en el secadero de almas poesía cubana de la generacíon cero in the drying shed of souls poetry from cuba's generation zero

with selections from

Luis Yuseff, Isaily Pérez González, Javier Marimón Miyares, Leymen Pérez García, Marcelo Morales Cintero, Óscar Cruz, Liuvan Herrera Carpio, Jamila Medina Ríos, Moisés Mayán Fernández, Legna Rodríguez Iglesias & Sergio García Zamora

introduced, selected, and translated by

Katherine M. Hedeen & Víctor Rodríguez Núñez the operating system GLOSSARIUM : UNSILENCED TEXTS print//document en el secadero de almaS : Poesía cubana de la Generacíon Cero in the drying shed of souls: Poetry from Cuba's Generation Zero

ISBN: 978-1-946031-48-8 Library of Congress CIP Number: 2019902611 copyright © 2019 by Luis Yuseff , Isaily Pérez González, Javier Marimón Miyares, Leymen Pérez García, Marcelo Morales Cintero, Óscar Cruz, Liuvan Herrera Carpio, Jamila Medina Ríos, Moisés Mayán Fernández, Legna Rodríguez Iglesias, Sergio García Zamora translation copyright © 2019 by Katherine M. Hedeen and Víctor Rodríguez Núñez edited and designed by ELÆ [Lynne DeSilva-Johnson] additional interior design: Zoe Guttenplan

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Cover art uses: El vuelo (Estudio para una ilustración publicada en El Caimán Barbudo) / Th e Flight (Study for an Illustration Published in El Caimán Barbudo), 1982. India ink / paper, 37.5 cm x 51 cm, by Tonel. Artist's Collection. (Provided by / used with permission of the artist.) [Image description: black and white ink illustration of a human head in profi le with a tongue fl ying out of its mouth.]

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Introduction - 7

Luis Yuseff (Holguín, 1975) - 13

Isaily Pérez González (Santa Clara, 1975) - 29

Javier Marimón Miyares (Matanzas, 1975) - 41

Leymen Pérez García (Matanzas, 1976) - 51

Marcelo Morales Cintero (Havana, 1977) - 65

Óscar Cruz (Santiago de Cuba, 1979) - 79

Liuvan Herrera Carpio (Fomento, 1981) - 95

Jamila Medina Ríos (Holguín, 1981) - 109

Moisés Mayán Fernández (Holguín, 1983) - 123

Legna Rodríguez Iglesias (Camagüey, 1984) - 135

Sergio García Zamora (Esperanza, 1986) - 149

Introduction | /// 7 /// Introduction Generation Zero is no exception. The work presented here reaffirms here presented work The Zero is no exception. Generation which finds its identity rich of dialogic poetry, tradition long, Cuba’s by tensions and is marked the identification with the other, through Elsewhere we’ve defended the notion that Cuban poetry defended that Cuban the notion we’ve Elsewhere was to be in the midst It continued revolutionary the Revolution. before the island beginning on transformations place of profound that took It mistrust paradoxical of it. despite revolutionary power’s in 1959, It’s in the nineties. which arose decline, still is after the Revolution’s less (much neo-realist revolutionary neo-romantic, not because it’s but because it renounces or neo-baroque; colloquial, socialist-realist), ways, does so in diverse and it of the other, the differentiation solipsism, freedom. with notable creative It’s not a cliché means to declareIt’s any that few by in its history times has than and attractive critical, innovative, Cuban poetryvaried, been more partundeniable an And writtenhas been is what of it by is rightit now. born poets after 1970 the so-called Cero), Zero (Generación Generation the title as group, numerous a It’s afterwho begin publishing and 2000. Cien poetas La isla en versos: anthologyof their most complete illustrates, Cuban poets] (2011 and One Hundred Verse: [The cubanos Island in sixty over books, having read was compiled our selection In fact, 2013). the Indeed, journals magazines. and numerous and anthologies, of tens only to truly way this poetry do justice to to offer is up book-length simply to first the be to is pages these in aim our introduce anthologies; it to English-speaking readers. In a recent interview, the renowned Polish poet, Adam Zagajewski, Zagajewski, Adam poet, Polish renowned the interview, In a recent bring don’t We killed communism.” “poetry declared that in his country, in interested more are We and experience. his position this up to question of Cuban poets is actuallycalling that the situation to the fact attention “real Europe’s through lived that of those poets who from quite different in terms thinking intellectual of dissident In other words, socialism.” where really the in work Cuba, of case intellectualofficial doesn’t versus be ultimately, binary escapemost poets want to such a reductive and, independent. \\\ 8 \\\ | Introduction the other, Iglesias, Rodríguez ofLegna asinthecase there’s a negative coffeehouse, show upin a local can life. of bitter daily become part On goes far beyond nationalgeography borders, and history but the universal positive, identifiespolitically, terms. butincultural Hisunderstandingof tradition.and political Ontheone ’s hand, hero is lyrical Luis Yussef Another constant istheambivalentpositioning before bothcultural other, tootherness, islove, orsex. family transcending and public, stopmakingsense. binds thepoeticsubjectto What itslevels,at all edges blur, likeobjective andsubjective, categories private interaction between reason andfeeling. ofreality, Inthisinterpellation thought.fundamentally Not philosophy, notethics, notpolitics, but ofMarcelo Cintero,Like inthecase Morales becomes poeticwriting The themes here are also pensive, depth. with notable intellectual basedon withtheother.yet anidentification always Fernández, reveal, andLiuvanHerrera Carpio sometimes hopeless, and is,reality Pérez asIsaily González, Pérez Leymen García, MoisésMayán asastruggle.acknowledgement andwriting oflife of view This critical usitspoeticantihero,offers itsdifficult relationship with community, its withseverity, socialmarginality onfocuses new butalsotenderness. It in countlessways, orindirectly. directly Cruz’s LikeinOscar work, it orfuture.with noopportunities embodiesthecrisis And itspoetry Generation Zero wasforced togrow upunderthesekindofcircumstances, orwherever could. they United States respecting principle. any ethical Hundreds tothe ofthousandsemigrated as translated (roughly “getting by any way you can”), withoutnecessarily manyfor Cubanswassummedupintwo verbs: resolver andinventar lines, rationing, hunger, panhandling, prostitution, crime. The solution sparking the deepest economic in its history. crisis hell: became life Daily ofEuropeanThe fall socialismmeantCubalost85percent ofitstrade, ofthenineties.situation thathascrisscrossed theislandsincestart has shown throughThis brilliance in the midst of the dismal social itselfincontent andinform.and thathasdecolonized transformations, topopularlanguage and culture, closer thathasdrawn them,subvert inbothsocialandcultural participated thathasconsciously subordinations (nation, class, gender, ethnicity, inorder to sexuality) and rupture. intherepresentations withvastexperience of Itispoetry between commitment andautonomy, dialogueandcreativity, continuity Introduction | /// 9 /// Indeed, here there is a wide range of styles. While Yussef uses an While Yussef of styles. is a wide range there here Indeed, reality of planes at different capableof representing verse, expanding verse neo-baroque foropts synthetic, a Marimón Javier Miyares once, the poem while for And Morales Cintero the hyperbaton rules. where and to the book, up that place giving stops being a unit of poetic writing, in Cruz what prevails is a elegantly closer to prose, draws carefully, verse language In each case, poetry the colloquial and song. toward that moves and the rhythm that and at the same time popular, cultured is refined, distinguishes it as poetry is preserved. This thematic boldness, never seen before in Cuban poetry, is in Cuban poetry, never seen before This thematic boldness, In what seems to with language. no less daring work by complemented Sergio Zamora García alternates between trademark, be a generational and neo- –since they lend themselves to reflection–, well poems, prose because distribution of the intentional poems, verse Avant-Garde upper-case of abandoning and the and letters the page, of the text on Medina Carpio, Herrera Morales Cintero, García, Pérez punctuation. for another is a search There Ríos and Rodríguez Iglesias do the same. poetry. just like with all self-respecting mode of expression, Themes intertwine, appear and later disappear, like in our own minds, own minds, like in our appear and later disappear, Themes intertwine, poetry this a criticalexpresses consciousness, Ultimately, lives. our own to be self-critical not forgetting or limited childhood roots, from growing it be whether it challenges every ideology, this way, In to the personal. What is a to the fore comes rightist or leftist. idealist or materialist, a reality, of invention of solipsism and an affirmation of the rejection need the and sellto unwilling market, dialogue the or populism to out for a participative reader. A major standout of this poetry this of standout major A femininethe represents it way the is offers a soaring work level Ríos’ Jamila Medina In this regard, condition. moving beyond here, no inhibitions are There elaboration. of poetic to give body parts, feminism and timeworntraditional of women’s lists With indisputable grace and challenge to sexualities that the norm. voice reluctant poetry well, takes all as this on Rodríguez Iglesias’ personality, suffering and verypleasure with the to concession, single one to make with a way, but in its own poetry challenges too, González Pérez’s end. reality exploration of the difficulties of Cuban subtle experiencedmore lens of gender. the through discourse of difference, unafraid of being openly political. unafraid openly of being political. of difference, discourse \\\ 10 \\\ | Introduction hundred twenty-two authors,hundred twenty-two justone Cubanismentioned. from Cuba; infact, inthe “Full ListofCited Poets,” one includes which 1970.” language after born Spanish selected, Among theforty notone is and Princeton, among them)have themostrelevantpoetsin chosen from more thanone hundred universities (Harvard, Oxford, Columbia, Spain, in2015. cover The back reads, two hundred researchers “nearly L. Geist, andpublishedby Visor, press in themostprestigious poetry García, editedby RemediosSánchez in Spanish] selectedby Anthony abierto:canon Últimapoesía Open Canon: enespañol [The New Poetry El ofthesepoetsappearsintheanthology The mostnotableexclusion not anticommunism, thereturn for ofcapitalism. notacall negation is what comes to the fore, a social alternative, the need for but absolute opposition, noautomatic negation. Instead, the negation ofthe exoticism. There’s perspective, acritical aprofound uneasiness, but no represented in thesepages, but withoutmakingany concessions to market.of theblack Indeed, on theislandiswell- experienced thecrisis prostitutes withcollegedegrees, lines, andendless blackouts thesplendor narrative is, andsoit’s bureaucrats, notforced tospeakofopportunistic isn’tof theUSSR. Cubanpoetry Contemporary subjecttothemarket like through ofEuropean sincethefall ever socialismandthedisintegration situation Cubahaslived andspiritual onfocus thedifficultmaterial For thelatter, isn’t it’s thepoetry because exotic enough, doesn’t explicitly coherence andtransparency, and, assuch, integrity. poetry’s defend they experience, ofthedanger ofmakingaesthetic concessions inthenameof the young well aware, poetsselectedhere are very from historical Generation Zero, the self-designated “poets ofuncertainty.” Bycontrast, Latin America, in with offshoots of among thecontemporaries especially of theso-called “poetry ofexperience,” today, prevails inSpain which people,” anddirect. beingclear This isprecisely one oftheparadigms aesthetic standards, demanded, which among other things, “reaching the hashad toconfront,Cuban poetry intheseventies, above all neo-Stalinist welcomes anactive reader inthecreation whoparticipates ofmeaning. For theformer, isn’t it’sthepoetry because communicative, andinstead that’sperhaps why ithasn’t received theattention itdeserves. either. circles academicandcreative American writing not inNorth And world, intheSpanish-speaking circles ortheright, on theleft in literary Still, thesedays, from aCuban, noone expectsthiskindofpoetry not Introduction | /// 11 /// In short, the critique these poets make of present day Cuban society day the critique poets make of present these In short, of the version onlynot transcends government’s Cuban the culture and making such a critique but also platitudes about anticommunism, facts because possible carriesit It’s an understanding it with profound. more If all ideologies base of poetry’s as a counter-ideology. function essential poetry denaturalizes making the artificial their discourse on seem natural, everything it considers of the world; forour perception the as if it were just as it poetry This it where from, derives its political force first time. its ability to change life. does its explicit or implicit challenging of power, Yet, though they are relatively isolated, whether it be because it whether extremely of isolated, relatively though they are Yet, to the Internet the island, off difficulties of or the limited access traveling at the they are contrary, the on the times at all, behind aren’t these poets there’s Here of poetryforefront being writtenin the world. anywhere complexity no emotional of fear intellectual or superficiality, of trace no poetry It’s open to reality of formal rigor or experimentation. density, that The authors know forms and the most diverse of representation. intellectuals participate in society their cultural production. through

