>> Valeria Martinez how wonderful they were.
We have some usual brownies and lemonade after.
I've been asked to remind you that smoking is not allowed
in the hall, as well as in the auditorium.
So we'd appreciate it if you'd step into the breezeway
if you want to smoke during the reception.
I brought a stack of the Poetry Center announcements
and also our most recent newsletter and those are out on the refreshment table,
if you didn't - If you don't have that.
The newsletter, we have attempted to give a listing
of all the literary events in town and the most --
The current ones will be this Saturday night, Tom Raworth and Bill Marsh.
Reading for among other things next Wednesday night in this Auditorium,
Leslie Scalapino will be reading for the Poetry Center.
And the following Wednesday night, March 1st, Bob Shermer
and Mark Richard will be reading here for Writers at work.
So I hope you'll pick up those.
It's my pleasure to introduce to you Dr. Chuck Tatum from the department head of Spanish
and Portuguese, who will introduce Dr. Mendez and Valeria.
I'm especially honored to be asked to introduce my colleague and friend, Miguel Mendez, tonight.
In 1974, or shortly after, the publication of his first novel Peregrinos de Aztlán,
Miguel sent me a copy and I responded I was very moved by the gift and more moved
when I read the novel and realized that I was reading what I thought
and still think it's a masterpiece.
And I wrote Miguel at that time and he reminds me often of that short note that I wrote him,
congratulating him and predicting that he would, in the future, be very, very well known.
And I'm glad to say that this presentation tonight is a step on that path and as all share
with you, there are other indications of his fame now spreading far and wide from Tucson.
Miguel was born in 1930, in a small mining town or the small mining town of Bisbee, Arizona.
He spent the first fifteen years of his life in a rural village in Sonora, Mexico,
named El Clero, received his Elementary instruction there
and later returned to the United States.
He made a living by working in the fields and in construction for many years, and,
at the same time, read extensively and then began to write.
He published his first work in the early 60s,
1970 he began teaching full time at Pima Community College.
And then, soon after, in 1974, he began teaching part-time at the University of Arizona.
And then, in May of 1984, this University conferred upon Miguel Mendez the degree
of Doctor of Humane Letters.
In 1986, he began teaching full-time as a professor in the Spanish
and Portuguese Department where he teaches and writes and writes and writes today.
He often comes to me in the hall and or in my office and says can't I do more?
Why don't you give me another class?
And said no.
You have this light load because you're here to write.
And writing here as he's writing up a storm and publishing up a storm.
He's also - Also has a a joint appointment in Humanities or Researcher in Humanities
at the Mexican American Studies and Research Center.
Some of his many publications are as follows.
In 1974, he published his first novel Peregrinos de Aztlán, Pilgrims of Aztlán,
which is about to be republished by Editorial Era, in Mexico, within the next few weeks.
Editorial Era is one of the principal publishing houses in all of Latin America.
In 1976, he published Los criaderos humanos y Sahuaros, which is narrative and verse.
Roughly translated it is Human breeding ground and Sahuaros.
And this has recently been translated into Italian.
It was going to be published by a major Italian publisher.
In 1979, he published Tata Casehua y otros cuentos.
The title story, Tata Casehua, has been anthologized all 25-30 times,
not only in this country but in Latin America and Europe as well.
In 1981, he published Cuentos para niños traviesos, Stories for naughty children.
In 1986, his second novel, El sueño de Santa María de las Piedras, The dream of St. Mary
of the Rocks, which has been translated and will be published in the next few months
by Bilingual Press at Arizona State University.
In 1986, he published De la vida y del folcklor de la frontera, about borderlines and folklore.
And, in 1988, Cuentos y ensayos para reír y aprender, Stories for laughing and learning.
His work has been the subject of over 20 doctoral theses in the United States,
Mexico, France, Italy and Germany.
He will read tonight from recent poetry.
This poetry has been translated very sensitively by Valeria Martinez.
Valeria Martinez is a poet-teacher-student and translator.
She's currently in her final year of the MFA program here at the University of Arizona.
She's working on her first book of poems,
as well as teaching poetry writing and freshman composition.
In addition to translating the work of Miguel Mendez, she has begun translating the poetry
of Uruguay's foremost woman poet, Delmira Agustini.
She's originally from Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Please, join me in welcoming Miguel Mendez and Valeria Martinez tonight.
Muchas gracias.
Thank you to everyone who has made this presentation, especially to Mrs. --
Was Shelton, Professor Richard Shelton, Professor Chuck Tatum.
I'm going to read in Spanish language.
And Valeria Martinez, the next one, poet and translator, will read in Inglés.
En nombre sea de Dios.
First poem, Luna.
