De Urania (ed. 2016)
Isto é un souto. No souto unha muller. A muller le, pensa.
Un libro ou códice miniado.
No códice unha muller. Na súa man un dos extremos da corda que no seu outro extremo abrangue o pescozo de Rosana que vai e pasta por tras desta muller.
No códice, por riba das bermas, monte erguéndose como de penedos; entre os penedos, touzas.
No códice, carballos, o ceo azul por entre as árbores,
expandíndose por entre as pólas núas dos carballos.
Lembras
cando os corvos viñan beber ao río?
A muller está sentada. No códice, paisaxe de penedas, no fondo da paisaxe un home a contemplar os ceos, nos ceos n corvo «que fora el alimentados polos corvos que os corvos traían nos seus bicos pan, pan, por entre nubes que habitaría no fondo daquel abismo, apenedado».
Ben puido ser que naqueloutra paisaxe pintara Rafael un Mesías en triángulo perfectísimo: transfigurado.
A muller le, pensa. Paisaxe de penedos. Mesmo na beira
dos camiños, caendo por riba da beira dos camiños.
Dos noiros
nubes.
---------------------------------------------
De Heloísa (Espiral Maior, 1994)
Para Sabela R. Oxea
No meu soño non son a mociña de abril
non son a princesa de Aquitánia
non sei patinar
non teño laúde
non son Santa Gúdula
non son Ilduara Eriz.
Ninguén caza no bosque o xabarin
ninguén adornará a testa coa esmeralda do faisán.
Na miña escrita son astronauta nunha noite de verán
(astronauta en circuíto simulado)
do meu costado brotan algas
do meu escafandro un milleiro de pardaus.
Non son ave
nen estela que cruza o rio.
---------------------------------------------
De Heloísa (1994)
Un soño
paisaxe industrial
sátiros
pastoras.
Heroísmo e luxúria
Marcelle
A froita que sostén Perséfone é o inferno
asi a imaxinación do inferno consiste en apercibi-lo cinco veces seguidas
por cada un dos cinco sentidos
ver os corpos. incandescentes
cinco veces
ouvir os gritos das ánimas penadas
cinco veces
cheirar a cloaca do abismo
cinco veces
saborear o amargor das lágrimas
cinco veces
O mito cámbia
produz desperdícios
pero non confundir-te un deus
o cárdio de Byron
os versos de Ritsos
ese espertar cando souben que a escuridade era o único posíbel.
---------------------------------------------
De Fascinio (2010)
para Estrela Piñeiro
…AS MULLERES continúan logo de facer as correspondentes estivadas carrexando leña para encher as pías, a baixar do monte toradas de piñeiro, contribúindo co seu traballo ás tarefas da xávega, os rapaces maioritariamente descalzos, coas cabezas rasuradas e na súa totalidade presentan sinal de desnutrición...
...dando por perdidos os subministros iñiciase a busca da fragata co fin de obter un novo cargamento de armas e municións...
Na verde boca
caolín, wólfram, a fragata Libelly, os indios Enmerillon, a reveladora, Deus,
Spútnik
esa Australia abaneada polo vento que me tolea nas bermas do soño
as anoréxicas trinta santas da Idade Media
a cade de nais muller
o matricidio
mostrando o ouro no índice, no pulso
setenta postas de sol, cinco mil castros, trescentas mámoas abeizoan o teu corpo
desandas, cara atrás camiñas o sentido
todos os teitos de colmo
bimbastro, bagalustre, ardora
celestes son as augas
ferve riza malla ceifa furna GALLAECIA
ubérrima de estrelas!
sirte
o descenso aos ínferos
Faber-Castell
Irmgard Möller
Limasol
Antioquía.
