice and reason.
. . .
Confidencias
.
Soledad, amiga confidente;
¡cómo siento a tu lado
la armonía de todo el universo!
Hablemos de mis sueños, amiga soledad.
––De gaviotas errantes,
de mariposas tristes,
de las huellas del tiempo
en las rocas del valle,
dibujando poemas
por sus cauces de olvido––
––Soledad, mi canto es el grito
que lo grita el alma
pidiéndole al viento su viril demanda;
diciéndole al viento su dolor isleño,
su dolor de sangre,
su canción de alba.
Y mi lágrima tibia en ajenas orillas
se abochorna y se pierde
en las aguas nocturnas
de corrientes ignotas.
. . .
Confidences
.
Solitude: friend in whom I confide
––how I feel the harmony of the whole universe
when I’m by your side!
Let’s talk about my dreams,
you-my-friend-in-aloneness;
of itinerant seagulls,
wistful butterflies,
the foot-tracks of time
and the rocks of the valley
portraying poems from the riverbed of oblivion.
Solitude,
my song is the shout that the soul cries,
demanding of the wind a virile claim
and telling the islander’s sorrow,
a blood pain – a song of the soul.
And my lukewarm tears upon foreign shores
are overwhelmed – lose themselves –
in the nocturnal flow of unknown currents.
. . .
Añoranzas
.
Me duelen los recuerdos de este lado,
lejanos de mi entorno y de mi mente;
dolores lacerantes del pasado,
pretéritos recuerdos sin presente.
.
Y en este interno dilema con mi hado
ya nada me parece tan urgente;
pues el tiempo me tiene así marcado
y no quiero dejar nada pendiente.
.
Por eso mis vivencias llevan alas
y van dejando amor en las escalas
de la trivial cruzada de la vida.
.
Y en terapia de arpegio en sinfonía,
la añoranza de Cuba me convida
a volver a mi tierra en poesía.
. . .
Longings
.
Memories,
from this side,
they hurt me,
far from my surroundings / my mind;
excruciating pain from the past,
past-tense memories without a present.
.
And in this interior dilemma with my destiny
already there’s nothing that seems to me so pressing;
but Time has me marked, almost,
and I want nothing left unresolved.
.
So that’s why my experience bears wings
and such lessons leave love hanging on the ladder of
life’s trivial crusade!
.
And in a therapy of arpeggio & symphony,
nostalgia
–– a longing for Cuba ––
invites me
to return to my country
(if only in poetry.)
. . . . .
Fina García Marruz: “El momento que más amo” / “The moment I most love”
Posted: June 14, 2016 Filed under: English, Fina García Marruz, Spanish, ZP Translator: Alexander Best | Tags: Cuban poets, Poetas cubanos Comments Off on Fina García Marruz: “El momento que más amo” / “The moment I most love”Fina García Marruz (nace 1923)
El momento que más amo
(Escena final de la película “Luces de la ciudad”)
.
El momento que más amo
es la escena final en que te quedas
sonriendo, sin rencor,
ante la dicha, inalcanzable.
.
El momento que más amo
es cuando dices a lo joven ciega
“Ya puedes ver?” y ella descubre
en el tacto de tu mano al mendigo,
al caballero, a su benefactor desconocido.
.
De pronto, es como si te quisieras
ir, pero, al cabo, no te vas,
y ella te pide como perdón
con los ojos, y tú le devuelves
.
la mirada, aceptándote en tu real
miseria, los dos retirándose y quedándose
a la vez, cristalinamente mirándose
en una breve, interminable, doble piedad,
.
ese increíble dúo de amor,
esa pena de no amar que tú
– el infeliz – tan delicadamente
sonriendo, consuelas.
. . .
Fina García Marruz (born 1923)
The moment I most love
(Final scene from the film “City Lights”)
.
The moment I most love
is the final scene in which,
without any hard feelings,
you are left smiling
before a happiness that’s out of reach.
.
That moment I like best
is when you say to the young blind girl:
“Can you see now?”
And she finds in the touch of your hand
– the hand of the beggar and the gentleman –
her mystery benefactor.
.