Luna es el poema de un poeta que sabe que su adorada luna ya no será jamás la
novia platónica.
Ya tiene amantes americanos y rusos.
más los que esperan en turno.
Venus no, por Dios.
Es muy hermosa, pero en el universo tan vasto hay otras lunas que si no se ven,
se sueñan al menos.
Moon is the poem by a poet who realizes
that his beloved moon will never again be a platonic lover.
Now she has American and Soviet lovers, for much more than those
who simply wanted to see her [? in turn ?].
Is she Venus?
No, my God.
Venus is beautiful but in such a vast universe, there are other moons which,
though not visible, can be at least dreamed.
>> Duerme, la luna sueña.
Sueña la luna, rueda.
Carbón y sal granulada.
Sobre las ramas y cactos, treman rebozos negros, vuelan las blancas sábanas.
Coro de perros taladra, corroen perros la distancia.
Urgen con rabia la luna, les responden las cañadas.
Mirada circulares de ansiosos amantes, dilúyense rotando en el espacio.
Duele el deseo en la carne, quema el ansia de los brazos.
Cuando el alba virgen despierta en su tálamo expectante de alborada,
los gallos de mármol cantándole la apagan.
Allá en los confines, la espesura de soberbios bosques crecen densas espirales,
vueltos humaredas los verdores.
Desde las cumbres arroyuelos, caminillos y veredas, nacaradas cuerdas son de un arpa.
Hocicos de tigres y jaguares rechinan y relumbran sus cuchillos de hojalata.
Luna, desde este lecho de dunas, bordado de sol y lentejuelas,
tú y yo ciegos vemos con la luz de un astro que arde y que quema.
En el fuego de tu fría fogata escondes la pena, luna fragua de amores, luna faro de primaveras.
Yo me apago de sed, consumido por sueños acuáticos,
navegando en la transparencia azul de imaginarios lagos.
Luna si brillaras lejos, más allá de las criaturas aladas,
soñaría aún en tu amor eterno.
Cuando todavía eras pura llamabas a los desdeñados.
Cómo te quisieron los poetas tristes.
Cuando toda esperanza moría en la Tierra, solo tú alumbrabas, eras tú la última promesa.
Ya no es igual.
Pisaron tus piedras, de tu polvo hicieron polvaredas,
en tu suelo ondean estandartes que dicen de posesión e insinúan de dueños.
Luna, ya no eres tú la incógnita, la ilusión ni el misterio.
Ya no eres mi novia.
Luna, ya no te quiero.
Perfila su silueta, al filo de vitrios campos, una caballería de cristal [? tropelera ?].
Son caballos de pezuñas etéreas.
Llevan al homo las cenizas azules de otrora tus poetas amantes, amortajados en fosforescencia.
Guiña luz viva, radiante yerta.
Azogen, los ilusos, disco de aullidos, escamas, anillos, cabellos de arena.
Gira, perjura, gira.
Sinfonía de símbolos, gira en tu inmenso féretro.
>> Sleeping, the moon dreams.
Dreaming the moon rolls.
Coal and grains of salt.
Above the branches and cactuses, black shawls tremble white, sheets go fluttering.
Relentless chorus of dogs, dogs corroding the distance, urging the moon with rage.
The ravines echo back.
Circular gazes of anxious lovers dissipate while rotating in space.
Desire aches in the flesh, anxiety burns in the arms.
When the virgin dawn wakes in her bridal bed, ready for song,
the marvel cox quencher with theirs.
They're at the borders, the luxury of arrogant forest swells in thick spirals.
The verdure becomes clouds of smoke.
From the summits to small arroyos, roads and paths, our mother-of-pearl strings of a heart.
Snouts of lions and jaguars nash and shine their tinplate of daggers.
Moon, from this bed of dunes embroidered with sun and sequins, you and I blinded,
we see with the light of a star which scorches and [inaudible].
In the fire of your frigid blaze, you hide pain.
Moon forged of love, moon beacon of spring.
I'm [inaudible] thirst, consumed by aquatic dreams,
navigating in the transparent blue of imagined lakes.
Moon, if you should shine far beyond fluttering creatures,
I would still dream in your eternal love.
When you were still pure and loved the scorned, how the sad poets loved you.
When all hope died on the earth, only you burned on.
You were the last promise.
Now it isn't the same.
They stepped on your rocks, made whirlwinds of your dust.
On your dirt, flags unfurled and spoke of possession, insinuated ownership.
Moon, now you aren't the same, the unknown, the illusion, the mystery.
You aren't my lover now, moon.
I don't love you anymore.
Trace its silhouette to the edge of glassy fields, a cavalry of tumultuous crystal horses
with ethereal hooves carry the blue ashes
of your former poet lovers, shrouded in phosphorescence.