Luis Yuseff

Luis Yuseff (Holguín 1975) is a poet and editor. He is the author of eleven books of prize-winning poetry, the latest being Dolor de resurrección (2014), which received the prestigious Gaceta de Cuba Poetry Prize. Two editions of his Selected Poems have appeared on the island. He has also selected and edited two anthologies, one of Cuban poets and another of Cuban prose writers. He lives in Holguín. \\\ 14 \\\ | Luis Yuseff Esquema delaimpurarosa ¿Palomito volador, mequieres? rosa. Y deshojarunarosa aDios...” escomo preguntarle te dureMientras el espectáculo. Vamos, todavía le quedan 3 pétalos a tu el viajero. mía-lehadicho nosetevenga encima “Mientras Violeta delaReina. la Carpa columpiándosedesdelomásaltode delaguitarra enelestuche duermen Ángel eIsabel, como dosviolincitos asustados, protestan en pizzicato, elhambre,callándose tiritando, tejeydestejeamerced delainspiración. Después sopla, acabar, denunca enlasnoches mientras con losdientes niños.el barro doscuerpos Fugaz, música a la pobreza, con de sacarle las manos ásperas dibuja sobre rosaLa esunabismoquemiente. como esfrágil unsegundo.Y Violeta le responde. Pero nohay quecreerle. palomito volador, mequieres?) (tan despacio quemata despacio que,mapuche de espalda a la marcialidad de los veranos y doblándose Parra,Y Violeta laindiecitaandinadeParís, estáinterrogando alarosa rosaLa esunabismoquemientesobre lamesademusicar tristezas. miente.Que II abismo quemiente. .vida enrosa sinsaberquelarosa centifolia esun Deshojandolamítica desde entonces contra lasMontañas RocosasdeColorado, silbandoLa Zeus. Ni tampocohabíacreado alhombre, pero yaestabael Viajero Olofi, denombrarlo 32 millonesdeañosdespuéshabrían o Jehová Padre cuentos deHoffmann ?). Diosnohabíainventado con aúnlaspalabras que deLos laBarcarola (¿Oera Lavidaenrosa apenas silbando/rumiando Paleolítico, detenido, deperfileternamente , silbandoLavida en rosa Contra lasMontañas del RocosasdeColorado estabael Viajero I a Joaquín Osorio Luis Yuseff | /// 15 /// to Joaquín Osorio Joaquín to Blueprint of an Impure Rose an Impure of Blueprint Sweet flying dove, do you love me? you love do Sweet flying dove, it answers. But we don’t have to believe it. have don’t But we it answers. Fleeting, And is fragileVioleta like a second. rose is a The lying abyss. she draws children’s two out of poverty, mining music from hands rough the clay. bodies on with teeth quieting never-ending nights, while on Later blows, she mercy. at inspiration’s and unweaves she weaves trembling, hunger, in pizzicato, protest frightened tiny two like violins, and Isabel, Ángel the highest point of the Carpa swinging from asleep in the guitar case, de la Reina LP. the Violeta,” my you on all crashing down come as it doesn’t long “As still has 3 rose your on, Come lasts. show the as long “As her. told traveler rose is like asking God...” pulling And the petals off a petals. (so slowly it kills me?) you love do sweet dove, flying Lying. music. to set rose is a The lying of sorrows on the table abyss the is questioning Paris, Indian from the Andean Violeta And Parra, back turned to the martiality of summers and slowly Mapuche rose, bending over II Up against the Rocky Mountains in Colorado was the Paleolithic Up against the Rocky was the Paleolithic in Colorado Mountains scarcely “La whistling Vie en Rose,” eternally in profile prisoner, Traveler, The from Barcarolle (or was it the “LaVie whistling/ humming en Rose” 32 million years up the words even made hadn’t God ?). of Hoffman Tales He hadn’t Father would use to name him. Zeus or Jehovah, later Olofi, the Rocky up against was there Traveler still the either, yet man created Pulling the petals off “La vie en rose.” whistling Mountains in Colorado, the mythicala lying is the rose centifolia knowing not abyss. I \\\ 16 \\\ | Luis Yuseff Dejando caer alos ojosdeladivinavanidadDejando caer la rosa deladiscordia. por manzanas. Y quédeHera, Afrodita yAtenea, frente alasabiaEris, trocandorosas enamorado deMarco derosas. Antonio poruncamino sellega Cleopatra, sidodelabella Y nipensarquéhubiera puesalpecho las copasdevinocomo unarosa. delPalacioQué DoradoylaPalatina, en sinoeldeseoflotando bocarriba Y quédeNerón ysus150milsecretas deplacer. noches V delarosa sería sinlarosa. Qué delCisnedeAvonQué ydelruiseñor. Y delarosa. deJulietaomásbienquéRomeo.Qué deestemundo sería sinlarosa.Qué Isabel yDon Fernando. palo, leanunciaalNuevo Mundolallegada delmismísimoDiosdeDoña de Triana, como ave y chillando desde lo más alto de de las tres carabelas de loscuatro ausentado vientossehubiera enelinstantequeRodrigo sidodelAdelantado hubiera Don Cristóbal,Qué siunasolade lasrosas Y larosa teresponde: delarosa sería sinlarosa... Qué deestemundo sería sinlarosa...Qué preguntas alarosa. Le IV áspero yamargo delsuicidio. masturbación entre lospuñosofreciendo susfluidosseminales. Ellicor Yukio Mishima, Reni, deGuido Sebastián frente alSan con larosa dela acompañar para pétalo siquiera elnacimiento de Venus. de Olatristeza di diMariano deSandro Vannisino latristeza Botticelli, Filipepi sin un rosas aestemundo. Y queestemundo sinrosas estemundo nosería huborosas.que aúnantesdeCristo delAsialevienentodaslas Que Rosa laChina, porpuro asegurando instinto-comosabios- losgrandes Y enel3concurren 2rosas: otras lasolícitaCagí, ylanomenossolícita III Monsieur lePrinceEn larue No.3. húmedodeParís.En unrinconcito En laCandelaria. Y larosa interrogada leresponde. Luis Yuseff | /// 17 /// And what of Nero and his 150 thousand secret nights of pleasure. nights and his 150 thousand secret what of Nero And floating but desire Chapel, and the Palatine What the Golden Palace of in glasses of wine like a rose. face-up Cleopatra, been of the beautiful have impossible to think what would And smitten heart. Antony’s to Marc leads for a path of roses trading the wise Eris, facing and Athena, Aphrodite what of Hera, And for apples. roses of divine vanity. the eyes Letting fall toward of discord the rose V What would this world be without the rose... You ask the rose. You What this world would be without the rose... What rose... be without the the rose would answers: the rose And if only one What been, Christopher have Don the Adelantado would when at the moment of the four disappeared winds had of the roses top of the the from bird like a wooden screeching Triana, Rodrigo de the arrival of the very same World proclaimed to the New caravels, three Ferdinand’s. and Don Isabella’s God as Doña What this world would be without the rose. What rather. Juliet or what of Romeo of the rose. And and the nightingale. What of Avon the Bard of What be without the rose. the rose would IV And at Number 3 come together another 2 roses: the solicitous Rosa solicitous the roses: 2 another together 3 come Number at And of pure out promising China, la Rosa solicitous no less the and Cagí Christ. even before roses were wise men– that there instinct –like great worldroseless And this worldroses in this That all Asia. the came from be this world of Sandro di Mariano without the sadness di wouldn’t petal to keep the birth without even one of Filipepi Botticelli, Vanni Guido facing Reni’s Mishima, Yukio Or of the sadness company. Venus offering of masturbation fists, between with the rose “Saint Sebastian,” absinthian liquor. rough, The suicide’s up seminal fluids. III And the questioned rose answers. rose the questioned And In the Candelaria. cornerIn a damp Paris. of 3. Number On the rue le Prince Monsieur \\\ 18 \\\ | Luis Yuseff arrasadora delamuerte.arrasadora sesacude contra laventolera mientras losescombros delpecho mortales deLosCuentosBarcarola de Hoffmann?) silbando vidaenrosa,”“La mascullando vidaenrosa”“La La (¿Oera centifolia alamítica quemira Viajero frenteY la Imaginarias Eternidad detiene al el último minuto de las Eras Y larosa teresponde Eternidad. sinlarosa. delosmuertos sería Qué preguntas alarosa. Le VIII las ruinas. bautismales delJordán ser, para vez, otra larosacrecida deJericó entre unaenvidia defrescura.vuelve suinocentepicardíaenlasaguas Lava sus lamentoslarositaabre deJericó unpétalo, yotro, yotro pétalo, yse que le hacen, porque una vez que las lloronas con palestinas comienzan simulando ver para elentierro muerte quelehacen, ver solopara elentierro la rosa deJericó, que esunarosa quemiente, crecida enlosarenales, Y larosa deBengala. Y larosa dePasión, queesunarosa quemata. Y VII arregla pasarsintielrosal para dePitiminí. Por cierto, queyanoestás, ahora dime, Shirley Temple, cómo selas Tan pequeñascomo elrosal dePitiminí. Temple) deestrellas pequeñitas. elcosmos(la distancia que mediaentreY sembrar el infinito ytú, Shirley Tendríamos cienmilenanoscomo tú. quebuscar bonitos aloscaballos. mundo. Tan visten vastosson ensuscelebracionesmorirse quehastapara Tú sola, Shirley Temple, aunosolodelosreyes alegrar nopodrías deeste alosReyes. alegrar melodía para sinuna deMadrid Y sinlamusicaliaderosa quésería azafranada deShirley Temple. sería Qué elrosal noexistiera Y sienelreino dePitiminí. deOz VI sinlarosa. delOlimpo sería Qué Luis Yuseff | /// 19 /// What would the dead be without the rose. You ask the rose. You What be without the rose. the dead would Eternity answers . the rose And EternityAnd imprisons the last minute of the Imaginary the Eras before at the mythical looking centifolia Traveler it the (or was “La vie en rose” mumbling “La vie en rose,” whistling Hoffman?) Tales of The from Barcarolle while he shakes off the mortal his against the chest raging rubble from gusts of death. VIII And the Bengal rose. And the rose of Passion, which is a murderous which is a murderous of Passion, the rose And the Bengal rose. And in sandy spots, grown which is a lying rose, of Jericho, the rose And rose. just to see what kind faking death to see what kind of a funeral it can get, mourners with begin because Palestinian the once funeralof canit get, and and another, of Jericho rose unfurlstiny their laments the a petal, its Washes freshness. of turnsit and envy the into petal, another then more, once to be, innocent mischief baptismal waters of the Jordan in the in ruins. of Jerichothe rose grown VII And what if the miniature rosebush didn’t exist in the land of Oz. exist in the land didn’t rosebush if the miniature what And WhatTemple. of Shirley what of Madrid, rose, without the musicalia of the saffron-scented And the King and Queen.no melody to please of this of the kings even please one couldn’t Temple, Shirley alone, You So they their celebrations that when they in die they are immense world. up horses. even dress thousand dwarfsyou. one hundred to find have like We’d and the infinite between cosmos (the distance measured the sow And little stars. with tiny Temple) Shirley you, rosebush. as the miniature As tiny does how Temple, tell me Shirley here, not that you’re now By the way, you. by without get to out how figure rosebush the miniature VI What Olympus would the rose. without be \\\ 20 \\\ | Luis Yuseff Flores dehierroenelpechounhombre Aquíresonantes crecen dehierro: lasflores como el pecho deun hombre. Por susvenas a laisla. sevuelve Aquí seama. Y seespera: de lamadre esde terracota alosrezos espartana. Se Armandito, dehieloenunpaíssol. levantándose Aquí nosellora. delcuerpo. escapar para Escribiendo que sealejan. Detenidoenlosóleos. Con azul. lamuerte Compartida. Dios noseacuerda deél. Ni deJuan, ser enlosamantes quehaquerido vencidas, los doran Trípticos de estemundo donde enalgunacapilla Afuera, lejosdelosojosRanel, bajoelpesodeplomo desuslunas soledad. Juegos demuerte. Niños dela como animalesdisputándoseelfruto reventandohermoso con suvigor penas sobre laalmohada. Una vueltaasucárcel. deseosprohibidos deMargarita. Los Elhijo Casa donde losmurciélagos seposanylibansangre enlasflores dehierro. delenrejado.Detrás Trato deiniciar vueltaamicárcel”.“una dehierro deunhombre. enelpecho Flores delenrejadoDetrás delasalmasdonde crecen rosas depapel. deltrópico.Lejos Cosasquehancontado losamigos quedarfuera. para estaciones. versos alascambiantes Al escribir contra lasparedes. lacabeza Al frotar fuerte Con urgencia. vino ácido delosdías. Aunque meniegue. Pronto con el demimemoria aborrarse comenzarán Nombres queolvidaré. Así surgen delassombrasestosojoscomo deunfantasma. laevocación Poder delibertad. Palabras eldelibertarme. quesialgúnpodertienennoserá que seinvitan alacasa. Dos otres palabras. Versos hacer para música alosoídosdelaspersonas líneas. unaspocas deescribir trato Solo un pueblo. Pero noocultoentre miscosasnada de queatentecontralaseguridad Advierto: espía. puedeserunamaniobra vueloesleve,Su pero torpe. haentrado unmurciélagoEsta noche alacasa. Luis Yuseff | /// 21 /// Iron Flowers on the Chest of a Man Chest on the Flowers Iron Behind the bars. I attempt the start of “a return to my prison.” return “a I attempt the start of Behind the bars. flowers. and suck iron bats perch blood on House where The beautiful son forbidden desires. Margarita’s to prison. A return the pillow. on bursting his sorrows vigorously disputing the fruit Children of solitude like animals. Death games. of his expired weight beneath the lead eyes, Ranel’s far from Outside, chapel in some of this world God’s where brown Triptychs the moons, who wanted to exist in distancing lovers. Juan too, And forgotten him. to escape the Writing Shared. With blue death. in oil paintings. Prisoner body. nobody cries. Here rising like ice in a country of sun. Armandito, prayers. in the Spartan of terracotta made mother’s We’re And Here everybody loves. return to the island. veins a her Through waits: chest of a man. resounding like the the iron flowers: grow Here Iron flowers on the of a man. chest flowers Iron And so from the shadows come these eyes like evoking a ghost. Names Names a ghost. like evoking these eyes come the shadows so from And I’ll forget. Soon they’llmemorymy I refuse. if erasedbe to Even from come the by sour wine. day’s Urgently. When against the walls. rub I hard my head When write I to the changing seasons. verses Behind the bars out. Things friends told to stay have the tropics. from Far climb. paper roses of the soul where Power to free. to free. Power Tonight a bat’s fluttered into the house. into fluttered bat’s a Tonight but awkward. is easy, Its flight tactic. it might be a spy Warning: security. Still national to threaten belongings hide nothing in my I just tryingI’m to write a few lines. guests. of uninvited in the ears to make music Verses words. three or Two me. be to free it won’t power any that if they have Words \\\ 22 \\\ | Luis Yuseff Efecto cafébulevar Viejo Eliseoquebebestucafé.Viejo Tu tragoamargo. transparencia entransparencia”“De obnubilados. Un aroma deazucenas. Un estarsequietobajolostoldos. esadentrarse alamarcoagulada. Y morir De ayer mismo. Amar esunaisla. losdesplomes.Y justificas Demasiado recientes quesomos. Y asciende. Asciendeelhumodelcafé. un detenimientoinnecesario. queseverticaliza. Unaespiral minuto Bajo laluztodoesminutotras Me identificocon habilidad noagotar para eltiempo. que bebesucafé. trago amargo. Su Y respondo. A veces soy interrogado como cualquierciudadano (También mimanoespobre ylaguardo bajolamadera). porlamanoquepidecon hedoreinsistencia. Interrumpidos aconversar.Y comienzas aquí sehablavivamente. Pues Ha deserdespacio queeltrago bajeamargo. para entre tusmanos. despacio. Esamargo beberlo eltrago para deunamoneda lajoya tendrás A cambio blanca provincia.a cada seacerca pidesuncafé.Y otra mientras Aquí sevive arduamente. hace unespacio Se Patio depiedra. interior Asfixiante. Descendemos aotros arcos protectores. Por nosobligaaadentrarnos. momentos detránsito lalluvia Todo bajolostoldos. esfrío Entro. elúltimo café. Pido ElenaBurke esunrecuerdo. Para Ghabriel, unaislapropia Ossip Mandelstam para quenosalgamos del mágicocírculo. Y todo está dispuesto deeste modo, Luis Yuseff | /// 23 /// Osip Mandelstam break circle the magic Café Bulevar Effect Bulevar Café And it’s all arranged, we never all arranged, And it’s For Ghabriel, an island unto himself an island unto Ghabriel, For Sometimes I’m interrogated like any other citizen like any interrogated Sometimes I’m And I answer. His bitter pill. having his coffee. I skillfully identify myself so as not to use up the time. Under the light everything’s an unnecessary thoroughness vertical. A spiral going minute after minute. up. The coffee floating steam up. And are. we as recent Too justify the collapses. you And an island. is love To Only yesterday. deep into the clotted to die is to go And sea. beneath the awnings. A settle down A scent of lilies. clouded. to another transparence” transparence one “From Your bitter pill. Old coffee. Eliseo drinking your I go in. Order the last coffee. Elena Burke is a memory. Elena Burke coffee. Order the last in. I go Everything’s cold beneath the awnings. Occasionally the rain us in. in transit forces arches. other protective descend toward We Stifling. courtyard. Inner stone is made A space here. work Living is hard a coffee. closer another comes order And you while for every province. small change you’ll the white jewel have For bitter it slow. for swallowing The drink’s hands. in your bitter. drink so the down It has to be slow goes Since talking is intense here. start you to chat. And Interruptedbegging hand rank the and insistent. by wood). I keep it beneath the poor too. (My hand’s \\\ 24 \\\ | Luis Yuseff De nada ha servido escribir unbuenpoema escribir De nada haservido de risa. queJuliándelCasalsemuriera De nada sirvió Lezama. Ni elpulmón asfixiado de dePlácido. muerte La deamor JuanaBorrero. cartas Las de JuanClementeZenea. Eldestierro deHeredia. laculpa Y tehace pensarquedenada sirvió Pero lasrejas. tras deimproviso algo setransforma como bajolostoldos. enesteCafé Decadentes. Y felices. Porque enverdad fueron lospoetas nunca tanimportantes huesossepudren donde esmenosblanca. Sus latierra con laureles –“ni libre laencierra”–. esnilaprisión decafé”.como unataza Tú despidesalamujer coronada deisla,“Flor túteofreces aromática ygentil paso. cuentaacada Casi sindarnos vidas.por nuestras Y pedimosconfusamente. unatablaenlabahía.Flota Estiempodepedir con elvuelodel colibrí). se confunde perversamente bajo susmínimospieselaroma delasmariposas trago amargo.Su (Transformada lamedialuna deCobre CubanabebeensuCapilla Bella eltrago decafé. La deimántransmuta fragmento enoro.Y cada sobrevivir bajolostoldosesunafiesta. Pues deuna islanosesostienesinunbuenverso. elcuerpo Que leopardo.Su canario. Su dospatrias. Sus blanco. aquí poetatienesucaballo cada Que Celesterompa eladoquín con supaso.Qué sobre Bolaseaunaflor negra elpiano.Qué elBenny supáginaruinosa. cante Qué María mientras Bebamos elúltimocafé Teresa noscanta. Pero todavíahay tiempo. de Madrid. voz. Sin alas. Sin deespaldasseve queestállorando”.“Hasta suvuelobajoelcielo empedrado Alza otro derodillas.Llora Y el “pez angelecido” semuere detristeza. contraelasfalto.Otro revienta sucabeza sudiscursoenelsopordelasfabulaciones.comienza Y unángel fatigado vuelabajootro cielo. Y otro ángel Aquí lospoetas. vienenamorir Luis Yuseff | /// 25 /// Because never as important honestly the poets were happy. And Decadent. as in the Café beneath the awnings. suddenly something transforms bars. behind the Yet Juan Clemente Zenea’s think that it makes you And exile. Heredia’s guilt was meaningless. letters. love Juana Borrero’s death. Plácido’s stifled lung. even Lezama’s Not laughing. Meaningless that Julián del Casal died writtenMeaningless to have poem a good The poets come here to die. here poets come The And another angel weary a And sky. beneath another flies angel speechbegins his the sleepiness of fabulations. in asphalt. against the slams his head Another of sadness. dies fish” “angelized the And cries his knees. Another on Madrid the stony his flight beneath Takes crying”. can the back tell you he’s “Even from Wingless. Voiceless. sky. still time. But there’s sings. Teresa Let’s the last coffee while María have Let sing his ruinous Benny page. Let piano. atop the Bola be a black flower Let Celeste crack with her step. the cobblestone white horse. poet has their each here For homelands. two Their Their canary. Their leopard. verse. without a good hold the body of an island won’t For Since survivingthe awnings is a celebration. beneath each magnet scrap turnsAnd to gold. In her Copper Chapel the Bella drinks Cubana coffee. her (The transformed half-moon Her bitter pill. feet the scent of butterflies beneath her tiny perverselymixes flight of the hummingbird). with the time to ask It’s floats in the bay. A board confusedly we And ask. for our lives. step. with each Almost not realizing yourself up fragrantyou offer and gracious “Island flower, crowned woman to the You bid farewell like a cup of coffee.” not locked away”–. free –“not in laurels the earth where is not as white. rot Her bones \\\ 26 \\\ | Luis Yuseff Nuevamente. Y pidoelúltimocafé. Y otro. Y otro… Ya entro aloscírculos dehierro como unanimalviciado. un planoalucinante). lamesaroja Sobre yaestoy devuelta. a laarena. Elmarentre conforma lastazas Prometo noregresar. elaguainmarcable (Vuelve Y quiero marcharme. delfrío. Escapar Estanoesmisangre. El solsobre blancoseevapora. elmármol noeselsitiodesiempre.Este Café sobre acaer comienza lostoldos. anunciasu“dulcecuando Fina nevada”. Y lanieve Luis Yuseff | /// 27 /// This Café isn’t the same old place. the This Café isn’t on the white marbleThe sun vanishes. my blood. isn’t This Escape the cold. want to leave. I And (Thereturns unbiddable water not to return. I promise the cups shapes The sea among to the sand. back. come table I’ve On the red a beguiling plane). circles an animal hooked. like into the iron I go Now And another... And another. the last coffee. order I Once more. when Fina proclaims her “sweet snowfall”. And the snow And snowfall”. “sweet Finawhen proclaims her the awnings. fallbegins to upon

