THE
By Dany Hernández
The last of the squirrel's nest, we call it the squirrel condo, blew away in the storm last night. Thank heavens they had the good sense to find new shelter months ago before the final calamity. It made me ponder the plight of the homeless blown by the gales of misfortune, the gust of maybe feeling unloved by anyone, let alone by God, the devastating cyclone of drugs or mental health problems, the tornado of a short lived wrong decision. I need not feel guilty while eating my turkey dinner of shared love and plenty but I will be filled with empathy for their troubles and wish them, and all mankind, the best Merry Christmas they can possibly have. My prayers and what little human support are all I can offer. May you all be filled with gratitude and empathy over the holiday season and all year long.
My old body resists the new schedule. It is difficult for me to indoctrinate it to turn on after sunrise. Who knows what I had to be in another life? A farmer, a gardener, a rooster, a perfectionist executioner, of those who get up early to finalize details and gallows. God knows!
Metamorphosis:
For Aime, twenty-one years today after that kiss.
I have viciously disposed of the other's time, the only time ever heard of. That avarice of clocks and hooks is measuring this kidnapped time, my fleeting substance, my deaf sand, my jump from body to body, my fall, my madness.
I have cried outspokenly, with a steamy mouth and the melancholy of sleep through all my awakenings, seeded each time in a different avatar like a wasp fetus in the heart of a caterpillar.
I have known fish and calistemo, larva and green fly, and exquisite feast in the eyes of the forest necromancy of the forests. By nesting in the body of the other I have shed the tears of Andromeda like when you have a straw in your eye.
I have wept for myself with the broken cry of widows, full of names and abominable ephemerides, and with the intimate suffering of a mother who bids farewell to the first-born in a profusion of kisses and rosaries, since I have become, in a Trinitarian unison mummified, son and mother and farewell.
And I have remembered that after the prolonged sob one would think one recognized oneself in the déjà vu of those other lives, in the neighborhood shacks seen from so far away, and the patio with a cistern and pigeons where we pretended to exist leaning out into the nocturnal subterranean preamble that imitates us under the world, or stuck in the mud and foliage of the garden, with friends and the first objects.
I have remembered the silent apparition of a prehistoric moon covering the pantomime of the linden trees with uranium, and the singing wastelands of childhood, undulating ejidos like virgins with red hair,
sawmills and little towns adorned with blonde slogans for the day of barbarism, innumerable metropolises like the starlings and the nuptials and the aromatic mounts of Venus, flowerbeds that lead to the old cemeteries where I went to sleep the monkey after each massacre and each blow, after an abundant death and murder under all flags; I have remembered, in my unbearable infinity, the crowded villages erected by man, reached by crossing the railway line. All this I remember to immediately forget. That is the secret of the jump and eternity: remember and forget, fleetingly.
Mi viejo cuerpo se resiste al nuevo horario. Se me hace arduo adoctrinarlo a prenderse después de la salida del Sol. ¿Quién sabe qué cosa me tocó ser en otra vida? Un labriego, un jardinero, un gallo, un verdugo perfeccionista, de esos que madrugan para ultimar detalles y patíbulos. ¡Sabrá Dios!
Metamorfosis:
Para Aimé, a veintiún años hoy de aquel beso. Viciosamente he dispuesto del tiempo del otro, el único tiempo del que alguna vez se tuvo noticia. Esa avaricia de relojes y de anzuelos va midiendo este tiempo secuestrado, mi fugaz sustancia, mi sorda arena, mi salto de cuerpo en cuerpo, mi caída, mi desvarío. He llorado con pelos en la lengua, con la boca humeante y la melancolía del sueño a lo largo de todos mis despertares, sembrado cada vez en un avatar diferente como un feto de avispa en el corazón de una oruga. Me he sabido pez y calistemo, larva y mosca verde, y exquisito festín a los ojos de la forestal nigromancia de los bosques. Al anidar en el cuerpo del otro he derramado las lágrimas de Andrómeda como cuando se tiene una paja en el ojo. Me he llorado a mí mismo con el llanto desmoronado de las viudas, lleno de nombres y abominables efemérides, y de un íntimo sufrir de madre que despide al primogénito en una profusión de besos y rosa
rios, pues he llegado a ser, en un trinitario unísono momificado, hijo y madre y despedida. Y he recordado que tras el prolongado sollozo uno creería reconocerse en el déjà vu de aquellas otras vidas, en las chabolas de barrio divisadas desde tan lejos, y el patio con aljibe y torcazas en donde fingimos existir asomados al nocturno preámbulo subterráneo que nos imita bajo el mundo, o emporcados entre el fango y el follaje del jardín, con los amigos y los primeros objetos. He recordado la silenciosa aparición de una luna prehistórica forrando de uranio la pantomima de los tilos, y los cantarines descampados de la infancia, ejidos ondulados cual vírgenes cabelleras pelirrojas, aserríos y pueblitos adornados con rubias consignas para el día de la barbarie, metrópolis innumerables como los estorninos y las nupcias y los aromáticos montes de Venus, arriates florecidos que conducen a los viejos cementerios donde fui a dormir la mona después de cada matanza y cada porrazo, tras un abundante morir y asesinar bajo todas las banderas; he recordado, en mi insoportable infinitud, las concurridas aldeas erigidas por el hombre adonde se llega pasando la línea del tren. Todo esto recuerdo para enseguida olvidar. He ahí el secreto del salto y la eternidad: recordar y olvidar, fugacísimamente.
