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Poetry

Five Poems from Exilios

  • by Alejandro Oliveros

Skies

Long before the land,
we lost the sky
of the native tropics.
Its ceaseless light
without winter frost,
clouds with no ice
or darkness. And the guardian
azure above the mangoes,
mountain immortelles and reedbeds.
Of the tropic we also lost
the cordial nights,
the moorland breezes
and the salt of the seas;
the stars of the road,
which learned our
names and vowels,
the known sounds
of crickets and jaguars.
When you close the door
and tighten the windows,
and set off down unfamiliar roads,
look up to the sky you leave behind,
there remain your signals,
the features and dreams
that were once a beginning.
Snows and cruel gales
lie yonder.

Loss of the Kingdom

And the burden of not being…

Where will the skin
of these musical valleys
scented with
guava and honey end up?
These backwaters and canals
for thirsty days,
into what seas
or lakes and currents
will they eventually flow?
The golden hills
of these bosoms,
blindly traversed
in clear and early mornings,
under what skies
will they wake up tomorrow?
A last glance
for this kingdom
of ample flesh,
and apple smoothness
that laid there for me.

Return from the Crusades

I return,
after many years
as a crusader,
to the native country.
Here, war is
not over.
The long beaked
toucans have been
buried,
and the mountain bluebirds
sleep beside them.
The red-armed hunters
come down from the hills
with weapons and horses.
Their faces are cruel
and their gestures ruthless.
At the top of the tree,
we sense the jay
when, in his song,
he tells us:
“War
is not over,
it will still take time
for the kingdom
to be freed.”

Tables

We have learned
to dine
at empty tables.
There are chairs to spare
in our homes.
We no longer sit
to share the smell
of the stews,
nor the smokes
of our embers.
First, the
hasty suitcases
of our children. Then,
with books under arms,
it was our friend’s turn,
all around the world
asking for asylum.
Our tables
have lost balance,
two at one end,
four in the emptiness.

Work Table

In the wee hours,
before the roosters
lose themselves in the sky,
I write between your legs,
on the floor where my pens
and books remain.
This is my work table,
here I write
tales and poems
on the pages of your body
with my fingers.
Inside a distant house
lie all my books and papers,
editions of Catullus and Horace
and Shakespeare’s complete works.
Far from my notebooks, I have
nothing but the paper of your skin,
in these wee hours,
when walls become blind.

Translated by Daniel Oliveros
  • Alejandro Oliveros

Alejandro Oliveros (Valencia, Venezuela, 1948) is a poet, essayist, translator, and former professor of European literatures, now retired from the School of Letters of the Universidad Central de Venezuela and the Arturo Michelena School of Fine Arts. He is the author of several books of essays (Imágenes de Siena y Florencia, John Donne y la poesía del Barroco europeo; Imagen, objetividad y confesión. Ensayos sobre poesía norteamericana; Poetas de la tierra baldía; Las mismas aguas; Razones y ficciones) and of translations collected in the unpublished volume Voces ajenas. His poetry was compiled in Espacio en fuga (Poesías reunidas 1974-2010), published by Pre-Textos in 2012. The same press published his Poemas del cuerpo in 2016 and his Poemas de la luna líquida in 2021. Thirteen of the twenty-six volumes of his Diario literario, started in 1996, have been published by various presses. He is currently working on La corona y la muerte en Shakespeare, annotated translations of Julius Caesar, Richard III, and Macbeth, as well as the publication of a volume of his diaries, Páginas del diario literario 2019. He lives in Caracas and Milan.

  • Daniel Oliveros

Daniel Oliveros (Valencia, Venezuela, 1991) is a poet, publisher, and translator. He earned his degree in Education with a focus on English from the Universidad de Carabobo. His poems and translations have been published in several Venezuelan and international journals. He is currently a member of the editorial board of both the print and digital editions of the journal Poesía. He received an honorable mention in the poetry section of the fifth Premio Nacional Universitario de Literatura in 2014. His first verse collection is titled Warlike (LP5, 2021).

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