Una forma de ser / Ramón Palomares (1935-2016)

A Way of Being

Here comes The Night
the one with stars in his fingernails,
a furious stride and dogs between his legs
lifting his arms like lightning
splitting cedars open
throwing branches all over himself,
very far away.

He comes in as if on horseback
and passes through the entrance
shaking the storm off his clothes.

And he climbs down and starts to inquire
and memorizes and extends his eyes.

He looks at the towns spread about
some on the slopes and others leaning on cliffs
and he walks into the houses
seeing how the women are
and investigates church sacristies and bell towers
frightened when he steps onto their stairwells.

And he sits on the stones
finding out forever.




***




Una forma de ser

Aquí llega el noche
el que tiene las estrellas en las uñas,
con caminar furioso y perros entre las piernas
alzando los brazos como relámpago
abriendo los cedros
echando las ramas sobre sí,
muy lejos.

Entra como si fuera un hombre a caballo
y pasa por el zaguán
sacudiéndose la tormenta.

Y se desmonta y comienza a averiguar
y hace memoria y extiende los ojos.

Mira los pueblos que están
unos en laderas y otros agachados en los barrancos
y entra en las casas
viendo como están las mujeres
y repasa las iglesias por las sacristías y los campanarios
espantando cuando pisa en las escaleras.

Y se sienta sobre las piedras
averiguando sin paz.




{ Ramón Palomares, Papel Literario, El Nacional, 8 March 2016 }

Máscaras / Ramón Palomares (1935-2016)

Masks

And here we exist at the limits of the lie
that our life is impalpable
that these represented people belong
to an owner of another order.

We always show up on stage punctually
to face the big audience. This is how we recreate under the stars
and make it to an appointment in the winds
stepping out ahead of our parties.

Our heart has been lent to other characters,
we murmur a dream and our lips are not responsible,
we’re beautiful or noble according to circumstance.
We’re assaulted by a random delirium
and we fall onto the stages under a foreign will.

And we have no life,
since we’re always driving through an unknown country
whose flowers interest us in a frivolous manner
and whose women love us in alcoves of falsehood.

We start a fire and her blue heart
crackles with more strength than ours
as the logs burn in the manner of blood.

We let ourselves be strange. Falsifiers.
Wearing an insincere emotion.
While we walk, exiled from our body
on an interminable stroll.




1958




{ Ramón Palomares, El reino, Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 2001 }

Una palma / Eugenio Montejo

A Palm Tree

                                                            to Ramón Palomares


      What I look at
in a palm tree
is not a leaf or the wind,
nor the savage caryatid
where color appears
to glimpse horizons.
It’s not the bitter rancor
of the rocks
nor the green guitars
of the inconsolable sea.
Some of my bones, don’t I know,
the blood that drop by drop
and man to man
has been rolling for centuries
to populate me
somewhat too of my beloved dead,
their voices,
rotates in its column
and adds me to the air.
What I touch in it
with my eyes
and look at with my hands
the root that binds us
to this deep land
from a dream that’s so strong
no storm
can displace us.




{ Eugenio Montejo, Trópico absoluto, Caracas: Fundarte, 1982 }

El reino combatiente / Ramón Palomares

The Combatant Kingdom


                                                  To Guillermo Sucre



That was a house that only had dead people
Everything there was dark Nothing flowered
The sky What about it
All light smelled like sperm
          —We're already tired, the day ones said, —Throw them out
          Let’s throw the dead out of that house
          Let’s live there
House accustomed to death
everything in it is collapsed
Only the air and cold smoke finishing the bare ghosts
But even then / Even then they came
          Grabbed their axes, their knives
          They came
It’s not easy fighting them No
No easy task No easy task to fight the dead
But they put on their daring suits They ran for them their harnesses
Everything was about to begin their
That everything begin That everything end —That’s what they were saying
So when the night begins we’ll make earth in its spirits
That’s what we hope: the moon, humid clouds
          They’ll sing Black humor will sing
          time will come
They crossed the patios late Very late
You couldn’t see anything
Silent knives What bravery!
Not easy Not easy: Cornered as they were Crouched as the dead were in the corners
          What silence
Who says “Courage” says again “Another assault”
Who was going to look at the flesh and bone ripped off?
Pull the bones from the roots, that’s what they used to do!
Hearts Those what
They lasted so long! And what dawn not even a morning! There was no time for the sun!
The night alone Defiance was there and that was a house of purity at night
—Time—not that—No there wasn’t any time
No combat with the dead has time
They fight on a different ground
          The same as screams?
          Not screams. And how?
That’s a field of silence That’s where they debate
The knives sounding like a darkness —shall we say— sounds
But that ending
A field of flowers appeared there
The fog was lifting
—Escape? No —A dignity like this —A dignity like theirs —
Dead...
That couldn’t be resolved in the same way as an escape
Good Good Don’t you notice the sea now where we used to see the mansion?