---------------------------------------------
De Nínive (1996)
Tiven que aprender o americano coma se dunha lingua estranxeira
se tratase
pero ela pasara a súa nenez na Galiza falando en español
unha combinación do español correcto das oficinas
co español imposíbel das señoras
lingua nativa / desmemoria
vernáculo / todo era vernáculo
a sensación que todo un pobo pode ter
de atoparse fóra de lugar
ao respecto da súa común lingua nativa
que había nela de poético?
nacera aquí
abandonara o seu idioma
queixábase
–gústame o lugar, para un mes, no verao
no inverno aquí non hai nada
aquí vas en bicicleta e es unha pendanga
vas en camiseta e es unha pendanga
extirpan o galego de nós
mesmo se a vida ten que ser arrincada no proceso
a lingua ese estigma que aínda nos delata.
Uso corrupto da linguaxe
a vosa segura protección contra as palabras
–quen sodes vós?, o ulido do meu embigo?
como o idioma vos vence invariablemente
mellor ser un paria
colocar algo no seu lugar preciso
adornar os xarróns con flores
e o día que camiña de présa...
tempo postergado
pero ningunha auga é intransitábel
e os sentidos nunca me abandonan
ser superfluo significa non pertencer ao mundo en absoluto
estar fóra do mundo
–é superflua a nosa identificación coa lingua?
–se alguén se atreve a volver dicir «a verdade»
ou
basta xa de «verdade» estou chea de verdade
ou
deixádeme en paz coa verdade! Basta de tanta verdade
estas palabras ou outras parecidas
o monstruoso
como se entrebrecen as palabras
Edén
Hotel Edén
Rosa Luxemburgo
aquí celebraron o seu ágape os asesinos
Felicidade
felicidade para eles
felicidade para nós
na unidade
na uniformidade
Felicidade!!!
en pouco tempo estes infortunados pobos perderan a súa individualidade
nós sermos eles
eles sermos nós
a diferencia nega a unidade o odio a felicidade
a loucura nega a paz
–que pensas ti atopar no lago?
–non os restos poéticos de Heaney
«esta pupila soñando co trigo megalítico»
atoparas o rexemento de «Misión de audaces»
–lévense esta muller de aquí
estes son os diálogos que aprendes
de todo isto nos alimentamos
–córtelle a bota
–ninguén me vai cortar a bota
–dáme un trago
–son botas de vinte dólares
–colle un soldado, buscade un vado para cruzar o río, leva ao corneta contigo
–gracias, señor, gracias pola oportunidade
a frase
«tiven que aprender o americano...»
é unha frase de Raymond Chandler
que recollo dunha sección de Striking Resemblance
de Tina Darragh
L–A–N–G–U–A–G–E
así é como os meus pais se empeñaron en educarnos en español
pero logo todos esqueceriamos a importancia da lingua
máis económico o odio
que fai táboa rasa cos demais
do pensamento
case muda
case escoitando
aínda a chamada
ven
unha soa vez
vestida de loito e aproxímate á miña tumba
divide o silencio
redúceo ás súas partes máis cativas
ínfimas
reductas
entre vocal e vocal
entre vocal e consoante
corpo aberto da linguaxe
os espacios en branco
entre palabra e palabra
entre verso e outro verso
pero nunca puiden figurarme a morte
a costa non era senón unha sucesión de cons anegados baixo la furia do mar e
dos torrentes que caían sen cesar dun ceo
negro
as augas escintilantes de aletas dorsais que se axitaban no medio de verdadeiros
bancos de tabeiróns
mutilados
agonizantes
tal e como eles conciben o poema
anterior á revolución industrial
unha manufactura
escribir nunha lingua que na nenez nos foi negada
escribir nunha lingua que escoitamos roubada
–cantas palabras escoitaches nesa lingua no medio do labirinto que eles
falaban ou na súa ausencia?
escribir nunha lingua que escoitaches sen saber que esa lingua era a túa
e que esa era unha lingua diferente da que dicían eles falar
–en que falaban, en que idioma trataban de falar aqueles que no teu berce te
agasallaron?
lingua de escombros
lingua campo de exterminio
clase media lingüística
entre o español corrupto das oficinas e o español diletante das señoras
vosoutros: monstros!
