Ode

Ya hace tiempo que no escribimos en este blog.  Aquí lo retomo con un juego que se me ocurrió durante la ola de calor que hemos sufrido acá en la isla. A ver si alguno/a se anima.  El juego es escribir una oda a algo común y corriente. Algo así como la "Oda a los calcetines" de Neruda. Yo me he inspirado en la "Oda al ruiseñor" ("Ode to a Nightingale") de John Keats.

My head aches and heavy sweat beads

     Roll down between my breasts, reminding me

The a/c guy is late again. He’s a young man and

 love is new for him. Once reliable now he stalls,

brings fresh excuses, falls short in our estimation.

The heat dulls our senses and we dream of

Halcyon days when a hammock under a tree

brought as much peace of mind as a Carrier full swing.

elf


Challenged accepted:

To the 130 Road

The turns
curl. I feel the tight asphalt,
a quiver in my hamstrings,
Toyota lust and the dusts 
of a Saturday morning. A lipstick
siege of gang signs meet me, though we are so far away from billboards touting booze and scandal.
Children and litter cut through cow paths and municipal fight clubs and midnight fireworks, masking a symphony of buckshot. At war in a small town, my wheels charge over
tar, while in a passing souped-up Scion, someone sends
me a "fuck you" and suddenly the skin of the 130 
is scarred with burnt rubber and a thousand fractal conversions and the broken bodies of love. Add the odor of manure, and you no longer wonder why the people of this place say it's the perfume of money. My heart is quickly the slum of a boy's hope for the brutal newness of a stereo system, reverberating truths unintelligible until we forget
what side of the world we are on. Still, we forge on, gun over the soft remnants of a half-moon but it is the windshield that reveals the most: ghost consequences of late-night errors; the suggestions of pinchos and pickup trucks, the loneliness of the 130 glazed with itinerant rain; only to be met by, ten minutes in, the sudden heat of our need to get somewhere soon. 

JAC

Oda al positivismo      

 Yo no creo ni en la penicilina

ni el infierno ni en las nalgas de miss universe.

Yo creo en el desempleo.

 Oda a la cordura  

a Virginia y Vincent, divinos y lúcidos locos             

Aahhh, qué bellísima y delicada flor,

ésa que azotada por la cruel ventisca

y a merced de la lluvia que no cesa

persiste en su impasible y eterna vigilia

justo en la boca del abismo.

izquierdos.reservados©edgardo.nieves.mieles

THE AD-DRESSING OF CATS

New Challenge

Eliot obviously favored the cat over the dog.  Any takers in this challenge to choose one over the other, or some other creature of the wild.  I just had a face to face with a green lizard.  Suffice it to say, my dog was not happy, my cat bored.

THE AD-DRESSING OF CATS by TS Eliot

You’ve read of several kinds of Cat,
And my opinion now is that
You should need no interpreter
To understand their character.
You now have learned enough to see
That Cats are much like you and me
And other people whom we find
Possessed of various types of mind.
For some are same and some are mad
And some are good and some are bad
And some are better, some are worse –
But all may be described in verse.
You’ve seen them both at work and games,
And learnt about their proper names,
Their habits and their habitat:
But
How would you ad-dress a Cat?
So first, your memory I’ll jog,
And say: A CAT IS NOT A DOG.
Now Dogs pretend they like to fight;
They often bark, more seldom bite;
But yet a Dog is, on the whole,
What you would call a simple soul.
Of course I’m not including Pekes,
And such fantastic canine freaks.
The usual Dog about the Town
Is much inclined to play the clown,
And far from showing too much pride
Is frequently undignified.
He’s very easily taken in –
Just chuck him underneath the chin
Or slap his back or shake his paw,
And he will gambol and guffaw.
He’s such an easy-going lout,
He’ll answer any hail or shout.
Again I must remind you that
A Dog’s a Dog — A CAT’S A CAT.
With Cats, some say, one rule is true:
Don’t speak till you are spoken to.
Myself, I do not hold with that -
I say, you should ad-dress a Cat.
But always keep in mind that he
Resents familiarity.
I bow, and taking off my hat,
Ad-dress him in this form: O CAT!
But if he is the Cat next door,
Whom I have often met before
(He comes to see me in my flat)
I greet him with an OOPSA CAT!
I’ve heard them call him James Buz-James –
But we’ve not got so far as names.
Before a Cat will condescend
To treat you as a trusted friend,
Some little token of esteem
Is needed, like a dish of cream;
And you might now and then supply
Some caviare, or Strassburg Pie,
Some potted grouse, or salmon paste –
He’s sure to have his personal taste.
(I know a Cat, who makes a habit
Of eating nothing else but rabbit,
And when he’s finished, licks his paws
So’s not to waste the onion sauce.)
A Cat’s entitled to expect
These evidences of respect.
And so in time you reach your aim,
And finally call him by his NAME.
So this is this, and that is that:
And there’s how you AD-DRESS A CAT.