El contrabandista de leche en polvo, un nudoso graciano y corredizo, se llevó junto con nuestros tetradracmas el apetito de los perros, que pasaron la noche gimoteando guarecidos bajo la escalera de caracol. A este buzo filibustero se le encomia su aporte a la economía sumergida (ladrón que roba a ladrón) y la frase lapidaria que nos dejó por toda despedida: "Aquí lo que no hay es que morirse".
Diego matricula en el Pre. En palabras de Amanda (que está en todas), la moderna edificación tiene visos de manicomio o de presidio político; amurallada y pringosa, defenestrada por oncológicos ventanales de zinc torcidos justicieramente por la pedrada de la adolescencia, la escuela es también el hogar de algunos de los más connotados barcinos callejeros de la zona. Mi pequeñuelo ya nunca más estará solo, cada aula dará cobijo a cuarenta pitufines. La secundaria de Amanda es, en cambio, un bullicioso cementerio sin árboles al final de una callejuela decorada de turísticos basurales, vigilada por chulos y guripas que comparten amenamente cigarros y alcohol.
Sí, el contrabandista está más claro que la leche del desayuno: aquí lo que no hay es que morirse. No tenemos dos vidas para reír, me dice en la tarde mi tía, a quien las penurias otorgaron a partes iguales sabiduría, finísimo humor y soledad.
Existencia:
Tonsura de la loma que amanece, inmóvil alcurnia del paisaje entregada al sentimentalismo provinciano y boticario, argot de minúsculas trascendencias que dan a las fachadas un demudado, una altivez de valle,
una paz demacrada de objeto familiar que repiten bajo el aire de cobalto los charcos de Heráclito.
A nuestro paso el pobre junto a un cartel tiende la severa mano y suplica "algo para el café ".
Este esbozo de ciudad esta posibilidad de luz y rímel que maquilla un navideño borceguí entre el nubarrón aposentado, glauco, laboral de los obreros es todo cuanto hay para nutrirse.
Perdida el alma para siempre y, como suele suceder, desnudos en el mar que reanuda su agradable camino hacia la nube, o perdidos en la arena del reloj, ya no sé, vida, dónde termina esta ciega realidad, dónde comienzo yo.
The powdered milk smuggler, a gnarled, slippery Graciano, carried away with our tetradrachms the appetite of the dogs, who spent the night whimpering in shelters under the spiral staircase. This filibuster diver is commended for his contribution to the underground economy (a thief who steals from a thief) and the lapidary phrase that he left us for all farewells: "There is nothing to die for here."
Diego enrolls in the Pre. In the words of Amanda (who is in all of them), the modern building looks like an asylum or a political prison; walled and greasy, defenestrated by oncological zinc windows crooked justly by the stone throwing of adolescence, the school is also home to some of the most notorious street barcinos in the area. My little one will never be alone again, each classroom will shelter forty smurfins. Amanda's high school is, instead, a bustling treeless graveyard at the end of an alley lined with tourist dumps, watched over by pimps and punks who playfully share cigars and booze. Yes, the smuggler is clearer than breakfast milk: here what there is is not to die for. We don't have two lives to laugh, my aunt tells me in the afternoon, to whom the hardships gave wisdom, fine humor and loneliness in equal parts.
Existence: tonsure of the hill that dawns, immobile lineage of the landscape given over to sentimentality provincial and apothecary, slang of tiny transcendences that face the facades a demuded, a valley arrogance, an emaciated peace of familiar object that repeat under the cobalt air Heraclitus' puddles. at our pace the poor man next to a poster extends the stern hand and pleads for "something for coffee."