Blink, alive, radiant, inert light.
Silvered in dreamers, disc of howls, scales, rings, hairs of sand.
Roll, perjure, roll.
Symphony of symbols role in your immense coffin.
>> Cuento de brisa.
Una vez cuando viajaba rumbo a Yuma,
di transportación en mi automóvil a un espalda mojada, agotado y sediento.
Después de comer y beber, escribió un poema en pago a mi favor y lo cantó con
mucho sentimiento.
El hombre se llamaba Lorenzo y era, o es, poeta.
Lo demás del poema de Cuento de brisa es cosa de mi fantasía y de una serie de palabras que
me obligaron a escribirlas, con la amenaza de no dejarme dormir si no lo hacía.
>> Legend of the breeze.
Once, when I was traveling around Yuma,
I gave a ride to an exhausted and thirsty Mexican refugee.
After eating and drinking, he wrote a poem as payment for my favor
and recited it with a great deal of emotion.
The man's name was Lorenzo and he was, or is, a poet.
The rest of the poem was inspired by a fantasy and came from a series of words that had
to be written, threatening me with no sleep until I wrote them down.
>> Cuento de brisa.
Lorenzo, no te hubieras ido de San Jacinto de las Nubes nunca.
Bajó Lorenzo Linares de San Jacinto de las Nubes por caminos de cristal,
tejidos de enredaderas, donde la sombra de la hojarasca remeda el tintilar de las rejas.
Verdes sirenas tendidas bajo el paso de los náufragos.
Rasgó el sol el hímen del alba, cubriéronse de rubor los mares y las montañas.
Rocío, clorofila, una tarde de esmeraldas.
El azul, el viento y el oro de las mañanas.
Redes dibujadas.
Quería pescar la plata de las estrellas que se duermen en el agua.
Peces, luna, brisa.
Con los pies hinchados de geografía, los pasos desteñidos,
hundidos en el polvo del Desierto de Sonora.
Reptó la mirada por el sinuoso lomo del espectro de la naturaleza.
Cementerio de colores.
Palidez de una hembra muerta.
Lorenzo Linares cayó de rodillas diciendo el nombre de Dios.
Se le borraron los caminos.
Ciego de mapas, huérfano de luceros, dueño de rumbos muertos,
lo hallaron las estrellas cuando la suya se consumía en las tinieblas.
Sus ríos azules se volvieron coágulos tenebrosos,
sin que las burbujas jugaran la derrota de los glóbulos.
Ejércitos vencidos de blancos y rojos.
No pudo componer el poema.
Tenía el mar, la luna, el sol, el cielo y la arena.
Para rimar con la vida, le faltaba el agua.
Agua, agu, ag, a. Los proyectiles de arena derrumbaron la palabra.
Tornó a erguirse, temblona de angustia, dolor y rabia.
Agua. Hasta que la última a, que también es la primera,
se fue apagando en luz, ausente de la materia.
>> This is a poem in several parts and we'll trade off after each part.
Legend of the breeze.
Lorenzo, you should not have left San Jacinto the las Nubes, ever.
Lorenzo Linares descended from San Jacinto de las Nubes on roads of crystal and meshed
in climbing vines, where the shadow of dying foliage imitates the pattern of iron grates.
Green sirens stretched out into the pass of shipwrecked sailors.
The sun ripped the hymen of the dawn, the oceans and mountains were covered in red.
Chlorophyll falls, an afternoon of emeralds, the blue, the wind and the gold of mornings.
In patterned nets, he wanted to catch the silver of stars which sleep in water.
Fish, moon, breeze.
Feet swollen with Geography, his discolored footsteps sink
in the dust of the Sonoran Desert.
The gaze crept over the sinuous back of a specter of nature.
Cemetery of colors, paleness of a perished female.
Lorenzo Linares fell on his knees saying the name of God.
The roads were obliterated before him, map blinded,
orphan of bright stars, master of dead routes.
The stars discovered him when he was consumed in darkness.
His blue rivers became dark clots without bubbles to mock the defeat of the corpuscles.
Armies vanquished in whites and reds.
He couldn't compose a poem.
He had the sea, the moon, the sun, the sky and the sand.
To rhyme with life, he needed water.
Water, wat, wa, w. Projectiles of sand threw down the word.
It stood up again, trembling with anguish, grief and fury.
Water. Until the final r extinguished itself in light, absent of matter.
>> Ay, Lorenzo Linares.
El cielo es polvo de palomas azules que fueron tras las estrellas.
Llovía en San Jacinto de las Nubes de colibríes de besos, alados y transparentes.
