Poems

In my sky at twilight you are like a cloudand your form and colour are the way I love them.You are mine, mine, woman with sweet lipsand in your life my infinite dreams live. The lamp of my soul dyes your feet,the sour wine is sweeter on your lips,oh reaper of my evening song,how solitary … Read more

There are cemeteries that are lonely,graves full of bones that do not make a sound,the heart moving through a tunnel,in it darkness, darkness, darkness,like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves,as though we were drowning inside our hearts,as though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul. And there are corpses,feet made of … Read more

And it was at that age … Poetry arrivedin search of me. I don’t know, I don’t know whereit came from, from winter or a river.I don’t know how or when,no they were not voices, they were notwords, nor silence,but from a street I was summoned,from the branches of night,abruptly from the others,among violent firesor … Read more

Out of lemon flowersloosedon the moonlight, love’slashed and insatiableessences,sodden with fragrance,the lemon tree’s yellowemerges,the lemonsmove downfrom the tree’s planetarium Delicate merchandise!The harbors are big with it-bazaarsfor the light and thebarbarous gold.We openthe halvesof a miracle,and a clotting of acidsbrimsinto the starrydivisions:creation’soriginal juices,irreducible, changeless,alive:so the freshness lives onin a lemon,in the sweet-smelling house of the rind,the … Read more

Matilde, years or days sleeping, feverish, here or there, gazing off, twisting my spine, bleeding true blood, perhaps I awaken or am lost, sleeping: hospital beds, foreign windows, white uniforms of the silent walkers, the clumsiness of feet. And then, these journeys and my sea of renewal: your head on the pillow, your hands floating … Read more

Littlerose,roselet,at times,tiny and naked,it seemsas though you would fitin one of my hands,as though I’ll clasp you like thisand carry you to my mouth,butsuddenlymy feet touch your feet and my mouth your lips:you have grown,your shoulders rise like two hills,your breasts wander over my breast,my arm scarcely manages to encircle the thinnew-moon line of your … Read more

La callese llenó de tomates,mediodia,verano,la luzse parteen dosmitadesde tomate,correpor las callesel jugo.En diciembrese desatael tomate,invadelas cocinas,entra por los almuerzos,se sientareposadoen los aparadores,entre los vasos,las matequilleras,los saleros azules.Tieneluz propia,majestad benigna.Debemos, por desgracia,asesinarlo:se hundeel cuchilloen su pulpa viviente,es una rojaviscera,un solfresco,profundo,inagotable,lle na las ensaladasde Chile,se casa alegrementecon la clara cebolla,y para celebrarlose dejacaeraceite,hijoesencial del olivo,sobre sus hemisferios … Read more

To whoever is not listening to the seathis Friday morning, to whoever is cooped upin house or office, factory or womanor street or mine or harsh prison cell;to him I come, and, without speaking or looking,I arrive and open the door of his prison,and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent,a great fragment of thunder … Read more

The memory of you emerges from the night around me.The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea. Deserted like the wharves at dawn.It is the hour of departure, oh deserted one! Cold flower heads are raining over my heart.Oh pit of debris, fierce cave of the shipwrecked. In you the wars and the flights … Read more

Fleas interest me so muchthat I let them bite me for hours.They are perfect, ancient, Sanskrit,machines that admit of no appeal.They do not bite to eat,they bite only to jump;they are the dancers of the celestial sphere,delicate acrobatsin the softest and most profound circus;let them gallop on my skin,divulge their emotions,amuse themselves with my blood,but … Read more