Gyre of red marble in which sleep runs,

and vile, infamous Bonaparte, hands

rage livid, the part on a disheveled

head of hair, speaks of many nations

mutilated and broken in pieces

I’ve seen bloodied!  My soul also a flag

open to the clear sun and joyous air

and is as straight as a pine tree.  They

saw it and hated it, they sent falcons

from their vengeful falconry to hunt it,

to deliver between beaks its gold fleck

Oh!  Many a falcon returned blue skies

with a bit of my soul in its talons.

And, whoosh!, I was hoisted!– and, whoosh! with stone

and stick the people lowered me–and, whoosh!

the pine tree like a leak cracked the heavens

And through me the white flag was extended!

And, over the people, the pine was raised,

this one the hatchet, that one the dagger,

and still yet the other held the poison,

blackened the air was watered, the clouds black,

where the stars are robust pine trees of light,

and blue swans swim the fragrant lakes of milk,

and where the soul flowers and the roses

are sculpted, given their breath, and cast forth.

To where love lives, charged by the star’s own blade!

Even God who also sees that blade: torn,

more even than this flag, for there is none

as broken and without such a freedom

adornan la apagada cripta

Where the red train becomes its fist

gnaws away at infamous Bonaparte!

No, insistent music, don’t speak to me

of the heavens!  It’s death, it’s trembling,

it is taking me apart from within

without compassion!  If I can’t live like

as a flower in the pure air a palm tree

opens its green chalice and arrive home

after a brutal day.. Did I say “home?”

There is no home in a foreign nation!

I returned in broken pieces of flames!

I lift myself from off the floor: I raise

and gather up the remnants of myself;

saddened like a statue of broken Christ:

I work upright appearing as a man

from the outside.  Look!  Come see what’s inside!

But take the path that toward Virgil guides

If not, you remain outside: the fire

circles the dampened cave: like hell flowers

blooming into wounds:  And gaping open

over the dried earth are burned feet

scalded wood fire!  Everything flowers

over the earthen grave!  No, tenacious

music, don’t speak to me of the heavens.

I shake off my fatigue with the bed sheets.

not knowing if it will be a happy

one with sleep overwhelming sleep, I hold

off unhappiness along with that fear

of light illuminating misery,

as my eyes resist looking– while it seems

I have not slept on soft feathers at all

but in the black arms of a beast.  The air

shines as a river beams to a person

in stride, two lips open:  and joy arrives

as to a happy home where a loving

family greets the new year; –then what blooms

before the sun: el pensamiento!

 

Suddenly my eyes begin to darken

and the sky,  toward my head goes my hand

as if in a military salute:

the dead are returned to the motherlight.

 

I stick to my work like a believer

anointed on the forehead by a priest

with a soft gaze and wearing white vestments.

I pratice on a divine altar, Nature

my host is the soul of humanity.

 

(On learning Manuel Ocaranza died)

 

Look at it!  It’s black!  It’s bleak! It’s hunger

is piqued.  Those are her sickle teeth; her mouth;

the dried winds of breath; her tread swallows

orchard and rain forest;  as women

men.  Come out those in hiding, my dear friends,

son of my heart, my dear family!

A mere glimpse of her burns; blind as hunger blinds

soul and eyes terrible is death’s hunger!

 

Not the generous and  forgiving friend

lowering walls for the prisoner soul

to open toward the pleasing blue clearing

not the sweet nor the placid redemptive

sadness of those saddened taking body

like an empty orchard, bringing the soul,

in its grief, up to the highest garden

where the pale moonlight forever shines,

only white roses will grow of the shoots

not my longed-for wife nor my eternal

absent mother whose wide arms hang their hug

over the whole solemn environment,

and open to her children, a severe

form of living.  And to rest and repair

imbalances, the clash and new battle,

reclines its igneous heads on the pure

and the joyful breast of the aurora.

 

No; as the left hand of the creator

enveloped in cloud and in sonorous

position over the skies and the peaks;

even where the borders divide between

colossal elaborate mountains

whose maker possesses tundra-shaping

hands formed by the rays and the deafening

pounding as soft clay injures stone;

stretching the boundary of a huge cup

from which eternal peace finally drinks,

the Evil like an insect, its dark rings

move and its antenna probes arteries

belonging to drinkers of sediment!

 

Death is a servant: servant of the hushed

Creator of life: People are Secret

Saviors! And more so is the igneous

owner of servants who gives them orders

implacably until they surrender

even their future breath to the happy

shadow of a myrtle tree made of gold,

good and evil go to combat in the breast;

and only eternal roses encircle

he in whose very eyes the grim

of the convulsive final battle rests.