Jardines de doncellas encantadas.
Blancas, azules, lilas, moradas, escarlatas.
Suelo púrpura, verde, que tiñe espejos de la tarde.
La Tierra y la selva.
Agua que venía rauda por el cuello de las cañadas, rebosando el vientre de las lagunas.
Coro de ranas, misa de sapos.
En la cabaña de Lorenzo Linares, ojos prendidos en la fantasía del ausente,
llovía en nostalgia.
>> One. Oh, Lorenzo Linares.
The skies, the dust of blue doves who traveled past the stars.
It was raining in San Jacinto de las Nubes,
raining hummingbirds, winged and transparent kisses.
Gardens of enchanted maidens.
Whites, blues, lilacs, purples, scarletts.
The magenta green earth which tinges mirrors in the afternoon.
The earth and the jungle water came quickly by the collars
of ravines, muffling the belly of lagoons.
Chorus of frogs, mass of toads.
In the cabin of Lorenzo Linares, eyes fixed in the fantasy of absence, rained in nostalgia.
>> Vuélvete, Lorenzo Linares.
No entres a ese páramo engañoso.
Lagos simulados con fiebre de proscritos.
Vaho verde de los demonios agónicos.
Cruces y cuchillos, espejos y vidrios exangües.
Vampiros anémicos, ávidos.
El llanto rojo licuándose.
Nonatos y adolescentes degollados.
El mar es un río redondo.
Laguna convexa.
Las madres son los ojos de Dios.
Los desiertos son las cuencas por donde asoma la inexistencia.
Desierto de Yuma, cómo quema.
Lorenzo Linares, mi amigo, era un torrente de alegría y dolor,
encausado en un río de añoranzas.
Quiso florecer el desierto con poemas,
avanzó extasiado a plantarlo de metáforas verdes y fuentes con surtidores de
letras policromadas.
Su sangre roja.
Lagos, junglas, vívidos iris de su fantasía.
En la página borrada de la creación, oyó los gritos que sepulta el silencio.
Hombre sin patria, tus abuelos indios ya murieron.
Poeta, tu sino amargo, nimbado de ignoradas galaxias y cósmicos torrentes lácteos.
Los arenales son ánimas de voces milenarias que lloran las frondas que no mueve el viento.
>> Come back, Lorenzo Linares.
Don't enter that deceiving wasteland.
Artificial legs fevered with outlaws.
Green vapor of deathly demons.
Crosses and knives, mirrors and glass.
Bloodless, avid, anemic vampires.
The red weeping liquefies.
The unborn and adolescents beheaded.
The ocean is around river, convex lagoon, the seas are the eyes of God.
The deserts are the eye sockets where nothingness shows itself.
Desert of Yuma, how it burns.
Lorenzo Linares, my friend, was a torrent of happiness and grief,
imprisoned in a river of yearnings.
He wanted to flower the desert with poems.
He went delightedly to plant it with green metaphors and fountains
with spelts of polychrome letters.
His red blood lakes, jungles, vivid irises of his fantasy.
On the [inaudible] page of creation, he heard the cries which bury silence.
Man without native land, your Indian ancestors are now dead.
Poet, your bitter fate is the aura of unknown galaxies and cosmic lactic torrents.
The deserts are alive with millinery voices who weep for the fronde the wind can't move.
>> Maldito desierto.
Te has bebido el idioma y los alientos de mi pueblo, antaño señorío Nahuatlaca.
Tata, tatita, tata.
Yuma, Arizona, cómo te ensañas con mi raza.
Sudarios en los algodonales, calvarios de lechugas,
viñedos rebosando racimos de lágrimas.
>> Cursed desert.
You have drunk the language and breadth of my people, formerly Nahuatlacan nobility.
Father, oh, father, father.
Yuma, Arizona, how you have treated my people.
Shrouds on the cotton plantations, calvaries of lettuce,
vineyards overflowing with clusters of tears.
>> Dios intuye, Dios no piensa.
Dios intuye fuego con que fabrica planetas.
Caudas de ceniza van marcando su incendio.
Lorenzo, desde antes de morir siempre fuiste recuerdo.
Cubrióse de sombras fugaces el desierto de altar.
Hojarascas sin otoño.
Alas de zopilotes graznando alegres, responsos a la carroña.
Lorenzo Linares, amigo poeta, sin tu traje putrefacto eres ya sonrisa osea que trasciende
luceros, canta con el viento acariciado de los arenales,
arrullado por vocecitas en catedrales que nunca más tropezarán el recuerdo.
Coros henchidos desgañitándose en los eternos laberinto del silencio.
>> God intuits, God doesn't think.
God intuits the fire which makes up planets.
