Anthology

¡Desgraciado Almirante! Tu pobre América,
tu india virgen y hermosa de sangre cálida,
la perla de tus sueños, es una histérica
de convulsivos nervios y frente pálida.

Un desastroso espirítu posee tu tierra:
donde la tribu unida blandió sus mazas,
hoy se enciende entre hermanos perpetua guerra,
se hieren y destrozan las mismas razas.

Al ídolo de piedra reemplaza ahora
el ídolo de carne que se entroniza,
y cada día alumbra la blanca aurora
en los campos fraternos sangre y ceniza.

Desdeñando a los reyes nos dimos leyes
al son de los cañones y los clarines,
y hoy al favor siniestro de negros reyes
fraternizan los Judas con los Caínes.

Bebiendo la esparcida savia francesa
con nuestra boca indígena semiespañola,
día a día cantamos la Marsellesa
para acabar danzando la Carmañola.

Las ambiciones pérfidas no tienen diques,
soñadas libertades yacen deshechas.
¡Eso no hicieron nunca nuestros caciques,
a quienes las montañas daban las flechas! .

Ellos eran soberbios, leales y francos,
ceñidas las cabezas de raras plumas;
¡ojalá hubieran sido los hombres blancos
como los Atahualpas y Moctezumas!

Cuando en vientres de América cayó semilla
de la raza de hierro que fue de España,
mezcló su fuerza heroica la gran Castilla
con la fuerza del indio de la montaña.

¡Pluguiera a Dios las aguas antes intactas
no reflejaran nunca las blancas velas;
ni vieran las estrellas estupefactas
arribar a la orilla tus carabelas!

Libre como las águilas, vieran los montes
pasar los aborígenes por los boscajes,
persiguiendo los pumas y los bisontes
con el dardo certero de sus carcajes.

Que más valiera el jefe rudo y bizarro
que el soldado que en fango sus glorias finca,
que ha hecho gemir al zipa bajo su carro
o temblar las heladas momias del Inca.

La cruz que nos llevaste padece mengua;
y tras encanalladas revoluciones,
la canalla escritora mancha la lengua
que escribieron Cervantes y Calderones.

Cristo va por las calles flaco y enclenque,
Barrabás tiene esclavos y charreteras,
y en las tierras de Chibcha, Cuzco y Palenque
han visto engalonadas a las panteras.

Duelos, espantos, guerras, fiebre constante
en nuestra senda ha puesto la suerte triste:
¡Cristóforo Colombo, pobre Almirante,
ruega a Dios por el mundo que descubriste!

A veces quiero preguntarte cosas, y me intimidas tú con la mirada, y retorno al silencio contagiada del timido perfume de tus rosas.

A veces quise no sofiar contigo,

y cuanto mas queria mas sofiaba, por tus versos que yo saboreaba,

tu el rico de poemas, yo el mendigo.

Pero yo no adivino lo que invento,

y nunca inventaré lo que adivino

del nombre esclavo de mi pensamiento. Adivino que no soy tu contento,

que a veces me recuerdas, imagino, y al irtelo a decir mi voz no siento.

Al fin termino por entender
que yo amo esta ciudad hasta la rabia:
es tierra y abono para la nostalgia.
benditos constructores que no dejan ni una casa,
amadísimos urbanistas paisajistas
que siempre cambian los bancos de las plazas
(nada conserva su nombre
y lo agradezco de todo corazón)
que nada se acerque a la eternidad,
que la ciudad que yo conozco
no la conozcan mis hijos,
que nunca rodemos por la misma calle,
que la nostalgia se construya todas las quincenas.

(Xia Jiangling) (Translated from Chinese)

A sea of colorful clouds
Was there to see me off,
The world awaits,
As I Li Bai,
Left Baidi.
It was the crack of dawn.
It was three hundred miles,
To reach Jiangling,
A thousand li,
If one counts in Chinese.
Along the way, on both banks,
Monkeys spoke.
I am not sure why,
Or what they said,
I am not sure why I bring it up.
It makes more sense
To say
They laughed,
To see this sight,
Beneath ten thousand towering mountains
A little boat bobbing
On the mighty Yangtze

I went to Ulta Beauty to buy perfume I was horny and I wanted the universe inside my nose The lit shelves and raised hair Press a sensual towering cloud Swells and pitches of  blood This one smells like observation deck This one smells like Florida toilet Stinky zoo Albino gator There was no tester for Ariana Grande’s “thank u next” signature scent I Googled its reviews: “Smells like sexy pickles and pears” We had everything on earth Pupae, larvae, tiger moths Stick bugs and shrimp plants and giant millipedes, jellyfish And what did we make Dell computer oxycodone maxi dresses Water beds, the PT Cruiser P90X, MK ULTRA, bitcoin, body rock, nation states We could have had manta rays But we wanted Boone’s Farm apple wine I’m depressed I’m depressed by mankind’s infinite reach