—What do you glimpse on the sea?
Flowers
—And on top of the flowers?
Flowers
—And above what the flowers let us see?
Flowers It’s been a while now that all you can see are flowers Only
Flowers There’s nothing else.




{ Ramón Palomares, Vuelta a casa, Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 2006 }

Abuelos muertos, tías, retías y demás sombras / Ramón Palomares

Dead Grandparents, Aunts, Reaunts and Other Shades

Sullen conversations that kept arriving
People of the dream People of the wind
They were windy trees
Heart blows
They would suddenly take us
We were just a conversation

We were trees and people of the dream
Erring souls Erring trees
And furious we circled life
Rummaging in ashes
Rummaging in embers
beyond ourselves




Adiós Escuque (1968-1974)




{ Ramón Palomares, Vuelta a casa, Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 2006 }

Pleno verano / Ramón Palomares

Full Summer

                                                             To Federico Moleiro


Now I’m really going to sit down
I’m about to be stone I’m about to be tree
Lying here already I’m about to be grave Tomb I’ll be
We’ve already spent so many hours going in circles
Look —one says— I’m not that little speck that rises from the ground
I am earth
But after a while I’ve become a beetle
“Hey Wait up I’m on my way
I’m just starting to shake things out”

This has been nothing but storm for over hundred years
The reverberation comes out of everywhere
They bite from everywhere
People say words are losing their soul
that they only know how to name deaths
And I wake up so tired
The heart tastes like thirst to me.

Soul
touch me here because I’d like to open this house of mine for a while
I want to shake it out
let the burn come out
Touch me I’m alone
this has been burning for over a hundred years
Look at the ashes
the bare earth
It’s as if it were about to rain but the water doesn’t fall.
So much time has passed since I’ve seen anything but the stumbling of the ghosts
My mother calls me from an old war
there she is sitting amid some ruins A few stones
And those are the dogs in the fire
the dogs that squeal in the fire
Let us rest, they say
Let us rest this is nothing more than a death
But we want an honest death
that door.

Believe me I won’t disturb you
All I want is to lie down
And watch everything alone
Because the doors to the sky
Are a black gate
I already know there’s no greenness
because I’m already tired
Look there’s plenty to complain about in this house
where pots are clanging all the time
along with the dog winds

I know quite well that everything is remnants
but lay me down anyway
and when you see those windows filled with leaves and little branches
May music come out of the rooms

—Soul—
when you say to rain
Call me! —I’ll come from wherever I might be!
But right now in this dry plaza
Pass me a damp rag
I’m boiling!




Adiós Escuque (1968-1974)




{ Ramón Palomares, Vuelta a casa, Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 2006 }

Saludos / Ramón Palomares

Greetings

Greetings, precious bird.
And don’t abandon the feathers’ gold
among those clouds
and don’t lose the song in the dominion of thunder.
In case you pass from the sky
and remain a prisoner of the stars.

How much has been lost from journeys,
how many waves crashed into the cliffs,
while your wings
stole fulgencies from the powerful dog of the sky.
And how much of rains,
of summer, of grass turned red
by the implacable season.
Or of grey, fog and continuous ghost
facing the young man in love with ships.
The lost neighbors,
the weeping of friends
I have seen dried in handkerchiefs
by forgetting and irremediable passing.
Not to mention the girl
whose chest until yesterday was so smooth
and was later seen
as an exquisite branch.

Greetings.
But, traveling friend,
how can we recount the losses,
sales that have been made,
new acquisitions?
And if the modest family
sells their provincial possessions
and buys comfortable apartments,
haven’t we sold the heart
and over and over
changed the opinions of our consciousness
to better understand the news of the week?
And while you over the past year
would give yourself to the aromatic skies of the north,
here the deaths and births
would change the ropes of the ship
and make the old man stumble.
And while you stole from that dog
the beautiful fulgencies,
the gold for majesty in your wings,
the changes of city,
the arrivals to love,
the songs of a hopeful cloud
that would drown us in desires
were painting new and strange figures
on the ship’s keel.

And meanwhile there was nothing
but the incessant shine
and the incessant beating of those wings
above foam and cities,
above countrysides and distant plains;
beyond the towers established by the fall of the nights.
There was nothing beyond those absorbed eyes,
fixed toward the north or south,
the tail firm,
in the manner of a rudder,
and the impulse
and the path indicated by a thread.
And the sky, and the aromas
of dead or recently opened flowers
and the changing airs.

