Mario Melendez translated by Ron Hudson
Mario Meléndez
translated by Ron Hudson
MEMORIES OF THE FUTURE
My sister awoke me very early
that morning and said to me
“ Get up, you have to come and see
this
the sea has been filled with stars
”
Marveled by this revelation
I hastily dressed myself and thought
“If the sea has been filled with stars
I should take the first plane
and gather all the fishes from the sky”
LAST MINUTE PRECAUTIONS
I must be careful of the worms
when they bury me
most certainly
they will speak badly of me
they will spit on my poems
and urinate on the fresh flowers
that will adorn my tomb
it may well be the case
that they even devour my bones
tear out my intestines
or at the height of injustice
rob my gold tooth
and all this because in life
never did I write about them
BLACK SYMPHONY
Eve hung her dead from the window
so that the air might lick the faces
impregnated with scars
. She looked at those faces and smiled
while the wind pushed her breasts
to the wormy night.
An orgy of aromas shook the silence
where she desired herself
and among sighs and good-byes
a blind cricket weeded
his old violins.
No one approached Eve
when she suckled her dead
the anger and the cold
fought over her adolescence
the orgasm gave way to horror
the desire to blood
and small violent creatures
took off from her belly
populating the dawn
with conflict and nightmares.
After
when all was calm
and the shadows finally
went back to their source
Eve put away her dead
kissing them on the mouth
and she slept naked on top of them
until the next full moon
THE DAUGHTER OF RIMBAUD
The girl with the open dress
rises at the hour
in which the words are celebrating
for she herself is a celebration
when she stretches her thighs to the sun
and the wind caresses her
with its infinite fingers.
A tricycle of crystal awaits her
next to the flowers in the yard
and a nest of blind butterflies
that are undressing among her bones of honey
And in her bed of blue feathers
she hangs her braids of wheat
and counts her dead bees
until falling asleep
while the evening envelopes her
with its yellow lips.
The girl with the open dress
awakens at the hour
in which clocks dream because she herself is a dream
when she opens her dress
and the sparrows flock
crazy with love
above her paper breasts
TAKE ME WITH YOU
Take me with you to the south
of your hips
where the humidity
envelops the trees
that emerge from your body
Take me with you to the deep earth
that looms between your legs
to that small north of your breasts
Take me with you to the cold desert
that threatens your mouth
to the exiled oasis of your navel
Take me with you to the west of those feet
that were mine
of those hands that enclosed
the sea and the mountains
Take me with you to other villages
with the first kiss
to the interminable region
of tongue and flowers
to that genital route
to that river of ash that you spill
Take me with you everywhere, love
and everywhere direct my fingers
as if you were the homeland
and I, your only inhabitant
NOTES FOR A LEGEND
A woman is standing on a bridge
that has never existed
Her skin that has never been kissed
floats on the waters of time
like a faceless memory
A letter that has never been read
struggles to reach the riverbank
to be discovered by someone
A man who has never read
who cannot read
who has never learned to
finds the letter and the body
beneath this bridge
The man cries from impotence
while the letter disintegrates
in his fingers
The river which is full of tears
pities this man
and reveals to him the secret of this letter
And the man, insane with love
brings together his nights and his delirium
to jump from this bridge
that has never existed
UNFINISHED PEDAGOGY
The child asks his father
if words grow old
The father responds to the child
that words remain as young
as on the first day
The child runs to his grandfather
to bring him the good news
And the elder abruptly opens
the word drawer
so that they will tell him the secret
THE BOAT OF FAREWELLS
I am the child who plays with the foam
of the hopeless seas
On this beach garlanded with gulls
I stretch my arms like lazy nets
while the waves pinch my dreams
and a single tear breaks against the rocks
The cliffs loom over the shore
they come barefooted to dance on my soul
and their lips bring seaweed and coral
the yeast of the sea converted into a kiss
I move my feet then
like two old oars
my heart is an ocean of faces and hands
and I enter there unwittingly