Enjoy the performance of the poet Lynne Procope, whose poem "Mirror Mirror" references the element of fire frequently.  Click here for youtube.  For our exercise/game, write a poem or a micro-cuento in which one of the four natural elements features prominently: earth, fire, water, air. Have fun! (Maybe we can get together at El Truco de Guin to read them/discuss/ or even create!)

 Jane

List poems

Write a poem which is a list. In your list, words should repeat themselves.

Here's my example:

Mother

1. Give birth to a child darker than the sun’s undershirt
2. Wear him, till the night shouts uncle
3. Burn yourself often
4. Let others touch only the edges of his name
5. Tremble when he cries
6. Feed him from your mother mouth
7. Wait and look both ways
8. Pray he’ll love
9. Pray he’ll eat
10. Pray the coughing will stop
11. Genuflect often
12. Clean his nose with the corners of your dress
13. Clean the dress with the corners of your eyes
14. Feed him first, feed him often
15. Let him start fires without matches
16. In secret, put them out

Jane

May 28, 2012
 

How to save yourself from drowning

1. First of all, don’t plunge right in.
2. Stay on the shore, or close to…
3. Dip your feet gently in its waters.
4. Let its cool, refreshing feeling wash over you.
5. When you feel it is starting to lure you in, pull back.
6. Walk away.
7. Rinse and dry your feet with a soft, plush towel.  Never white.
8. Close your eyes and inhale.
9. Open your eyes and exhale.
10. Relax.
11. Start on step one again … tomorrow.

 elf

18 de mayo de 2012 se celebra en la isla el certamen del cuento breve oral que auspicia el Sagrado Corazón (USC). En este certamen que se celebra desde el 2005 se escribe el cuento y se lee en público.  La convocatoria para este año no ha salido aún pero para más información pueden acceder a la página de Awilda Caéz (http://www.desdelaspalabras.com/2011/05/22/sexto-campeonato-mundial-del-cuento-corto-oral/), o a Ciudad Seva.


El reto entonces es escribir un cuento que pueda participar en el certamen.  Debe ser corto, pero con alguna particularidad histriónica de modo que sea efectivo de forma oral.


Aquí incluyo uno brevísimo de Marco Denevi:   

El hombre -enseñó el Maestro- es un ser débil. -Ser débil -propagó el apóstol- es ser un cómplice. -Ser cómplice -sentenció el Gran Inquisidor-es ser un criminal. (Marco Denevi)


Incluyo cuento de Jaime Perucho (Mex) tomado del blog La nave de los locos


TIEMPO DE ODISEO
......
Cuando la reina se aposente en la baranda, me subes a la alcoba a aquella ninfa pelirroja y, cuando te silbe, atrancas la puerta, donde fingiré dormir profundo, en desnudo absoluto. Si grita o se espanta, la pastoreas hasta mi lecho, entonces la tomaré por la espalda. Dicen los pajes de la corte que practica una suerte de quiromancia. Antes de partir en mi bergante, quiero que lea en el mástil mi futuro. La falomancia es un arte antiguo. Quiero saber qué hay de incierto en mi destino.

San Valentine

Ya que se acerca el día de los enamorados, estimo apropiado incluir un poema.  Un poema que va a tono con la celebración...a ver qué les parece...Lo pueden comparar con el que incluimos de Carol Ann Duffy el año pasado.

