Poetas Extranjeros · Forrest Gander, en idioma original

Compartimos los poemas de Forrest Gander publicados en la edición papel del número 9 de La balandra, esta vez en el idioma original. Que los disfruten.

 

Ligature 5

for Valerie Mejer

It’s not an insult to refuse to drain the glass, she tells me
And a fly crawls from de bowl of salsa picante.

Would you choose to bury the organs with the child?
And he retreats to his room and closes the door.

Here, birds in the zócalo whiz and tweet like children’s toys
And there, a charred corpse hanging from the bridge.

From the seat behind, he pokes her head with the plastic fork
And getting no response, tests it on his own head.

Would you turn the damn wipers off, the attendant asks
And the odor of the manure and wet hay hits us.
A kind of mystery adheres to those who have suffered deeply
And thank you Mr. and Mrs. Radiance.

It sounded like the chimmuck of a rock dropped into a stream
And the piston-driven breathing of sex.

The couple at the bus station, when had we kissed like that?
And Nice evening. Yes it is. A bit skunky. That’s for sure.

Terrorist and victim circling the last chair and the music stops
And the worm’s valved mouth snapping.When I rise out of myself
………………………………………………………./into occasion, I said
And when do you rise out of yourself into occasion, she asked.

Late enough to count moths at the window
And our boy will be coming up the porch steps when he comes.

The long row of treadmills choiring
And above them, televisions replay the disaster.

 

Background check (fragment)

The UN diplomat draws it is not it is not war
behind the ambassador to speak draws
a curtain it is not Guernica to speak
a reproduction with curtain across the not war
united right behind the appropriate
Guernica to speak with
right states the diplomat draws a curtain
across the reproduction not appropriate
for the ambassador of the United States
to speak of war with a reproduction
of Guernica right behind behind right behind him

 

Projecting love

dragging her fingernails across the air as
stage left, he steps from darkness into his flesh
under the minatory glare the flexed
tendons of his fingers, her eyes and
lips flare when he stumbles
she is aware without looking
almost they embrace
vessels and nerves of his cheek under
a thin strata of fascia when
her mouth breaks black open
when stage right he exits cupping the wound
when she cries out (in Japanese)
“I see the world upside down”

 

 

“Ligature 5” fue publicado en Ligaduras (Ventana Abierta Ltda., Santiago)
“Background Check” fue publicado en State of the Union: 50 Political Poems, (Wave Books, EE. UU.)
“Projecting Love” fue publicado en Eiko & Koma (New Directions, NY, EE.UU.)