borrar toda tradición
todo pasado
totalitarismo
senrazón
loucura
porque no voso medo existía un lugar
coma un furado pequeniño da máis diminuta luz
algo anterior a vós
ao medo
entramos nesa luz
chamámoslle. REVOLUCIÓN. LIBERACIÓN NACIONAL
angustia
Patria
no voso medo
no que soñabades
anterior a vós
ao medo
así borrastes as nosas trazas
ocultastes o rostro
a identidade
o nome
–eu, que emerxín do diluvio. Recórdovos
nas vosas debilidades
a época escura
da que eu escapei
lembrareivos con clemencia
esa frescura infantil que pende no baleiro
pero ningún templo vos agarda
nada «novelo no vento nove»
nada sobre Paestum
40 linguas na India
outras 40 no Gabón
alguén falara sempre nesa moitedume delinguas
terá que ser así
non sobre de min: a lírica
e u son esas restrevas
esa promenade encol da Literatura
porque o que busquei na nenez non era o meu reflexo
senón esa alianza dos que sobrevivistes coa derrota
esa alianza na que se centrou toda a nosa traxedia
toda determinación
toda impotencia
así: a Poesía
o colapso
a desmemoria
acoutar o drama
saberse fillos de pais moralmente inadecuados
da súa negativa a dicir
da súa perturbación
da súa orixe
e pois que non se rompeu o espello
senón que nos foi dado roto de antemao
e logo esgazou de novo en nós
nos: aqueles que tivemos que recobrar o mar
porque todas as pontes foran rotas
nos vasos
nos elixires
nos somos
na memoria
a historia que narran os papiros de Orfeo
a historia dunha identidade imposíbel
un novo Hades
propicio
se algún día un deus pousou a súa mao na nosa boca
a claridade desa luz
a escrita.
---------------------------------------------
De Ponte das poldras (Segunda ed. 2006)
In der Mandel –was stet in der Mandel?
Paul Celan
Na pedra –que é o que se sostén na pedra?
a lagoa
a lagoa enfíase na pedra
enfíase, enfiase
Na lagoa –que é o que se sostén?
a trenza
enfíase a trenza, a trenza de beón
enfíase, enfíase
Cabelo de Anta nunca serás poeira
E o teu ollo cara a onde se dirixe?
o teu ollo sostense na pedra
o teu ollo enfíase nas augas.
Sostén a trenza
e así enfíase, enfíase
Rizo do Idioma nunca serás poeira
Pedra baleira, gris. Real.
---------------------------------------------
De Charenton (2004)
¿o que vostede escribe é representativo?
“””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
—¿trátase dunha lingua metafísica?
—non, trátase dunha lingua transcendental
---------------------------------------------
De Hordas de escritura (2008)
Definición: poeta é o non poeta
Proposición I: verdadeiramente poeta é aquela/aquel cuxa musa foi integramente destruída
Escolio: se quen escribe poesía é aquel/aquela cuxa musa foi destruída, isto significa que a identidade entre poeta e non poeta nunca é perfecta, que non é posíbel destruír íntegramente a musa, que sempre resta algo. Ser poeta é ser ese resto
(segundo a orde xeométrica)
(...) estas augas coexisten pero non son coincidentes, esta intimidade indivisíbel
---------------------------------------------
De Carne de Leviatán (2013)
Eleusis
Isto
eu
aquí
agora
ti
hoxe
mañá
entón
o mesmo día
sempre
nada hai na voz nada
unha lingua de fogo que a todos e a cada unha pertence
pero quen di o idioma é a voz
non está
e volve
---------------------------------------------
De Un libre favor (2020)
Vosoutras pedras, traédeme as palabras
sodes o alfoz da vida
traédeme a miga de pan
a que a lesma devora
e se confunde coa lama dos camiños
nada esperaba
en nada cría
era só a marabilla de ser comanche e de vez
unha árbore
as follas de castiñeiro derredor da fronte
as trenzas longas cosidas con agullas de piñeiro
o vestido
como o cervo atravesa as vías
e preto e sobre a neve mira pasar o tren
así a voz
un cabalo
abebera nos espellos
e entre as patas garda
listas
as zapatillas de baile
From Urania (ed. 2016)
In a chestnut wood. In the wood, a woman. The woman reads, thinks.