The flowers
        I wanted to bring you,
            wild and wet
                from the pale dunes

    and still smelling
        of the summer night,
            and still holding a moment or two
                of the night cricket's

    humble prayer,
        would have been
            so handsome
                in your hands--

    so happy--I dare to say it--
        in your hands--
            yet your smile
                would have been nowhere

    and maybe you would have tossed them
        onto the ground,
            or maybe, for tenderness,
                you would have taken them

    into your house
        and given them water
            put them in a dark corner
                out of reach.

     In matters of love
        of this kind
            there are things we long to do
                 but must not do.

    I would not want to see
        your smile diminished.
            And the flowers, anyway,
                are happy just where they are,

    on the pale dunes,
        above the cricket's humble nest,
            under the blue sky
                that loves us all.

I have a bed, my very own. It’s just my size. And sometimes I like to sleep alone with dreams inside my eyes.

But sometimes dreams are dark and wild and creepy and I wake and am afraid, though I don’t know why. But I’m no longer sleepy and too slowly the hours go by.

So I climb on the bed where the light of the moon is shining on your face and I know it will be morning soon.

Everybody needs a safe place.

father. you always call to say nothing in particular. you ask what i’m doing or where i am and when the silence stretches like a lifetime between us i scramble to find questions to keep the conversation going. what i long to say most is. i understand this world broke you. it has been so hard on your feet. i don’t blame you for not knowing how to remain soft with me. sometimes i stay up thinking of all the places you are hurting which you’ll never care to mention. i come from the same aching blood. from the same bone so desperate for attention i collapse in on myself. i am your daughter. i know the small talk is the only way you know how to tell me you love me. cause it is the only way I know how to tell you.

Todos los amores imposibles son eternos, el tiempo no los toca y no existen traiciones entre los amores imposibles. Amo con toda intensidad, amo sin límites a cada uno de mis amores imposibles. A veces el olor del café trastoca el orden de los años y voy a dar a la madrugada de un resplandor que a mí me alumbra o de pronto la voz de Janis Joplin me ensarta en una noche cítrica, de alambre, la noche del hechizo, puede ser una forma precisa de mecerse el viento entre los árboles y la danza del cuerpo, la eterna danza de un cuerpo eterno entre la eterna danza de la brisa. Los eternos amores imposibles no se tocan, no se cruzan, no pueden verse entre sí, no existen los celos entre los amores imposibles, son perfectos los amores imposibles.

‘‘Beyond this possibility looms a pressing moral imperative. These are times when the fabric of society seems to unravel at ever-greater speed, when selfishness, violence, and a meanness of spirit seem to be rotting the goodness of our communal lives. Here the argument for the importance of emotional intelligence hinges on the link between sentiment, character, and moral instincts. There is growing evidence that fundamental ethical stances in life stem from underlying emotional capacities. For one, impulse is the medium of emotion; the seed of all impulse is a feeling bursting to express itself in action. Those who are at the mercy of impulse-who lack self-control-suffer a moral deficiency: The ability to control impulse is the base of will and character. By the same token, the root of altruism lies in empathy, the ability to read emotions in others; lacking a sense of another’s need or despair, there is no caring. And if there are any two moral stances that our times call for, they are precisely these, self-restraint and compassion.’’

‘‘In The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle’s philosophical enquiry into virtue, character, and the good life, his challenge is to manage our emotional life with intelligence. Our passions, when well exercised, have wisdom; they guide our thinking, our values, our survival. But they can easily go awry, and do so all too often. As Aristotle saw, the problem is not with emotionality, but with the appropriateness of emotion and its expression. The question is, how can we bring intelligence to our emotions-and civility to our streets and caring to our communal life?’’

“The beliefs of the rational mind are tentative; new evidence can disconfirm one belief and replace it with a new one—it reasons by objective evidence. The emotional mind, however, takes its beliefs to be absolutely true, and so discounts any evidence to the contrary. That is why it is so hard to reason with someone who is emotionally upset: no matter the soundness of your argument from a logical point of view, it carries no weight if it is out of keeping with the emotional conviction of the moment. Feelings are self-justifying, with a set of perceptions and “proofs” all their own.”

