The Centennial Verses

Traducciones en camino

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 23:32:36 -0400

Traducciones de varios poemas de inglés al español. Y algunos del español al inglés, supongo.

Pick your favorites

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 20:11:48 -0400

Pick your favorite poems on this collection. I want to shape them up into something nice.

Elijan sus poemas favoritos de este tumblr, que quiero tallerearlos.

#100: Rayuela

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 22:38:00 -0400

…la armonía duraba increíblemente, no había palabras para contestar a la bondad de esos dos ahí abajo, mirándole y hablándole desde la rayuela…

-Julio Cortázar, Rayuela

Sí, a ustedes les hablo,

si es que han leído esto,

a ti que buscas el nombre en el 91

y a ti con la cabeza metida en el 5

(no te culpo si no quieres volver)

no sé en qué orden hayan leído,

pero aquí se cuenta una historia

de una musa invocada que fue pluma,

ebria y dada a esconderse entre extraños

que se sientan en bancas, que se cortan las venas,

que fingen amores en las redes sociales,

o que se mueren a vista de todos.

Laplumaquenosabescribir,

que le gusta ser polisilábica,

que deja atrás los sueños con reproches,

que es dama de hierro, estéril, odiosa,

casi siempre andrógina, Bowie de pacotilla,

que alguna vez soñó y luego no sueña.

La golpean los deseos cuando se cumplen,

y le causan insomnio. A veces los desea en un pozo.

(Si quieren ver, es el número 80).

Más veces se le antoja estar ausente,

se justifica con timidez,

a veces dice que ni es madura.

(Será que en el fondo no aguanta a nadie).

Una triste vagabunda mental,

que le llora a unos parajes grises,

que le tiene miedo a esta ciudad,

que teme que el mundo no sea bueno,

que su niñez sea espejismo.

Por eso, a veces busca cuentos de hadas,

príncipes que no son. Sus nombres

se encuentran en estas líneas.

(¿Les doy pista? El 11, por ejemplo).

Hombres tulipanes o exóticos,

quienes encantan (hay uno que sólo canta)

y escriben unas épicas más bellas

que las de cualquier guerra en las noticias.

(Hay ciertas debilidades deportivas).

Existe también un amor que es sueño,

que se esconde entre las calles europeas,

como una promesa de nunca tener miedo.

Él tiene dirección, mas nunca tendrá nombre.

Hay amores prohibidos que lo tienen,

que quizá sean capricho, que a veces se esconden

con máscara inocente de pasado,

aunque dejan lecciones en el papel,

un sentimiento de vejez somnolienta,

de adolescencia imperfecta,

de peticiones colgando en el aire.

Hay también confesiones a medias,

un retrato de Lou Reed entre los discos.

Hay una figura etérea por lejana,

porque no es nada más que esporádica,

que deja sus cicatrices redondas

cual cometa mudo entre la noche.

Hay sombras del pasado y noches sin dormir.

Hay una casa que vive en unos ojos.

Están los Cowboy Junkies en el fondo

cuando hay que rebelarse ante el espejo,

cuando hay feminismo arrastrado

y un escupitajo al destino.

El corazón se rompe cada día

y de pronto escucha alguna trova (sí).

Hay consejos cuando a veces es coherente,

cuando piensa que vale la pena.

Hay domingos flojos que piden una fiesta

para volver a amar todas las tardes.

Hay horas que se van, una y otra vez.

Y canciones mal hechas (o títulos copiados).

Hay sueños recurrentes y obsesivos,

procesos de parásita emoción.

Hay llamadas en estado incoveniente.

Conocidos que se vuelven dibujos.

Hay risas que cortan como navajas.

Está Morrissey pintándoles un dedo.

Hay migajas que pueden dar de comer.

Hay una iglesia y hay un tarot pagano.

Hay miedo a matar la felicidad

y a quedarse atorada en una zanja.

Hay una VHS con recuerdos.

Hay un lugar seguro en una imagen

de una chica que juega a ser mamá.

