English poems for Kritya Internacional Poetry Festival, India

Three poems by Alberto López Serrano from El Salvador for Kritya International Poetry Festival, India, its 5th day August 21st, 2020. Original language: Spanish.

VVLNERANT OMNES, VLTIMA NECAT*

Twenty-four horses run on your back.

Some run wild, they break your ribs

if the trumpet howls blowing their hips.

And you thought that the feed would calm their jogging!

They hit their flanks, hard, one against all.

Your skin barely resists the noise of the hooves.

Some have pawed soft, slow songs,

and they have bitten your veins and the air on your neck

while your ear dreams a surprised blue.

They kick your ribs again every day.

Twenty-four horses run on your back.

Will none be left after the outburst?

One after another, they are shelling your spine.

One after another, they weigh and you fall against the floor.

One after another, daily they come back and ride you,

they peek at your shoulders and spit on your eyes

and they drain with their tongues the kisses that you did not give

some green night.  That green night!

The horses slept and the city slept ...

They pass, weigh and step, they break your ribs

if the trumpet howls cutting their hips.

One after another, they will fall on the mud

of kisses and ribs.  The last horse,

Below, will tell you to ride him, that you are ready.

*In Latin: They all hurt, the last one kills.

NOT DIONYSUS

Don't hug me, Dionysus.

You don't have the trap of days in your voice.

I would like to reinvent the calendar,

bite the months, chew hourglasses,

perhaps conjecture a new century of abandonments.

It would be better if the night lasted forever.

Its starry lullaby always makes us primitive.

The milky noise of things claims us and enraptures us.

You aren't needed, Dionysus, for the jump.

You don't have the trap of days in your voice.

Let me empty the craters of the hours,

chase the needles and the numbers again,

empty my eyes and grope, Dionysus,

chase the hands that are pulling me into the desert,

empty my hands of parched words,

chase golden onagers through sandy deserts.

I'd better drink the wine from the act of darkness

or at least I will sing the power of the dog

HELEN

It is not Helen who is waiting for you

with golden loops on her cheery face

when you climb high on the defeated walls.

You will see the shadow of an idea,

the ghost of a deranged dog that haunts you.

You will approach to besiege it

and its mist teeth will pierce you.

Helen is not waiting for you.

She must have stayed in Paphos, Tyre or Memphis.

You will never be in Troy.

Its walls must always fall under the blind whip of your triumphant days.

It is not Helen.

Nor will she morbidly love you.  It is not Helen.

It will be the bite of a memory,

the fiction of an encounter that you planned yourself,

a pack of wolves on the blue roof,

in their black mouths you will see Cassandra finally silent in her crazy warning,

in their black mouths you will see Hecuba cry bitterly for you.

It's not her.

A chewed reflex,

the faint echo of a scream against the wall,

the dull thud of falling veils on marble,

a distant drum that freezes,

shadows that dance when the oil in the lamp is running low.

No.

And after the fall?

Ants devour your new luggage.

A toast!

And the dog smiles like a sleeping god who does not accept libations or boasting.

When you go up through the Escaean Gates,

when you run the veils to see down the plain,

When the light burns on your face

and admire the opaque shadow of the idea that you expected to find after the victory,

You will know then that it is not Helen who is waiting for you.

I deeply thank poet Rati Saxena, director of Kritya Festival, for having my poetry work included in such a wonderful opportunity.

English translations from Spanish are mine.

175 poets from around the world. 

I love the sound!!!!