Friday, January 09, 2015

Words
Words
Words

(Bardo Thodol, Homer, de Sa Carneiro,
Macedo, Juhasz, Bonnefoy, Eluard, Amichai,
Seneca, Orghast, Schehade, Pilinszky, Sorescu,
Pennati, Medici, Ovid, Wedekind, Aeschylus,
Lorca, Sidran, Racine, Euripides, Pushkin)

by Roberto Lavidez

what has
happened
to me?
what has
happened?
a surge
would
uproot me
and shatter
me on
rock-edges
sluicing
my whole
trouble
to nothing
I want
to pull
myself
together
but go on
disintegrating
I fight
I enforce
useless
I float off
when
the mirror
is broken
open
your
nakedness
and mine
whisper
together
against us
everyday
a hundred
bullets
blast me
off my
feet
every day
get up
a hundred
times
more whole
the eyes
wind on
what
fleetings
of death
and it is
us in this
wind
in this
water
in this
cold
now
you rise
the water
opens
you lie
down
the water
spreads
but through
the wound
on my chest
God peers
into the
world
from the
beginning
to the end
the road is
laid down
human
scheming
is futile
kshhmaibya
geus
urva
gerezhda
kahmai
ma
thwarozhdum
ke
ma
i-e
i-e-o
i-e
a-e-u-i
ni-e
nia-e-ka!
those
black birds!
everywhere
I go
the crows
are watching
you comb
your hair
in the
mirror
silently
as in
a coffin
of glass
suddenly
a whistle
shrieks out
behind a
passer-by
master of
the sense
of emptiness
and of
the sense
of fullness
the tiny ant
brings
the sun’s
flame
burning
and clear
out of the
ancient caves
she murmured:
which god
jealous of
beautiful
youth
plots now
to slay
this one?
it’ suddenly
so dark
I can’t see
my hand
in front
 of my face
look there
now
a heart
pounding
thick with
hatred
behind the
door
the moon
leaves
a knife
hanging
in the sky
an ambush
of lead
that lies
in wait
for the
agony of
blood
the night
is unreal
quiet
like hell
which
does not
exist
all my
studied care
to preserve
myself
has brought
me
to this
I have lost
myself
I search
but I cannot
find myself
words!
don’t
you see
what has
happened?
with the
word
burn the
hearts of
the people

©robertolavidez2015 
















Thursday, January 08, 2015

remains of Lorca

by Roberto Lavidez

why was I
born among
mirrors?
the daylight
revolves
around me
the heart
feels like
an island
in the
infinite
silence
death is
looking
at me from
the towers
of Cordoba
can you
see the
wound
I carry
from my
throat to
my heart
if I am
dying
leave the
balcony
open
through
the laurel
branches
I saw
two doves
of darkness
the one
it was
the sun
the other
one
was lunar
ever
ever
garden of
my torture
your body
flies from
me forever
the rose
was not
looking
for the
rose
was
unmoving
in the
heavens
the lamps
went out
the crickets
lit up
through the
olive trees
they come
bronze and
dream
the gypsies
leave
my hard
ivory skull
forever
have pity
on me
a peal
from the
belltower
lost in the
dimness
every song
is the
remains
of love

©robertolavidez2015 















Wednesday, January 07, 2015

what’s going on
here Vallejo?

by Roberto Lavidez

what’s going on
here, in this
son of man?
the city shouts
and in the hall
of the Louvre
a child cries
in terror
at the sight
of the portrait
of another child
my mother
turns up
the collar
of my
overcoat
not because
it is beginning
to snow
but so
it begin
to snow
today
on one cheek
north
and on
one cheek
east
came out
of the poor
neighbor
of the wind
today
a splinter
has gotten
into her
the word
of man
free from
adjectives
and adverbs
which
woman
declines
in her unique
female case
even among
the thousand
voices
of the
Sistine
Chapel!
I look at
the hungry
man’s pain
and see that
this hunger is
so far away
from my
suffering
that were
I fast unto
death
at least
a blade
of grass
would always
sprout from
my tomb
let there
be milk
in blood
let a candle
be added
to the sun
eight hundred
to twenty
let eternity
pass under
bridges
the steps
have left
the kisses
the pardons
the crimes
what continues
in the house
are the foot
the lips
the eyes
the heart
confidence
in wickedness
not in the
wicked
in the glass
but never
in the liquor
in the corpse
not in the
man and
in yourself
alone
in yourself
alone
in yourself
alone
the low point
of my life
hasn’t
happened
yet
I will die in
Paris in a
downpour
a day which
I can already
remember

