BARK AND GLOW
Poems
1990-1997
From Provence
I love the cities of the other
games in the middle by a river
each bank with its own particulars ambitions and discouragement
a segment of the Rhône which here pronounce rum
as the repeated onomatopoeia of animals,
said to be domestic, lost in affection and the island drink of the Caribbean
This city, Arles, of merchants
and bourgeoisie of so-called liberal professions, which of openness,
only a narrow, unbreathable crack in the sesera,
with some Arabs for the jobs that are repugnant to natives
and tourists without sun or mistral,
in short, of hopeless contempt abroad.
I know, to crawl in twilight stretches
some of its railings with few faces,
one, for example, forever associated with two cats
of an old man Motionless with beret and cigarette
cats they look golden
as they liked a dead
friend near my strange river whose city
who knows why, turns his back
to his chimeras.
I also love to stop and ramble
before the wounds and transformations
of the expectant
walls eroded by grave
passions that the walls always smell of notary
heirs and enemies.
Will they close because of that so much the windows?
Will they want to save all the hatred for himself?
The Hopital Dieu where Van Gogh and I sleep
smells even the air of urine and incontinence of the insane and the dead;
our neighbors twist their hands of nightmares
and the main street has covered in
leftovers and wormy
napkins from all the Mac Donald’s in the world, unite.
The Bridge of the Lions, broken by modern cataclysms, will
preserve an image of last abandonment
because no one will ever cut off an ear and tail in our name,
perhaps, carefully in the mirror of the furies
a few hairs, inopportune Reminder of shipwrecks,
clumsiness and tenderness that tenacious persist, under the wild palm trees of that one, single nose.
The Rhône is falling apart between my hands
and the trimmed
olive groves of this Mediterranean village
evoke the withered and perishable
of all striving.
The sunflower seeds
that cockatoos love white
of the bloody fables
the sunflowers, the sunflowers
bah
Camera bed
The splintered cup (by chance, perhaps)
at the foot of the bed
I had as witnesses
your dead and my dead
very brief, the night of Capricorn grew in canvases
(perpetuated by the Flemish school)
where the folds of the enjoy
retain the stitches
of the Grim Reaper,
opposite
Self-portrait
Heart
Still
Stellar
Burning
Late Hothouse Flower
Sometimes Cactus
With This Bitumen of Judea
vulgar cracked
asphalt
under the feet.
Self-portrait 31.12.96
Dad told me that when I was just a teenager I wanted to playing the harp and then being a journalist,
only I remember a bitter spring evening when at ten
I wanted to be a classical dancer and I was angry before the parental ridicule on the stairs
that led to the attic, and the steps and the tears were warm
as hornero’s nests or the sap of ancient Honeysuckles;
I never thought of impossibilities as talent, work or what nature does not give
In short, that centuries later
he did not even touch the harp, nor am I a dancer,
and that in parentheses, meager cracks that infiltrated galleys of useless work and infinite
zigzagging foremen
smuggling little verses, hurried, torn, like these
that I don’t have children, grandchildren or great-grandchildren but few and radiant
friends from time to time I cultivate goblins of boyfriends or disciples
and they say that I am a journalist;
Activities these last precarious and interim:
translating, that my love affairs were stale or green as the grapes
of the fable
and the press goes on always obtuse and distorting;
rude addictions,
It’s true, but I am proud of detoxification still possible
it rains inside and outside, it
is urgent to buy tiles, caulk leaks,
before the roof and the masonry break us
Essential the repair of time and temple:
If I don’t for myself, who,
and If not now, when?
Denture
Bloody battles, lost in advance by each
of my teeth and teeth
a map with a banderille of privations and curtailment
whose traces are lost
in the same, repeated stairs
that lead to identical thrones
of Apprehension, reproach
and panic
Carradas of names, plaster molds emptied of meaning
such as canine molar jaws
for To be left with only one elementary reference:
the from the front, those from the back
those from above, those at the bottom;
like the first steps of the
naked Buddha
in the hostile world
Vampire incisors of walrus
rodents
cartoons, first doors that reveal
to The Men
of Power
Break/do not break
grind
teeth
Oh! My dentists with their
tweezers gauze syringes bridges
false
crowns anesthesia of the whole
world singular hands that uprooted me
one by one from the roots of judgment
and from time to time, in the absence of so many things
, they prescribe to me Tablets that numb
bacteria without restlessness
Gums Waste
Dreams
The kolinos or colgate
smile shines from no time
for its permanent
unguarded
absence
The Dwarf
Very late I understood that not only does one not grow but shrugs, not of the shoulders, but of everything. Someone who hadn’t seen me for a while said to me, “I thought that you were much taller. Then I started to having to stand on tiptoe to grasp things that I used to I drank normally. Now I live in the vent of the baseboard. See the world below. How to reach, the clouds, the table, I avoid it from his mouth.
The Dwarf
Quite late I understood that not only does one not continue to grow, but that one shrinks, not just in the shoulders, but all over. Someone wha hadn’t seen me for a while said to me: “I thought you were much taller.” Then I began to have to stand on tiptoes to grab hold of things that I used to reach normally. Now I live in the cracks of a baseboard. “To see the world from below. How to reach, the clouds, the table, his mouth’s evasion.
Tarazona by day
In May, the bell towers of Navarre and Aragon shine nests with storks. Splendid and wise, couples prefer the most sumptuous abandoned churches, if they are cathedrals, all the better.
On the altar of Santa Ana de Tudela the wings of the angels they are painted in violent vermilion. Over time, the dust has turned everything into drunken blood. It is known: dust and blood prevent flying.
Here the candles intended for worship are electric. So many coins you put in, so much grace and enlightenment I grant you.
Storks have calves.
The chicks begin to fly.
My presence is no longer necessary.
It’s time to emigrate.