A book or illuminated codex.
In the codex, a woman. In her hand one end of the cord whose other end encircles the neck of Rosanna who ambles and grazes behind the woman.
In the codex, above the berms, the mountain looms as towering crags; between rock towers, strewn stones.
In the codex, oaks, blue sky through trees,
expanding between the bare oak branches.
Do you remember
when crows came to drink at the river?
The woman is seated. In the codex, landscape of looming crags, deep in it a man contemplates the sky, in the sky a crow “it was he who’d been nourished by crows bringing bread in their beaks, bread, through the clouds
to where he lived at the foot of that rugged abyss.”
It could well be that in such a landscape Raphael painted a Messiah as most perfect triangle: transfigured.
The woman reads, thinks. Craggy cliffs towering. Even at the brink
of the road, plunking onto the shoulder.
From the embankments/cutbanks
clouds.
---------------------------------------------
From Heloísa (Espiral Maior, 1994)
for Sabela R. Oxea
In my dream I’m no April lass
no princess of Aquitaine
skating eludes me
I have no laud
Saint Gudula I am not
nor Ilduara Eriz.
No one’s in the forest stalking boar
no one will adorn their brow with pheasant emerald.
In my writing I’m astronaut on a summer night
(astronaut in simulated orbit)
my ribs sprout algae
my spacesuit a thousand sparrows.
I’m no bird
nor wake that crosses the river.
---------------------------------------------
From Heloísa (1994)
A dream
industrial landscape
satyrs
shepherdesses.
Heroism and luxury
Marcelle
The fruit that sustains Persephone is hell
so the imagining of hell consists in perceiving it five times over
through all five senses
see the glowing bodies
five times
hear the shrieks of aching souls
five times
smell the sewer of the abyss
five times
taste the bitterness of tears
five times
Myth changes
produces discards
but don’t start thinking you’re a god
the cardial of Byron
the poems of Ritsos
that jolt awake when I knew that darkness is all that is possible.
---------------------------------------------
From Fascinio (2010)
for Estrela Piñeiro
… THE WOMEN continue their assigned work in the cannery, from keeping the woodpile stacked to lugging pine logs from the mountain, contributing their efforts to the tasks of the dragnet sardine fishers, boys mostly barefoot, with heads shaved and overall showing signs of malnutrition...
...with the stores given up for lost, the search for the frigate began so as load up again on weapons and ammunition...
In the green mouth
kaolin, wolfram, the frigate Lively, the Enmerillon people, she-the-revealer, God,
Sputnik
the wind-bent Australian tree1 that drives me crazy on the brink of dream
the thirty anorexic Medieval women saints
the succession of mother-women
matricide
gold flashing on the index finger, on the wrist
seventy sunsets, 5000 hill-forts, 300 Neolithic grave-mounds caress your body
you turn around, head back along the path
all the thatched roofs
shadoof, phosphorescence, seagleam
celestial are the waters
roil coil mesh harvest sea-cave GALLAECIA
fecundity of stars!
sandbar
the descent into hell
Faber-Castell
Irmgard Möller
Limassol
Antioch.
From Nínive (1996)
OUTSIDE
I had to learn American just like a foreign language
but she’d spent her childhood in Galicia speaking Spanish
a combo of correct office Spanish
mixed with the impossible Spanish of ladies
native language / dismemory
vernacular / all was vernacular
the sensation an entire people can feel
on finding themselves shut outside
of their shared native tongue
how could she have anything poetic in her?
she’d been born here
had abandoned her language
complained
—It’s a nice place to be, for a month, in summer
in winter here there’s nothing
you go riding a bicycle here and you’re a slut
you go out wearing a tank top here and you’re a slut
they extirpated Galician from us
even if life had to be plucked out in the process
our tongue the stigma that still denounces us, even now.
