Q’esintuu
no longer rooted in me no longer
is the roaring force
of a horn blower
of the seashell blower
echoing
in the temples
of dissidents
like an animal
fallen into a ravine
I gasp
in my bed of water
I hear the bellowing
of angry oxen
in the deep melody
of horns and cornets
what strange evil
besieges me
twin spouses?
is it the wheezing
of spirits in limbo?
perhaps
the lethal breath
of enfeebled beasts?
in the cloud of my inert eye
miniscule fish
from icy lakes
float dead
no longer hardened in me no longer
is the roaring force
of a horn blower
tangled in the current
in the meandering course of dreams
I doze
And (already) exhausted
I don’t feel
the ruminant animals spitting
From Tunupa/El libro de las sirenas
Angel of Yucay
in the solitude of these barren plains
on a rock I draw
her thighs
with another rock
I am the wandering
archangel
in the morning
the faithful remove
from my talons
mud and thorns
do you come from this life
or the other? they ask me
fearfully
my home
is an abandoned chapel
at high altitude
my mother, spinner of clouds,
procreates there
between one village and another
—hard journey
of the fallen angel—
I spent the night
in sacred sites
devoured by foliage
I’ve cried out for misericordia
in humble graveyards
where the tombs are
only
two rocks
of different sizes
to mark the head
or feet
I think:
under the embroidered gown
her belly
was smooth
like water in a calm lake
her breasts
tiny puddles
eyes
of boiling
water
I think
but in the end
my lancer-angel
torment returns
as such
angel-virtue
thrown
to this immense frozen scrubland
where the wind assaults
my threadbare fustian the crown of
roses
and nonetheless
I must restrain myself
while waiting to be pardoned
day after day
because I am a lost soul
the candle that burns
before the Virgin
immutable
From Almas en pena
Praise for a native language in the dominant language
(Garcilaso Inka revisited)
Not with eyes
With lips on the swollen nipple
you were foreshadowed mother tongue
in the milk in the mouth in the ear
I found you not in books in mother’s bosom
Not in the rigid letter in oral tongue sounds
all ears
Now you govern my voice my ear
Ene River
my deep voice box
obeys
the slight half-light when it appears
(mother’s milk)
the cosmic tolling with which the light of dawn arrives
¡wak!
the sigh of foggy forests
everything vibrates in the universe
A deer marks its territory in the river’s headwaters
Its footsteps in the mud
waterfall
comes to fruition in the mouth of an Andean child
the intensity of midday sun its burning that glows ¡k’an!
Indians, mestizos, criollos
is like having
another ear
Not in dictionaries, in the serene sky
Shine ¡ch’ak!
star of dawn
tranquility flows thak
(Buddhist state of being)
Tongue of music uniting
goldfinch consort / canary flute
bilabial trill consonant
aspirated alveolar fricative
voiced palatal plosive
acoustic shell
bellows
voiceless sibilants
alignment of sounds in my throat
I write what I drank in milk
and saw and heard
from my elders
mother tongue / uterus tongue
suffixes piling one onto another
stems and regrowth
at the top of the palate
clan offshoots
(3rd Ayllu, Hanan Cusco)
a word locks Time and Space
another, fastens the sun
to teach, to learn have the same root
yacha
to be born, to awaken are the same
From Ciudad [c]oral