Hay fantasmas que luchan por ser reales.

Compromisos que no tienen anillo.

Peticiones que nunca han de cumplirse.

Epifanías que se han quedado ciegas.

Una reflexión de la reescritura,

que pierde validez de las sonrisas.

Hay el deseo del don de ser ubicua.

Hay un cochecito que fue vendido.

Hay melodrama y escritura automática.

Hay cambios de piel y rituales locos.

Hay días que podrían mejorar,

un testamento que los quiere todos.

Hay cadáveres amarrados a las vías

que descubrieron que todo termina.

Y hay un deseo plagado de estupidez

que pide que esto se vuelva inmortal.

(Pasar al capítulo 1).

#99: Cannot finish this without writing an acrostic to this guy

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 23:47:14 -0400

Everlasting in my mind, a

Dreamboy made a man

Who haunts the wedding dreams

I really never have for then I would ask

No one else but you.

Vain and little fantasy of this girl,

Anachronic desire for a hero who eventually became

Nothing but irreplaceable. I wished and said

“Don’t go.” But you made up your mind.

Eternity was already your path, any other way.

Royalty of a proud army that loved you.

Someone else seemed like impossibility.

A hero, a legend, every title is yours.

Romance of a Dutchman, a Wagner opera.

#98: Blood on the Tracks

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 23:45:00 -0400

As I live and breathe
You have killed me
You have killed me
Yes I walk around somehow
But you have killed me
You have killed me

And there is no point saying this again
there is no point saying this again
But I forgive you, I forgive you
Always I do forgive you.

-Morrissey, “You Have Killed Me”

Unfleshed for the silence turned a knife

took me away and doomed me into this nothing:

I am the strangler whose arms have fallen off,

the plague, the leper, the pariah in an alley,

I am the one risen to the gallows,

with no reason yet to fight the hangman;

there is a night with no legs and no wish to run,

there’s no moon when there’s no sun and day,

there’s no calendar which burned in a cold fire,

for I am the anything, the nameless,

the one who haunts the attic in dementia,

the one who had to die without some words.

#97: Last Will

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 23:39:49 -0400

Deathbed wish, it says.

Hanging like a neon sign upon me,

the slight urgency of life before it’s swallowed

by everything we are and by our watches.

The taking, the holding

and everything is last year

and the pages of days you wrote and solved

with my life enthroned there as a hope beam.

If time could be a place I would chose that,

the tangling of my life between your arms,

the afternoons you spread like butter on bread

with a sugary aftertaste in nights to come;

death was nothing when your reign was my language.

The cross upon my dreams.

#96: Sitting on a Bench

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 22:56:25 -0400

I had seen you as a nothing that could go away,

but chance gave us a finite, sweet connection.

It was nothing about love, but it was something

I could recognize from myself. You asked to send a text.

I could imagine you, day after day, waiting for your family

to come. Memorizing the other side of the road,

until it became invisible from customary sightseeing.

Form a path so nobody can see you,

even though they wonder what is it you do everyday,

while waiting, an hour, maybe two,

retracing itinerary steps until they are

meaningless, a wasted second every moment.

We are too good, you and I, you see.

Sitting on a bench with life drinking from a puddle.

#95: Iron Maiden

Sun, 02 Sep 2012 22:05:55 -0400

My mother wants me to become Margaret Thatcher.

My grandmother thinks otherwise. I am barren and birthless

in her eyes. She loves the perpetuation of the species.

She longs for a wedding that never happened,

for dresses, white. I am a strange accessory,

a silent statue sitting with a book and watchful

in a corner. She wishes I could marry a prince.

I’m a faded mirage of a fairytale,

Who has kept love inside, calm and waiting,

for a moment to break off the stones in flight,

to take passion from my strangled noose.

#94: Stuck

Sun, 02 Sep 2012 00:40:23 -0400

Bore me with the incessant image of your past,

with no dreams, with your small sighs

of nice commodity. With your reruns of a life

and a strangled wish in tears. With your smiles

headed behind to your nape and your hair.