And all of a sudden,
it’s as if you wanted to go,
and then you don’t;
she’s asking your pardon – with her eyes –
and you return the look,
.
accepting in yourself your very real misery,
the two of you withdrawing from one another
yet staying, all the same,
in a brief, endless commiseration
.
– that incredible love duo,
that pain of not loving that you
– unhappy you –
give consolation with,
delicately smiling.
. . .
Berta G. Montalvo: “Destierro”, “Dualidad”, y haikús / “Exile”, “Duality”, & haiku
Posted: June 14, 2016 Filed under: Berta G. Montalvo, English, Spanish, ZP Translator: Alexander Best | Tags: Cuban poets, Poetas cubanos Comments Off on Berta G. Montalvo: “Destierro”, “Dualidad”, y haikús / “Exile”, “Duality”, & haikuBerta G. Montalvo (1919-2004)
Destierro
(para Ana Rosa)
.
Es el canto
del destierro
que llora
dentro del alma
acongojada.
.
Ese destierro
que se ensaña
en lo más profundo
de nuestro ser.
.
Que es destierro
de ayer, de hoy
y sabe Dios
de cuántas mañanas
más.
.
Destierro que no consuela,
destierro que aviva
recuerdos,
destierro que duele
todos los días.
.
Destierro que no pierde
esperanza
pero que sólo
terminará
– para esta generación anciana –
el día que nuestras cenizas
allá puedan descansar.
. . .
Berta G. Montalvo (1919-2004)
Exile
(for Ana Rosa)
.
It’s exile’s song
that wails within the anguished soul;
and exile is that which
shows no mercy
in the very deepest part of our being;
and what is there but
yesterday’s exile,
today’s exile,
and God knows
how many more tomorrows.
.
Exile doesn’t console you;
it sharpens memories,
making each day ache.
.
Yet exile doesn’t lose hope.
But it will only end
– for this ancient generation –
the day our ashes
may be laid to rest
there.
. . .
Dualidad
.
Es allá donde estoy
pero aquí donde vivo.
.
Allá donde la tierra huele distinto
y es más ardiente.
.
Allá donde las gardenias
perfumaron mi pelo
pero es aquí
donde vive el recuerdo.
.
Allá donde todo fue ayer.
Aquí donde todo es hoy.
Y…al despertar…
¿dónde estoy?
¿Allá o aquí?
. . .
Duality
.
It’s there that I am
but here that I live.
.
There, the land smells different
and is more ardent;.
there, gardenias perfumed my skin;
but here is where I live that memory.
.
There, everything was yesterday;
here, all is today.
And…each dawn:
– where am I? There, or here?
. . .
Cuatro haikús
.
En el destierro
llueve
todos los días.
.
El espejo
nos canta
verdades amargas.
.
La vejez
nos humilla
día a día.
.
Algo nos dice
la noche
y yo no la entiendo.
. . .
Four Haiku
.
Exile is a place
where it rains
every
single
day.
.
The mirror sings to us
its songs
of truth
– bitter truth.
.
Old age
day to day
in a humdrum way
humiliates us.
.
Night is telling us something;
but I do not understand her.
. . . . .
Gastón Baquero: “El gato personal del conde Cagliostro”
Posted: June 13, 2016 Filed under: English, Spanish | Tags: Cuban poets, Poetas cubanos Comments Off on Gastón Baquero: “El gato personal del conde Cagliostro”Gastón Baquero (1914-1997)
El gato personal del conde Cagliostro
.
Tuve un gato llamado Tamerlán.
Se alimentaba solamente con poemas de Emily Dickinson,
y melodías de Schubert.
Viajaba conmigo: en París
le servían inútilmente, en mantelitos de encaje Richelieu,
chocolatinas elaboradas para él por Madame Sévigné en persona,
pero él todo lo rechazaba,
con el gesto de un emperador romano
tras una noche de orgía.
.
Porque él sólo quería masticar,
hoja por hoja, verso por verso,
viejas ediciones de los poemas de Emily Dickinson,
y escuchar incesantemente,
melodías de Schubert.
.
(Conocimos en Munich, en una pensión alemana,
a Katherine Mansfield, y ella,
que era todo lo delicado del mundo,
tocaba suavemente en su violoncelo, para Tamerlán,
melodías de Schubert.)
.