isaily\

perez\ gonzalez

Isaily Pérez González (Santa Clara, 1975) has published four books of poetry. Her work has appeared in influential anthologies of young Cuban poetry and has received numerous prizes, including Honorable Mention for the La Gaceta de Cuba Poetry Prize in 2014. \\\ 30 \\\ | Isaily Pérez González Centro Comercialdela54 la tierra sehasalidodesueje.la tierra de tacitas pintadas corcelesque enmitad degirantes dela noche pues nadie hadesaber respirar como puedas y tienesqueaguantarte como asobras que puedenengullirlo temerosomirando losespacios queabre elcardumen ycierra de pronto hasvistoalperro sincorrea comprando unossegundosdeesealgo y hace filaporhoras entre lamultitud lasrositas quetraga Entonces ves alperro pero essolootro niñoconfundido. sino ladetumadre queteestrecha eneltiempo pues quémanohadeser apretarla túquerrás amirar volverte Sin no equivocarse. pues enlamultitud difícil norozar queteencuentre habrá ocasiones unamano En mitad delasferias unrato.luego cantan suarenga: lanzan y ahora venga compre regrese pesadas bocinassecomieronLas laslenguasdeorganillo deespejos. unacasa un avión uncaballo quenotendremosque imitanlaexperiencia nunca: delhelado deartefactos bajarán cubiertos de miedosaludando: adiós mami míranos y cuandovancayendo aveces gritan un menudotiquetequeloslancehastaelcielo algo: sacan las manosalbolsillo (más bienquisedecirloshombres) y lospadres alascercas:se lanzan maminohay mira cola comose sueltanagirar derviches Del familiarcardumen sedesprenden losniños Isaily Pérez González | /// 31 /// Street th Mall on 54 Mall The children disentangled from the family shoal disentangled from The children whirllet loose to dervishes like no lines mom look themselves to the fences: throw and the fathers (actually men) I mean the hands in pockets out: pull something a ticket to launch them to the heavens a coin, and when they fall scream they sometimes at us mom look bye-bye waving: fear, from they’ll in ice cream covered off the artifacts get the experience we’llthat simulate never have: a house of mirrors. a horse, a plane, tongues ate the hurdy-gurdy’s loud speakers The obnoxious out buy something on come let out their harangue: and now backcome soon then they sing a while. In the middle of the fair you occasion a hand might find on not to touch hard it’s in the crowd not be mistaken. Without turning to see you’ll want to grab hold whose hand could it be time out over reaching mother’s but your just another kid confused. it’s you see the dog Then popcorn gulping down in the crowd in line for hours buying few a that something of seconds seen the dog no leash suddenly you’ve fearfully opened closed watching the spaces the shoal by up like leftovers him that might gobble can you anyway breathe back, hold yourself to have and you needs to know no one that in the middle spinning steeds of night cups painted and tiny unhinged. come the earth’s \\\ 32 \\\ | Isaily Pérez González Prosperando enlasruinas siete cuadras eneltiempo. cinco seis Ya meparece micasa inalcanzable: unapared másrápido.alzan queobligaacaminar retoños enlosmuros demandrágora delrelojero y yaasciendenlasaguas lohahallado insuficiente quien pesaelcorazón queestabanprohibidas las palabras He dicho siempre.todo elamorjurado sebesapara en algúnsitiohay unodonde bajosusramas Vuelve allotoymuérdago cuando yaesmadrugada: tumomento enelmundo. que nolastimetantosalirhacia elbalcón al regresar –loqueentiendasporeso– acasa queteresguarde unarazón encuentra Amor inenarrable logresi metomo suvinoquizás dormirme. conmigo enelcentro allí el mundo esunpañueloquehaplegado suspuntas elegancia el dolormehadoblado con brutal esto Nadie quepasaría medijonunca con susojosdepavos. conme miran fijeza detodolastimancomo vidrio los pedazos como saben soloellos todo loreproduzcan devidrio lostrozos Que enlentejuelas. anoche noche sehaizado el cielodetucasa el deseoesmercurio túsabesmuy bieneso ha vistopasartodo: hermosura yespanto antañodeloschinos queera la casa Amor prosperando inenarrable enlasruinas Isaily Pérez González | /// 33 /// Flourishing in Ruins Flourishing Indescribable flourishing love in ruins to the Chinese belonged by gone the house that in years fear and beauty has seen it all: is mercury that verydesire know you well house has risen up night afterthe sky in your night in sequins. everythingLet recreate of glass the shards like only how they know the pieces of everything like glass wound eyes. turkey at me with their stare happen ever told me this would one No with brutal over the pain doubles me elegance the worldwith its corners folded is a handkerchief in the middlewith me there if I drink of its wine perhaps I can some sleep. Indescribable love you to shield reason find a –whatever that is for home you– get when you the balcony hurt out on to go so much so it doesn’t in the world. moment your daybreak: when it’s Return the mistletoe to the lotus and all sworn where one there’s somewhere kisses beneath its brancheslove for always. said the forbiddenI’ve words the heartwhoever not enough weighs finds it’s the waters riseand now walls mandrake watchmaker’s shoots in the raise a barrier us to walk faster. forcing house seems unreachable: my Now six five seven blocks in time. \\\ 34 \\\ | Isaily Pérez González La vidaenotraparte que nopuedoaceptar tranquilamente. yootra estáhaciendo cosas decualquierpuerta Detrás quenadapara quede nisevaya conmigo. decir minombre comer donde evito andolacalle mientras y creo mí para deunjardínque trata ysusbifurcaciones un cuentodeBorges pienso lomismo: Clara HabanaySanta deLa en algunascalles Siempre monedas endesuso.atesorada enbaldecomo ciertas la vidaqueguardada heperdido ni enotro, pienso lavidaquenoviviré enestesitio andoyllovizna Mientras Isaily Pérez González | /// 35 /// Life Elsewhere Life As I walk under drizzle in this place live I think about the life I won’t other, or in any lost I’ve the life hung onto like a few in vain in use. kept around coins no longer certain in Havana and SantaAlong streets Clara I always back come to the same: storya Borges its forking and about a garden mine that I think are eat I won’t where as I walk the street my name or say with me. or go so nothing will stay door Behind a stray another I is doing things put up with. I just can’t \\\ 36 \\\ | Isaily Pérez González Bajo elpoderíodelmiriñaque pero yalaviolentaactualidad que ordenabany oígritos sopasyotros platos con unaluzdistinta los faroles depergaminose encendieron desúbito en laantiguafonda deloschinos Así mismotevientrando seguirías. y alamanecerindescriptible Toda mirarte podría lanoche migarganta. que oprime incandescente El deseoesuncollar que elhumo. pero eldeseoantepone másextrañas figuras alatrama Me vuelvo yyoel animalseduerma exhalelibremente. quejunto alfiloso para acantilado losojos abrir Deberás que admiro desoslayo. al expuestonacimiento detuespalda nomevigiloestiraré unamanoaesasilentedensidad Si nadie exceptoque acaso escucha yo. es disonancia alcompás deturespiración todo posiblesonido mismúsculos acaricio debajo delafranela elcuadradotrasciende devidrio delmiriñaque El imperio aúnretienesdormida tupodercomo unareina muerta. Minúscula estumanomedidacontra mimano grisáceas. lasfinascolumnillas tras alanimalaesconderEl humoayudaría supredominio luego otro. Alguien enciendeuncigarro ylopasaaldesulado al flotantemiriñaque. cuando atentoslosojospersiguenenlapantalla Te enmitad hasdormido delatrama bandasonora ahogatodarespiración.La Isaily Pérez González | /// 37 /// Under the Power of the Crinoline of the Power Under If I don’t watch myself I’ll that silent density a hand toward out stretch If I don’t back beginning of your the bare sideways. I admire eyes ought to open your You so the animal might sleep and I can exhale freely the sharpalongside cliff. to the plot I return shapes stranger prefers but desire than smoke. is a luminous necklace Desire crushing my throat. all night I could watch you words. still be beyond and in the morning you’d going into you exactly I saw how That’s the old Chinese dive paper lanterns suddenly shining light with a different for cries soups and other dishes of orders and I heard still the violent present The soundtrack drowns out all breathing. the The soundtrack drowns fallen the middle asleep in of the plot You’ve follow the floating crinoline eyes when attentive the screen. on next to him the one and passes it to Someone lights a cigarette then another. hide its predominance could help the animal to The smoke behind the fine grayish columns. my hand up against hand is tiny Your queen. a dead like power hold your even sleeping you empire The crinoline’s transcends the glass square beneath the flannel I musclesrub my every possible sound breathing to the rhythm of your is dissonance hears but me. perhaps no one \\\ 38 \\\ | Isaily Pérez González Del torsodelanimalasciendelamarea deloscréditos. deChinatown.y salesalanoche cuandoapagansuscúpulasloscigarros Despiertas y cuelgasobre nosotros como unaemplomada lámpara. delapantalla que escapa temible eselpoderdeunmiriñaque aun ensumudez delaficción portusueñoflashazos cruzan mientras quesabeselfinal Sé mi sustanciaestabaenvilocomo ahora. imprevisible sevolvía trama La lasegundanoche. y yaera bajaste lospeldañosdedosenhastalacalle detusalaseencendieron arañas Las depredestinación. y bajolacerteza yo latramoya estosaccidentes tras buscaba papelesbajoelbrazo pasarcon loscrípticos verte era Asomarse alabaranda encontrarnos. susesquinaspara giraba deloschinos y elbarrio florecía lo adventicio como sifueselaciudad suestación Al otro measumieron díalascosashermosas deestanoche. sin laesperanza Toda teestuve lanoche mirando en laordinaria multitud deChinatown. imposiblelaideadeperderte tusalidayera Vi sobreexplotaba como unfuego nosotros. deartificio Isaily Pérez González | /// 39 /// went off like fireworks above us. above like fireworks off went was impossible and the idea leave I saw you ordinary in the of Chinatown. losing you crowd All night I watched you hope. without tonight’s me over beautiful things took day The next its season as if the citywere flowered the adventitious and Chinatown spun its corners to find us. the railing over lean To with cryptic pass by was to see you papers underarm lifts for stage I looked these accidents behind of fate. and beneath the sureness room caught fire your living The spiders in to the street two by the stairs two down went you night. and it was the second The plot turned unpredictable like now. tenterhooks my substance on the ending know you I know bright sleep crisscross flashes, fiction while in your still in its dumbness of the crinoline is frighteningthe power escaping the screen lamp. a leaden us like hanging before put out their domes wake up when cigarettes You night. for the Chinatown and leave torso soars the tide of credits. the animal’s From