Trails of ash mark his blaze.
Lorenzo, even before dying, you were a memory.
The desert of altar is covered with fleeting shadows.
Dead leaves without autumn, wings of turkey buzzards croaking happy dirges to the carrion.
Lorenzo Linares, poet friend, without your decayed flesh you are already a skeletal smile
which transcends bright stars.
Your bones sing with the wind, caressed by sand, [inaudible] by little voices in cathedrals
which will never more stumble upon memory.
Voluminous choruses wailing in the eternal labyrinths of silence.
>> Sahuaros.
Sahuaros es un canto al rey del desierto.
Imponente y majestuoso, metafórico y elocuente, sabio y hermoso.
Además, vecino nuestro para honra y gloria de aquel que lo contempla con admiración
y respeto.
>> The following are excerpts from the poem Sahuaro.
Sahuaros is the song for the king of the desert.
Imposing and majestic, metaphorical and eloquent, wise and beautiful.
And also our neighbors and those to honor and glorify
like anything we treat with admiration and respect.
>> Sahuaros, posas el firmamento sobre el suelo.
De lejos, parece agua lo que solamente es azul.
El páramo luce claro como una cripta transparente.
Los desiertos calvos, arrugados, semejan cadáveres de viejos derruidos por los años.
Brillo del agua ausente.
Sed milenaria de los arenales.
Baba de caballos afiebrados.
Trasciende un sol llameante, desde cristales subterráneos.
Lejos, trotando por los caminos del instinto, una procesión de camellos fantasmales,
a beber va de ciegos oasis, inundados con sed de mortales.
Bramar remoto de anfibios.
Verde mar, lujuria, dolor, sangre.
Ciénegas verdirojas se retuercen y paren.
Rocas resquebrajadas, remolidas, polvoreadas.
Quietud pálida, eco sin humedad, huesos vitrina del oriente y radiantes marfiles de
nívea albura.
Rebelión de la tierra estéril.
Furia en las tolvaneras, terregales, fuego, viento.
Van furiosas, contra el sol, las muy densas polvaredas.
Odio van remolineando, cubriéndolo de alas negras.
Beatitud frustrada, rabia en las miradas verticales de los reptiles heróicos.
Viento horizontal, baberío de norias interestelares, redes de arácnidos plateros.
Brillosas agujas de obsidiana, instantes de flamas negras.
Crepúsculo, humillación de los instintos ungidos por áurea melancolía.
Granada encendida, troca su vida por la negación tenebrosa de los colores.
Los gallos perforan los techos de tinieblas,
cuelgan hileras de universo entretejiendo destellos.
Trenzas de luz y fuego.
Las miradas saltan, se trapecian por los cielos enjoyados.
El alma es la placenta del ánima.
Cielo de parra simula el candil de las estrellas.
Qué lindos se ven los astros prendidos afuera de perlas.
Dios, intuyendo estrellas y pupilas, crea universo y vida.
Finitud presa en la redondez del tiempo.
La luna golpea las piedras con su llanto, riñe con espejos a cuchilladas.
En los estanques de hielo ves a ranas, moscas, culebras,
magia de luceros, diamantes y esmeraldas.
Las sábanas del alba se crispan de rosas, espuma y púrpura.
Llora la madrugada perlas efímeras, aroma de azahar.
Nimba las margaritas, hunden púas los cardos.
La flor del geranio se ilumina.
Trinos y sonrisas, alados pianos y arpas.
>> Sahuaros.
The firmament comes to rest on the Earth.
From a distance, that which is only blue looks like water.
The desolate land shines as clear as a transparent crypt.
The [inaudible] deserts, wrinkled, resemble cadavers of old men destroyed by the years.
Glare of absent water, millennial thirst of desert terrains [inaudible] --
Furiously at the sun.
The dense clouds of dust begin stirring up hate, enveloping it with black wings.
Frustrated beatitude, rage in the vertical gaze of heroic reptiles.
Horizontal wind, drizzle of interstellar water wheels.
Nets of arachnid silversmiths shining needles of a city in instants of black flames.
Twilight. Humiliation of the instincts anointed by golden melancholia.
Ignited pomegranate giving its life for the gloomy denial of color.
Roosters perforate the roofs of darkness.
Strands of the universe hang in twining glitter.
Braids of light and fire.
Glances leap twisting through the jeweled skies.
The soul is the placenta of the spirit.
Skylight grapevines, the oil lamp of the stars.
How pretty the stars are?
Fastened like pearls, God intuiting stars and pupils, creates the universe and life.
In prison finitude, in the roundness of time, the moon beats stones with its weeping,
quarrels with mirrors and knife slashes.
In the reservoirs of ice, it kisses frogs, flies, snakes.
