"When women spread their skirts over the men"

Back to Bilingual Poetry

When women spread their skirts over the men,
something, maybe the wind, is overcome and loves,
becomes a drifter of dreams through cobbled inland waves,
looks for warm, salty tears nestled between breasts.
Can turn quiet October into a breaker of hearts.
 
When women spread their skirts over the men,
the sun is ample and unconscious. Sheets dry quickly.
Surprises come with tender garments flapping;
with small buttons that burst and fall and roll;
with sudden air that bangs a window shut and catches the dark.

Women billow and furl their skirts,
as wet, thrashing fish slip through their hands,
one of those fish learning how uncertain
is the passing of a summer cloud that rumbles distance,
that pierces cloud caps, pinked with mackerel edges.

When women spread their skirts over the men,
they cast a net of shadows
over the soft, helpless form that lies there.
child, this being female, this glistening, this tremor,
Is what wind, sun, and cloud made you. You make something else.

From: Mi casa me recuerda/My House Remembers Me. By Noël Valis.
Prologue by Carol Maier. El Ferrol: Esquío, 2003.

Book available at
The Yale Bookstore, 77 Broadway, New Haven CT; 203 777 8440. http://Yale.bkstore.com
And at: Sociedad de Cultura Valle-Inclán, Apartado 513, 15480 Ferrol (España)
______________________________________________________________________  Top

Sombras Lilián Uribe

Nunca habrá paz para la perseguida. 
Huele a celada el aire del alba 
y a celada huele el aro de la noche. 

Cada marca es trampa. 
Cada falta de marca es trampa. 
No hay refugio ni escape para el animal acechado. 
Ni fin. 
Nunca habrá paz para la perseguida. 

Shadows Lilián Uribe

There will be no peace for the persecuted. 
The air of dawn smells of ambush
and of ambush smells the ring of the night.
Every mark is a trap.
Every missing mark is a trap.
There is no escape or refuge for the ambushed animal.
Nor is there an end. 
There will be no peace for the persecuted.

(Translated by Rigas Kappatos)
______________________________________________________________________  Top

María Martino Crocetti 

Cosmogonia Interior

A los pies del monumento a Jorge Newbery en
Chacarita (Buenos Aires)

Se entra
por un amplio vestíbulo externo
con columnas
que protegen
la canción última
antes del silencio.

Después,
una calle
azotada por un sol
que te arranca las lágrimas
en verano
y te espanta los huesos
en invierno,
larga, 
empedrada de Dolores,
abierta a un muro
que te esconde de la calle
para que puedas arrastrarte
de rodillas
hasta que te sangre del pecho
la oscuridad húmeda
de los pulmones
disuelta en estrías de agua.

Ciudad miniatura
donde los ángeles
adormecen los edificios
bajo la ignota Mirada de sus alas,
eternas,
granito bronceado
sobre las cúpulas comprometidas al olvido.

Gente desolada
camina sus veredas
por las que solo cabe
un alma
tiritante
cubierta de pies a cabeza.

Es fácil salir.

La campana lo anuncia a las cuatro y media
justas
desde el vestíbulo de entrada.

Algunos deciden
girar la cabeza
y destejer el camino andado.

-Otros, preferimos
recostarnos
hasta que la luz
nos esculpa en piedra-

Inner Cosmogony

Translation: María Martino Crocetti

Standing at the monument to Jorge Newbery - 
Chacarita (Buenos Aires)

You enter
through a spacious open courtyard
surrounded by columns
which protect
the last song
before silence.

Beyond,

A street
struck by the sun
which tears out your tears
in Summer
and startles your bones
in Winter,
long,
paved with sorrows,
leading to a wall
which hides you from the street
so you can drag yourself
on your knees
until your chest bleeds
the lungs'
humid darkness
dissolved in streams of water.

Miniature city
where angels
cradle the buildings
under the indifferent watch of their wings,
eternal,
bronzed granite
on the domes committed to oblivion.

Desolate people
covered from head to toe
wander its sidewalks
through which
only a shivering soul

fits.
It's easy to get out.

The bell tolls at four thirty
sharp
calling from the entrance courtyard.

Some
decide to turn their heads
and unweave the walked path.

-We, instead,
prefer
to lie down
until light
carve us in stone-
______________________________________________________________________  Top

  
Back to Bilingual Poetry
     

Corporate Information & Copyright © 2004 : AATSP-Biennial NERM.
Designed and Hosted by: Global Technology Solutions