Cuenta Billy Collins que una vez leyó un poema tan malo que tuvo que hacerle el favor al autor y re-escribirlo.  El poema de Collins es inmensamente popular y su tono divertido puede apreciarse en el video que incluyo del texto original.  Aquí está el poema de Collins traducido para el público lector. ; )

“Letanía” de Billy Collins

Eres el pan y la navaja

La copa de cristal y el vino

Jacques Crickillon

Eres el pan y la navaja,

La copa de cristal y el vino.

Eres el rocío de la mañana,

Y la ardiente rueda del sol.

Eres el delantal del panadero

y los pájaros del pantano cuando levantan vuelo

Sin embargo, no eres el viento en el huerto,

ni las ciruelas en el counter

ni el juego de barajas.

Y ciertamente no eres el aire con olor a pino.

No hay manera de que seas el aire con olor a pino.

Puedes ser el pez bajo el puente;

Tal vez la paloma en la cabeza del general.

Pero de ninguna manera,

un jardín de flores al atardecer.

Y si miras al espejo verás que tampoco eres las botas en la esquina del barco dormido en el muelle.

Querrás saber,

hablando de las imágenes que abundan en el mundo,

que soy el sonido de la lluvia en el tejado.

También soy la estrella fugaz,

las páginas que flotan por un callejón

y la cesta de avellanas en la mesa de la cocina.

También soy la luna entre los árboles.

Y la taza de té de la vieja cegata.

Pero no te preocupes,

no soy el pan y la navaja.

Todavía eres el pan y la navaja.

Siempre serás el pan y la navaja,

Y ni que se diga, la copa de cristal y de alguna manera, el vino.

New Challenge!!!

Después de una larga pausa en este blog, les presento un reto, no tan nuevo, pero definitivamente debe provocarles algún entusiasmo, sino curiosidad. Acabo de toparme con este cuento breve o microrrelato de Luisa Valenzuela. El juego consiste en tratar de imitarlo. Escribir un relato breve, no me imagino hacerlo en más de 100 palabras, y que todas las palabras comiencen con la misma letra.

PALABRAS PARCAS

Abelardo, Arsaín, astuto abogado argentino, asesino agudo, apuesto, ágil aerobista acicalado. Atento. Amable. Amigo asiduo, afectuoso, acechante. Ambicioso. Amante ardiente, arrecho. Autoritario. Abrazos asfixiantes, ansiosos, asustados. Aluvión apagado, artefacto ablandado, apocado. Agravado. Altamente agresivo, al acecho. Abelardo Arsaín. Arma al alcance, arremete artero, ataca arrabiado, asesina. Atrapado. Absuelto: autodefensa. ¡Ay!

Luisa Valenzuela

Retrato: Rita Rivera, rubia ruborizada, radica resolución risible, rabiando ronca, riéndose relamida.  Risueña retira rótulos rotos.  Recalcitrante, rocía rosas recién reabiertas, reafirma resentimientos rastreros.  Receptora regente, requiebra rediles, reflexiona rimadamente recatada.  Romántica rompehuelga, rauda, revivifica risas rebeldes.  Ruidosa resurge rutilante resquebrajando rosedales.  Rosacruz reguetonera revuelve reverenciosa restos rancios.   Reafirma rutina rústica ramoneando rápida.  Ruiseñores, ranas, remata radiante.  Realista, reajusta rodilla rojiza resquebrajada.  Realmente racista reserva ritos readmitidos. Rebate razonamientos rígidos.  Reina radioaficinada ruge receptiva recuerdos  ridículos.  Rostro rebujado, ropa roída, recae resignada.

jj

                                                     

Veamos

Verónica Vélez Vilá vanidosa vivaz virginal, vístese veloz. Viaja vigorosamente visitando vergeles, vagabundeando veredas; vezando valles. Ve violencia, vejámenes, vergüenza.

--Venga vea--vocifera Viviana, vieja vecina verrugosa.

--Vaya vertiginosamente venciendo vientos viciados.

Vencida, Verónica, vientre virgen virtuoso vigilante, vaga,  (des)varía.