The Past Imposed on the Present

“When some feature of an event seems similar to an emotionally charged memory from the past, the emotional mind responds by triggering the feelings that went with the remembered event. The emotional mind reacts to the present as though it were the past. The trouble is that, especially when the appraisal is fast and automatic, we may not realize that what was once the case is no longer so. Someone who has learned, through painful childhood beatings, to react to an angry scowl with intense fear and loathing will have that reaction to some degree even as an adult, when the scowl carries no such threat.”

However, even “boredom” has its aura of mystery and is imbued with a singular pathos by Nietzsche. Boredom, from which art provides a refuge, becomes terrifying—the yawning abyss of being. When people  are bored, they regard the moment as an empty passage of time.  External events, as well as people’s sense of self, become inconsequential. The phases of life lose their intentional tension and cave in on themselves like a soufflé removed from the oven too soon. Routines and  habits that otherwise provide stability suddenly prove to be nothing  more than façades. Finally, the eerie scenario of boredom reveals a  moment of true feeling. When people find nothing to do with themselves, nothingness besets them. Against this backdrop of nothingness,  art performs its task of self-stimulation—a virtually heroic enterprise,  because people on the verge of a breakdown need to be entertained. Art  steps in as a bridge to prevent succumbing to nihilist ennui. Art helps us  live; without it, life cannot stem the onslaught of meaninglessness.

“People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become, and they pay for it, very simply, by the lives they lead.”

There are two kinds of learning, from the inside and from the outside. The first is regarded as the best, or even the only kind. And so people learn through distant journeys, watching, reading, universities and lectures —- they learn from what is happening outside them. Man is a stupid creature who has to learn. So he tacks knowledge onto him- self, he gathers it like a bee, gaining more and more of it, putting it to use and processing it. But the thing inside that is “stupid” and needs learning doesn’t change.

Cornspike learned by absorbing things from the outside to the inside.

Knowledge that is only grown on the outside changes nothing inside a man, or merely changes him on the surface, as one garment is changed for another. But he who learns by taking things in- side himself undergoes constant trans- formation, because he _ incorporates what he learns into his being.

We cannot live forever surrounded by the dead and by death.

And if there are still prejudices, they must be destroyed.

THE DUTY

I say well

THE DUTY

of the writer, of the poet, it is not to cowardly shut oneself away in a text, a book,

a magazine of those who will never come out again, but rather go outside

to shake

to attack

to the public spirit

if not

What is it for?

And why was he/she born?

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers flow in the right direction, will the earth turn

as it was taught, and if not how shall

I correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven, can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows can do it and I am, well, hopeless.

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it, am I going to get rheumatism, lockjaw, dementia?

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing. And gave it up. And took my old body and went out into the morning, and sang.

I fear a Man of frugal Speech— I fear a Silent Man— Haranguer—I can overtake— Or Babbler—entertain— But He who weigheth—While the Rest— Expend their furthest pound— Of this Man—I am wary— I fear that He is Grand

| sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all oppression and shame

| hear secret convulsive sobs from young men at anguish with themselves, remorseful after deeds done,

| see in low life the mother misused by her children, dying, neglected, gaunt,desperate

| see the wife misused by her husband, | see the treacherous seducer of young women

| mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love attempted to be hid, | see these sights on the earth

| see the workings of battle,pestilence,tyranny, | see martyrs and prisoners,

| observe a famine at sea, | observe the sailors casting lots who shall be kill’d to preserve the lives of the rest

| observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon laborers, the poor, and upon negroes and the like;

All these-all the meanness and agony without end | sitting looking out upon,

See,hear,and am silent.

Yo no aconsejo. Colecciono sellos. Para dar consejos, es necesario estar completamente seguro de que los consejos son buenos y, para eso, es necesario estar seguro (de lo que nadie en absoluto lo está) de estar en posesión de la verdad. Y luego es necesario saber si esos consejos se adaptan al individuo al que se le dan, para lo cual es necesario conocer toda su alma, lo que casi nunca es posible. Y también hay que tener en cuenta que el modo de dar consejos debe adaptarse exactamente a aquella alma; se aconsejan a veces cosas que no quieren que se hagan para que, combinadas con elementos del alma aconsejada, se obtenga el resultado que se desea. Solo la gente muy ingenua da consejos.