Javier\ Marimon Miyares

Javier Marimón Miyares (Matanzas, 1975) is a poet and playwright. He has published four books of poetry. A collection of short prose pieces and a play appeared in 2017. His work has been translated into English, German, and Italian. He currently lives in Puerto Rico. \\\ 42 \\\ | Javier Marimón Miyares Escritura deletraalfa(fragmentos) Destruyen momento pocoyyanobrilla.Destruyen quedura A públicoposible. Con quésoltura, sinembargo Candidatos de supermercado sonríen nerviosos Candidatos desupermercado sonríen Con clientes espontáneos,Con clientes candidatos suspiran Cuchillas entreCuchillas ideas ymotivos disecan. Conversan cajeros contratados deantes Eso y nunca compartieron garganta Eso ynunca Y ambas querían andarseparadas Y ambasquerían Borroso como díaqueaprendiste Algo davueltasal8, de7oatrás ¿Tendrá dejugo llena? laboca Separante doctordesiamesas Separante Los números;Los seguro llegas Solo gracias recibe deuna Solo Maestra manca tetocó Maestra manca Es loquedavueltas. 11 15 4 Javier Marimón Miyares | /// 43 /// 4 15 11 Letter Alpha Writing (excerpts) Writing Alpha Letter It’s what goes round. what goes It’s Blurry learned you like day Separating doctor of Siamese That and a throat never shared That and a throat Only thanks received from one from Only thanks received And each wanted to be separated And The numbers; confident you arrive confident The numbers; Might the mouth with juice be full?Might the mouth with To possible public. Still, how skillful how Still, possible public. To One-handed teacher you ended up with you One-handed teacher Supermarket candidates nervously smile Knives among ideas and motives dissect. ideas and motives among Knives Cashiers hired from before converse with converse before from Cashiers hired Spontaneous customers, candidates breathe Spontaneous customers, Destroy moment not lasting long no longer shining. no longer not lasting long moment Destroy Something goes round and round 8, from 7 or behind from 8, and round Something round goes \\\ 44 \\\ | Javier Marimón Miyares ¿Y silofuera?, placer sentidomontones deveces Tiempo que en calentarse tarda queencalentarse elagua Tiempo A través derecuerdo delanorespirante ¿Por simplemente? caer quénodejarla Con perrito invisible que ahí descansa invisibleCon queahídescansa perrito Frituras engañan: sinmucho adentro Mas albajarpieausente, destrozado ¿Se activa ser de vaca al abrir zíper activa alabrir serdevaca ¿Se ¿Retozará en ella sacando pedazos pedazos sacando enella ¿Retozará ¿A quién darle lasgraciasdebería: ¿A quiéndarle O a ente eléctrico del calentador delcalentador O aenteeléctrico De loquetampocoteencantaba Rayo capturado, antesdelbaño? Baja piedesofá, tienescuidado Hacer, pieldevaca, monedero A uréter, demora queelorine De mierda desumonedero? Ya tendido. perrito norozas Por fiero perro de vecino Cuando mordía yerba? 22 32 34 38 Javier Marimón Miyares | /// 45 /// 22 32 34 38 When it bit grass? By fierce neighbor dog By fierce To ureter, the urine taking ureter, To Whylet it simply not fall? Of shit from its coin purse? Of shit from Or to electric entity heater of To make, cowhide, coin purse cowhide, make, To To whom give thanks should I? give whom To Of what you didn’t love anyway love didn’t Of what you From memory anus of breathing From Time it takes the water to warm up Lowers foot from sofa, you’re careful you’re Lowers sofa, foot from With there dog resting little invisible To frolic in the cow pulling out pieces in the cow frolic To You no longer graze no longer out. dog stretched You Fritters are misleading: not much inside not much misleading: are Fritters Lightning rod captured, before the bath? before captured, Lightning rod And if it were? Pleasure of times felt it were? if tons And But when lowering absent foot, destroyed absent foot, But when lowering Is being made from cow activated when opening zipper when opening activated cow from Is being made \\\ 46 \\\ | Javier Marimón Miyares Qué sabroso comen almuerzo,Qué demofle manosnegras Qué específicolugardonde arreglan mofles Qué Se miran,Se nocreen: casi son tanespecíficos Sin respuesta:Sin nohay deconstrucción obra De otra obra terminada consecuencia: obra De otra Sus mecánicos cuerpos, mecánicos Sus ríen, irradian El de casco saludaelvacío gritando El decasco Pensando enelpapelpasélatarde Alfabetizadores enrío demoraban Miré sinunareferencia lanoche ¿A quéviejalegustayagradece Que causa a la vieja el gustarle alaviejaelgustarle causa Que Empuja hacia afuera la curva Empuja hacia lacurva afuera Como, denata, movimiento? Lo quenopodemosdivisar: Lo Falta delavíadelante parte Vibraba todacircunstancia.Vibraba Ilusiones deanalfabetismo:Ilusiones ¿Es lanatafatigadeleche? Fantásticos oros demofle. Lejana figura contesta. figura Lejana Risas lejosdecasa 40 41 42 43 Javier Marimón Miyares | /// 47 /// 41 42 43 40 Illiteracy illusions: Distant figure answers. Distant figure Fantastic muffler golds. muffler Fantastic Laughing far from home Laughing far from What we can’t make out: What can’t we As, of cream, movement? of cream, As, Pushes the curve outward All circumstance quivering. All circumstance Is cream the weariness the of milk? Is cream Literacy tutors lingered in riverLiteracytutors lingered That causes the old woman’s liking it That woman’s causes the old Their mechanical bodies, laugh, give off give laugh, Their mechanical bodies, I watchedthe night without a reference From another work finished consequence: another work From What likes and is thankful for old woman There’s a part of the road missing up ahead a partroad of the There’s Unanswered: there is no construction work there Unanswered: What mufflers they fix where specific place a Thinking about the paper I spent the about the paper I spent Thinking evening The one in the helmet greets the void shouting the one in the helmet greets The How tastily they eat lunch, hands black from muffler hands black from tastilyHow they eat lunch, They look at each other, almost don’t believe: they’re so specific they’re believe: almost don’t at each other, They look \\\ 48 \\\ | Javier Marimón Miyares Cae helado enpulóver dehelado dibujado Lengua en cuchara delenguadibujada encuchara Lengua “Mamá”, elhelado llama suesencia Se derrite entelaque lorepresenta derrite Se Define fuerte núcleo delatarde. núcleo Define fuerte Por fuera, unahojadejada volar Cae en ojo trabajando materias Cae materias enojotrabajando Abre luzenelojo, pordentro. Lucha idea en ramos tajados ideaenramos Lucha 48 47 Javier Marimón Miyares | /// 49 /// 48 47 Outside, a leaf leftfly to Outside, Falls in eye working matters working in eye Falls Struggle cut bouquets idea in Opens light in the eye, inside. in the eye, Opens light Defines evening’s powerful core. powerful Defines evening’s Melts on fabric that represents it fabricMelts on that represents “Mamá,” calls its essence the ice cream “Mamá,” Tongue on spoon with drawing of tongue spoon on Tongue Ice cream falls on t-shirt falls on Ice cream with drawing of ice cream

Leyman\

perez\ GARCIA

Leyman Pérez García (Matanzas, 1976) is a poet and editor. He holds a degree in Library Sciences, Socio-Cultural Studies and Cuban Culture. He is managing editor of Matanzas, a journal of literature and the arts. He has published eleven books of poetry and his work has received numerous prizes. He lives in Matanzas. \\\ 52 \\\ | Leyman Pérez García En elsecaderodealmas a solounosmetros de ellos a solounosmetros cuánto dolorhay sin pensar bajo lallovizna parecen felices y unosjóvenes en losrostros o muerte de vida la expresión ni cura no limpia pero elagua llueve cristal del nervioso y detrás la nación en queseencuentra perpetua de lacrisis del tiempo del deterioro alguien comenta atuladomientras l entam lentamente te do brán que el rompe venas queva el suero citostático gotea gotea gotea Gotea gotea gotea Leyman Pérez García | /// 53 /// In the Drying Shed of Souls Shed Drying In the Dripsdrips drips drips drips drips the cytostatic IV the veinburster cr ush ing you slowly s l o w l y while next to you talks someone about decline about time about the endless crisis the nation finds itself in and behind the nervous pane raining it’s still the water cleanse doesn’t or cure the expression of life or death in faces kids and some seem happy beneath the drizzle not thinking is pain there much how just a few meters away them from just a few meters away \\\ 54 \\\ | Leyman Pérez García que recordar. sustancias no tienesmás más angustia y despuésnotienes gotea gotea gotea están dibujados y elmío donde tudolor hacia elcuello gotea en laroja intemperie madura susraíces como unjagüey retoña de lasombra y eltronco hacia elespíritu gotea y alespíritu a lacarne que corroe la horizontalidad que abandonan hacia lasextremidades el suero citostático gotea gotea gotea de almas en elsecadero los ojos se hansecado ya nadie llora Leyman Pérez García | /// 55 /// everyone’s stopped crying stopped everyone’s eyes driedhave in the drying shed of souls drips drips drips the cytostatic IV the limbs toward that desert horizontality eating away at flesh and spirit drips the spirit toward and shadow’s trunk more once sprouts like a jagüey tree ripens roots its open out in the red drips the neck toward pain your where and mine drawn are drips drips drips have and later you anguish no more no more have you substances to recall. \\\ 56 \\\ | Leyman Pérez García Los escogedores Lo mismoquelasangre lee. Lo que hay enmí. Cerrándose, cerrándome. en elhachadetalarlalibertad, latierra abriendo enlatierra asímismosyseencuentran como autistasquesebuscan escogedores dearroz avecesLos noleennada. ysalen Entran enAuschwitzEl humanocon menoscenizas yenelMorro-Cabaña. donde latierra crece Matzerath. abriendo Oscar Tierra ysinextremidades. sincabeza Un cuerpo Untronco enfermo. conque sedejapinchar lasuciaagujadenación. con rompe queunaraíz elsuelohuyendo delanaturaleza con lamismaintensidad alaboca que entran Cuentan losrestos duros (coágulos, cielodesgarrado, astillas) quenadalo mismoquelasangre puedeescoger. leeenelcuerpo leen enelarroz Leyman Pérez García | /// 57 ///

The Sorters The The human with the fewest ashes in Auschwitzand in the Morro-Cabaña. The human with the fewest ashes in go and come They a thing. read The sortersrice don’t sometimes found of themselveslike autistics in search and are in the earth opening the earth freedom, to chop down in the axe closing me up. Closing themselves up, in me. reads. The same as what blood read in the rice read sort a thing. that can’t in the body reads the same as what blood splinters) torn sky, remains (clots, They count the hard with the same intensity the mouth that pierce the soil fleeing the nature through breaking as a root dirty needle. that lets itself be pricked the nation’s by A trunk diseased. limbless. A body headless, Earth opening the earth Oskar Matzerath where grows. \\\ 58 \\\ | Leyman Pérez García Antillas sobre mísintocarme pobre Antillas dondeera como latierra yexótica laquealgúndíacaerá queaprendí esqueexistíaunlugarllamado aún con oloracontinente Lo Renacimiento sobre delaimprentael olvidado losviejosmanuscritos con aguijoneándoseque tragamos dificultad sobre imaginarias Antillas tiempo quenoestáenCubanilasmenores ymayores contracorrientes del espacio respirar para el espacio respirar o mejor el tiempo para el quenecesita comoDeleuze a serunpaisajeinterminable eldeGilles negro que conquista al blanco Antillas en el brocal donde todo comienza propio signolingüísticopiensaenlafunción quedebeocuparAntillasdel de nosotros unobjetofractalcontraotro “Ácida lluvia” el dicesmientras la mismaserenidad Antillascrea unaimagen uno desímismaencada notienen donde ellargoyaltodelcuerpo ancho la geometría euclidiana unlugar unlugardentroLo queaprendí esque existía Antillas de llamado Leyman Pérez García | /// 59 /// West Indies West a place Indies a place What I learnedWest was that therecalled was a place the within Euclidian geometry the length width and height of the where Indies forms of itself in an image West serenity the same have body don’t the while say you “Rainacid” another against object fractal a us of each West up take to ought it function the about thinks itself sign linguistic in Indies West the white man Indies of the black man who conquers it all be an unending landscape begins to the parapet where like Gilles time or rather space time to breathe to breathe space needing Deleuze’s struggle we countercurrents that is not in Cuba or in the lesser or greater Indies spurring the forgotten over itself on to swallow ImaginaryWest the old manuscriptsRenaissance over printing in the still house smelling What of continent West called was a place I learned the was that there that will fall one just like the the soil was poor and exotic Indies where touching without me someday over \\\ 60 \\\ | Leyman Pérez García La muertedelosobjetos Ludwig Wittgenstein de todoslosestados decosas. objetoscontienen laposibilidad Los que luchó en las guerras deotros enlasguerras que luchó elhombrepara sinpiernas como mudo enuntrapecio quefalta materia parecerse alsol que notieneporqué a lacasa después quelasequíallegó y antes dellover en la boca hormiga hacha enlafrente padre estáeltirano en laprimera mordiéndose lasausencias encírculoscaminando mordiéndose lalengua porelsubsuelo searrastra mientras Dostoievski —diría oscuridad quenosalga para que secosenlaboca almas muertas mentes descosidas remiendos descosidas costuras por elhuecodelaaguja que noentran hombres-hilos pobres almas En elboulevard deObispo Leyman Pérez García | /// 61 /// Ludwig Wittgenstein of all states of affairs. The Death of Objects Death of The Objects the possibilities contain On Obispo Boulevard poor souls men-threads go who don’t of the needle eye the through unstitched seams patches unstitched minds souls dead sewn their mouths who’ve so darkness say would out –Dostoyevsky come doesn’t the subsoil while he drags himself along biting his tongue walking in circles biting his absences in the first is the father tyrant his forehead ax on ant in his mouth raining and before after got the drought to the house that has no reason like the sun to look missing matter trapezelike in a mute for the legless man wars else’s who fought in someone \\\ 62 \\\ | Leyman Pérez García objetos sin vida —diría Dostoievski objetos sinvida—diría quenotengaausencias? ¿qué hedicho plantas dealgodón lana deovejas gusanos deseda almas muertas en elboulevard deObispo tragados con miedo robados con miedo podridos que dafrutos bajo latierra sobre eldolor y ponía losdedos uninvidenteera en laúltimaausencia falta luzentodo luz respirar para permiso quepiden almas muertas enterrado ensímismo olvidado demetralla esunfragmento y ahora Leyman Pérez García | /// 63 /// and is now a fragment of forgotten now and is shrapnel buried in himself ask souls dead for to breath permission light no light anywhere in the last absence was a blind man his fingers and he placed the pain on beneath the earth fruitbearing rotten stolen with fear with fear swallowed Obispoon Boulevard souls dead silk worms wool sheep’s plants cotton I said what have absences? have that doesn’t say would lifeless objects –Dostoyevsky