Corrupt use of language
your reliable protection against words
—who do you think you are?, a whiff from my navel?
how the language invariably defeats you
better to be a pariah
put something exactly where it belongs
put flowers in the vases
and the day that’s quickly fleeing...
time deferred
but no waters are impassable
and my senses never abandon me
to be superfluous means utterly not belonging to the world
to be outside the world
—is our identification with our language superfluous?
—if someone dares to tell “the truth” again
or
enough already of “truth” i’ve had it with truth
or
leave me in peace with your truth! I’m sick of all this truth
words like that or others just the same
the monstruous
how words go dark
Eden
Hotel Eden
Rosa Luxemburg
here the murderers are holding their banquet
Happiness
happiness for them
happiness for us
in unity
in uniformity
Happiness!!!
soon these unlucky peoples will lose their individuality
we being them
them being us
difference negates unity, hatred, happiness
madness negates peace
—what do you think you’ll find in the lake?
—not some poetic morsel from Heaney
“And find this pupil dreaming/ Of neolithic wheat”2
instead you’ll find the regiment from The Horse Soldiers
—get this woman out of here
these are the dialogues you learn
we just lap it up
—cut his boot off, Sam
—nobody’s cutting that boot off
—take a good stiff jolt
—those are $20 boots, trooper
—take A-troop, find a ford someway across that river, take a bugler with you
—Sir, thank you for the opportunity
the sentence
“I had to learn American”
is a phrase of Raymond Chandler’s
I took from the poem “Striking Resemblance”
by Tina Darragh
L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E
it describes how my parents were determined to educate us in Spanish
later everyone would forget the importance of language
hate’s more economical
and makes all the rest a blank slate
of thought
almost mute
almost still listening
to the call
it comes
just once
dressed in mourning and you move close to my tomb
silence splits
is reduced to its smallest parts
tiny bits
shrunken
between vowel and vowel
between vowel and consonant
open body of the language
its blank spaces
between word and word
between one line and another
but I never could figure out death
the coast was but endless rock cliffs swamped by the fury of the sea and
of the torrents that fall endlessly from a darkened
sky
waters scintillating with dorsal fins that teem amidst iridescent shoals of sharks
mutilated
dying
that’s how they saw the poem
prior to the industrial revolution
a manufacture
to write in a tongue denied us in childhood
to write in a tongue we listened to, stolen
—how many words did you hear in that tongue amidst the labyrinth they spoke or in its absence?
to write in a tongue you listened to not knowing it was your own
and that it was a different tongue from the one they claimed to be speaking
—what were they speaking, in what tongue really speaking, those who gave language to you in your cradle?
tongue of ruins
language extermination camp
linguistic middle class
between corrupt office Spanish and the dilettante Spanish of ladies
all of you: monsters!
erasing all tradition
all past
totalitarianism
unreason
madness
because in your fear there was a spot
like a pinhole of the tiniest bit of light
something prior to you all
prior to fear
we went into that light
we called it: REVOLUTION. NATIONAL LIBERATION
anguish
Homeland
in your fear
in what you were dreaming
prior to you all
prior to fear
thus you erased our very traces
you hid your face
identity
name
—I, who emerged from the flood. I remember you all
in your debility
the dark age
from which I escaped
I’ll remember you all with clemency
with that childhood freshness that dangles in the void
but no temple awaits you all
no “Penelope longing”3
nothing of Paestum
40 tongues in India
another 40 in Gabon
someone will always speak in that surfeit of languages
it has to be like that
it’s not up to me: lyric
I am that stubble
that promenade on top of Literature
because what I sought in childhood was not my reflection
but that alliance of you who survived the defeat
alliance at the centre of all our tragedy
all determination
all impotence
thus: Poetry
collapse
dismemory
to limit the drama
to recognize we’re offspring of morally inadequate parents
of their refusal to speak
of their perturbation
of their origin
and thus the mirror didn’t shatter
it was given to us broken from the start
and then shattered again in us
us: those who now must recover the sea
for all the bridges were destroyed
in vases
in elixirs
in dreams
in memory
history as recounted on the papyruses of Orpheus
the history of an impossible identity
a new Hades
auspicious
as if one day a god held a hand over our mouths
the clarity of that light
the writing.