--Venga vea—vocaliza vacilante. —veinte vándalos varones vampiros, vuelan veloces, vierten vehementes, viscerales violencias, vanagloriándose verbosos, venciendo vengativos verdugos vesánicos.

elf

___________________________

Here goes --

Alien Acolytes Amass

Amber always alleges an amatory awe amid admirers, adolescent and aroused avocations. An acutely acerbic ambrosia aches, and Amber, all awkward, agitates: anatomy's algebra akimbo, arched and anaerobic, almost accusingly alluring. Anxieties articulate among Amber's abstinent artifices. Arrows attempt an arrest, abduct aortas and alternate arteries, Amber's axles alarmed and animated after awesome abuse. Although an amnesiac Aphrodite, Amber avoids all allegories, accumulating amethyst ammunition and antithetical affectations. Ahh! alive and alien, aglow, aubergine avenger, an alkaline asterisk, Amber annihilates as Amber advances, announcing another awful autumn of love.

JAlberdeston

Daisy Zamora

For Mother's Day, try writing a poem about being a mother. Anyone game? Here's a good one by Daisy Zamora (Nicaragua)

Poema Preñez

Esta inesperada redondez
este perder mi cintura de ánfora
y hacerme tinaja,
es regresar al barro, al sol, al aguacero
y entender cómo germina la semilla
en la humedad caliente de mi tierra.

_________

Valentine's Day

Write a poem for Valentine's Day. Here's a poem to inspire you.

"Valentine" by Carol Ann Duffy


Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.

Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or a kissogram.

I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.

Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,
if you like.

Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.
--------------------------------------------------------------

Una traducción:

No te regalo una rosa ni un corazón de satén

Te regalo una cebolla
Una luna envuelta en una bolsa de papel de estraza.
Promete luz
como el metódico desvestir del amor.

Toma.
Te cegará con sus lágrimas como un amante.
Hará de tu reflejo una foto del desequilibrio del dolor.

Trato de ser sincera.

Te doy una cebolla.
Su beso feroz quedará en tus labios
de manera posesiva y fiel
como somos nosotros
mientras lo seamos nosotros.

Tómala.
Sus argollas de platino se encojen para formar un anillo de matrimonio,
si así lo prefieres.

Letal.
Su aroma se adhiere a tus dedos,
y a tu navaja.

elf


____________________

This is post-Valentine's Day....but it always takes time to percolate.

Queen of Window Love, Mistress of Mistaken Affections
--Listening to the 80s While Staring Out, Sector Lechuga


Out the window there is no love but the flocked edges of sky writing the names of gnats, like lovers scratched into a tree. It and I leave a brief cursive of anecdotes, catching. Roberta and I search for paradise.

A noisy trace of slaughterhouse creeps the night’s distance, tramples through truck crops, into gawky frangipani, into me and other formerly nubile brush. The scent steps over fences, then into the sleep of fat steers and all their glum mothers.

The window brags, pretends to offer love in a season of hurricanes, but by now I know it’s only bad television. Seconds later, my attention is moved again to the periphery of lonesome: a salamander festoons the louver’s aluminum whispers, with its own nervous breath, wide-eyed, an angel having to catch up to God’s footstep. He and I are both so very Chuck D, fighting miserable with our hands clenched like crooked teeth.

I forget myself. I get lost and braless. I throw back a laugh and land somewhere in the east, in a boy’s rumbling muffler, in the fist of love, cresting.

An island shimmies, worrying the foot of the radio. As Costello sings a song of salvation from whiskey’s Saturday lips, dusty screens (pinholes to the mild and the mystical) whisper soft and hot, while my body minds itself in spite of the breeze.

Jane Alberdeston Coralin

____________________

Sisyphus Merriam Webster Definition

EXERCISE: WRITE A HAIKU IN WHICH A SISYPHIAN EFFORT IS PERFORMED.

____________
King Sisyphus's Last Trick (Haiku String)

Rock who had never
run away for boyish games
or adventure, now

could be measured by
his ever thinning waistline;
gone, a boy's corners.

Mother, a black sea
boulder, hated the king who
turned boy to pebble.

How quick kings forget
a mother's vengeance on fleets
of gold and soldiers,

on tricksters who turn
the effort of love to sand,
feet laughing at gods.