Marcelo Morales Cintero

Marcelo Morales Cintero (Havana, 1977) is a poet and prose writer. He received a degree in History from the University of Havana and graduated from the Univercitá per Stranieri di Perugia, Italia with a degree in Italian Language and Culture. He has published three books of poetry –all prize-winning– and a novella. A collection of his work, The World as Presence, recently appeared in English. He lives in Havana. \\\ 66 \\\ | Marcelo Morales Cintero Materia (fragmentos) conciencia. No hay pero significado hay símbolo, enlo tiempocorriendo real, días. Bajolasescaleras, subolasescaleras, misojostienenlaapertura. presencia aquí. poético provee deunaconciencia enmediodelos Lo enelborde metálica delamesa,Una cuchara rota, unasilla hay una losobjetos,cubriendo lasensación, labúsquedadesensación sincese. Tengo miedodelaluzenelcristal, aire en laventana, queentra polvo Nn eneldesierto,levanto lassábanas. cambio El amorensupuntoúltimoeselvacío, apréndete eso, medigo. Me yveo,Me levanto enelespejo, algunasmanchas. del retorno. Naturaleza Nn luego otro. tu cuerpo, deunsegundoaotro, tumente, esoesestar vivo, unlugary calle, chino. barrio Tus ojosrecorren loreal, sevandeunsegundoaotro, El mundo sesiente, contaminación, esoeslohumano, charcos enla Energía enelrecuerdo yenlos sentimientos. Energíaenlassensaciones. El mundo suenergía. ylagente teimprimen Nn de élpuedesrecordar. Elpasado son minutos. Yo vivo con dolor. con dolor. Atraviesolascalles Elpasado loque dura Nn luz. sinoelhueco. noveo lataza decafé Enlataza cosas sedefinen, enelcírculo entrar tieneesesignificado, flota, elpolvo Al mundo unolosiente. Estásadentro, me digo, las enunfragmento Nn luces quepasan, vidaquepasa, movimiento. En lacalle, enelcarro, elvientoylaslucesenlacara, enelvacíode estarnuevo queproduce. De esosetrata, medigo, otro, tras deunfracaso mi vida, labúsquedadelamorsincese. lo hemosidealizado. Enelbar, enlabarra, mipercepción deltiempo, Nosotros, loshumanos, loreal, hemosconstruido Nn enél. hundo micara flotando,Cuando veo enmicuarto elpolvo piensoenlasentencia, Marcelo Morales Cintero | /// 67 /// Matter (excerpts) Matter When I see the dust in my room floating, I think of the maxim, sink my sink of the maxim, I think When floating, in my room I see the dust it. into face Nn real, built what’s humans have We of time, my perception the bar, at In the bar, idealizedwe’ve it. for love. the ceaseless search my life, to the next, one failure from I tell myself, about, what it’s That’s it produces. in the void more once my face, lights on wind and in the car, On the street, movement. passing life, passing lights, Nn in a fragment things are I tell myself, inside, You’re One feels world. the In the light. dust floats, to set foot in the circle has that meaning, defined, see the cup I see the hollow. coffee cup I don’t Nn you as what The past lasts as long in pain. the streets Cross in pain. I live The past is minutes. can of it. remember Nn worldThe stamp their energy and the people you. on worldThe feels, EnergyEnergy in sensations. in memory and feelings. Chinatown. puddles in the street, human, what’s that is contamination, your next, the to second one from flutter real, what’s over look eyes Your place one being alive, that’s mind, your to the next, second one from body, and then another. Nn is its production. The universe can another void. over A void act Nn Love at of the return. Nature in the mirror. spots see some up and I get up in I get I tell myself. keep that in mind, its ending point is the void, the sheets. I change the desert; Nn the in through air coming afraid of the light in the glass, I’m for the ceaseless search the sensation, dust covering objects, window, chair, a broken of the table, the edge on A metallic spoon sensation. What’s amid poetic supplies a consciousness here. a presence there’s the opening. have eyes my upstairs, I go downstairs, I go the days. real, time running in what’s a symbol, no meaning but there’s There’s consciousness. \\\ 68 \\\ | Marcelo Morales Cintero destino. las calles. Gente, contra elmuro, marquechoca aese llegar vivirpara noeslamuerte,grande fantasía. esnuestra lamuerte Papeles suciosen conocimiento atómico. agosto. Habana-calor- La Nuestro miedomás En lavidaeldoloryplacer son instantáneos. Miespeciellegó al Nn siente lamateria. estáensuconcepción. deestaobra clave Toda estamateria, quepiensay fea,una mariposa quedóinmóvil. Eres testigo ajenas. delasmuertes La ysalendelavida,Cosas queentran aeste, otro lado del cualcruzar Nn serolvidado.para Aveces meacuerdo deella, aveces meolvido. por verla. Nos elespacio separaba ynoelmiedo. Elamornoestáaquí latarde. cuandocaía en elcafé Yo salíadelasclases, atravesaba lascalles soloexisteenelpresente, materia La laspersonas. siempre Meesperaba Nn espacio. su victoria. cosasqueestán eneltiemposon cosasqueestánenel Las circular, menospor Al unmomento, de seguro el insecto será unguerrero de bacterias, sersuperada. lavidaestápara tejeunproblema araña La tubo deluzfría. ypiensas: Caminasenlanoche elaire estácargado poéticotiendealosobrenatural,Lo pasodeltiempo. Dioscomo un Nn corrompido. gris. Materia ojos. Columnassucias, tubosdeescape, humo, elcielo, uncerebro ynoelmar,El río tienedestino. Elmundo, demis unfragmento Nn el quesiempre haspensado. complicados, unaluz, alcero, entorno todogira elcentro delmundo en denuevo.allá Llueve. Enelcristal, losdiscursosdelaguasehacen Corren todosenlamismadirección, pormásquesealejen, todosvan Nn conciencia. Estoeselmundo, materia, materia, ynada más. medioroja,la luzcae peldañosamarillos. sin vidasecomporta La hago lallave girar. No existe nada entre lovivo ylomuerto. Enelpatio lospeldañospalpandolabaranda,Subo tocoelmetaldelpicaporte, Nn la puerta. eliminada. detiserá memoria La Elsusurro desusaya cuandocerraba Yo nosédónde sevanlosquemueren, losqueteamaron, yo nosé. Nn Marcelo Morales Cintero | /// 69 /// Nn know. don’t I you, those who loved those who die go, where know I don’t soft The skirt her of sighing when memoryThe willyou erased. be of close the door. she’d Nn touchthe door latch, the metal of feeling the handrail, I climb the steps, On the living and the dead. exists between Nothing make the key turn. unconsciously. Life behaves steps. yellow fallslight patio the red, half matter and nothing more. matter, world, This is the Nn they go all they wander off, the more They all run in the same direction, discourses grow On the glass the water’s raining. It’s more. once there the the center of everything zero, spins around a light, complicated, always thought. world you’ve where Nn eyes. a fragment of my world, The has a destination. not the sea, The river, Gray matter. brain. a corroded sky, smoke, exhaust pipes, Dirty columns, Nn like God passing. time’s What’ssupernatural, the toward tends poetic heavy the air is think: You walk in the night and light bulb. a florescent problem, a circular weaves The spider life is to be exceeded. with bacteria, At Things a warrior least forwill be insect a moment the assured ofvictory its . things in space. in time are Nn She always waited for me in persons. Matter only exists in the present, her. to see streets cross of class, out get I’d the café when evening fell. Sometimes I to be forgotten. here Love isn’t fear. not Space separated us, I forget. sometimes her, remember Nn an one, this toward another side to cross going in life, and Things coming The witness to other deaths. You are motionless. lingered ugly butterfly, All this matter that matter thinks is in its conception. key to this work and feels. Nn species came My to atomic instantaneous. are pain and pleasure In life, death is death, Our fear isn’t greatest Havana –heat– August. knowledge. sea crashing against the People, Dirty the streets. papers on our fantasy. that destiny. to reach living wall, \\\ 70 \\\ | Marcelo Morales Cintero Cuando dejes de tenerle miedo a la oscuridad vasaestariluminado. miedoalaoscuridad Cuando dejesde tenerle Nn es lodifícil. contrario Lo centro, sentíelpesodelaluz. Permanecer oscuro esmuy fácil, medigo. Un rayo por laventana que entraba alumbró mi mano. Enlapalma, al Nn alhorizonte,Cuando miras estásmáscerca deti, estásmáscerca. El tiempotienesulenguaje, lanostalgiasiempre escosadelpresente. Nn No volvemosmásqueenelespacio, vuelve. eneltiempounonunca También elmiedosalva. pudetocar. algo quenunca Estababuscando Nn uno, cada para susrespuestas. dios entiende, hay unlenguajededios, hay unlenguaje. vidatiene, La tiempo enciende, respuestas queson cosasdefuturo. Hay cosasquesolo deunapátina,A veces lasestatuasnecesitancubrirse colores quesoloel Nn ahí,Hay unacarne hay unacarne. enterrarse. Cuandomeocreo queson preciosas piedras loquetengo. un lugarexacto. donde Enelfuturo cuerpo mipensamientonotendrá Para quesecumplaundestino, tododebeestarenuntiempoexacto en Hay unaprofunda relación entre yloqueharemos. loquehemoshecho sedestruye,bello sedestruye. pensarquelobello desechable. Materia dónde lo quevivió. fueaparar Unosiempre sepregunta. Pensar quelo pasa lanoche, eluniverso frío, lasestrellas. Unosiempre sepregunta a conciencia demivida, tengo conciencia demiangustia. lasábana Sobre psicológico, nubespsicológicas, mental, unamateria vapor. No tengo Densidad mental, enelcielo, cuando latormenta algo negro con nubes, Nn anuncia, siempre. siempre expuesto. máslarga, novia La lamásfría, siempre, llega se se programa. Conexiones invisibles. Estásexpuesto, elhumanoestá Al mundo noleesdifícil destruirte, labomba estádentro, unreloj que Nn espacio, esoeselmundo. Hay cosasquecrecen deldolor. tieslavida. Eltiempopara Cosasenel Nn El remolino losiguecomo sifuesesuobjetivo. preocupa. Temo loquetodostemen. sehunde. cuerpo Cuandoungran enunrío. masasdesembocan Las lanada No ylanada me conozco Nn Marcelo Morales Cintero | /// 71 /// Nn and nothingness nothingness know don’t I into a flow The masses river. When body great a what everyone scared of is scared of. I’m worriesme. The whirlpoolgoal. its were as if it follows it sinks. Nn in Things is life. you Time for pain. from that swell things are There that is the world. space, Nn a timer the inside, on the bomb’s you, for the world not hard to destroy It’s always humans are exposed. exposed, You’re connections. Invisible set. always. notice, gives the coldest bride always arrives, The longest, Nn black with clouds, something when the storm in the sky, Mental density, not I’m steam. a mental matter, psychological clouds, psychological, cold universe, Night, of my anguish. I am conscious of my life, conscious lived was what One alwayswhere wonders sheet. the over cross stars think the beautiful is destroyed, To One always wonders. ended up. a deep There’s Disposable matter. to think the beautiful is destroyed. So a destiny and what we’ll done what we’ve between relationship do. everything place. exact time in an exact ought to be at an can be reached, When I piss a body to be buried have in. my thought won’t In the future a flesh. there’s a flesh there, There’s I have. stones precious I think it’s Nn only colors ignited patina, a with Sometimescovered be to need statues only things are There the future. things from that are answers time, by Life has, language. a there’s of god, a language there’s understands, god its answers. for of us, each Nn We I could never for touch. something I was searching saves. also Fear back. never goes in time one in space, back again except go don’t Nn the present. nostalgia is always from something Time has its language, closer. you’re closer to you, When watch the horizon you you’re Nn the in palm, my In hand. my up lit window the through in coming ray A tell I myself. is very dark stay easy, To of light. I felt the weight middle, hard. The opposite is what’s Nn When you’ll stop being afraid of the dark you be enlightened. Nn \\\ 72 \\\ | Marcelo Morales Cintero hundo mi cara enél. hundo micara flotando,Cuando veo enmicuarto elpolvo piensoenlasentencia, Nn Pongo flores enunvaso, ahílafunción, colocar delobjeto.categoría la mundo. Uno tienelaresponsabilidad con para unodeiluminarse, con para el El amorescosadegente fuerte, lagente débil, sedefiendecon cinismo. embellecer. Uno tienelaresponsabilidad con para unomismoycon elmundo, de Nn mis pensamientos. el mundo. Cada de unade lascosastienemássentidoquecualquiera Uno no es solo lo que es, uno también es lo que ama. observo En la calle Nn Marcelo Morales Cintero | /// 73 /// Nn I observe On the street loves. is also what he one only is, what he One isn’t thoughts. of my than any sense more of the things makes Each the world. Nn to beautify. the world, to himself and responsibility, One has the defend themselves the weak cynicism. with Love is for the strong, to the world. to be enlightened, to himself One has the responsibility the category of object. there, put the function in a vase, the flowers I place Nn sink my maxim, I think of the When floating, room I see the dust in my into it. face \\\ 74 \\\ | Marcelo Morales Cintero De Elmundocomoobjeto Nn ordenaría lacama. riendo y ella yo desnudoenaquel cuarto, bailaría A veces temoesosmomentos, no querré yarecordar. queamamosnodecidecuandoacaba, Lo otro destino.fabricarme manera, hubiese podidoserdeotra continúa enmísonando, radio delacabecera La ordenaría lacama. riendo y ella Yo desnudoenaquel cuarto bailaría sobre voltearme ycaminar mispasos. podría A veces temoaesosmomentos enquesé Nn quieto.quedarme losojos Cerrar Este muro quedeseo. Nada más. recorrido esloquehay entreSu yo ylarealidad. unapiedra. Lanzo Nn sentimos lapresión. atrapados enlaoscuridad Nosotros, como antessusraíces, y ellugarquedóvacío. Cuando laplantamurió lasacaron deljarrón Marcelo Morales Cintero | /// 75 /// The World as Object as World The From When they the plant died pulled of the pot it out was leftand the space empty. before, like its roots We, trapped in darkness, feelthe pressure. Nn a stone. I throw me and reality. is between Its journey is what there more. Nothing This wall I desire. close my eyes To sit still. Nn when I know scared of those moments Sometimes I’m back my steps. over go and I could turn around dance naked in that room I’d the bed. tidy and laughing she’d still plays in me, on the headboard The radio I could’ve way, been a different built another destiny. decide when it ends, What doesn’t love we want to remember. Soon I won’t scared of those moments, Sometimes I’m dance naked in that room I’d and laughing the bed. tidy she’d Nn \\\ 76 \\\ | Marcelo Morales Cintero Se necesitamucho entenderlo. dolorpara Se Estar soloespropio delaescritura. con excepción delamuerte. Todo, Para mítodoesposible. delsistema. también sonEllas parte palomas vuelan,Las seposanenlosaleros. Penetro encontrarlafuente. ensentidopara la búsquedadeuna “poética”. Tengo ellenguaje, quedesechar Nn espantado.y quemiras O esehuecodellavamanospordonde seescurre elagua enlapared.Una mancha que lavidaesundetalle. en queentiendes A veces hay esosmomentos las cosasqueparecen siempre ajenas. laciudad,Afuera elairemientras enbloquehastaturostro. llega deuntreno piensasenlaventanilla trasera quesesaledetucuerpo,una tosseca el sonido deunventilador solo, quegira oyes,y enlanoche O duermes sobrecuando laluzdeunbombillo cae unaplantamarchita. vacía porunacalle o caminas y nosabessiesunsueño, unaescalera bajas denoche A veces hay esosmomentos enque Marcelo Morales Cintero | /// 77 /// Sometimes there are moments when moments are Sometimes there at night a staircase down go you a dream if it’s know don’t and you an empty walk down street or you a withering falls a bulb on plant. light from when the asleep Or you’re hear and in the night you itself, the sound of a fan oscillating by a dry body, your cough emerging from a train of think about the back window or you face. your while the air rushes in toward Outside the city things that always seem strange. those moments are Sometimes there understand when you life a detail. is the wall. A stain on down the water goes Or in the sink where the hole gazethat you at terrified. Nn rid to get of language, I have “poetics.” for a the search sense to find the source. I pierce on eaves. perch fly, Doves partThey too are of the system. everything’s me possible. For Everything, death. except to writing. is unique Being alone to understand that. sorrow need so much You

