I set out from the Port of Acapulco on the twenty-third of March And kept a steady course until Saturday, the fourth of April, when A half hour before dawn, we saw by the light of the moon That a ship had come alongside With sails and a bow that seemed to be of silver. Our helmsman cried out to them to stand off But no one answered, as though they were all asleep. Again we called out: “WHERE DID THEIR SHIP COME FROM?” And they said: Peru! After which we heard trumpets, and muskets firing, And they ordered me to come down into their longboat To cross over to where their Captain was. I found him walking the deck, Went up to him, kissed his hands and he asked me: “What silver or gold I had aboard that ship?” I said, “None at all, None at all, My Lord, only my dishes and cups.” So then he asked me if I knew the Viceroy. I said I did. And I asked the Captain, “If he were Captain Drake himself and no other?” The Captain replied that “He was the very Drake I spoke of.” We spoke together a long time, until the hour of dinner, And he commanded that I sit by his side. His dishes and cups are of silver, bordered with gold With his crest upon them. He has with him many perfumes and scented waters in crystal vials Which, he said, the Queen had given him. He dines and sups always with music of violins And also takes with him everywhere painters who keep painting All the coast for him. He is a man of some twenty-four years, small, with a reddish beard. He is a nephew of Juan Aquinas,* the pirate. And is one of the greatest mariners there are upon the sea. The day after, which was Sunday, he clothed himself in splendid garments And had them hoist all their flags With pennants of divers colors at the mastheads, The bronze rings, and chains, and the railings and The lights on the Alcazar shining like gold. His ship was like a gold dragon among the dolphins. And we went, with his page, to my ship to look at the coffers. All day long until night he spent looking at what I had. What he took from me was not much, A few trifles of my own, And he gave me a cutlass and a silver brassart for them, Asking me to forgive him Since it was for his lady that he was taking them: He would let me go, he said, the next morning, as soon as there was a breeze; For this I thanked him, and kissed his hands. He is carrying, in his galleon, three thousand bars of silver Three coffers full of gold Twelve great coffers of pieces of eight: And he says he is heading for China Following the charts and steered by a Chinese pilot whom he captured …
We present this work in honor of the Italian holiday, Liberation Day.
Elisa Biagini Italian b. 1970
You show me your wounds, as a soldier, your battle with another you who’s consuming you the eyes, the bones the skin who cut your tendons a while ago, the thread that keeps you all together, diver who doesn’t surface.
We present this work in honor of the 50th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Ramdhari Singh Dinkar Indian 1908 – 1974
My king of mountains! My magnificent one! Radiant embodiment of great glory! Flame of fierce, accumulated prowess! Snowy diadem of my motherland! Effulgent brow of my Bharat! My king of mountains! My magnificent one!
Unvanquished, unfettered, free through the ages, Sacred, righteously proud and great through the ages, What glory have you been radiating Through the ages in the limitless sky? How unbroken is your eternal meditation! Sages of sages! How unending your concentration! Pouring into infinite space, what intricate problems Do you seek to solve? What intractable web of perplexities? My king of mountains! My magnificent one!
O sage engrossed in silent tapasya! Open your eyes at least for a moment! Our country is burning, in flames Writhing restlessly at your feet! The blessed Indus, the five rivers, Brahmaputra
Ganga and Yamuna – the nectar-swept streams That flow to the blessed land Are abundant with your melting compassion. At the gates of that land, You, the guardian of its borders, Have challenged, ‘You must cut off my head Before you can trample over this land. O pious sage, a great misfortune has fallen today On that same land of piety! Afflicted, the children are writhing Bitten by countless snakes from four directions. My king of mountains! My magnificent one!
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 65th birthday.
Qeysar Aminpour Persian 1959 – 2007
This is the scent of homesickness that is in the air Perhaps, The scent of my homesick brothers The extraordinary scent of a torn shirt Wafting in the breeze. No! This can’t be the scent of a wolf’s bite I recognise the scent of defencelessness from afar: The scent of a wounded leopard In the misty text of the forest The scent of the resonance of horses’ neighs in the quiet mountain rocks. The scent of scorched cotton Smelt by the moon The scent of a dove’s blue feathers in a well.