JEA

_____________________

Seven line story

Jane sent me a set of guidelines for a contest from an online magazine called Opium. I reproduce it here as a game: "The rules? Write a story or prose poem that is seven lines or less (8.5" x 11" paper with 1" margins)." Below I posted a great little story as an example. Also taken from Opium:

Postcard from Mykonos
by Thomas Cooper
Estimated reading time: 30 seconds

When H and J were on vacations they wrote postcards to the Mortimers, a couple they never knew or met. They imagined the Mortimers at home, captivated, when they received postcards from San Tropez, Tokyo, Madrid. “Maybe we’ll visit this thanksgiving,” he wrote. “Why didn’t you meet us in Bangkok?” she wrote. It went on for years. But this morning,alone in Mykonos for Christmas, at a desk window overlooking the Aegean sea, he writes on the back of a hotel postcard that he has news he must share in person, and that he’ll soon be on his way.


At Home with the Mortimers

In the face of Buena's utter disappointment, Raul tossed the extravagant postcards out; where Buena saw friends in a secret new world, Raul saw the reflections of escape and excess: would his wife wear Lamborghini-red lipstick like the mouth of that postcard's Amsterdam whore? Would other men see the horizon of her bikini line from a yacht skimming the postcard's Baltic? Would she shame him, traipsing the card's naked edge of 42nd Street? All led to Buena's ultimate deception, he later thought, her hair in his hands. Buena watched the man she had once thought to love

suck in all his breath and loosen a ball of phlegm into the trash can. She said nothing because above all she knew that though Raul could control her, he could not control the mail. She let him mock her. "You're the sucker born every minute". Before the fire of his doubt could consume him, Buena secreted those minute love letters that beckoned her to sit in Parisienne cafe chairs lined like eggs in cartons; to touch Lady Liberty's prickly crown; to bathe in the yellow curry of a Nepalese hillside; to follow a gaggle of Geishas walking in a grove of

cherry blossoms. She never thought to believe the postcards were images of a life spent in dreams, that her reality existed in the garbage pail. A somnambulist, Buena mined, then rescued the pieces out from under the finger of Raul's suspicion. She cut her hands with the shark lids of bean cans and inhaled the stench of 50 cent half-smoked cigars. None of that mattered because she had never known the depth of her discontent until the mysterious arrival of postcards from a couple she'd never known nor met.

JEA

Dreams

Megan walks into what seems to be a hospital, light beams shine brightly, so brightly she squints and shades her eyes with her hand. If she could only find a bed to rest her weary body. “You can use the one reserved for the homeless,” someone whispers in her ear. And there in front of her are six gurneys each covered in sheets of the most vivid hues: Tuareg blue, azalea pink, Flaming June orange. Although she yearns to lay down on the alluring field of colors, and rest her head she shivers at the thought that someone will come to reprimand her, and demand she give up her bed to one more needy. Finally, she sees a row of black chairs in a dark corner. And while she walks toward them thinking of how she’ll need to arrange her body to fit in, she hears what she thinks is an ambulance siren’s wail approaching quickly and loudly.

elf

El horóscopo/ the horoscope

Juego: Usando el lenguaje de los horóscopos, crear un poema. Puede ser tan corto como un haiku, o tan largo como un soneto. Game, anyone?

#1
El amor ronda
tu puerta entreabierta.
Atrápalo ya.

#2
In the year of the tiger
the mice scramble about quietly and oh so discreetly.
But beware,
the steady nibbling can even one so fearful and ferocious defeat
oh so completely.

Elf

_________________________________________


Found (Horoscope borrowed from DailyHoroscopes.com, Aug. 18, 2010)

Slip onto the lips of the information you receive
today, where you will find that some avenues,
previously blocked, are now opening:
however, be wary of the mouths of rapids and avatars,
jelly jars, and automatic garage doors.

Put yourself inside everything.
listen to streetlights, wake to witness storms,
a bitch's worry skulk into night, an iguana's
orange breath, mufflers and long winding kilometers.
The more information you get

to help you understand
the years of an imagined kiss, the tomato stain
on the kitchen floor, the knot at the nape
of your neck, the vengeance of an ingrown
hair, the more success you will have
with your endeavors, though acidic and mildly cellular.

You probably already have grand tenuous ideals
and visions: a box tied around what the past
would not give you. But now you must put everything
aside together. You may have to find yourself,

a minister to your pale hungers, helping each
learn patience, understanding, acceptance, only till
the lull is done, till the itch is gone, till the time
has .... An odd flavor, this psychology.