\ oscar cruz

Óscar Cruz (Santiago de Cuba, 1979) has published five books of poetry, the latest being La Maestranza (2014). He holds a degree in History from the Universidad de Oriente. He is the co-editor of the prestigious literary journal, La noria. He lives in Santiago de Cuba. \\\ 80 \\\ | Óscar Cruz Los añosdeaprendizaje sobrevienen unasganas pero entiendo. nunca me carajo”. veamos: escucho, diciendo: “respétame, parado frente amí cuerpo ylargas, imágenes cortas mi madre —planosfijos—, un taladro enlamadera.) con másprecisión que quepenetran (azotes cosas.grandes mimadre entre lasmanos, diciendo a mediavoz, con uncinto hermoso.era mimadre el lenguajedelosgolpes recta Makarenko. de enseñarme, como la violenciafácil. ganas como unhombre”. tenía aprendas aportarte falta. que estoespara eldíaquetehagan para esas lágrimas, pendejo, adentros. “guárdate enmis maldecirla un cintarazo, yo solía me dabaporlaespalda cuando mimadre Óscar Cruz | /// 81 /// The Years of Learning of Years The when my mother beat my back would often i’d with her belt, the curse her on “hold back inside. asshole, those tears, for you’ll when need this is so them. you’ll learn to act she had like a man.” eager an easy violence. like me, to teach strict Makarenko. of the blows the language my mother was beautiful. with a belt in a whisper, saying in her hand, my mother things, great (lashes penetrating precisely than more a drill into wood.) my mother –static shots–, close images, up and long of me body standing in front me “respect saying, i listen see: let’s damn it.” what but never understand. great suddenly to me are comes \\\ 82 \\\ | Óscar Cruz esto alegremente: palabras bajolosgolpes.erigí digo más amena... queaquella del mal. infancia noconozco embargo, noespresencia mi madre. supresencia, sin ysueño alladoduermo de bajolalluvia, que duerme tranquilo. como unbuey pero […], estoy ahora esbelto. yo casi teamaba. el pelocano, yeltalle restos delamor. tenías nítidos detalles. eluso, para mícantaron.para guardo lo recuerdas. otros sin embargo, elcinto, elcanto, para sé quenoservías si notelasabes, una. búscate ni elorgullo, cántame. sin perder lapaciencia aquella delpayaso.la canción madre, quiero quemecantes soy elsantoygachón. rostro soy delqueorina yo. del excremento soy yo. el de estiércol soy yo. lavoz tuvo larazón. elmontón entre lasmanos, mi madre, con elcinto ponen siempre enentredicho. dematarqueme enormes Óscar Cruz | /// 83 /// desires to kill alwaysdesires calling me into question. with the belt my mother, in her hand, the pile was right. the voice am. i of manure the i am. of excrement of a man urinatingface i am. i am saintly and spoiled. to sing me i want you mother, about the clown.that song no losing patience sing to me. or pride, another. find it, know don’t if you at singing good weren’t you i know but the belt others remember. you i recall sang for me. for my use, details so clearly. had you of love. remains gray hair and a slender you. i almost loved waist. i’m now but [...], an ox like still. asleep beneath the rain, alongside i sleep and dream her presence my mother. the presence isn’t though, pleasant a more know i don’t of evil. than the one childhood... I say i built beneath the blows. this happily: words \\\ 84 \\\ | Óscar Cruz propinar sucintarazo. me dasuamor, lesuelo lenguaje. atodoelque que noentiendeotro madre. como aunniño lo sabes, perdida flor, perdida crecida enelestanque. tú contempla unapequeñaflor bajolalluvia, duerme de loquefui, comoque un buey que soy, cobarde aceptación deseable.se torna este dolor, que eldolor demanera de palabras. prosiguen sin que noadmiten otro reino que noahogan, Óscar Cruz | /// 85 /// that don’t drown, that don’t realm another accept that don’t they persist of words. painlesslyand so pain the one desirable. becomes cowardly acceptance i am, like an ox of what i was, asleep beneath the rain, a small flower contemplates you in the pond. growing lost lost flower, know, like a boy mother. understand another who doesn’t everything language. me i tend that loves to beat with her belt. \\\ 86 \\\ | Óscar Cruz Lo quecuenta subido encima del otro vez. ladraba unayotra el perro alquehabíaapostado ganó. minutos devarios al cabo gente apostandoa uncachorro sinvida. de gente enajenada, feliz. lasgradas yveíamiraba rostros brutales y loimposibledelhombre. perros quepeleabanporloposible instantes deduro placer. producían desangre.las bocas hechos comenzaron amatarse, un perro invicto ysecularcomo ungobierno. que sumabadieciséis. contra uno había peleado yqueloharía y selospusealperro-nadie, unperro quenunca entonces saqué doscientospesos envilecida demirarse. a aquellaforma sentí quemividaestabaligada aaquellababa, masculinadebabear.y unaforma queDios.más bellos teníanrojas lenguas quemispadres,más bellos los perros bellos. ensuesenciaeran a interesarme. comenzaba y eldesastre con sufuerza amor alaropa, amoraldesastre; gente quevieneporamor: amoraloszapatos, gente desahuciada con unrostro sinvida. a estoslugares resulta interesante. (me gustabaestarahí). lagente queviene perros welters con másdetreinta libras. perros entrenados dematar. en elarte los perros frente atiladrando. en elborde delasgradas. lo quecuentaesestarparado ahí, Óscar Cruz | /// 87 /// What Counts What what counts is being there, what counts is being stands. of the the edge on of you. in front the dogs barking dogs trained in the art killing. of welterweight than thirty dogs more pounds. the folks come who (i liked being there). interesting. are to these places folks terminally ill with lifeless faces. of shoes love out of love: folks who come of disaster; love clothes, of love began force and disaster with its to appeal to me. in their essence beautiful. the dogs were beautiful than my parents, more tongues red they had beautiful than God. more drooling. of and a masculine way i felt like my life was bound to that drool, of looking. way to that depraved pesos so i pulled hundred out two never a dog that had dog, the nobody and put them on fought against another been in sixteen. who’d a dog unbeaten and secular like a government. they began to kill other, each their mouths making violent crime. pleasure. instants of hard possible dogs fighting for what’s and impossible for man. at the stands and saw brutali looked faces folks. happy of deranged, a lifelessfolks pup. betting on after a few minutes won. bet on the dog i’d stop barking. it wouldn’t top of the other on \\\ 88 \\\ | Óscar Cruz a la carne envejecida delamor.a lacarne diente adarle que hasvenido enlaturba que hasvenido como hasta aquí, ellos lo quecuentaessaberhasapostado. vidanoestanmalo.poco amoropoca y esoesloquecuenta. poco. enestossitiosdura la gloria ganado quehubiera dieciséis. qué importa sobre elborde delcamino. vi alperro derrotado enunajaba esa tarde unperdedor. supeloqueera los queganan. cómoescuchando ríen, cómo hablan hacia lacasa.en turba íbamoscallados. lo cargaron como aunhéroe yvolvimos Óscar Cruz | /// 89 /// it was carriedit was mob and the like a hero off silent. were we back home. headed the winners how listening to they speak. how laugh, that evening i knew what a loser was. i saw the defeated in a plastic bag dog the side of the road. on been in sixteen. matter that he’d it didn’t long. last the glory doesn’t in these places what counts. and that’s so bad. life isn’t or not much love not much bet. you’ve what counts is knowing like them, here come that you’ve teeth the mob to sink your with here come that you’ve flesh of love. into the aged \\\ 90 \\\ | Óscar Cruz (Apuntes paraunaTeoría delaInvasión) El MalylaMontaña otros venían yenlataban yhacían no hacían cosaquecagarse. otra perdieron eljuicioylavergüenza. que detantocreer enlaMontaña conocí atres o cuatro montañeses vagando ensuspraderas añossubíalaMontaña.hace varios de incapaces. gobernada porequipossucesivos una región vez másprovinciana, cada desupropiaen elcamino decadencia; día asciendeunescalón que cada nada como unsitio a laMontaña. y vivirenunlugartancercano habernacido es unprivilegio la Montaña. seextiende y séqueporallí miro endirección del Basurero al caminar. demí y queextiendotras que yo sigo yquemesigue la Montaña sin Reginosnirebeldes. tal ycomo fue: sinvacas la Montaña representa. y todoloqueella la Montaña Óscar Cruz | /// 91 /// and Mountain Evil (Notes on a Theory of Invasion) on a Theory of (Notes Mountain and all it represents. Mountain no cows just as it was: no Reginos or rebels. Mountain i follow that follows and me out behind me and that i spread as i walk. of Garbage Dump in the direction i look out spreads that there and i know Mountain. been born a privilege to have it’s so close in a place and live to Mountain. nothing like a place step more takes one day that each decadence, the path of its own on provincial, and more more a region teams successive by governed of incompetents. I climbed ago years Mountain. its prairieswandering through highlanders or three i met two who after believing so much in Mountain lost their wits and their shame. they did nothing but shit themselves. others came canned and it and turned \\\ 92 \\\ | Óscar Cruz otra vez. otra los Decentesnosataquen no seaqueporculpadeunpoema solo con pequeñas correcciones. dejemos demomento intacta alaMontaña, deunavez. peligrososería suprimirla vivir sinlaMontaña, como elpueblonopodría como eltiempohaconsagrado alaMontaña, pero vez. una yotra demolida ypuestaafuncionar enelpoema verde,que unaextensamentira que noesmás como es,contemplarla aunquesepas sídagustoascenderalaMontaña,ahora aquel poema. con loscualescompartí gordas ytres vacas ocuatro neorrebeldes de pronto seveían enlascalles laconcepción,es quecambió con aquelloscagadores. locierto no sesabequépasó dehoy.de loscríticos quehaceun hecho las delicias de laMontaña porlosDecentes”, como trascendió el hecho “La Toma que pronto latomaron con sustropas. de MagníficosDecentes el poemallegó hasta eldespacho del verdor enlaMontaña. cagadores encargados de ciertos elmodusoperandi que describe unpoema juntos escribimos hombres oprosperar. decididosamorir plusvalía aquella mierda. Óscar Cruz | /// 93 /// that shit into surplusthat shit value. men determined or prosper. to die a poem wrote we together describing operandi the modus of certain charge shit-takers in of Mountain. of the greenness it to the office the poem made of the Magnificently Decent troops. with their Mountain over who took Taking “The the incident became as known the Decent,” of Mountain by an incident that delights critics. today’s what happened knows no one the truth yet to those shit-takers. the conception, is that it changed see you’d suddenly streets the on or four neo-rebels and three fat cows i shared with whom that poem. it really up Mountain, now go is quite pleasant to know even though you it as it is, contemplate nothing more it’s lie, green than a huge in the poem demolished and put to work and over. over yet since time has enshrined Mountain, since the people couldn’t without Mountain, live and for all. to abolish it once be dangerous it would Mountain intact, leave let’s for the moment small modifications. just with some forbidgod a poem be the reason the Decent attack us time. more one