Tamerlán se alejó del modo más apropriado:
paseábamos por Amsterdam,
por el barrio judío de Amsterdam concretamente,
y al pasar ante la más arcaica sinagoga de la ciudad,
Tamerlán se detuvo, me miró con visible replandor de ternura en sus ojos,
y saltó al interior de aquel oscuro templo.
.
Desde entonces, todos los años,
envío como presente a la vieja sinagoga de Amsterdam
un manojo de poemas.
De poemas que fueron llorados, en Amherst, un día,
por la melancólica señorita llamada Emily
–– Emily Tamerlán Dickinson.
Gastón Baquero (1914-1997)
Count Cagliostro’s Cat
.
I had a cat named Tamerlaine.
And all he ate were poems by Emily Dickinson
and Schubert melodies.
He traveled with me: in Paris
they served him on lace doilies
chocolate confections made for him and him alone
by Madame de Sévigné herself.
To no avail: he waved them off
like a Roman emperor
after a night of orgies.
.
Page by page, verse by verse,
he wished only to chew on
old editions of Emily Dickinson’s poems
and he listened incessantly
to Schubert melodies.
.
(In Munich, in a German pension,
we met Katherine Mansfield,
and she,
who held within her all the world’s delicacy,
for Tamerlaine played sweetly on her cello
Schubert melodies.)
.
Tamerlaine passed away in the most appropriate manner:
we were on our way through Amsterdam,
through the ghetto, to be exact,
and as we passed the front of the oldest synagogue
Tamerlaine stopped,
looked at me with all love’s splendour in his eyes,
and leaped into the interior of that dark temple.
.
Since then, each year,
I send a bunch of poems as a present to
the old synagogue of Amsterdam.
Poems that were wept one day in Amherst
by Emily, that melancholy lady
–– Emily Tamerlaine Dickinson.
. . .
Translation from the Spanish © 2009 Mark Weiss
. . . . .
Alcides Iznaga: “Situación interior” y “Suspenso” / “Interior state” & “In suspension”
Posted: June 10, 2016 Filed under: Alcides Iznaga, English, Spanish, ZP Translator: Alexander Best | Tags: Cuban poets, Poetas cubanos Comments Off on Alcides Iznaga: “Situación interior” y “Suspenso” / “Interior state” & “In suspension”Alcides Iznaga (1914-1994)
Situación interior
.
Este refugio, mi lugar:
presidido de caos, de batalla y hechizo,
de claro terror y blanda duda.
Hasta las playas de la soledad
llega el chirrido del mundo;
( no deslumbra ese brillo; )
pero estoy herido,
de duro pensamiento, y certeza razón,
de implacable análisis y convencimiento.
En ese círculo desolado donde han ardido tantos,
sin evasión posible, de soledad herido.
Triste pavorosamente, maravillado triste.
El tiempo lento dobla su sombría campana:
martillea mi oído.
Hermético, sin adivinar salida a un agua devorante.
. . .
Alcides Iznaga (1914-1994)
Interior state
.
This refuge – my place:
presided over by the shambles of battles and incantations,
of obvious terror and feeble hesitation.
All the way to the beaches of solitude
the screeching world arrives;
(its brilliance doesn’t blind you).
.
Yet I am wounded
– from hard thinking, from certainty and reason,
from unrelenting analysis and persuasion.
Inside that desolate circle wherein so much seething,
without any possibility of escape: a wounded solitude.
Terrifyingly – delightedly – sad.
.
Time, slow, tolls its dismal bell;
pounds away at my eardrums;
inscrutable, without discerning a solution
– a “this way out” to the devouring waters…
. . .
Suspenso
.
Todo en suspenso
en este recinto de silencio,
como torres, como raíces
como mar sereno
o sabana de inmóviles palmas
o arroyo de quieto cielo.
.
¡Sin memoria ni pensamiento,
el alma, Nada mismo!
¡Solo el Tiempo!
. . .
In suspension
.
Everything’s put on hold,
here in this enclosure of silence.
Like towers, and roots,
and the calm sea;
or a savannah of motionless palm trees,
or gutter-water reflecting a still sky.
.
Without memory, without thoughts,
the Soul – and Nothing – are one and the same!
There’s only Time,
Time alone!
. . . . .