No sé si lo he dicho: mi madre es pequeña y tiene que ponerse de puntillas para besarme. Hace años yo me empinaba, supongo, para robarle un beso. Nos hemos pasado la vida estirándonos y agachándonos para buscar la medida exacta donde podemos querernos.

hoy llueve mucho, mucho,
y pareciera que están lavando el mundo
mi vecino de al lado mira la lluvia
y piensa escribir una carta de amor/
una carta a la mujer que vive con él
y le cocina y le lava la ropa y hace el amor con él
y se parece a su sombra/
mi vecino nunca le dice palabras de amor a la
mujer/
entra a la casa por la ventana y no por la puerta/
por una puerta se entra a muchos sitios/
al trabajo, al cuartel, a la cárcel,
a todos los edificios del mundo/ pero no al mundo/
ni a una mujer/ni al alma/
es decir/a ese cajón o nave o lluvia que llamamos así/
como hoy/que llueve mucho/
y me cuesta escribir la palabra amor/
porque el amor es una cosa y la palabra amor es otra cosa/
y sólo el alma sabe dónde las dos se encuentran/
y cuándo/y cómo/
pero el alma qué puede explicar/
por eso mi vecino tiene tormentas en la boca/
palabras que naufragan/
palabras que no saben que hay sol porque nacen y
mueren la misma noche en que amó/
y dejan cartas en el pensamiento que él nunca
escribirá/
como el silencio que hay entre dos rosas/
o como yo/que escribo palabras para volver
a mi vecino que mira la lluvia/
a la lluvia/
a mi corazón desterrado/

No los domésticos,

estratégicamente dispuestos

para que te digan siempre

lo que quieres oír,

sino los otros,

los que no tienen dueño,

los de los bares,

los de los comercios,

los de los vestíbulos de hotel,

esos son los que te dicen la verdad:

que no eres nada, nadie,

en realidad,

solo uno más

que pasaba por allí.

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan’s men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you’d return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I love the silent hour of night,
For blissful dreams may then arise,
Revealing to my charmed sight
What may not bless my waking eyes.

And then a voice may meet my ear,
That death has silenced long ago;
And hope and rapture may appear
Instead of solitude and woe.

Cold in the grave for years has lain
The form it was my bliss to see;
And only dreams can bring again,
The darling of my heart to me.

When you see me sitting quietly, Like a sack left on the shelf, Don’t think I need your chattering. I’m listening to myself.

Hold! Stop! Don’t pity me!

Hold! Stop your sympathy! Understanding if you got it, Otherwise I’ll do without it!

When my bones are stiff and aching, And my feet won’t climb the stair,

I will only ask one favor:

Don’t bring me no rocking chair. When you see me walking, stumbling, Don’t study and get it wrong.

‘Cause tired don’t mean lazy

And every goodbye ain’t gone.

I’m the same person I was back then, A little less hair, a little less chin,

A lot less lungs and much less wind. But ain’t I lucky I can still breathe in.

¿También nos engañamos con respecto a los recuerdos de nuestra propia vida?

Sí. Son datos que están ya demostrados científicamente. Cuando almacenamos algo en la memoria a largo plazo, la manera para recordar es extraer este recuerdo de la memoria a largo plazo y ponerlo al frente del almacenamiento a corto plazo. ¿Qué ocurre? Que cuando extraemos este recuerdo y lo situamos ahí, de repente se vuelve versátil. El propio hecho de acceder a ese recuerdo hace que lo cambies. Es decir, cuando recuerdas una vivencia que te ha ocurrido y te pones a meditar sobre ella o te pones a revivirla, cuando después la vuelves a guardar en el almacenamiento a largo plazo no es exactamente la misma. 

La retocas siempre que la recuperas. 

Siempre la retocas, aunque sea de una manera mínima. Pienso que es un poco triste en cierto sentido, porque quizá aquellas vivencias que pensamos que son más significativas para nosotros, que nos definen como personas a lo largo de los años, que son las experiencias que recordamos una y otra vez, seguramente serán muy distintas de las experiencias originales por el hecho de estarlas recordando tanto.

It is foolish to think that you have to read all the books you buy, as it is foolish to criticize those who buy more books than they will ever be able to read. It would be like saying that you should use all the cutlery or glasses or screwdrivers or drill bits you bought before buying new ones.

There are things in life that we need to always have plenty of supplies, even if we will only use a small portion.

If, for example, we consider books as medicine, we understand that it is good to have many at home rather than a few: when you want to feel better, then you go to the ‘medicine closet’ and choose a book. Not a random one, but the right book for that moment. That’s why you should always have a nutrition choice!

Those who buy only one book, read only that one and then get rid of it. They simply apply the consumer mentality to books, that is, they consider them a consumer product, a good. Those who love books know that a book is anything but a commodity.

Those who come with wheat, millet, corn or milk, they are not helping us. Those who really want to help us can give us ploughs, tractors, fertilizers, insecticides, watering cans, drills and dams. That is how we would define food aid.