Liuvan Herrera Carpio

Liuvan Herrera Carpio (Fomento, 1981) is a poet, literary scholar and critic, and editor. He received a degree in Literature from the Central University in Las Villas and in Latin American Culture from the University for the Arts. He is currently a professor at the National University of Chimboraz. He has published four books of poetry and two books of essays. He lives in Riobamba, Ecuador. \\\ 96 \\\ | Liuvan Herrera Carpio Codorniz naufragó: tantaarena enplenovuelo. nohapodidosoportar El peregrinoeselmarinerodeldesierto. Tras decodornices latormenta perro alrecibir lospétalosdelave quelentamentesedeshojan. el peregrino despluma las gotas,Mientras la arena se contenta como un bosque quedósintrino, québosquesinprimavera? el desierto. sincabeza. esuna lluvia depájaros Unalluvia sincabeza ¿Qué Un aguacero lapida el hambre decapitadas decodornices alos que cruzan Liuvan Herrera Carpio | /// 97 /// Quail A downpour of decapitated quail stone the hunger of those crossing the of those crossing of decapitated the hunger A downpour quail stone What was left forest A rain of headless is a headless birds rain. desert. with no spring? forest what with no song, as a dog the sand is as happy While the pilgrim defeathers the drops, petals slowly plucked.taking in the bird he After the quail storm he shipwrecked: The pilgrim is the desert sailor. sand midflight. been able to stand so much hasn’t \\\ 98 \\\ | Liuvan Herrera Carpio Tigre huérfanos ojosdemihijo.huérfanos digestiónLa deltigre espaciente como losojosdemihijo, como los mismovemos deBlakequeahora engullir.brazo alaslegumbrescastiga ofreciéndolas esteexquisito como para armadura del tigre estásinpintar. tigresdepoeta: desayunan carne Los eldomador frentegrito alanimal, undobleenrejado nosedacuentaquetras lapiel pieldeltigreLa esunatrampa. Cuandomihijoabre losojos, como un para Virgilio, antes devorado deser Liuvan Herrera Carpio | /// 99 /// Tiger for Virgilio, before devoured being Virgilio, for The tiger skin is a trap. When my son opens his eyes, like a shriek before opens his eyes, When my son skin is a trap. The tiger skin the tiger realize double trellis that behind the he doesn’t the animal, punishes the the tamer Tigers eat poet flesh for breakfast: painted. isn’t legumes offeringthem up like a garnish we Blake arm for this exquisite down. see being wolfed now orphan son’s my like eyes, my son’s like patient is digestion tiger’s The eyes. \\\ 100 \\\ | Liuvan Herrera Carpio Camello feliz ylosabe:feliz unmaradentro. esel único animalquelleva en laespaldadelcamello, éste, desal: unacarcajada ahora noslanza es una agujaquenoprecisamente esunespejismo. Elaguaviajamontañosa espejismo delahierba, acto seguidoenlagargantadeljineteseatraviesa morderanimal unpeculiarcarisma: tras el cuandoalgúnjinetelocastiga anaqueles laprueba. para Nacer elojodelaagujahadado durante al aguja. noestárelacionado lacerantepueselembarazo Situación enlos Este bisoño ejemplarhanacidodesumadre enlahora la traspasar para Teresa, ahogada enel mardel camello Liuvan Herrera Carpio | /// 101 /// Camel for Teresa, drowned sea in the camel Teresa, for This exemplary the went through beginner was born when its mother the on mentioned A painful experience since pregnancy isn’t needle. of the needlebe born in the eye the animal a has given To trial shelves. when a ridercertain punishes him for biting the grass charisma: mirage, exactly a needlea pierces isn’t that throat rider’s the in straightaway lets this one back, the camel’s mountain-like on travels Water mirage. only the animal who he’s it: and he knows happy out a salty he’s guffaw: carries a sea within. \\\ 102 \\\ | Liuvan Herrera Carpio Mortaja desábado maquilla silenciosounamortaja. El almidón, justopadre, ya sientoenmivientre elcismadeDios. Dispongo losojos: acerrar quealimentar? sin victorias enemigo leobligaaretirarse ¿Qué ¿Ante quiénflaquea mimadrecada semana? lasábanacomo gesto derendición.Tiende desde sualtura. tusangrey Diosexprimió Tú como pendistelashoras unahorcado cuando reta alsolcon humedad formidable. No laculpes, hombre delacruz, le impideatisbarelmilagro. pero de mimadre elcansancio enlasábana, la muerte Dios exprime irrecuperable.una costilla se dejaextraer porDios donde suhijo, noche, cada ofrece alsolelcadáver deltálamo ungida,La sinnombre dignoquerecordar; encoge loshombros. contigua una camisa reciéncomo ahogados, cuerpos Al tenderlassábanas Liuvan Herrera Carpio | /// 103 /// Saturday Shroud Saturday When the sheets hanging out like newly bodies drowned shirt an adjacent shrugs its shoulders. worthremembering, no name one, The anointed the marriage bed offers from up to the sun a cadaver night, each her son, where lets God extract an irretrievable rib. God wrings out sheet, the death over tiredness but my mother’s let her make out the miracle. won’t man of the cross, blame her, Don’t when she challenges the sun with a formidable dampness. strung man the hours up like a hanged You and God wrung blood out your high. on from of surrendering. She hangs the sheet out as a gesture Who my mother lose heart does week? to each What her to retreat forces enemy no victories to nourish? to close ready my eyes: I’m I feelnow the schism of God in my belly. just father, The starch, silently up a shroud. covers \\\ 104 \\\ | Liuvan Herrera Carpio Hierros decarnaval de lujosostrasatlánticos. bodegas en oscuras Brasil delgran traída algodón deazúcar, un mealcanzabas mientras —Diviértete, fuelarespuesta te dije: elpaís. qué triste oyendo losfrenos delanoria, crujir demontaña lasesteras rusa Sobre y disputada desedmedieval. porcaballeros detenida enodres níquel deextraño sinnombre, ve lacerveza derramar ojo cuando sumaltrazado a Subamos Dragón”“El Exterminador”. de “El en laspequeñasjaulas resiste suvértigo Di adiós atuhijomientras una deslealimitación. encontraraquípodrá de losparques eléctricos, noasistióalesplendor Quien de suviaje. botes suspendidosenelarco voladorasen sillas yen tomanahora sitio de almíbar, adobadas porañosenelalcohol deantiguoscentrales Piezas ensolounahora. se erigen debarrio que encarnavales ladiversión, para artefactos nacional, por lacicatriz viajan sobre trailersominosos Fraguados enherrerías clandestinas Liuvan Herrera Carpio | /// 105 /// Carnival Irons Carnival Forged in clandestine smithies Forged trailers ominous they on travel scar, national the through artifacts for amusement, in neighborhood carnivals hour. assembled in just an Pieces of old sugar mills marinated in syrup for years alcohol, they take their seats now in flyingon chairs and the arc boats suspended in of their journey. Those who never witnessed the splendor of electric parks will find here an unfaithful imitation. child while to your Say goodbye vertigohe fights back his in the small cages of “The Exterminator.” “TheLet’s ride Dragon” when its badly drawn eye sees nameless beer spilled, nickel of a strange lingering in wineskins made knights with a medieval thirst. by and argued over carpet Standing coaster’s the roller on wheel grind hearing the brakes of the Ferris this country is so sad. I told you: was the answer “Have fun,” me some got while you candycotton grand Brazil from brought holds in the dark of luxury liners. ocean \\\ 106 \\\ | Liuvan Herrera Carpio Avenida delPuerto empaña laflordesangre. lejos delsalitre queahora al guajiro enlatregua delmediodía, en lacopasilvestre queamparaba ojonaifsolíadetenerse Su motivo laestampa. para enelrepatriado no hallaría el pintorJay Matamoros delamuerte volviera Si la postalyelobturador. mástardeque hinchen merece de púrpura ramilletes Pero Habana deLa elPuerto en laroca depetróleo. prender susvenas resucitar logra diez al Bien sesabequeunode cubana, alviajantedeloscruceros. sombra sitio donde brindará hacia decemento, suparterre —hijo delpalimpsestoylainventiva— espalda deuncamión es trasladado sobre la Por laAvenida delPuerto al framboyán sorprendido. deuntajo pudo arrancar untendón degrúa Solo Liuvan Herrera Carpio | /// 107 /// Avenida del Puerto del Avenida Only of a crane the tendon slash could remove with just one tree. flamboyant the astonished del Puerto Avenida Down transportedit’s on the back a truck of –child of palimpsest and inventiveness– garden, its cement flower toward it will offer Cuban site where to the cruiseshade line traveler. out of that one known well It’s when to revive ten manages take root their veins in the oil rock. Port But Havana’s deserves bouquets of purple swelling later on and shutter. postcard Matamoros If the painter Jay the dead back from to come were find in his country he’d for vignettes. no motive oftenHis primitivist would eye linger sheltering the wild treetop on the peasant at the truce of midday, the saltpeter that now far from tarnishes the blood flower.