I can take my ridicule, my laughter to myself,

into something like tomorrow, rotten, but unknown.

#93: Blue Moon Ritual

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 03:16:41 -0400

Papers burning and there I could see my words.

They were written as in a trance, and as they burned,

I could see my dreams turned into ashes.

But there was a heart of a flame inside,

there, tossing and turning like a neon light,

vivid orange, rockstar, tasting with tongue kisses

my life, killing it to make it real in years to come.

#92: Brighter Days

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 20:08:00 -0400

The day should have shone with the spirit of—something.

Should have had the magic of you gliding like the jasmine mind,

It should have yelled in the face of life like a rebel,

Should have had something more besides the morning

bread and butter. The letters that never came, and the ones

I never sent. Lewd songs booming from car windows and

pirate records.

Two men fixing the bathroom door and dirt to sweep.

A haircut programmed for my dry and messy head.

Clothes that need to be washed, calls that need to be made.

Some conspiracy theories taking shape

on the Internet.

The evil of everything, overshadowing you,

and the brightness

you used to drag along.

The day should have been a quiet whisper of tall grass.

It should have been the still-life of a star.

It should have been something to look at in verse.

#91: Tribute

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 21:51:30 -0400

Done. Don’t go,

I could say. Giving

Meaning to an

Individual feeling.

Teenage thoughts

Abound in me.

Rapid succession of

Brilliant years

Ended and gone by.

Ringing watches or

Biting alarm-clocks

Announcing endings of

These heroes I knew.

Open arms forever.

Vivid images of you.

#90: Former Stranger

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 21:54:24 -0400

Let me love the world as I loved you:

walking blindly to your arms, making them home,

fearless of anything that meant you;

suddenly my surroundings were the nightmare and the deathtrap,

the embodiment of fear was never you.

I cried on the phone after your voice,

the bridge to the outside, the protector

—no God ever gave me home sweet home—

rang into my eyes: the sirensong.

You’re everything to lose myself in world,

forsake everything: adventure.

Taken as a pirate by a wave,

of nothingness but your eyes and your words.

Seeker now: but fearful of your non-being.

Tell me how to make the world your name,

how to start a journey as if your arms

twinkled like a pendant of a temple,

made themselves the amulet of goodwill.

#89: Absent

Mon, 27 Aug 2012 22:50:00 -0400

I cannot live with You—

It would be Life—

-Emily Dickinson

Let me not live inside your arms

like a lotus flower in the dark:

my nightmares and perverse imaginations

make me flinch like an infant in fear:

but the dream you offer me in pieces

is nothing but an automnal nap—

so let’s take these last and charming minutes

of music and blessings I wish I take.

#88: Sundays

Mon, 27 Aug 2012 01:28:00 -0400

They hang to their last hours

like torture

unwilling to depart

in silence

reminders of the sad

condition

of customary cups

of coffee

#87: I Never Learned to Draw

Sun, 26 Aug 2012 00:39:04 -0400

So I really like you

Blackboard baby

When I can outsketch you

And turn you into my past

With former days cologne

And then erase

For new days

ln backyards

#86: Reconcile

Sat, 25 Aug 2012 00:29:58 -0400

Night and beauty and bonhomie

Reconcile me with life

And if you gave me the downpour

Of tears and those clear eyes

I would find the simple words

To forgive God in His height

#85: Forget

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 23:13:58 -0400

Let me forget

you

and the scars

the pumping

anything

I’ll take

myself

as a bunch

of skin

so lower

than a car

or status

you take

#84: Sleepless

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 00:59:18 -0400

my mother gave me sleeping pills

so i could drift away dreamless

in the night. because there’s no illusion,

no morning to look forward to but

there’s nothing in the darkness as well, see,

no prince to hug and steal me away in dreams.

(my parents never hug me)

#83: Unrealistic

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 23:27:23 -0400

Last chances

are stretched out like S.O.S. calls

dying on the inside

for torture devices

try to make them taller

like surreal football stars