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Issue 12
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Three Poems Written in English

  • by Rafael Courtoisie
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  • November, 2019

Conditional Identity

(to the Shegood)

If you were cat
I would be a mouse
If you were arrow
I would be a pigeon
If you were knife
I would be a wounded body

but I am not a mouse
I am not a pigeon
nor a body

I am only an object without substance
I am a weightless thing
I am an amount without quantity

I’m a blanco spiritual
I’m a black point, mute
in the noisy house
of nuts and poets
a devil in paradise
an angel with broken wings
laughing
laughing in Dante’s hell
without Virgil
without Comedy

out of place
out of work
out of order
like a gossip with her tongue cut off
in the middle of the words.

Mute, forever mute
but aloud.

 

Bad Bird

The difference
between a good bird
and a bad bird
are the wings.

It doesn’t matter
if they are broken
or if they are blue or brown
yellow or red
or whatever color.
It doesn’t matter
if they are long or short
if the feathers are
strong or weak
if  they resist
storms, rains or hurricanes.

The important thing
about wings
is the invisible part
in the bird brain
beside to the little thoughts
of the bird.
This part, like a metonymy
is the core of the trouble:
a bad bird has invisible wings
supporting the evil of the power
a good one has invisible wings
fanning the air with freedom
without damage, without
nightmares, just dreams.

A bad bird is also recognized
by his round eyes
like little balls of shit
seeing nothing nobody
never.

The bad bird’s eyes
contaminate all what
they look.

 

An apple a day

Noisy and silent at the same time
as if it were something alive
as if it were
inside an eight-month-pregnant woman
the idea, like a worm
eats and defecates
sleeps and wakes up
grows and turns
more and more
dangerous
poisonous
unbearable
like a transparent
heavy toxic
creature moving itself
in the apple of the head.

As a worm, yes
inside the apple.

The brilliant, clever face
smiles.

The smile has a bitter touch.

  • Rafael Courtoisie

Rafael Courtoisie is a writer, poet, and essayist, member of the Academia Nacional de Letras of Uruguay, corresponding member of the Real Academia Española, translator, and professor of Literary Theory. He has won various international prizes for his verse collections and his novels. These awards include: Premio Loewe (jury directed by Octavio Paz), Premio Blas de Otero in Spain (jury directed by Carlos Bousoño), Premio Plural (jury directed by Juan Gelman), Premio Jaime Sabines in Mexico, Premio Fraternidad in Jerusalem, Israel, Premio Nacional de Narrativa and Premio Nacional de Poesía in Uruguay, and Premio de la Crítica in Uruguay. He has worked as a university professor in Uruguay and as a visiting professor in various universities in the United States, England, Colombia, Chile, etc. His novels Goma de mascar [Chewing gum] (2008) and Tajos [Cuts] were recently republished. Parranda [Binge] (Visor, Premio Casa de América de Madrid, 2014) and Ordalía [Ordeal] (Huerga & Fierro, 2016) are his most recent verse collections published in Spain. La balada de la mudita [Ballad of the little mute] (2016) and Diario de un clavo [Diary of a nail] (2016) are his most recent books published in Mexico. His work has been translated into more than twenty languages.

  • José Pérez Vogt, Letícia Goellner, Nicolás Pérez Ferretti, Sebastián Villagra Pizarro
fotojoseperezvogt

José Pérez Vogt (Santiago, 1986) is a Santiago-based freelance English-to-Spanish translator and a Translation Studies Professor at Universidad Tecnológica de Chile INACAP, specialized in the fields of translation pedagogy and Translation Environment Tools teaching. He is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Translation at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. 

PrevPreviousThree Poems by Pedro Mairal
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