This bluster of restlessness, When it blows, The subdued hearts of ours Covet the redolence of old excuses. And our old wounds again, Anticipating a new hazard, Yawn. It’s as if the scent of exodus is in the air.
Driving across town she feels plain and botanical.
At a crossing there’s a man with a cake, girl with a tune. Four young people wheel a bed, headed for a house where a young woman might read, love a man/some men, might hold their bodies close and welcome some parts of those bodies into hers.
Years later she might see these men in suits and on television and many years later might pass one, a house painter, as she drives to buy paint, for heaven’s sake.
Now, nearing sixty, this woman loves her husband ferociously. When she turns the compost and finds the flat wrinkled body of a mouse, she remembers the time he rang her in Scotland to say he’d seen one in the pile and what should he do?
She shovels the remains of the mouse with the rest of the compost to beneath the blossom, which bows low and graceful over neglect, which abounds, as it does, wonderfully, in the garden of the southern house they move to for a time.
He’s up to his ears in sadness, both of them aghast at landscape. Being asthmatic he is immediately attractive to animals – at the lake a fox terrier pup takes shelter under his chest as he lies down on a towel after a swim. In the kitchen a mouse bumps into his foot. Drama in the house! Not for the first time. These were rooms of costume, scenery, leading ladies and men on the front terrace, leaning on architect Ernst Plischke’s rail, stone warm underfoot, snowed mountains as backdrop while the deep, broad river passed below them, always on its way.
In honor of the Battle of San Jacinto, we present this work by one of Nicaragua’s most layered poets.
Ernesto Mejía Sánchez Nicaraguan 1923 – 1985
I
I rehearsed the word, its size, the stage it requires. I took it by the lips, placed it carefully in your palm. Don’t let it escape. Grasp it! Count till two (the most difficult task). Open your hand: a star in your palm.
II
I would close each night with a dream. I would conjure someone in a secret spot. I would count numbers. And someone, whom you didn’t suspect, would be born within the shadow, and didn’t shape his body from the obscurity; rather from a limpid air, separate, he would fashion his self. I would count numbers. Someone, perforating the silence, was born like a glass angel, like an empty child. He made himself into a living emptiness. I kept on counting. He approached my lips. Lovingly, he proved adhesive to my flesh. The most fitting skin, the most fitting, enveloped me. I kept on counting. I repeated, the same numbers, but now with his voice. As he was born each night in different shapes, and to not find myself mistaken, I placed that angel in a hiding place; and I placed on him his number.
III
To pacify solitude, pick a virginal day. Keep all your books beneath seven locks. Carry an apple beneath the purest tree. Have no fear, the Evil one won’t perturb you. Say these words, as if they were true: Solitude, I love you, I believe in you, don’t abandon me.
IV
After great joy, the afterglow of wine or women, I am certain that I will see you in mirrors, in still waters. Before surrendering yourself to delights, cup some water in your left hand, raise it to your mouth, tell it these words as if they formed a kiss: Just as wine and women cleansed my mouth of words, so, miraculous water, cleanse my invisible body from within.
V
I learned a prayer to intone only at night; to pacify sleep, make your eyelids transparent: Adonis, cleanse my eyes, stay by my bedside while I surrender myself to nocturnal death, instantaneous death. Dream me a pure angel, let him accompany me forever, but let the angel be a woman.
VI
There are limpid days, erected from a silken air. Neither demon nor angel penetrates them. But solitude then engages in the struggle. It would have proven futile, dearest, to summon her. Futile, for homogenous and hermetic air, seals lead over one’s voice. Beseech her, at the very least, without stirring lips; like this: adversarial companion, I join you.
VII
In the same place where I summoned the moon, let her appear. Because I repeated the exact word until my voice turned hoarse. Because I said: there, in the same place where I summoned the moon as pale as She, let her appear. Let this take place; let it be not a lie.
VIII
Sometimes, Ernesto, I have heard you say: an ill-fated demon has seized my body. Don’t fear. Carefully shut the door and window; the air will darken; remain still, quietly tell him: Angel, angel, angel, three times, and you will see how tame he becomes, and he will seek your company. Most surreptitiously, light a redolent cigar from the Indies, fashion three whites rings with the smoke; thus, a column forms; now imprison him.