Magic of bright stars, diamonds and emeralds.
The bed sheets of morning twitch like roses, foam and purple.
The daybreak cries ephemeral pearls.
Smell of blossoms surrounds the daisies.
The [inaudible] sink their spines.
The bloom of the geranium, it lumens itself.
Trills and smiles, winged pianos and harps.
>> Sahuaros.
Cuadro ocre pintado de bastos.
Místicos verdes, pericos extasiados meditando.
En las tardes ensangrentadas, caramelos fosforescentes.
En las noches, monarcas indios encantados.
Nobles caballeros, naturales de estos lares, antigua estirpe sobreviviente --
-- que no desalojaron de su espacio, ni la ambición, la indolencia, ni la infamia.
¡Míralos!
¡Qué dignos, rectos y valientes!
¿Te gustaría platicar con ellos?
Hablan el lenguaje universal.
Son esculturas de pensamientos o pensamientos cincelados.
La elocuencia de los siglos, ellos la cuentan callando.
>> Sahuaros.
Ocre picture of painted clubs.
Green mystics, ecstatic parakeets meditating.
In the bloody afternoons, phosphorescent candy.
At night, enchanted Indian monarchs.
Noble knights, natives of these places, ancient surviving ancestry, never dispossessed of space,
nor ambition, indolence, nor infamy.
Look at them!
How dignified, erect and valiant!
Would you like to talk to them?
They speak the universal language, are sculptures of thoughts or thoughts chiseled.
They silently sing the eloquence of centuries.
>> Taller de imágenes.
El poeta visionario iluminado es también arquitecto y obrero.
Construye con materia ideal, intangible,
que no obstante posee todos los colores y sus múltiples tonalidades.
Música sublime y todo un universo de ideas y de imágenes.
La palabra, secreto y clave para descifrar los misterios,
esencia y espíritu de toda una humanidad al través de su fluir,
en el tiempo y en el espacio.
Taller de imágenes.
Pase. Mi primer poema.
Mi encuentro con la poesía.
Intangible, ideal.
La amante platónica, hasta siempre.
>> Workshop of images.
Enter. The poet visionary enlightened is also an architect and craftsperson.
He or she constructs with material which is ideal, intangible, possesses all colors
in their multiple hues, sublime music and a whole universe of ideas and images.
The word is the secret and key to deciphering mysteries.
Essence and spirit of all of humanity, which moves in time and in space.
Workshop of images.
Enter. My first poem, my first experience with poetry.
Intangible, ideal, my platonic lover forever.
>> Taller de imágenes.
Pase. ¿Cómo se hacen, señor imaginero?
Mire, se plantan hojas de espejos en tránsitos [inaudible],
antes que la niebla empañe la risa del arcoiris.
Se rompen en cinco partes.
Primero, al corazón con una barra de cobre afilada con hiel y flores de no me olvides,
con violencia eléctrica se viola la lógica de la materia en una lluvia de añicos.
Yo vi de esconderse una liebre entre las barbas de un cerro verde ocre y parpadeo de
las piedras.
En la llanada pelona, vi de un coyote ladrón que trataba como un perro paletadas de jugo de
naranja con chocolate, fronteras etéreas de ilusiones remotas,
vídea las aves del cielo cuando volaban airosas quebrarse las alas contra mensajes
de telégrafos.
Picos desflorando la atmósfera, sentados entre las hormigas un tigre sin dientes y sin uñas
vide, que lloraba como un idiota huérfano.
Mendigos de cañas enfermos.
En medio de los maizales, vi de un potrillo al instante de gestarse en la matriz de la yegua.
Locomotoras de vapor copulando frente a la muchedumbre de las estaciones.
Entre las púas de un cerco,
un cordero degollado vi de crespones y velos negros sobre los ojos azules, polvo de cielos.
Vi de a las auras ahitas, en la fiesta de la carne,
alegrarse de las bestias regadoras de la sangre.
Millonarios y generales bailando en pelotas la danza de las calaveras.
Yo conozco la campiña, sé de los animales,
voy más al león y a la cobra contra el riesgo del pellejo que al dos patas carnicero con fama
de pensador y complejo de supremo.
Pasen, pasen a su taller de imágenes.
Mire esta, señor imaginero.
Que bella, dejadme verla.
Una mujer tierna acaricia su esposo.
Calle, calle, recién acaba de estar con otro.
Mira esta otra, una niña llora meciendo una muñeca.
No, no, es la muñeca quién solloza.
La niña solamente piensa.
Ve a una procesión, llevan a un muerto en hombros.
No, señora llevan un ataúd vacío, clavos y madera.
¿Por qué lloran a mares?