The pious whose dried forehead in that breast

of strength, finds no Death, no pain, a big kiss.

And in the gentle Death of Death itself.

Evil and good conspire!  Oh rude self,

toward rebellion and admiration

I am moved by the mystery of pain,

what punishment is the guilt of living,

of painful tenacity, our martyr!

Is it by chance your breast that the beauty

and pleasure of overcoming the beast

I enjoy as alive as martyrdom

is a small price for its final delight?

Hour so tremendous and criminal

for one in which your so generous breast

hunger burned, and placed in illustrious

hand of a friend, that dried one of yours!

No, no that such victims your business

populates its shadow!  Tired ruins

lax ancestors and lazy warriors

it’s your duty to populate shadows,

and in your breast remake an old person

of wasted life to give weak soldiers armor.

Greater are the workshops of creators.

Oh Death! I’ve been reserved for your hungers!

I’ve been stolen; robbed and the only home,

its entire population is pulled

on horses as its solitary friend’s

enormously pained gestures shakes away,

the quieted shadow through the clamor!

Tell me, ignoble thief, speak the darkness

of the mountain where your guilt is sheltered;

and where in the wake of the scorched forest

race horsemen from your hollow cranium!

In the earth’s depths you hide your generous

victim!  Speak to the opening door whose

doorknobs I clang with all the vengeance

of my sword’s blade!  And, more, ay! Where to go?

Which of your soldiers will come following?

A faraway garden and at sunset

and onward toward the four winds!

I have no other choice there is no one

but infamous deserters who on foot

with corrupt weapons refill their coffers!

 

Not made of marble and not made of gold

not of hardened stone  nor of hard iron

divinely magnificent humans

are made of something more common than that:

people today are mere cages of flesh

from the cruel airways toward mantles of gold

and purple refuge, and the internal

cage, black insect eyes and wide feverish

mouth, twists, eats and laughs!  Death!  my crime is good:

immortal earth your noble prisoner.

 

 

 

The light of your body shined and over

your shoulders remained its glow: your smile

was a caress, blind at birth, that appeared

to see: and behind its silent eyelids

like a tranquil lake where the soul is freed

of the horrors that are seen in the world,

its peaceful waters flow: behind the white

eyelids where silver birds and flying stars

were viewed, happy kisses at odds to seek

entrance to those pale caves, from the spines

of swans in the faithful sky pure thoughts flew.

 

Like a flowering branch, a sober white

river  the ocean made flow, a friendly

woman peered at the blinded: and shaken

and aflame became covered in roses,

while the lover kissed her hands completely

covering them with hundreds of kisses:

by the same wreath they’re woven together

over their generous lives: large flowers

sleep the long siesta in their shadows.

 

Who can bridle a colt who sniffs the field

and battle, and confined in its harness,

sees as when it’s biting, his cruel master,

in rebellious moments, behind its eyes

can be seen the poor blind and enslaved soul.

–Oh and as such!– the nonsensical say

they have not seen souls– Oh that you could!

when over the burnt wheat fields, an army

of sun rays launch from the sun and as sparks,

even glitter in the air, grow greater

over the ample countryside.  Helmets

go into motion in my shining pen!

If you could see how the ocean, broken

and black, capsizes the unhappy ship,

and obstructs the strong one: if you could see

unhappy soul, how the Earth when the Moon

is full is illuminated as though

dispossessed on the air it goes slowly

seeking  the flowered home of its lover!

It must be, it must be like that person

touching the top of a child’s head!

 

–Silent, blind.  Like life seized in a flower,

Instantly seeing blind no more–“It shines,

this will be called the Moon. ” Look, look, what sea

made of light!  Abysses, ruins, and caves,

because of her all is chastened with light

like the breast of a white dove glows at night!

Nothing more? asked the blind one then and turned

now opened eyes to a jealous lover

and kissing her humbly while trembling

said: moonlight nothing new to a lover.

 

Why not end it all now that you can shroud

my adventuring body in your shawl?

I am not embarrassed, no, I am not

that you find me with your comb in my heart!

 

You run like an invisible shadow

In pursuit of your new stems I follow

with my stainless jasmine and carnations

You flee!  Everyone does!  But you, Oh pure

and flowering pearl, see me, a jewel

that has been tossed inside a deep goblet,

and in your outstretched hands I am nourished

like a basket of fruit feeds the thirsty.