IX
To learn the precise date in which the virgin must weep because of the smudges on your pedigree, tie one of her headscarves around the calendar, don’t say a single word; daily, pin a white lily to her chest: wait till it flushes.
X
There is a demon who whispers in your ear: Careful. They’re deceiving you. Always doubt what they tell you. Break the circle. The best amulet is in your hand. Repeat his words: Careful. You’re deceiving me. I always doubt you. Break the circle. His evil verb won’t return, for you drowned it in your own saliva.
XI
To discern if the fruit of her womb be male or female, let your hand unveil the shadow before her eyes; let her pronounce a name without recalling the night of blood. If she say: distaff. Or: swallow. A woman shall shower joy upon your hearth. If she say, for example: amaranth, a boy shall plant a kiss on his mother’s cheek. Should she remain mute, be not saddened. He shall speak on her behalf; for a poet will have come into the world.
XII
A blind dove fluttered into my darkness. I hadn’t kindled a fire. I hadn’t intoned the incantation. She came to tell me: It isn’t true that I don’t love you enough, but my mother would bolt upright in bed, panting. Night: a star that is great, yet obscured. I told her: Dove, blinded from a pure blindness. And she regained her sight. But who shall now utter the verb, now that she is mute, unable to pronounce it.
XIII
Often, I said: the fountain. Said: the waters. I invoked the necessary images to meet in friendship. They sought to please me, and they became a mirror. So. With my hand, I raised the invisible, impalpable curtain, and there were eyes behind, eyes within, and listening from within the wall, I heard distant echoes, indecipherable chatter. Within its own depths, the mirror, too, was deceiving me. Because of that, I said: Let it shatter! Day by day, one by one, after my morning ablutions, I would shatter them; but, Oh, the shards! They multiplied me. There was the mirror, and I deceived myself as I gazed back from each one. Often, I said: moon, stars, vast night. Frenzied, I would repeat these words, I would magically repeat their names to obtain by the twitching of my lips, a mirror which wouldn’t deceive me. And I pronounced a word, a single word: Love. Then, of a sudden, the perfect, indelible mirror, its surface the smoothest, did not merely reflect the dimensions of the bathroom, but its body matched my own and our space, an exact contemporary to my origin: A different Narcissus was born from my side, born from my own self, now infallible, because from opposing waters I repeated myself, contemplated myself.
Soon… Very soon, my friend… We will discover that all the optimists Are insane more than any absurdity. In your dreams… just as in every morning… You arrange your dreams Like precious furniture devices; A bramble vase here… A velvet, dull sofa there… Some fingers missing around. Oh, Farida! Did you have to take the flowers out of the window? Sprinkle the salt all over the place? This heart cannot anymore grumble… The basil in my mother’s garden just withered. Outside the bells toll… For another last Last Supper. You arrange your dreams… Again Here… There. Again It is the wandering spirit Since the blooming of first spring flowers
I asked the teacher To teach him My son All about Africa But she says No suitable books See our age See the stage We have reached As a continent But visit a nursery The books The toys The tongue All are imported.
My countrymen How can indigenisation Survive without the mind Africa is a jungle They say, Why import a ladder Into a jungle? Well you can now see For yourself The economic hypocrisy.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 115th birthday.
Henry Louis Vivian Derozio Indian 1809 – 1831
How felt he when he first was told A slave he ceased to be; How proudly beat his heart, when first He knew that he was free !—- The noblest feelings of the soul To glow at once began; He knelt no more; his thoughts were raised; He felt himself a man. He looked above—-the breath of heaven Around him freshly blew; He smiled exultingly to see The wild birds as they flew, He looked upon the running stream That ‘neath him rolled away; Then thought on winds, and birds, and floods, And cried, ‘I’m free as they!’ Oh Freedom! there is something dear E’en in thy very name, That lights the altar of the soul With everlasting flame. Success attend the patriot sword, That is unsheathed for thee! And glory to the breast that bleeds, Bleeds nobly to be free! Blest be the generous hand that breaks The chain a tyrant gave, And, feeling for degraded man, Gives freedom to the slave.
Poets Corner 