And for you there was only, traveling friend;
the departures, the returns
found those pupils
still, serene, spread out
amid the races played by the sky.

Greetings.
For you there is barely time to sing
in the delicious garden
and to shake your wings in the pond
where the wind has not been able to conquer.




1958




{ Ramón Palomares, El reino, Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 2001 }

Paramaconi / Ramón Palomares

Paramaconi

So that Paramaconi arrived, the Toromayna
(Look what you bring on your back
—A ditch, a coffin I bring, a coffin
—Not a wound, an abyss, a coffin)

And it really was very deep

And Ulloa said

“You can tell this one has death
He’s dead, you can see his death”

I’m the piece you still haven’t eaten
—the last one— said Paramaconi.




Santiago de León de Caracas (1967)




{ Ramón Palomares, Antología poética, Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 2004 }

Abuelos muertos, tías, retías y demás sombras / Ramón Palomares

Dead Grandparents, Aunts, Great Aunts and Other Shades

Sullen conversations that reached us
People of the dream People of the wind
They were windy trees
Blows of the heart
They would take us all at once
We were just a conversation

We were trees and people of the dream
Errant souls Errant trees
And furiously we’d circle around life
Rummaging some ashes
Rummaging some embers
just beyond ourselves




Adiós Escuque (1974)




{ Ramón Palomares, Antología poética, Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 2004 }

La caída / Ramón Palomares

The Fall

                                                                           To Don Domingo

They were exceedingly content amidst so many flowers
so that everything seemed like pearls to them:
The moon, churches, it was like pouring wine into their mouths
They drank and felt like stars
they sniffed and were airs
And when they wandered the grasslands would cover them
And if they went by water their feet became fish
And if they wanted to fly right away they’d go up
No one would tell them “NO!”
For houses they had some rose bushes...

And she would speak to him precisely
And he to her was a single and pure pleasure
And come over here and let’s head over there
and in this way they’d go everywhere
The earth the same and the sky the same and always that delight
And maybe in the dark they were surprised by an angel
or from afar music played for them.
And as for food
it was a habit of taking manna and wines from the leaves
and the trays would fly and the tables would set themselves
and when they went to love each other life would guard them.
But as you know there was also a great bush
a great black bush of black velvet
Far away
And the hill were it stood was made of blood
moving and moving
and the birds were dry there
watching and waiting
And right over here there was an apple tree
and the apple tree was always calling
and it called and called
and from the very leaves and branches
it was pure calling
“Come,” they’d say
“Come”
And it felt like an aftertaste, a provocation
“Come and eat this little flower
Just a little nibble”
And throughout the earth there was a strong aroma of food
Right there appeared the serpent that was night magic and
daytime magic
and on whose flanks roosters flapped their wings
and through its eyes lightning
and inside it could be heard dances and much singing
Its head was swaying like flower
and from its ears seeped a perfume
dizzying
and every heart flew.
That body cast days and nights
and would wrap itself in strange compliments.
And to the man it said
“That you don’t know
That you really haven’t touched or smelled
That this isn’t manna nor wine nor tasteless food”
And that was a make him make him understand
“That you don’t know
...That this is more than elixirs”

For him it was made out of a hard and dry material
he was made out of a very strong stone
and though his heart ran in circles
and though his liver turned
He wouldn’t fall and He wouldn’t fall
And she in turn was damp
because she was made of cloth, a soft kind
and the saying must have actually entered through her breasts
since it was made of flowers
and the flower petals didn’t resist
and the snake surrounded her breasts, bent her
and curved her as if she were in the patio, lying
amid the bushes
and that magic became softer and softer
and led them amid a very high clarity
and other eyes were waiting for them there
and other throats
and all that was a single song
waters and trumpets and mountains...
And another listening came to them, and still they tried to escape
but they only stooped
And they felt a breeze
a rough breeze
And in the middle of the valley atop a blood
that tree so black
and the blood moving
and those birds waiting, turning and turning,
And the tree was rising and closing the day for them and likewise
it was closing the night for them.

And they saw some leaves in the wind
and in the distance some dried flowers
and they looked at each other
and they trembled.