This sketch of a city this possibility of light and mascara What makes up a Christmas borceguí among the settled cloud, glaucous, labor of the workers it is all there is to feed on. Lost my soul forever and, as often happens, naked in the sea that resumes its pleasant path to the cloud, or lost in the sand of the clock, I don't know anymore, life Where does this blind reality end? where do i start
By Wency Rosales
Hablar de Topes de Collantes es solo repetir una historia mil veces contada por lugareños o visitantes, nada es comparable con vivir una experiencia en el lugar, caminar los senderos, adentrarseen los ríos y cascadas,disfrutar del olor a humedad y la quietud de las montañas. Pero en realidad nada es suficiente si no pruebas un excelente café preparadopor las mismas manos que lo cosechan, un proceso sin igual cuyo resultado es un elixir de los Dioses.
Talking about Topes de Collantes is just repeating a story told a thousand times by locals or visitors, nothing is comparable to living an experience in the place, walking the trails, entering the rivers and waterfalls, enjoying the smell of humidity and the calmness of the mountains. But the reality is nothing enough if you don't try an excellent coffee prepared by the same hands that harvest it, a process like no other whose result is an elixir of the Gods.
DU FU’S THATCHEDHUT
By Anna KeikoRain falls to the water
Everything repeats itself in the life of the common people
The poems in the Huanhuaxi garden are carved into the belly of rocks Miss your master Splashing autumn rain washes away the dust of travelers
The carps in the hut pond are as red and green as the lotus Corridors and bridges, quiet paths
Yellow leaves drift by and drop a poem
Although they no longer "sit on the grass to fish" Lu Shangwen and Wang Yuan came home like returning swallows. People as dreams, wind is a poem, water reads history
He made ink out of bone marrow and wrote “While the rich stink with wine and meat, the road was covered with bones of those who died in the cold” Handed down are three "officials" and three "farewells" How can the thatched Shaoling hut not encourage contemplation?
The Hall of the History of Poetry and the Shrine of the Office for fine arts are soaring like a pen into the sky A blade of grass and a tree are all born because of poetry However, the worshipers have their own thoughts regarding the question of whether for Du Fu, if he was still alive, the luxury automobiles would come lightly
Carry grain, bring silk books
Send ink, add firewood even if it is not a hundred martial arts of Yan
At the banks of the Huanhua creek -clear water, the sound of the wind, dense poetry Orioles sing –The warehouse is full, there are enough clothes Why worship the bright vegetation? More than a thousand years have passed Du Fu, you live in your poems You live in an unimagined world Poems full of concern for the country and the weak the common people will never forget If there were a hundred Van Goghs in the world there would be a thousand Du Fu under the sky But this world is unbearable
It's not that there aren't any ditches for the heavy rain But don't reveal it if you know: there is no place for wisdom and wise people This is the suffering of the world Li Linfu, and Emperor Suzonghow do you know that your soul is sublime?
At the sight of human suffering, the blood flows full of poetry A pure heart enjoys birds and writes poetry according to the Tao He who kneels down is not a man; you don't duck because of hunger Only clear eyes can see the world and permeate it for thousands of years But because of a few grains of rice and a pot of cloudy wine they are ringing bells already and sigh The thatched house is already a name for a prosperous time if you know that there are beautiful costumes and chants all around Golden light illuminates the moss along the way Statues in the forest everywhere are revered like Buddhas or "Wei Zhuang" who knows you and understands you
But he cannot carry your heavy burden for you Prepare a good meal Roam unsteadily on a wide lane to seek justice
The sky hasn't changed The world has changed The earth hasn't changed Has man changed? The long dragon crowd comes because of you, (poet)
Screaming tour guides Gatemen. Clean up. Stores. Tourists Eat the blood and tears you leave behind Invigorating view, the wine tastes salty
I hold a book in my hands and listen to footsteps Every step the foot takes is like turning a page in a history book The way it is with Dai Zongfu’s youth, it is now with Daizong Mtn Everywhere in Shandong, it’s green A pavilion and a courtyard, a pavilion and a pillar The cool world of the old days As in autumn, the cold wind hits the empty forest The pendulum of time does not stop for anyone
The light you lit falls on later generations The carved Buddha figures are a blessing to those who come When you step out, over the high threshold of the thatched hut, red evening light spreads over Chengdu My heart belongs to the Anshi revolt the time of the Tang Dynasty
MIGUEL ÁNGEL OLIVÉ IGLESIAS
New Year Spirit
Airs of joy reach inside us as the old year hobbles towards the nascent one. The spirit of Christmas descends settling in people´s hearts like a gift of goodness and faith gently wrapped in grateful paper. Ah, tidings of bliss! Homes brighten, hearths shine—the faithful rejoice while hymns of comfort and elation, of hope and love, are heard filling life on Earth with redeeming warmth.