But by now, you already know
that what passes for love is not easy.
Remember: this is a time for prudence, a time to tend
to details: listen for when your body loosens,
unravels; be a titan, unabashed. Be okay
with princes in 18-wheelers, the metallic smile of youth,
the fantasia of body shop mechanics and all their boyhood
looks; most importantly, let yourself
be a tomtom for the heart.

But never drive while lonely.

Juego: Myth-making

Ekphrastic writing is a fantastic way of re-envisioning an artwork. Choose a mythological or literary figure from a piece of art (literary work, painting, sculpture, etc) and re-tell the story in your own way, using your own perceptions, prejudices, dreams, visions, whatever speaks to you in the work. I've pasted mine below "Oberon Takes Wing". If you want to see other examples of ekphrastic writing, here's a link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l-nj9MeTNo&feature=related


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l-nj9MeTNo&feature=related

Oberon Takes Wing

He should have known he knew not the new wings. look how disproportionate, laced in iron. if he could make it, he thought, to the lamppost, the bench, the score of grass waiting like an unmade bed; but there was so much he didn't know. and so much of the little he knew: the light in a hostas leaf unfolding itself; romance in the red red brick seeking for him a new path; song trees waving him in. closer, they sang in lyrics made of rustle and whoosh. but it was the girl in green he could hear through all the mess. the girl who spoke to him best, spoke to him last, held him by a flimsy but tactile faith: the ephemera of her fingerprint on the border of his instep, the long shadow he made on her face. he followed her in his mind, heard the bells ringing in her flight and spanned what little he had of wing.

JEA

Artwork: VCCA Sculpture: information pending

El sueño de Ícaro

Sueño con la brisa acariciando mi rostro,
con pasajes de luz,
con alas blancas
agitadas al viento.

Sueño con el sol descansando sobre mi cabeza.
con el sabor de la libertad,
con el olor del vuelo
de colegas bípedas.

Sueño.
Y en el remanso de esa quimera
ni el sol ni el mar me son letales.

Despierto.
El desigual y caótico descenso al precipicio
Me recuerda lo fugaz de la felicidad.

elf

New game: Ode to a Body Part

Write a short ode to a part of your body, any part of your body. I've pasted below Lucille Clifton's "Homage to My Hips" as an example:

"these hips are big hips
they need space to
move around in.
they don't fit into little
petty places. these hips
are free hips.
they don't like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved,
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top!"

Game/Juego

Write a ten line poem in which you play with a proverb or adage. (Adapted from Behn & Twichell, The Practice of Poetry) Here's my attempt:

I find myself
between the devil
and a hard place,
between a rock
and the deep blue sea
a place, a rock, the sea.
To find, to be, to see.
I, myself, the devil
and between,
a deep blue.

elf

Not really a poem, but a smattering of ideas that were inspired by Elf's wonderful rendering above. This was fun!

some one threw a mossy stone
in my glass house
that was yours. It was
a stone's throw
away from everything
good and plenty, needles in haystacks.
bad apples, and seeds
gone to pot.
someone saved their nickel,
but threw a penny for my thoughts,
a wishing well, deep
as the devil's blue jeans.

Conjugaciones

Para Luis que pide un juego de conjugaciones verbales

El amor a la deriva

La quise
La quiero
La querré

Me quiso
Me quiere
Me querrá

Mas juntos
olvidamos,
olvidé,
olvidó.

Y el amor se pierde
se perdió
se perderá
entre el hastío y la apatía.

Entonces querer y olvidar,
serán siempre subjuntivos
si te hubiese querido más
si hubiera luchado,
si no te olvidara...

elf

#2
Si estuviera donde estás
no estaría como estoy
no sería lo que soy
si fuera donde tú vas
si me dieras lo que das
a quien le diste lo mío
ya no sentiría más frío
sólo sentiría que siento
pensaría en lo que pienso
y si pienso, luego existo
pues nadie vería lo que ven
mis ojos que ya te han visto

Evelyn

___________

Tense

loved, she not. so she loved back
and loves forward, and side and sidled
back to love, try again and tried, fit to be tied. because fit, she not
to that love. that one so broken. that love so broke.
breaking on the edge of love she gave, gives in,
she, given to a Loved
waiting, as he loving another speaks of love unspoken,
while the loves of his love
tease then teased and wait waited, then fade
to not a love.

loved, she not. still, she loves
back. stilled and till and under and drowned
and drown and downed
and down.