Adiós Escuque (1974)




{ Ramón Palomares, Antología poética, Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 2004 }

Pajaríto que venís tan cansado / Ramón Palomares

Little bird who comes so tired

Little bird who comes so tired
and leans across the stone to drink
Tell me. Are you not Polyhymnia?
All afternoon it was watching me from I don’t know where
All afternoon
And now that I see you I realize
You’ve come to console me
You who were always there to console
Now you take the shape of a bird
Ah little fluffy bird
Docile on the stone and through the grass you approach
—“I am Polyhymnia”
And no wonder a light of the resurrected has fallen right here
Polyhymnia you’re laughing
Polyhymnia you’re blessing me
                                        —Purest heart
Little bird who arrives from the sky
Figuration of a soul
Now I’d like to put you here in my chest
feed you
Put you here in my chest
                                        And for you stay there
the most of the heart.




Adiós Escuque (1974)




{ Ramón Palomares, Antología poética, Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 2004 }

La comida / Ramón Palomares

Dinner

Don’t eat me Francisco
because I’m your death
Me, thick meat of tomatoes and oregano,
me, the salt
I’m your knife

Don’t eat me Francisco
because I’m your edge, your arrow tip,
Me, the deer
the mountain pork
the avocado and the potato
I’m your burial candle,
your incense, your coffin

Don’t eat me Francisco because I’m your holy water,
the vegetables, me
your shovel, your pick
the place where they dig your grave
Don’t eat me, son, don’t eat me,
because then you won’t be able to vomit me

And Francisco ate his night, his edge, his arrow tip
and he ate his shovel and his pick
and the coffin
and the candles they didn’t place for him.




Santiago de León de Caracas (1967)




{ Ramón Palomares, Antología poética, Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 2004 }

El viajero / Ramón Palomares

The Traveler

I let myself look back,
drink a glass and laugh
in everything like the sky
and its toast of fine liquor over my head.

This is how I begin the delicious party
in which the fair
is transformed by my heart
pure, stripped of bad flavors
and matters of contempt.

I enter like this,
resembling the morning winner
or the bird that steals the final star.
This is my luck
and that’s how my dice turn out,
my cards amid the towels that rule chance.

A woman lights up this face
from very far.
Made by her love,
to her I owe the shine of my mouth
and the bath offered in my lips
when beauty possesses me.

Shine so tall in my praise her breasts,
may they become the immortal iris.

Friends, deserters of the leap,
escapees from the honey of the game.

In what part, disseminated,
do the little past glories
sow the years with company
and cry, from nostalgia?

At each day
the sky thickens
and the ships move slowly.

Let us extend this love
and the only dew of kisses.

A toast, a toast to you,
precious love, gone
or coming
or nevermore.

And though this red rose die
and my forehead be crowned one day by the white rose
an intimate and purified pleasure will remain in the air.

No matter how much the airs don't call me
the aroma will live
and happiness will embroider the earth.

If you don’t know my name
my name is traveler,
who am unable to be the trinitarian flower.

But today I posses you, sun,
no less than the foam
or the hidden fish.

Time has passed since my father abandoned the city,
but my presence gives him credit.
And, constant,
the high mountains demolish the light,
and the horses play over the gold
under the final sun.

Brothers, how far,
what air so different do we breathe today,
at your wedding
Were there not tears?
Was the dress not stained by dawn
and did it not rain while we slept?

Does someone think of us
now, facing the plain,
when the descent of certain birds happens?

How long the afternoon
and given to meditation.
Soon, by the tree I look at beside night
dense shores will appear
brilliant toward the sky.

Because of all this I weigh
and compare at the pace of the winds
I see I must be somewhat sad.

But in an instant I blow out nostalgia
and pull happiness from myself
like the most beautiful flower from my body.

And at the pace of stars,
dead people
and disappeared events
I toast the hidden
the unknown birds of the next detour,
telling myself I will never return.

And that’s how I begin my adventure.




1958




{ Ramón Palomares, El reino, Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 2001 }

Un gran sueño / Ramón Palomares

A Great Dream

a)

My wife has been those savage
distances
whose doors are extermination;
the birds I loved sang right here
and the girl I loved died, amid burning valleys;
I played at being young
here
where no friendship for past centuries existed.

b)

Toward the turbulent stars my country explodes
and chases its own happy gifts
at the intersection of heroes.
And it is assassinated at the places of its flag
like a man in a strange place
–looking for a coin, looking for a sweet coin
rolling through the multitudes.

c)

If he has spoken
we have lost his words.
And if he had laughed or cried
we would have lost his laugh or his wail.
After all we sustain an august funereal chamber
exposed to laughter and weeping.




Honras fúnebres (1965)




{ Ramón Palomares, Antología poética, Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 2004 }

En las cámaras fúnebres / Ramón Palomares

In the Funereal Chambers

a)

All the hills I roamed
are bloody
and all the beds I slept in belonged to love.