Leer te hace ver más lejos, te hace ver a los ojos de los otros, como iguales, sean del sexo que sean, la religión que sea, la condición social que tengan. Leer abre tu mente y no permite que se llene de polvosos prejuicios, de malas inten- ciones, de ideas preconcebidas. Pero lo lamento, no te hace ser mejor a menos que quieras ser mejor.

And then a scholar said, Speak of Talking. And he answered, saying: You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts; And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime. And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered. For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.

(Translated from the Chinese)

One white, one red, one black Three horses are drinking at the riverbank

They drink at their own pace, some up Some down Sometimes their heads reach the river

At the same time

As if a river were flowing Out of their mouths

As their minds flow from the river source Still innocent, clear, undisturbed

The sun is setting slowly A man watches, without blinking

How a river disappears into the night Held in the mouths of three horses

Cuando tú te quedes muda, cuando yo me quede ciego, nos quedarán las manos y el silencio.

Cuando tú te pongas vieja, cuando yo me ponga viejo, nos quedarán los labios y el silencio.

Cuando tú te quedes muerta, cuando yo me quede muerto, tendrán que enterrarnos juntos y en silencio;

y cuando tú resucites, cuando yo viva de nuevo, nos volveremos a amar en silencio;

y cuando todo se acabe por siempre en el universo, será un silencio de amor el silencio.

Yo que crecí dentro de un árbol
tendría mucho que decir,
pero aprendí tanto silencio
que tengo mucho que callar
y eso se conoce creciendo
sin otro goce que crecer,
sin más pasión que la substancia,
sin más acción que la inocencia,
y por dentro el tiempo dorado
hasta que la altura lo llama
para convertirlo en naranja.

After my sons grew up and moved away, a globe of the world, cradled in its caliper,

remained high up on a shelf in their room, where it had been already for many years.

Rounder than we know the earth to be, the globe marks boundaries that have since dissolved,

while the colors that denote those stitched-together places, remain bright, if arbitrary, except the green-blue

seas.

So much about a globe is obvious, so much obscure, and yet reaching up to take it down to pack away

I see, smaller than a child’s thumb, the light bulb that from the hollow center made their dark room glow

and their hands, the size of continents, turned translucent when they palmed the planet to make it spin.

One evening

I met the mango.

At first there were four or five of them

in a bowl.

They looked like stones you find

in the rivers of Pennsylvania

when the waters are low.

That size, and almost round.

Mossy green.

But this was a rich house, and clever too. After salmon and salads,

mangoes for everyone appeared on blue plates, each one cut in half and scored

and shoved forward from its rind, like an orange flower, cubist and juicy.

When I began to eat

things happened.

All through the sweetness I heard voices,

men and women talking about something— another country, and trouble.

It wasn’t my language, but I understood enough. Jungles, and death. The ships

leaving the harbors, their holds

filled with mangoes.

Children, brushing the flies away

from their hot faces

as they worked in the fields.

Men, and guns.

The voices all ran together

so that I tasted them in the taste of the mango, a sharp gravel in the flesh.

Later, in the kitchen, I saw the stones

like torn-out tongues

embedded in the honeyed centers.

They were talking among themselves— family news,

a few lines of a song

You will need to state the reason for your visit. Don’t say because I want to walk down old roads and caress stone walls the color of my skin.

You will need to state the reason for your visit. Dont say because the olives are ready for harvest and I will coax the fruit from the trees, press it into liquid gold.

You will need to state the reason for your visit. Dont say because my parents house still sits empty on a bluff overlooking the sea, the green shutters my grandfather had just painted remain sealed shut and the army listed the property’ owners as absentees.

You will need to state the reason for your visit. Don’t say because I am carrying prayers in my suitcase for a people who wait, and I’ll unfold them embroidered linens of verse and spread them out across the land.

Tengo miedo de verte
necesidad de verte
esperanza de verte
desazones de verte

tengo ganas de hallarte
preocupación de hallarte
certidumbre de hallarte
pobres dudas de hallarte

tengo urgencia de oírte
alegría de oírte
buena suerte de oírte
y temores de oírte

o sea
resumiendo
estoy jodido
y radiante
quizá más lo primero
que lo segundo
y también
viceversa.

Isn’t the moon dark too, most of the time?

And doesn’t the white page seem unfinished

without the dark stain of alphabets?

When God demanded light, he didn’t banish darkness.

Instead he invented ebony and crows

and that small mole on your left cheekbone.

Or did you mean to ask “Why are you sad so often?”

Ask the moon. Ask what it has witnessed.