with my luggage of sand
clutching the wind’s rudder
at the prow of the years
where a voice that is not my voice
raises the anchor of this small boat
that slips away with my childhood on board
THE SINATRA CLAN
All of the cats in my neighborhood
are Sinatra fans
they begin to la-la-la his the
mes
a soon as I put on the CD
and the voice flows
between the ceiling and the brick walls
At times they beg me
to repeat some single
then the sound of “My Way”
“New York” or “Let Me Try Again”
pricks up their whiskers
and throws them headfirst against the glass
This does not happen when I read my verses
they stretch, yawn
look away
or chat amongst themselves
in a lamentable display
of ignorance and sabotage
"You do not understand me"
I tell them
And I put on the CD again
so that Sinatra sings
and those cats are filled with poetry
THE OTHER WOMAN
Caperucita never imagined that El Lobo would leave her for another woman. She never paid attention to the advice given in matters of love by her Grandmother. It would seem that one morning El Lobo told her "Caperucita, I want to break up with you. It no longer excites me to chase you through the woods; it no longer pleases me to dress as your grandmother to allow you to tell me your usual stupidities, that I have big ears and eyes such sharp teeth, and me, like an idiot, responding that they are the better to hear you, smell you and see you. No, Caperucita, our relationship is over." So Caperucita, disconcerted by this confession, set out to run as far away as she could, thinking of the class of woman who had conquered the heart of her lover. "It is her, I must be like her", repeated the child while searching desperately the house of the old woman. "Grandmother", she finally cried, when she had contemplated the face lying in the bed, "how could you do this to me? You, the friend in which I confided most?" "I am sorry", said the other woman, "I never expected to become pregnant at my age, and much less from someone so intelligent and imaginative. Nevertheless, he is a responsible wolf, who I do not doubt for a minute, for offering me marriage on hearing the news. I am sorry, Caperucita, you must seek out someone else. After all, this is not the only wolf in the world, right?
Translated by Ron Hudson
Mario Meléndez, born in 1971, from Linares, Chile, studied Journalism and Social Communication. Among his books, “Autocultura y juicio” (with preface from the National Prize of Literature, Roque Esteban Scarpa), “Poesía desdoblada”, “Apuntes para una leyenda”, “Vuelo subterráneo”, “El circo de papel” y “La muerte tiene los días contados” are most prominent. In 1993, he received the Municipal Prize for Literature for the Bicentenial of Linares. His poems have appeared in various Latin American literary revues and in national and foreign anthologies. He has been invited to numerous literary conferences, notably including The First and Second Latin-American Writers Conference, organized by the Society of Writers of Chile, Santiago, 2001 and 2002, as well as the First International Conference on Amnesty and Solidarity with the People, Rome, Italy, 2003. At the beginning of 2005, his work was published in the prestigious magazines “Other Voices Poetry” and “Literati Magazine.” That same year, he was awarded the Harvest International Prize, given by the University of California-Pomona in the United States, for best Spanish-language poem. His work has been translated into Italian, English, French, Portuguese, Dutch, German, Romanian, Bulgarian, Farsi and Catalan. For four years, he lived in Mexico City, where he conducted literary workshops and various cultural projects, as well as having directed the collection of Latino-American Poets in Laberinto Editions. He also created various anthologies of Chilean and Latin-American Poetry. Currently, he is living in Italy, where he has lectured on Latin-American Poetry at the University of Urbino and he has held readings of his texts, translated to Italian by the poet and essayist Emilio Coco for the International Festival of Daunia Poetry of San Severo and in Dire Poetry of Vicenza. In December, 2012, he was invited to attend the Book Fair of Rome by the Italo-Latin-American Institute. At the beginning of 2013, he received the Medal of the President of the Italian Republic, given by the International Foundation Don Luigi di Liegro. He is considered one of the most important voices of new Latin-American Poetry.