(Revised version, December 2022)
After Love
By Merle Amodeo (from Such Sweet Sorrow)Those long, lovely nights are over. I've taken to sleeping on the lumpy cot in the back room where the only way I know it's morning is by the rumble of the '86 Buick Skylark when old George starts it up at seven. He doesn't drive anywhere –
can't. Lost his licence last monthbut he loves to hear the old engine hum. And that's how I feel about you now.
I'll always miss the way you purred like a kitten just before you dozed off. Sometimes I can go days without remembering the way we met.
You feigning you were lost, asking directions to a wine bar I'd never heard of.
Me claiming I was sure it was just around the corner, hoping you'd follow, pleased when you did, intrigued by your chatter all through lunch.
I spend whole days rehearsing what I'll say one day when we pass on the street. You with your new love clinging to your arm, me with some guy I met online.
I'll be cool when I introduce you, let on we were distant acquaintances, maybe even stumble over your name as if it escapes me.
If we do meet someday by accident, turn your head in that casual way of yours, and I'll pretend I never loved you.
God Bless the Beauty of all Broken Things
By John B. LeeGod bless the beauty of all broken things lost shambles of an autumn shade where garden asters bloom and cold chrysanthemums remain like threadbare buttons of a tattered coat grand mothering the earth’s closed over loam where winter sets its frost upon a shattering of etiolating crimson veined in rust unhook the stays of summer watch the apple rot where wizening is redolent as wine gone off the cork what’s fruit spoil to the lazy hive the omni-bibulous butterflies drink deep surrendering their wings like breath on silk gone still there’s truth in fading truth in fog an energy that dampens light the soul is like a heart’s blush in the flesh let fall the lamp harp and the veil let fall the drifting night
the angel of the last leaf lingering in rain the areola wet with milk all wakeful stars await the absent dreamer whispering of this … the way a word once present on the tongue might please both mother and the satiated lamb
Ode on an Hibiscus Flower Fallen to the Floor and then set in a Water Glass Vase
By John B. Leelong after my wife has brought the earth and stem of a season-damaged shrub indoors into the wintering room this green-leafed hibiscus rescued from the cold garden before first frosts of autumn when even the grass in the yard is glazed with hoar like filigrees of a pie shop confection during that first month of many changes when cooler sun dips down with heaven come close to the window moving west in etiolated light like the great blue-feathered sweep of a soft yellow bird’s wing
the house begins to bloom with the concupiscent petals flaring their skirts as they fall to the floor like the dishabille of wealthy nappers shedding colourful party dresses in the sleepy room and then follows the water glass dancer her Latin American chincuete blazing vermillion and white a seemingly lascivious silk and cotton invitation to the fertile vortex of the most beauteous form of unlit fire where sublime sensation gives rise to the weary weight of the life-kindled world
By
NAVIDAD
RAINER MARIA RILKE, (1875-1926)
Las tormentas de invierno penetran el mundo con poder furioso. Ahí desciende en alas nevadas la noche perfumada de abetos.
Ahí se cierne a la luz de las velas en voz baja, apenas si lo pienses, a través de pobres corazones errantes la fe – tal como fuese antes.
Brillan las lágrimas en tus ojos, huyes de la alegría - y lloras, recuerdas tu infancia con añoranza, ¡Oh, si aún fuese como antes!
¡Lloras!... suenan las campanas y desciende en esplendor festivo, en alas nevadas cae la noche perfumada de abetos.
CHRISTMAS
RAINER MARIA RILKE,
Winter storms break in the world with furious power. There it descends on snowy wings the scented night of fir trees. There it hovers by candlelight in a low voice, as soon as you think about it, through poor wandering hearts faith – just as it was before.
Tears shine in your eyes, you run away from joy - and cry, you remember your childhood with longing, Oh, if only it were as before!
You cry!... the bells ring and descends in festive splendor, on snowy wings falls the scented night of fir trees.
(1875-1926)