 

As my spirit raises itself from the earth

so a bird of love lifts off of its chick.

 

 

Rising from the dead a pure star crosses

over earth and like dust falls on warm bones

under a mantle made of gold, the sun shone

was resuscitated, lived for a day,

to die once again, these are its verses:

 

 

My pious soul calling me to my tomb:

the sparkling light of January stars

that passes through the castle of my chest

enters its ruins where my cold remains

which once voraciously lived are bartered.

Oh magician! filled with truth’s doves, Spirit,

purity, light, tenderness, footless bird

human noise alarms, Oh black-haired lady,

this deadened verse surges in your presence

as the gold sun rises over the dark

sea during the sweet dewed hours pulling

itself over its mantle and gaining

speed, reaches you, descends and paints the earth’s

colossal forms a majestic purple.

 

I kissed your feet and saw you pass, woman,

at last, the earth was perfumed and lighted!

That verse that the hardening of daily

living that wasted ate away at me

and by harsh bits from dried and greedy lips,

were exhaled, triumphant and bubbling.

And like ocean waves over peaceful seas,

the spacious blue sky rolled becoming foam.

Oh magician!  Oh lover magician!

Standing at my rough bedside everyday

is an executioner.  As the sun

shines, exilic airs harm the brain, a sad

eagle, my white eagle, that every night

is renewed in my soul, stretches its wings

toward the dawn in the sunlight’s path

and starts to fly.

 

(inserted blank white space)

 

Between bleeding and broken feet, without

clear path to the regal sun, the eagle

goes seeking one grain of it to drag back.

 

Oh night, sun of the saddened, and the breast

whose force revives my heart, endure, discharge

the sun, take the form of a free and whole

woman for me to anoint your feet

with my crazy kisses, I will circle

your entire forehead and warm your hands.

Free me, my eternal night, from the killer

or bid him at the first light of the dawn

to bring a clean and redemptive sword

You ask what should it be made of?  Starlight!

 

It’s fine.  Yes I know that Death at my side

is coming and cautiously toward me

her cries nor love don’t rush to defend me

a father and son live separated

I return from my sterile work frowning,

dark and morose, I isolate myself

through winter, and verse crosses the yellow

pages, in the fatal hand of a dream,

and as black death touches down its wingtip

is able-bodied, everyday trembling

I see Death watching my doorway.

I think of my son and the dark figure

flees with sudden weakness, and the chest

is devoured by a frenetic love.

There is no woman more beautiful

than Death! Just one of her kisses exudes

dense forests of numerous laurel trees,

oleanders of love. I have the joy

of remembering myself a child

…I think of my son who my guilty love

brought to life and sobbing for my arms

lost hold of my beloved: further still

By the ageless aurora I enjoy

my security.  Goodbye oh my life

for one destined to die walks around dead.

 

Oh the ache of the shadow! Oh settlers

of secret worlds in outer space!  Oh great

giants who raise alarm in the people,

and move, direct, deride and hasten them!

Oh conclave of judges, blind to virtue,

that a gloomy cloud thickens with layers

infused with gold, as harsh as a sentence

that grim enough demands a surrender

to battle anew– like a fruit its fruits-

on peaceful production people depend

and from its divine wings!  of the newly-

planted tree that collects sad falling tears

gathering their juice, and in the deep dens

that tigers and snakes enter, and the new

fortifications that love of people

will build up! Here is a young woman,

a king, a nation, and the primary

attraction an arrogant sex worker

who awaits her course captor and master

crying in her deserted brothel-hell!

This is of saint Salem, and a death house

for modern persons.  One cannot spill more

blood than one has!  No problems for those who

don’t hate love!  Unite swiftly love’s soldiers

all people come together! All of earth

rise up to conquer the king and mister

the sky is witness!  Vile!  The traitor

who betrays his duty dies a traitor

plunged in the chest by his own vicious

weapon! Watch how the drama of life does

not end in an episode of darkness!

See how after the marble rose or the bland

curtain of fog and vegetation wakes

the drama’s portent!  And see, you vile,

as the good, the sad, and the mocked change place

with you and they become your tormentors!

 

Some feed off of musical chords or blood:

Not me!  Not me!  I knew the murky

spaces whose features I saw as a child

of sad and penetrative eyes: the awe

of a happy hour if judges saw

in this manner, and I would love life

because from the painful wrong of living

like this I’d be saved by living again.