JaneA

Juego

Write a short piece, poem or story, in which you relate on a physical, psychological or spiritual level to another being (insect, flora or fauna). I've pasted an example below by Galway Kinnell. I will post mine soon:


The Fly

by Galway Kinnell

The fly
I've just brushed
off my face keeps buzzing
about me, flesh-
eater
starved for the soul.

One day I may learn to suffer
his mizzling, sporadic stroll over eyelid or cheek,
even hear my own singing
in his burnt song.

The bee is the fleur-de-lys in the flesh.
She has a tuft of the sun on her back.
She brings sexual love to the narcissus flower.
She sings of fulfillment only
and stings and dies, and
everything she ever touches
is opening, opening.

And yet we say our last goodbye
to the fly last,
the flesh-fly last,
the absolute last,
the naked dirty reality of him last.

"The Fly" by Galway Kinnell, from Three Books. © Houghton Mifflin Co., 2002. Reprinted with permission.

ANother example:



Las moscas de Antonio Machado (1907)

Vosotras, las familiares,
inevitables golosas,
vosotras, moscas vulgares,
me evocáis todas las cosas.

¡Oh viejas moscas voraces
como abejas en abril,
viejas moscas pertinaces
sobre mi calva infantil!

¡Moscas del primer hastío
en el salón familiar,
las claras tardes de estío
en que yo empecé a soñar!

Y en la aborrecida escuela,
raudas moscas divertidas,
perseguidas
por amor de lo que vuela,
—que todo es volar—, sonoras
rebotando en los cristales
en los días otoñales...
Moscas de todas las horas,
de infancia y adolescencia,
de mi juventud dorada;
de esta segunda inocencia,
que da en no creer en nada,
de siempre... Moscas vulgares,
que de puro familiares
no tendréis digno cantor:
yo sé que os habéis posado
sobre el juguete encantado,
sobre el librote cerrado,
sobre la carta de amor,
sobre los párpados yertos
de los muertos.

Inevitables golosas,
que ni labráis como abejas,
ni brilláis cual mariposas;
pequeñitas, revoltosas,
vosotras, amigas viejas,
me evocáis todas las cosas.

Youtube video of Serrat singing Las Moscas: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgkiukx0VDM&feature=related

First entry for edg

Cántico a un machambo incordio

Machambo, chango
Carbón cagón
que canta como cacharro que cae sobre el macadán
¡Quita, quita!
No picotees las carambolas que están verdes.
No mordisquees las guayabas que aún no crecen y
carecen de cáscaras que puedan cocerse en almíbar
para comerse como cascos rosados con queso blanco.
¡Quita, quita!
No chorrees tu caca en las camisas que cuelgan del cordel.
¡Quita, quita!
¡Calla, calla!
Quédate en una esquina matracando tu cantaleta discordante.
Escóndete como las cucarachas y coge camino hacia el carajo.
No me compelas a componer coplas cacofónicas.

epm

***********

Not as accomplished as the poet EPM but I hope you enjoy.

Complaint to the Gorgojo

Dear Sr. Gorgojo,

I hope this finds you well. It is unfortunate that we should find this space to meet but I need to ask you to please stay out of my oatmeal, my necessary rice, the package of maizena that sits at the front of the cupboard waiting. Do you not see
how you erode my work? You, who have painfully crawled out of a chrysalis, must understand that it is not easy being boricua. And yet you dismantle my small house
with your effortless burrowing. Do you not see how you spit at all my abuelita taught me?

You must have your own politics, Sr. Gorgojo, the own party line you meander, half-drunk, dizzy with the knowledge that I will find the graffiti your tongue leaves on my fideos.

There are others you know, who have abandoned snow, interstate highways and 7-Elevens for this shore. But they are still tourists. Talk to them; they know nothing of a heart that works so much to be. Move on to those new imports, their American-ness neon bright and pulsing with a need for cheese slices and mayonnaise. I'll have you know I love bacalaitos in a bag. I love my tattered Spanish in my mouth when I say avena. I love my foothill heart when I buy criollo rice. I promise you, Sr. Gorgojo, that I am not temporary. You will never scare scare me away, back to the places bereft of lizard tails, amapola wings, and you.