¿Qué llevan a cuestas?
Amiga mía, solo el dolor de la terrible evidencia.
Le devuelvo sus imágenes.
Señor imaginero, no las quiero.
Busque. Las hay también sonrientes como abril cuando amanece amarillo con cacao,
putrefacto de melones, cocos con pezones, plátanos erectos,
arroz de horchata joven con violines nupciales.
También, odio de los cactos con víboras lenguaraces.
Las hay también opacadas.
>> Workshop of images.
Enter. How are they made, master image-maker?
Look, pieces of mirrors are planted in neural pathways.
Before the mist darkens, the laugh of the rainbow breaks itself in five parts.
First, to the heart with a copper bar sharpened with bitterness and forget-me-nots,
with electric violins the logic of matter is desecrated in a rain of fragments.
I saw a hair hide itself in the beard of a hill.
Green ochre and stones blinking, on the bald plane I saw a thieving coyote
who trotted like a dog.
Shovels full of orange juice with chocolate.
Ethereal borders of remote illusions.
I saw the birds of the sky when they flew gracefully,
breaking their wings against telegraphic messages.
Beaks deflowering the atmosphere, sitting among the ends, I saw a tiger without teeth,
without claws who wept like an orphaned idiot.
Beggars in the ailing sewers, in the middle of the cornfield,
I saw a colt at the instant of birth.
In the [inaudible] womb steam locomotives copulating in front
of the multitudes at the stations.
Between the barbs of a fence, I saw a decapitated lamb.
Crapes and black veils, over the blue eyes, dust of skies.
I saw buzzards gorged on the feast of meat, rejoice in the beast adorned with blood.
Millionaires and generals dancing naked the dance of the skulls.
I know the open fields.
I know of the animals.
I favor the lion and cobra over risking my skin for the two-footed butcher with the fame
of a thinker and a superiority complex.
Enter, enter this workshop of images.
Look at this woman, master image-maker.
How beautiful.
Let me see her.
A tender woman caressing her husband.
Quiet, quiet.
She has just been with someone else.
Look at this other.
A child cries while rocking a doll.
No, no. It's the doll who sobs.
The girl only thinks, sees a procession.
They carry the dead one on their shoulders.
No, they carry an empty coffin, nails and wood.
Why do they cry copiously?
What do they carry at such cost?
My friend, only the grief of terrible evidence.
I return your images, master image-maker.
I don't want them.
You search.
There are those smiling like April when it dawns.
Yellow with coco, putrefaction of melons, coconuts with nipples, erect bananas,
fresh rice milk with nuptial violins, as well as the hatred of the cactuses
with foul mouth vipers and those which remain opaque.
Sir, come here.
I want to speak to you.
Little girl, how beautiful your youth.
Image maker, give me an image of a lover.
I have it for you.
With brooches of ivory, I will pin roses to your body.
I'll pull grains of pomegranate from your nostalgic lips, your fluttering doves
in the nests of my hands, fire of artistry in your belly, in my arms.
I want that sublime door spattered with your universe, latticed with the work of spiders.
I will take it, image-maker, the tender shadow of your abode.
Give it to me, I have guarded it for you.
>> Cuántas imágenes, señor imaginero.
Tantas, señores, como hay espejos.
Mirar los encantadores de las conciencias,
braceando frenéticos tras tumbando en sus gargantas de sapos,
el advenimiento mentiroso de sus promesas.
Ved a los hombres y a las mujeres, cómo crean su descendencia,
luchan como escarabajos gladiadores.
Ved la seña mortal de la sentencia en el descenso penetrante.
Vedlos cómo gimen, cómo se frotan.
Oíd los gritos del instinto, las chispas que saltan con el restriego.
La misma técnica del primitivo cuando hacía el fuego.
Los veo, imaginero, pero tienen relieve --
Gimen. Cómo se frotan.
Oíd los gritos del instinto, las chispas que saltan con el restriego.
La misma técnica del primitivo cuando hacía el fuego.
Los veo, imaginero, pero tienen relieves ecuestres.
Caballos son.
Sus vástagos son niños.
Bajan al jagüey de tarde, dan de beber al potrillo.
Divisad los pensadores cuál oruga surgir de los bosques, cruzar las montañas,
partir los desiertos tras la soledad que aísla, escudriñando la verdad en el silencio.
Oh, qué terrible.
La tierra rajándose en trompas hambrientas, cuál vagina gigante que se abre,
engulléndose la carroña de los mismos seres que pare.
>> How many images, master image maker?
As many as there are mirrors.
Look at the enchanters of conscience frenetically gesturing,
resounding in their frogs throats, the lying advent of promises.