Happily I’d cast the weight of

accident off my shoulder:  it is in

hunger and satisfaction that colors

comes and go, and veers away from pains

so savory belong to virtue, I’d go

in confusion to the cold and grim judge

for my sentencing like a cowardly

soldier who abandons their noble arms;

and the judges whose booths refuse mercy

condemn and speak spitefully adding hate,

that returns the love of battle again

in the suffocating arena pit!

Oh! What mortal who observes a life wants

to live again!  Death moves anxiously, well,

on foot over dried leaves and waits for me

at my threshold each turbulent hour

of a fall afternoon, and silently

knits me icy yarn for my funeral.

I answered no to any forgetting

Love weapons are not of any color

but the purple of my blood. Open arms,

Mother death I’m ready to see the judge!

 

Son!  What image do I see?   What tearful

sight breaks through shadows with a blinding light

as of the stars that illuminates you?

Son! What do your open arms ask of me?

Where sick at heart do you find yourself?

Why show me your feet bare without wounds,

your pale hands return to me shaken

by extreme sadness?  Stop!  Quiet!  Rest!  Live!

A father shouldn’t die until fighting

the arduous fight with ample weapons

strikes a child!  Oh, come my little child,

your white wings be lost to the arms of death

and from her sentence of death set me free!

 

 

 

I have earned my bread; –go on write the verse–

and employ my hand in its sweet commerce

like a fugitive entering the dark brush

or a person dragging a heavy load,

who of late counting totals confuses

figures. Bard, would you like to be counseled?

Unload from your pale bloodied back,

the harp take it down, quiet the sobbing

of the furious sea that will beat your throat,

from rich wood cut feather-ink pens for your desk

throw your bursting chords to the blowing wind.

 

Oh soul!  Oh good soul! what bad work is yours!

Bow down, shush, surrender, and lick the hands

of the powerful, exalt,* excuse faults,

keep them well — better that you forgive them,

and timidly and obsequiously

celebrate their vices and vanities:

You will see then, my soul, who deals in rich

golden platters for your poor, barren plate.

 

Beware, oh my soul!  Gold has been cheapened!

but don’t wince for they also fashion gold

into jewels of villains and elites

not weapons, weapons are made of iron!

 

My wrongs are brusque and the irate city

is eased in the immense countryside more so

with an immenser one! Then the darkened

afternoons call out to me, as though their

expanding shadows were my own homeland.

Oh friendly verse! I die of solitude

I die of love!  Not of its vulgar form

but for a love that poisons and dazzles.

It’s not a woman’s fruit that’s beautiful

but her star.  Earth should be a source of light

and all living things should regenerate

flames of a star.  Oh the displayed women!

Oh cups of flesh! Oh servants of rich men

who they bejewel then empty out,

trembling! I tell you, oh verse, that my teeth

would ache from eating of that kind of flesh!

 

It is an unspeakable death I die,

the sweet necessity it possesses,

like a newborn child in cautious hands,

my eyes have seen much beauty and sadness.

 

That unhappy dreams don’t restore themselves

and if they are not happy ones, or are sad

and ill-tempered types who enhance fatigue

I jump toward the sun as though I am drunk

I grasp hard at my face with my two hands

and from my wild eyes tears fall flooding.

And look how beautiful the sun is

my deserted cave and inept virtue

and the forces that throng the hairy flames

leap out of me asking to be of use;

I touch the hollow air against the wall

denuded and cold I support myself

and in my shaken skull thoughts transported

in agony, wedged and shattered pieces

the rabid sea spews on the burning sands!

Only the flowers of my fatherland

have scent! Only my motherland’s ceibas

provide shade! As a journey on a stray

cloud that travels over a strange land

even eye contact offends and the sun

more than mere happy heat rages in flames.

Not of welcome cries does my echo sound

in the air of other lands: and they don’t

flow thickly from their arboreal boughs

the thin spirits of all my loves ones!

Of living flesh and of most profound fruit

a person must live!  Ay and even more

an exile feeds off his entrails.

Tyrants! Banish any who have honor

enough to hate you! You’re already dead!

It would be better oh savages! That

on the verge of throwing them from their homes

instead you plunged deep in their honored chests

your most cruel assassin’s toughest of blades!

It’s great to live and awful to live dead.

No more!  No more! Happy are those who

have mercy for sad unfortunates who

don’t know how to overcome it.  Human

nature destroys its best people: iron

fertilizes soil– The iron hits!

*exalt from the Spanish exalsar