Cordially yours,
Jane


Here's an example by Billy Collins:


Dharma

by Billy Collins

The way the dog trots out the front door
every morning
without a hat or an umbrella,
without any money
or the keys to her dog house
never fails to fill the saucer of my heart
with milky admiration.

Who provides a finer example
of a life without encumbrance—
Thoreau in his curtainless hut
with a single plate, a single spoon?
Ghandi with his staff and his holy diapers?

Off she goes into the material world
with nothing but her brown coat
and her modest blue collar,
following only her wet nose,
the twin portals of her steady breathing,
followed only by the plume of her tail.

If only she did not shove the cat aside
every morning
and eat all his food
what a model of self-containment she would be,
what a paragon of earthly detachment.
If only she were not so eager
for a rub behind the ears,
so acrobatic in her welcomes,
if only I were not her god.

"Dharma" by Billy Collins, from Sailing Alone Around the Room. © Random House, 2002.

Juego

Jane, Yaz,

How's this for a challenge:

Imitate in theme or form Sara Teasdale's poem: "The Look"



The Look
by Sara Teasdale

Strephon kissed me in the spring,
Robin in the fall,
But Colin only looked at me
And never kissed at all.

Strephon's kiss was lost in jest,
Robin's lost in play,
But the kiss in Colin's eyes
Haunts me night and day.


La mirada:(una traducción libre)

Juan me besó en la primavera
Pedro en el otoño
Pero José sólo me miró
y nunca me besó

El de Juan se perdió mientras jugábamos
El de Pedro durante el juego
Pero el que brillaba en la mirada de José
todavía me persigue

elf


La mirada que me persigue

Cual Juan me besaba,
Pedro me tocaba, pero fue José
quien me miraba, desde lejos de su sueño

fatal. Desde lejos de planetas, cielo, o tierra,
fue tropezando con sus celos, ahogándose
en su dolor, y, óyeme, así fue su mirada, un cuento

de la marejada, un testigo de luto, una danza
de faja y volcán. Jamás podría ser la de Pedro
ni la de Juan, y jamás pensé ser la mujer

encontrada en el cuartel de su mirada brutal.
Con su fuerza, consumió mi corazón como si fuera hecho
de leña, una mirada que a un tiempo supo ser seda,

ahora tan militar, ocupando los espacios
de mi cuerpo, olvidados
por Pedro y por Juan.

Jane

Not a game necessarily

I had to add this link. I'm a little of a spelling nazi myself.(Can one be a little of???)

#16 THE LIST

This "game" was taken from a website called "thelistanthology.com," and was suggested to me by Jane. These are the instructions as posted:
"Since we believe writing exercises are often the start of new, innovative work, our anthology will be a collection of poems that use six words supplied by six of our "showcased" poets."

These six words are:
1. Anteros
2. crippled
3. spindles
4. stairwell
5. threshold
6. whirligig

Come again?

The first time Anteros was awake
and each kiss was a spindle from which
Love drew on.


The second time the god
slept, and afraid of speciously committing
Eros flew away
and crashed into a stairwell.


So, the crucial one never made it,
And love was left outside the threshold.
My heart like a whirligig
battered by the wind
searches for direction…


elf

________________________

Attack

Once a great spindle of hay to gold,
once the witch of wine
-- forgive me if I brag but -- long ago
the magic maker, my heart now is the long
hobbled road to Oz. Don't bother picking Anteros'
pockets. Look for no requited there - find nothing
but a thrift store of whirligigs and termites, flea-bitten
hope and a bin of free double-headed nickels.
For the long spinners of tales and woe?
Oh, nothing. Seven years in the making of oh
and nothing to show for it. Not one
story to tell. Nor a crippled, pee-stained stairwell
to heaven; not even doggerel to cash in.
Carson said the heart is a lonely hunter. Or is it
the heart is a deer hunter? No matter.
Mine plays Russian Roulette
on the threshold of a Cambodian shack
built from regret.

----Jane