It’s good to feel you are close to me

It’s good to feel you are close to me in the night, love,invisible in your sleep, intently nocturnal,while I untangle my worriesas if they were twisted nets. Withdrawn, your heart sails through dream,but your body, relinquished so, breathesseeking me without seeing me perfecting my dreamlike a plant that seeds itself in the dark. Rising, you … Read more

Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market

Among the market greens,a bulletfrom the oceandepths,a swimming projectile, I saw you,dead. All around youwere lettuces,sea foamof the earth,carrots,grapes,butof the oceantruth,of the unknown,of theunfathomableshadow, the depthsof the sea,the abyss,only you had survived,a pitch-black, varnishedwitnessto deepest night. Only you, well-aimeddark bulletfrom the abyss,mangledat one tip,but constantlyreborn,at anchor in the current,winged finswindmillingin the swiftflightof themarineshadow,a mourning arrow,dart … Read more

Poor Creatures

What it takes on this planet, to make love to each other in peace. Everyone pries under your sheets, everyone interferes with your loving. They say terrible things about a man and a woman, who after much milling about, all sorts of compunctions, do something unique, they both lie with each other in one bed. … Read more

Absence

I have scarcely left you When you go in me, crystalline,Or trembling,Or uneasy, wounded by meOr overwhelmed with love, aswhen your eyes Close upon the gift of lifeThat without cease I give you. My love, We have found each otherThirsty and we have Drunk up all the water and theBlood, We found each otherHungry And … Read more

From – Twenty Poems of Love

I can write the saddest lines tonight. Write for example: ‘The night is fracturedand they shiver, blue, those stars, in the distance’ The night wind turns in the sky and sings.I can write the saddest lines tonight.I loved her, sometimes she loved me too. On nights like these I held her in my arms.I kissed … Read more

La Muerta

Si de pronto no existes,si de pronto no vives,yo seguiré viviendo. No me atrevo,no me atrevo a escribirlo,si te mueres. Yo seguiré viviendo. Porque donde no tiene voz un hombreallí, mi voz. Donde los negros sean apaleados,yo no puedo estar muerto.Cuando entren en la cárcel mis hermanosentraré yo con ellos. Cuando la victoria,no mi victoria,sino … Read more

Ode To A Naked Beauty

With chaste heart, and pureeyesI celebrate you, my beauty,restraining my bloodso that the linesurges and followsyour contour,and you bed yourself in my verse,as in woodland, or wave-spume:earth’s perfume,sea’s music. Nakedly beautiful,whether it is your feet, archingat a primal touchof sound or breeze,or your ears,tiny spiral shellsfrom the splendour of America’s oceans.Your breasts also,of equal fullness, … Read more

Poor Fellows

What it takes on this planet, to make love to each other in peace. Everyone pries under your sheets, everyone interferes with your loving. They say terrible things about a man and a woman, who after much milling about, all sorts of compunctions, do something unique, they both lie with each other in one bed. … Read more

Algunas Bestias

Era el crepúsculo de la iguana. Desde la arcoirisada crestería su leengua como un dardo se hundía en la verdura, el hormiguero monacal pisaba con melodioso pie la selva, el guanaco fino como el oxigeno en las anchas alturas pardas iba calzando botas de oro, mientras la llama abria cándidos ojos en la delicadeza del … Read more

from The Book of Questions

III. Tell me, is the rose nakedor is that her only dress? Why do trees concealthe splendor of their roots? Who hears the regretsof the thieving automobile? Is there anything in the world sadder than a train standing in the rain?