I watch the horses go by
without a rider; without hands to sustain their reins;
they lie in the field
under buzzing flies, amid moans and the smell of recent wounds.

The swords laugh
and the rifles sound incited by the flags and the sky I love!

b)

“Riding a horse just like shaken fire
my heart rotated
pushing me
and my powers knew how to speak to the sword
here and there
amid the stuck lances,
not to mention the loves, hates or beliefs
of those from overseas.
I listen to my horse’s laugh and the curse of the sky
as though they were the conversations of elders!

c)

Masses
these are my weapons
and the blood and the drunken men in the massacre.
My love is a country
I tossed into the future
like a branch of violence.
It satisfied me to see it
in the west
with golden eyes.




Honras fúnebres (1965)




{ Ramón Palomares, Antología poética, Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 2004 }

Baile / Ramón Palomares

Dance

I have broken the sun
I am a card that shines
my stars are by the cliff.

I was over there laughing, once
and my hair hung down my shoulders and I sang
and everyone stood still and remained
enchanted.

She has come over the hilltops wrapped in fire;
her mouth’s complaint flies
and her songs fly and so do her alluring lips that explode
into night irises;
from midnight to three, from midnight to three
fatal
at dawn.
When the musician tightens the cuatro strings
and feet rotate
and the living room burns.

I won’t stop returning
I will illuminate the windows
I will tangle the mare’s mane.
I won’t stop returning.
I won’t stop returning.




Paisano (1964)




{ Ramón Palomares, Antología poética, Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 2004 }

Páramo / Ramón Palomares

Plateau

Fog passed through the peaks,
cloaked with its night,
no bird is seen in the mountains,
no light.
–Sing about why you’re so alone
why you cry,
why’d you join our sadness.

Little mountain string, seven-colored bird,
who’re you singing to,
who’re you telling I love you.

There’s the girl with the big dress,
all she does is cry,
all she does is drink from the mountain.

They tossed holy water
and the wood pigeons died and left
everything covered in feathers.
Oh,
when you’re singing
everything moves, everything turns
to where you sing.
I’ll call you dove, I’ll call you honey,
I’ll say little river stone.

Little mountain string, seven-colored bird:
who’re you telling I love you.




Paisano (1964)




{ Ramón Palomares, Antología poética, Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 2004 }

En el patio / Ramón Palomares

In the Patio

So there I was amid the patio flowers
with the cayennes
enjoying the leaves and the rays from the sky.

This is where I make my bed and lie down
and bathe myself in flowers.
And then I’ll go out to tell the snakes and chickens
and all the trees.
I was on the betulias and on the rose tiles
conversing, dining, listening to the wind.

Tomorrow I’ll tell the elder I’m leaving
far away, over where the men are singing,
where the dead run and bury themselves.
I was walking near some trees, near some golden leaves
and I was eating the stars, and I sat down
and I listened to the tall grass and I saw a woman’s eyes
that were shining like a tooth
then I tossed a big orange tree branch
and everything went dark.




Paisano (1964)


Translator’s Note: Ramón Palomares (Escuque, 1935) has just been awarded the Premio Fray Luis de León de Poesía Iberoamericana given by La Sociedad de Estudios Literarios y Humanísticos de Salamanca in Spain.




{ Ramón Palomares, Vuelta a casa, Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 2006 }

Patas arriba en el techo / Ramón Palomares

Feet Up On the Roof

                                                             To Adriano González León

I know where to find him
where he sings now, eating ants
the bird who flies on top of clouds
the one who knows how to travel through dreams.
He was lying feet up on the roof
murmuring that he felt like killing
and scaring the dogs coming at him from the sky
and spitting tigers
and saying:
I’m definitely gonna fuck up any dogs that come my way
I sure as hell ain’t scared of them.
And with enormous blue wings he hit them and stuck knives in them
and he would call me and say:
Help me, help me.
Then he finished
and started getting into all the clouds
over there, far away, near a lagoon.




Paisano (1964)




{ Ramón Palomares, Antología poética, Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 2004 }

Presagios / Ramón Palomares

Premonitions

                                                                  To Juan Sánchez Peláez

He saw a noose, it hung in his house.
There was a corpse outside
It was a fine and cruel noose
coming out the corpse’s mouth.

He saw a town, he heard screams,
they were coming to kill him
he was carrying a musket, sweating

Then he saw some cows grazing
and a clear and shining valley
and wars

He looked somewhere else
Isabel was in her hammock, swinging,
and beside her birds and enormous glowing leaves
That’s where the sea began to grow

Then Francisco started to lose himself
lose himself




Santiago de León de Caracas (1967)




{ Ramón Palomares, Antología poética, Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 2004 }