©robertolavidez2015 











Monday, January 05, 2015

Pasternak’s ink

by Roberto Lavidez

wide
wide
wide
river
and field
stretch
away
snow is
falling
all is lost
the whole
world’s
streaming
past
our gatherings
are testaments
so the secret
stream
of suffering
may warm
the cold
of life
the candle
burned
on the table
the candle
burned
when did
the stars
sweep
down
so low
midnight
sink
so deep
in tall grass
consciousness
started
to flash
here
it seems
flooding
in play
even the
corners
of mind
where it’s
always
bright
as day
it seems
a primal
happiness
was setting
it seems
the wood
was sunk
in sunlet
dream
at twilight
the swifts
have no
power
to hold
back
that pale
blue
coolness
that moon
a numb
hound’s
tongue
is there
frozen tight
that mouths
like the
forgers
of coins
are stung
as if into
unprecedented
faith
I cross
into this
night
poetry
tonight
I’ll squeeze
you out
to make
the parched
sheets
flower
under
the blind
the steppe
plunges
from step
to star
below
the black
shows
through
and the
wind’s
furrowed
with cries
beyond
it’s Sunday
breaking
branches
the glade
running off
sliding
on leaves
has the
birch
copse
stopped
fading
staining
its shade
more watery
still
and growing
then?
isn’t its
meaning
for endless
lives
squandering
on nightingales
your glory?
I’m alone:
the Pharisees
are met
to live’s
not to
cross
a field
I’ll moisten
my lips
listening
whether
as ever
I’m loneliness
and ready
maybe for
weeping
better to
spread
the coat
on the
ground
here
beneath me
I think
I can
call on
words
that will
last:
you are
there
and I
found you
always
my favourite
reading
I am
finished
but you
live on

©robertolavidez2014  
























Saturday, January 03, 2015

an endless sum
of Borges

by Roberto Lavidez

if there is
no beginning
no ending
and if what
awaits us
is an endless
sum of
white days
and black 
nights
we are 
already
the past
we become
then my
life is
a flight
and I will
lose all
and all
will belong
to oblivion
or to that
other
we live
discovering
and forgetting
that sweet
familiarity
of the night
the ancient
name of
a street
the colourations
of a map
an unforeseen
etymology
a book
a dream
reveals that
they are
forms in
a dream
once dreamt
in Brittany
the moon
of these
nights
is not
the moon
the first
Adam saw
let the
glaciers of
oblivion
take and
engulf me
mercilessly
the reddened
mirror 
facing to 
the west
where burns
illusory dawn
fate
permits me
the gift
of choosing
for once
that silent
flower
where will
the rose
in your hand
exist that
lavishes
without
knowing
intimate gifts
the slowly
leaves
recall a child
who gravely
dreams
vague things
he cannot
understand
at dawn
I seem
to hear
a turbulent
murmur of
multitudes
who slip away
tonight
the moon
bright circle
fails to
dominate
space
I know
the customs
and souls
and that
dialect
of allusions
that every
human
gathering
goes weaving
at dawn
I gaze
at my hands
in my hands
the veins
there
in the
twilight
there persists
what’s almost
non-existent
bold
sad
an ancient
murmur
of bibles
war
I’ll erase the
accumulated
past
I’ll make
dust of
history
dust of dust
the afternoon
you gaze on
prove your
last
I think
of things
that weren’t
but might
have been
assiduously
I plot
these lines
in twilight
emptiness
a man
who as
Voltaire
wished
cultivate
his garden

©robertolavidez2014  




















Sunday, December 21, 2014


what am I to do with it?

(Akhmatova, Mayakovsky, Voznesensky,
Pasternak, Khlebnikov, Mandestam, Pasternak)

by Roberto Lavidez

these days
we’ve got
to take
brass
knuckles
and split
the world’s
skull open
in everything
I feel like
reaching
straight
to the
heart
of the
matter
dreams
are a harm
and it’s
useless to
fantasize
like a
burden
henceforth
superfluous
the shadows
of songs
and passions
have
disappeared
through the
silence
sails
a soundless
chorus of
midnight
birds
I want
to go home
to the
enormity
of the
apartment
that inspires
sadness
a body
is given
to me
what am  I
to do
with it
so whole
and so
much
mine?
to leave the
handwriting
of my dust
on the stern
windows
like an
inmate’s
autograph
what are you?
what?!
you look
with longing
into books
through 
windows
but where
are you
there?
I would
have laid
out
verses
like a
garden
trembling
in all their
veins
streets
are our
paintbrushes
public squares
our palettes
you think
on the
cheeks of
the café
it’s the sun
that lovingly
caresses
love
love
love
madly love
love itself
as the
windows
dissolve
into the
garden
and suck
in the lilac

©robertolavidez2014  





























Saturday, December 20, 2014

Kafkaesque
obscurity

by Roberto Lavidez

there are only
two things
truth and lies
explained by
the obscurity
of ancient times
I am standing
on a piece
of waste land
dancing the
dances of
the age
in order
to be safe
from the
sirens
escape like
steam in
the very
moment
between
one’s own
words and
one’s own
convictions
this life
appears
unbearable
another
unattainable
a nibbling
at our own
limits
it must end
in the realm
of the
inexplicable
the answer
prowls
round the
question
the thing
is to darken
or even
indeed
to blot out
to annoy
or to deface
or to destroy
completely
yet I do
nothing
to change
anything
there was
a buzzing
and whizzing
in the fields
he who
seeks
does not
find
even the
glimmer
of the
undying
fire
only a
state of
being
that craves
the last
breath

©robertolavidez2014