---------------------------------------------
From Ponte das poldras (2nd éd. 2006)
In der Mandel—was steht in der Mandel?
Paul Celan
In the stone—what dwells in the stone?4
the lagoon
the lagoon permeates the stone
permeates, permeates
In the lagoon—what dwells there?
the tangled tress
the tress permeates there, tress tangle of reeds
permeates, permeates
Braided hair of the dolmen you will never be dust
And your eye—on what does your eye dwell?
your eye dwells on the stone
your eye infiltrates the waters.
It sustains the tress
and so permeates, permeates
Curled mane of the Language you will never be dust
Empty stone. Regal-grey.
---------------------------------------------
From Charenton (2004)
madam, is what you write representative?
—nothing represents, it produces
—it searches out meaning?
—nothing means, it functions
”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
—does it have to do with a metaphysical language?
—no, with a transcendental language
—ideological?
—no, material
—oedipal?
—no, schizophrenic
—imaginary?
—no, it has nothing to do with an imaginary idiom, it’s a non-figurative language —symbolic?
—no, real
—structural?
—no, machinic
—molar, gregarious?
—no, molecular, micropsychic and micrological
—expressive?
—productive
from Charenton
Shearsman Books, 2007
---------------------------------------------
From Hordas de escritura (2008)
Definition: poet equals non poet
1st Proposition: the true poet is the one whose muse has been integrally destroyed
Scholium: if whoever writes poetry is one whose muse was destroyed, it means that poet and non-poet never perfectly coincide, that it is not possible to integrally destroy the muse, a residue always remains. To be poet is to be that residue
(according to the geometric order)
(…) these waters coexist but are not identical, this indivisible intimacy
from Hordes of Writing
Shearsman Books, 2008
---------------------------------------------
From Carne de Leviatán (2013)
Eleusis
This
I
here
now
you
today
tomorrow
thus
the same day
forever
there’s nothing in the voice nothing
a tongue of fire that belongs to all and to each
but whoever says language equals voice
isn’t here
and returns
from Flesh of Leviathan
Omnidawn Press, 2016
---------------------------------------------
From Un libre favor (2020)
All you stones, bring me words
you are the far hinterlands of life
bring me the crumb of bread
the one the slug devours
and slops with mud from the roads
I hoped for nothing
believed in nothing
there was but the marvel of being comanche and at the same time
a tree
chestnut leaves encircling my brow
long tresses sewn with pine needles
the gown
just as the deer crosses the tracks
and from up close in the snow watches the train pass
so the voice
a horse
drinks from mirrors
and at its hooves it keeps
ready:
dance slippers
from The Face of the Quartzes
Veliz Books, 2021
3 “novelo no vento nove” a reference to the Alváro Cunqueiro’s classic poem “Return of Ulysses” from Herba de aquí e de acolá, speaking of Penelope weaving and wondering when Ulysses will return, as the ball of wool falls away from her... her dreams of return are dreams of Galicia arising... she represents the role of women in maintaining Galician...
4 Translator’s Note: Pato echoes the form of the poem “Mandorla” by Paul Celan, speaking in her poem of the Galician language, Neolithic history, and the Antela—both as anta (megalith) and as the living lagoon drained in the lands of Pato’s birth, during the Franco dictatorship, in the name of agricultural development. The scarring of the landscape still haunts that places of Pato’s ancestors, and when it rains hard, saturating the ground, parts of the lagoon reappear… https://gl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagoa_de_Antela . The Celan poem can be found online, here, for example: https://allpoetry.com/Mandorla