See the men and the women, how they make their lineage, wrestling like gladiator scarabs.
See the mortal mark of the sentence in a penetrating descent.
Watch them how, how they rub, hear the moans of instinct.
The sparks which fly as they touch.
With the same technique as the primitive when making fire.
I see them, image-maker, but they have an equestrian prominence.
They are horses whose offspring are children.
They go to the water hole at evening.
They give water to the colt.
Glimpse the thinkers emerge from the forest like caterpillars,
cross the mountains, leave the deserts.
Across the solitude which isolates, scrutinizing the truth in silence.
Oh, how terrible.
The Earth splits into hungry mouths.
A gigantic vagina, which opens, devouring the carrying of the same beings it gives birth to.
>> Se apagan las imágenes.
Volverán con la luz del alba.
Busquen a su imaginero, señores.
Búsquenlo mañana.
Encuentren entre los vidrios rotos su propia imagen.
Yo me quedo.
Soy un filósofo viejo, también usted.
Soy un poeta enfermo.
¿Qué de ese señor que vaga entre el vidrerío?
Busco a un hijo que se me ha perdido.
Lo busco a él y no me encuentro a mí mismo.
No hay brillo sin arreboles.
Con la luz de los luceros alumbraremos lo que esconde el pensamiento.
Este taller yo le cedo.
Márchome a quebrar más espejos.
Quedaos soberanos, señores, en el mundo oscuro de la noche y de la mente,
laberintos donde tropiezan los pasos de la locura.
Pregón de carcajadas y de lamentos.
Asiento de meditaciones, numeración de cuerpos celestes.
Celda de cruel realidad en la tragedia ignorada, desnuda de ficción y de letras.
Desechos del dolor que no usa el arte en sus obras maestras.
Ahí también los parajes de la pasión y de la melancolía, alegrías que se sueñan,
fábrica de belleza, utopía del amor, alma retrospectiva de la cosa inerte,
invención del futuro, evasión del presente es la noche, cadáver incinerado de otro día.
Me espera un lecho, dos almohadas, una amante.
Ella y yo somos caracteres de la naturaleza.
Con su gracia divina, crea poesía con la vida nuestra.
Me reiré sin respeto de los hombres hormiga que cargan difuntos en las espaldas y llenan de
fósiles las mentes vacías.
Voy a burlarme de las leyes precisas de la simetría,
de los meticulosos me mofaré, que se afanan en las medidas.
Y cuando los espejos sean estanque y sean luna,
cuando sean plata los espejos y nublen reflejos de fortuna,
cuando los espejos sean lluvia les hundiré mi imagen a barrasos,
los resquebrajaré en fragmentos aunque yo esté dentro.
Me voy por los destinos.
Confundiré mi polvo con el de los caminos.
Adiós, señores.
[Inaudible] el imaginero yendo.
No lloreis lo fugaz.
Él se va riendo.
>> The last excerpt.
The images extinguish themselves.
They will return with the light of dawn.
Look for your image maker, gentlemen.
Look for him tomorrow.
Find your own image among broken glass.
I will remain an old philosopher, you will too.
I'm an ailing poet.
What of this man who wanders among glass?
I look for a son I've lost.
I search for him and I cannot find even myself.
There is no glow without red clouds,
with the light of the stars we will enlighten that which conceals thought.
I give you this workshop.
I go to break more mirrors.
Gentlemen, stay sovereign.
In the dark world of night and the mind, labyrinths where the footsteps
of madness stumble, pronouncement of guffaws and laments.
House of meditation, numeration of celestial bodies,
cell of cruel reality of the unknown tragedy.
[Inaudible] of fiction and letters, debris of grief that art won't use.
In their masterpieces, there too are places of passion and melancholy.
Joys they dream, factory of beauty, utopia of love, retrospective soul of inert things,
invention of the future, invasion of the present, it is night,
incinerated cadaver of another day.
A bed waits for me, two pillows, a lover.
She and I are nature's figures with its divine grace.
It creates poetry with our lives.
I will laugh irreverently at the end like men who carry corpses on their shoulders
and fill empty minds with fossils.
I'll ridicule the precise laws of symmetry.
I'll mock the meticulous who toil with precise measurements.
And when -- And when mirrors become pools and become moon, when mirrors become silver
and cloud the reflections of fate, when the mirrors become rain, I will sync my image
in them, I will break them into fragments with iron rods,
though I'll be inside, I will go toward destinies.
I'll confuse my dust with that of the roads.
Goodbye, all of you.
The image maker goes forever.
Do not weep for what is fleeting, he leaves laughing.
The work of Miguel Mendez.
>> Mil gracias.
Mil gracias a todos.
Gracias.
>> Thank you.