Jamila

Medina\ Rios

Jamila Medina Ríos (Holguin, 1981) is a poet, prose writer, essayist and editor. She won the coveted David Prize in 2009 with her first book of poetry and a collection of her essays received the prestigious Alejo Carpentier Prize in 2012. A book of short stories as well as another of poetry have appeared in Mexico. She was the Poetry Editor for Unión Publishers. She lives in Havana. \\\ 110 \\\ | Jamila Medina Ríos Langustia ataduras al cuello ataduras alcuello si dejasseteprendan extraer lootro para de hacer unasangría decortar que noteacabas esos textossobre lacabeza si continuas dejando quetebailen cuida retrato deti huye losporos delascompuertas elencaje las venas muerdan(te) quetehablanaloído todas las bocas cierra –anahidrópica– hacia dentrodejarse crecer lacabeza abierto abrupto demasiado alventanal arrimada chisporrotean hacia dentro oh llama apáganse: develas callados quiébranse quehabíancrecido y loscristales enella como segada rama desdeelinvernadero se deshojadespués laureada no essaludablelacabeza desolado– camino elsitiodemirar y húrtante –dios noamanece no essaludable(pare)ser ungirasol espinada depalabras y depronto: tienestodalatestacoronada te brotan como deella pétalos sobrete (a)saltansusgritos lacabeza lanzaderas tejeduras Textos textos Jamila Medina Ríos | /// 111 /// Ananguish Texts texts texts Texts textures shuttles their cries skull (at)tack your it like petals they spring from crowned head entire your and pronto: prickled with words (see)m a sunflower to not healthy it’s dawn doesn’t –god spot the looking you and they from swipe desolated path– head a laureate not healthy it’s later loses its leaves the greenhouse like a cut branch from and the crystals it on growing silently in two break candles from snuffed: flame the inside oh toward they spark too close window to the picture abrupt agape the inside toward grow head to let your –anahydropical– closes ear all the mouths that speak in your bite(you) the veins lace the flees the floodgates the pores cares for portrait of you keep letting those texts texts if you head your dance on cut off already should that you bloodletting the other to extract let them tethers if you neck in your take root \\\ 112 \\\ | Jamila Medina Ríos una cabeza (por fin)descoronada. una cabeza ten elpulcro civismodepresentar alaire: tala respiradentro reflejo referente –aludan– sueltasquepretendanpalabras (ll)amar nostálgico delotro desesperado hálito desdetulabio borbotear barbotear no quiero ver(te) burbujas gargantabajo siempre. para : entuboca unsitioyzambúllete sembrarse deti taxidermia ta(r)jas delotro– –observante como lapaalcristal lamirada abierta la boca debarro)enlutado (harto hacia eseespejoquehasdejado empañar desdoblarte tufrente tuya hacia tihasdeinclinar es lasfixialoquedebesconstruir ojos colgandocarafuera partícipe– –carnero disgregado encienpedazos repicarás (ofrecida):la mejilla unoatumanoalpie si dejasqueseatencada haciafuerade ti carne (out ofoutof) afuera pasadizos hilos queteindican Jamila Medina Ríos | /// 113 /// threads pointing out passages out (afuera out afuera) out passages pointing threads flesh towardtheoutsideof you hand foot to your one each let them tie if you cheek (offered) you’ll scattered pieces toll in a hundred –bellwether participant– faceout hanging eyes should build you anasphyxiation it’s your forehead bend your must you you toward let fogup you’ve mirror that unfold toward mournful (stuffed with clay) mouth open look the glass like a leech on –observer of the other– (s)cores (s)cores (s)cores taxidermy of you mouth : into your a spot and plunge sow for always.throatdown bubbles want to see(your) i don’t lip your murble burble from desperate breath nostalgic for the other unleashed hoping to c(all) words –allude– referent reflex breathinside felling felling felling the meticulous civility the air: to have to present (at last) decrowned. a head \\\ 114 \\\ | Jamila Medina Ríos Palpo/ antena/tentaculario buscando undardobuscando yunacerrazón la lenguarepta enlasparedes delcerebro temiendo aldaño no quedoquietaenmí: los aperos deldía cuando serecogen mas duro siglos almanaderomanos entrando las yemas metidasenunaguaderosas el dienteperro con cuchara Raspando no regurgito elsalto. no sueltoprenda o entierro dedosenelpelo… delanoche lascabañas si noamordazo el asidero: alalamida cuencooco(r)noabierto nodoy atientaselinterruptor piesinohallo Si yalantecolumpiadosy atrás sinbrida. arribabajo y losmuñones delaspiernas encolumnata mano callosa porhombroscuerpo apenas hociqueararriba queafinquepara un (a)brazo en queembutirlaventosa: qué sequedad quéoquedades aqueagarrarse que abandona temblandoelbaptisterio del ciempiésdepalpos enlatardanza enlavíspera en losombrío En lahumedad quépazhallar por elrosa sediento. al pataleodelosdedossuccionados que sobreviene alcaos enmílamúsica tranquila Callada escruto Jamila Medina Ríos | /// 115 /// Palp/ Antenna/ Tentaculary Antenna/ Palp/ Silently in me music the soothing I pour over that follows the chaos the kicking suctioned of fingers the thirstyby pink. can what peace be foundIn dampness the eve on delay in the dismal in the palps of the centipede of deserting the baptistery in trembles what dryness what hollows to hold onto to stuff the sucker in: above around settling to root an em(brace) body for shoulders scarcely hand calloused in colonnade and stumps for legs updown and backforth swung bridleless. find the switch I can’t if feeling touchmy way bottom can’t If I open to licking or cone(horn) bowl the handle: cabins night’s muzzle if I don’t or bury in hair fingers let go I don’t the leap. regurgitate I don’t Scraping the dogtooth spar with a spoon rosewaterfingertips sunken in hands entering the spring I last centuries yet tools when the day’s gathered are still in me: stay I don’t fearing the damage slithering braintongue walls on for dartsearching closure and \\\ 116 \\\ | Jamila Medina Ríos un tentáculo. palpo por cada Yo solodigo caer? cortándolos como Lazarus Lady lapalma y estirar quesombrearo habrá laspuntas dedos por laaurora decasquivanos atizado elanemonario calmará ¿Se la ye(r)ma blandadelcráneo. el centro delaespaldasinlavar laspuntasdelospies buscándome me estiro noche otra Palpo-ícaro-antena han bajado lospuentesgiratorios. Para verme caer para verme callar un avispero detierra. emasculada con unpalo como una culebra unaaraña se levanta cripta y elcuerpo de laespuma que metrago cuando vienenlosgolpes Hay unalenguadedeseo en elmanadero detales. que seescondían decabeza y rosa flameabanlas yemas y rosa flameabaelcentro de laavispadelagua saqué losdedosencendidos estuve ya En estagruta del queexplora. elpecho que agrieta el escondite enelotro la escarbadura Jamila Medina Ríos | /// 117 /// the unearthing in the other the hideout cracking the chest of the explorer. in that grotto I was already pulled burning fingers the water wasp from pink and the center flamed pink and the tips flamed hiding headlong in the spring of such things. of desire is a tongue There when blows I swallow of foam come and my body crypt rises like a spider like a serpent emasculated with a stick an earth nest. hornet’s see me fall silent to see me fall To the swing bridges lower. Palp-icarus-antenna night more out one I stretch for the tips of my toes searching the middle back of my unwashed the soft cranium. waistland of my Will anemonarium the settle down up stirred fingers the dawn of wanton by the tips I darken or must out the palm and stretch like Lady Lazarus cutting them to fall? I just say for palp each a tentacle. \\\ 118 \\\ | Jamila Medina Ríos Fur(n)ia haciadentro yhaciafuera deinserción ydeserción. Furia yfurnia. narigón, yjugaralahorcado. Clava yclavadura. Encaje: con unejercicio cordón umbilical, ysaltarlacuerda, hacer pulsos, yargollasde tobilleras de lamadre alejercitar con lasmanosextendidas sobre elequilibrio el lo quenotieneysobra. Mataduradelpadre laraja. alexcavar Matadura leporina, lali(e)bre, laleprada. Y elejercicio como unaamputación de desabrochada, desvirgada, defenestrada, abierta. mujer La laporosa. La cavada, perforada, aserrada, rajada, acribillada, trepanada, traspasada, obturación, de ladilatación ensanchamiento delserhabitada, explorada, El ejercicio nocomo laerección deunpanópticosinocomo una columpio mujer. Nanadora. Acunadora. Sanadora. Vaina. Avalancha riada. Arrollo murmullo. arcada. Espumarajo Balanceode fluidos.y liberar Mujerorines, mujer sangre, fécula,mujer mujer leche. zanjas abrir para enlacarne comoEl ejercicio unlatigazo delaescritura desmadejado. Mujerdeestambre. bordada Punta demujer. Mujer demimbre, flexible, caña cáñamo, flautadulce, espiga, lirio Huevo. Ovario. Canasto. aliviadero, bebedero deyeguas ydepatos. ser(des)h/ollado.para Playa, puerto, embarcadero, varadero, abrevadero, quedeseaaotro quesobayorada.Un cuerpo dearena yconcha, Lecho sobreMadreperla madrépora. Madre-del-verbo. Ave María. Damajuana. Mujer ubre yodre yútero. derío. Mujerembocadura Máter. Materia. mujer arrollada, (alfombra) mujer plegadura. (paracaídas) palmas delasmanos, rajadasdelnudillo. enlasfurnias Mujeragujereada, vientre, enlamorada debajodelasuñas, enlosplieguesilegiblesdelas rendida,la nuca deltobillo, enlablandura del yaltozanos enlosvalles delaentrepierna,hendidura bajoelpesodelastrenzasylossenos, en frente, enloslabiosagrietados, enelhedordelaspatasgallina, enla de lasmanosechadas hacia atrás, enlascomisuras, dela enlasarrugas dedo ydelospies, enlasaxilas, enelvacío delasmanosjuntasy encima delcodo, enlajaboneradelasclavículas, enlos16arcos entre intersticios bajolalengua, entre losdientesylaencía, debajodelarodilla, vagina, bahía de bolsa, ombligo, ano. de el descubrimiento E incluso Huecos dearaña, huecosdenariz, boca, deojos, cuencas oídos, vulva, furnia. con delojo. elrabo que seinsiste enunaescritura practicada Unacisura yescindiéndola apostado delaescritura El ejercicio fuera delaescritura Jamila Medina Ríos | /// 119 /// F(u)or(y)amen The exercise of writingThe exercise posted outside your the cornerby writing of split in a writing practiced incision An foramen. on insisting eye. pocket bay, vagina, vulva, ears, sockets, eye mouth, nostrils, Spider holes, between evendiscoverythe And tongue, under of interstices anus. navel, the in dish, soap collarbone’s in elbow, over knee, under gum, and teeth hollow of hands together in the in armpits, each toe, between 16 arches on wrinkles, forehead’s on corners in of the mouth, and hands behind, under the fissure, in groin’s feet, in the stench of crow’s chapped lips, in softness, ankle’s in nape, in surrendered of braids and breasts, weight in the illegible in the purple nails, between valleys and hillocks, womb’s woman pit, Woman in the cracked foramensknuckle. of folds of palms, (parachute) folded. woman (carpet) thrown, Mater. river opening. Woman uterus. and bota and udder Woman Ave Mother-ofthe-word. pearl Mother of madrepore. over Matter. Demijohn. Maria. Bed of sand A body desiring another that fondles through. and bores drydock, boatyard, seaport, Seashore, (de)h/o/allowed. be to shell, and for bears and geese. birdbath spillway, wateringhole, Basket. Ovary. Egg. weakened lily. spike, flute, sweet hemp, reed, flexible Wicker woman, of woman. edge Embroidered Stamen woman. of free fluids. writing open ditcheson flesh to The exercise and a whip like Avalanche milk. woman starch, woman blood, woman urine, Woman Lullabyer. woman. Swing swaying arcade. Froth murmur. Coil flood. Sheath. Healer. Rocker. widening a shutter, of a panoptic but like not like the erection The exercise sliced, sawed, drilled, dug, explored, of being inhabited, of the dilation defenestrated, deflowered, unfastened, run through, trepanned, riddled, as the exercise And leprous. leveret, Leporine, porous. Woman opened. Father than enough. and is more have she doesn’t of what an amputation as equilibrium Mother sore is practiced as the gash is excavated. sore making rope, jumping and umbilicalthe on wide open hands with cord, and nailing. Nail and playing hangman. and nose rings, anklets, bracelets, of insertion and outwards and desertion. inwards with an exercise Lace: Fury and foramen. \\\ 120 \\\ | Jamila Medina Ríos hacer. Dejarsehacer. Dejarseser… las rodillas… sobre detrigo. granos con letra sangre La entra. Déjate nidolor. nigrito probar sinmuerte con lalenguauna escritura hincar Sin que apaguealaninfómana. mujer Ábrase linfa. Apurareltrago amargo, Llamamiento. Llamarada. Esa mujer anémona. Hágase una p/hiel líquida es de temer.verbal en furnia. furia La Silenciada. No en furia. la furnia eso, cochina. crece de excitación y cuyo que se mira clítoris Una escritura alto,ríen lasmujeres noseabren comer tantopara obostezar. Tápate tu lengua,Saca mujer, de la carnada. la boca. Cierra negros no se Los se amordaza con supropia tentación. infernal. Hermafroditismo eneltacto. y Unasensibilidad que seempoza si sedejacrecer lalenguayseautosacia openetra, como unouroboros Mujer pócima. quemataalamujer alargandosuveneno, Unaescritura lacordillera. cruzar para Mujermuralla. Mujerfustadecobra. Aviborada. Mujer pasamontañas. enchino: Armadillo como elanimal engalanado tijera, cuchillada, estaca, hielos, pica dientesdepeineta, ydeleón. de sierra decocodrilo.Lágrimas Estalactitas. Casimbasojodelinvierno. Mujer acero. Magdalena desleída en el té, que atrae poderosamente… recuerdos. publicidad. gitano. Mujerbrazo Mujerbrazo, duro, delaley. Magnoliade abrazo. perfume, voz desirena La corporizada pañuelito alviento, de valla constrictor, contenida, laescritura conteniendo ser laescritura laescritura hilos.Arañazos anhelante. Lengua Imán. Hambrunas. vaso escritura La pezuñas. Extremidades. Palpos, pulpos. Vecindades. Manoenlaoscuridad. aova, queseempolla, avomitar lenguastentáculos garras puedeempezar confesa, oracular. queseencueva, Elarmadillo queseacoquina, quese queseinsisteensenadaunapenínsula tiene unarabia Una escritura Jamila Medina Ríos | /// 121 /// A writing insisting it’s cove has a rage a confessed, oracular peninsula. The The peninsula. oracular A writing a confessed, has a rage cove it’s insisting can start broods, egg, becomes fright, takes armadilloin a cave, that hides Octopuses. Palps, Extremities. claws to vomit tentacles tongues hooves. tongue. Eager Scratchesthreads. Hand in darkness. Neighborhoods. writing writing contained, constrictor, vessel Writing Famines. Magnet. corporalized Siren voice perfume, to be writingcontaining embrace. long Woman jelly roll. Woman billboard. in the wind, handkerchief powerfully dissolved tea, Madeleine in magnolia. Iron armthe law. of winter beachwells Stalactites. tears. Crocodile attracting...memories. and lion. blade, teeth of comb, icepick, stake, slash, scissor, Woman eye. animal adorned to cross like Armadillo in Chinese: balaclava. Woman Vipered. cobra whip. Woman wall. Woman the mountain range. if A writing lengthening her venom, that kills woman potion. Woman like an infernal and self-quenches or penetrates, grow she lets her tongue A sensibility that forms pools the touch. in Hermaphroditism ouroboros. temptation. with its own and is muzzled Blacks Shut mouth. your bait. the from woman, tongue, your Remove or to eat wide mouths their open don’t Women loud, out laugh don’t A writing at itself and whose clitoris that looks dirty girl. it, Cover yawn. Silenced. Furyforamen. in is frightening. verbal with excitation grows Turn to liquid anemone. woman That Flash. Call. foramen in fury. Not To lymph. Open woman skin/spleen to put out the nymphomaniac. writing a with tongue taste cryless deathless hurry painless. bitter pill, spoil the Spare the rod the grains upon of wheat. kneeling down Not be. let oneself To go. let oneself To Let go. yourself child.

\

moises\

maya\ n fernandez

Moisés Mayán Fernández (Holguín, 1983) is a poet, prose writer, and editor. He has a degree in History from the University of Holguín and is a graduate of the Onelio Jorge Cardoso Center for Literary Education. He has published three books of poetry and has received numerous prizes for his work. He lives in Holguín. \\\ 124 \\\ | Moisés Mayán Fernández El hombreestacionario Me estoy enunhombre convirtiendo estacionario. de mimente. los abedules, cipreses yálamoshansido desterrados Yo unbosquereal, tampocohevistonunca susmiembros lasansiasderozar Sufro demármol. El Hombre. frente emplazan amílaestatuadeunhombre.mientras Veo lospájaros posándosejuntoalosgatosdecemento proteja asuspolluelos? auténtico,un árbol entorno unbosquequecerrándose olorosaen larama deunaacacia, sueñosdeamanecer ¿Sus en nidosdefilamentosmetálicos? pájaros quecrecieron¿Los con abedules, cipreses yálamos? pájaros hanvistounbosque ¿Y lostristes quenunca susnombresraspar enlacorteza). (No losenamorados podrán dehuracanes. Con aprueba ramas cómo surgen ennuestros jardines dehierro. losárboles prontoY seguramente veremos demorado.en ungesto decanto pájaros inmóviles, yelinvierno lalluvia que soportan han comenzado aaparecer enalgunostechos, Pero con losgatosdecemento próximos atransitadas autopistas. quecreceno enesosárboles delasfábricas bajo laschimeneas en aleros dealtosedificios, Frágiles seres deciudad. lossorprende noche La con abedules, cipreses yálamos. Pájaros unbosquereal quenohanvistonunca y aprenden aposarsejuntolosgatosdecemento. pájaros pierden elmiedo rápidamente Los Moisés Mayán Fernández | /// 125 /// The Stationary Man Stationary The Birds quicklyBirds lose their fear cats. concrete alongside and learn to perch forest never a real seen that have Birds or poplars. cypresses, with firs, surprises Night them city beings. Fragile of tall buildings, the eaves on beneath factory smokestacks, that grow those trees or on next to busy freeways. catsStill concrete with the along rooftops begun to appear some have on up with rain putting and winter birds, motionless a sign of lingering birdsong. we’ll soon And surely see up in our yards. show trees iron how With hurricane-proof branches. (Couples no longer to carve their names in the bark). What never seen a forest that have birds the sad of or poplars? cypresses, with firs, up that grew The birds in metallic filament nests? of waking Their dreams the fragranton branch of an acacia, surrounding forest a tree, an actual their chicks?to protect cats concrete alongside perching I see the birds of me. in front while the statue of a man is placed The Man. to touch his marble the longing members. I suffer from forest, never seen a real I too have been banished and the poplars have the cypresses, the firs, my mind. from turning into a stationaryI’m man. \\\ 126 \\\ | Moisés Mayán Fernández Extraño animal,inocencia José Saramago Los niños, sipueden, crecen. apresado enlosconfines deBikanir.La inocencia. Pájaro defuego. animal unextraño Sino definido porlafatalidad. No antílope. Perro deaguas. delespécimenquesesabe Agónicas noches Ah, delidioma. pobreza deprecisar Incapaz elmartirio. son decompleja términos asociación —loreconozco). delainocencia. lamuerte Es natural (Natural &muerte O uncoágulodedolorenlosojos. Muyabiertos. marca deunosdedosentreLa elpelaje. larojez homicidaY noadviertes dequienmata. de sangre fluyendoEl pozo enlagarganta. señalesdeagresión.Buscas Dentelladas. Saetas. . deldelírium Asumir gota agota elbebedizo Perder lainocenciaesadentrarse enlosmanicomios. va segandoenelpeligroso paisajedelavida. humano.El ciclo deDios Estaciones queelbrazo Desprendimientos. Quebraduras. devolverseadulto.Es elriesgo Decrecer. de lacárcel donde apresaste lainocencia. con él.Algo detiparte contra losmuñones astilla Se Te asomas alenrejado yves alanimalinmóvil. Palideces. interioreslajaula/corazón. con susderrumbes Violenta No menos. poranunciada sorprende lamuerte Perturba. apresado enlosconfines deBikaner.La inocencia. Galgos. Monos. Quetzales. Y aquel animal extraño elAtlántico.que ensusbodegascruzan árabes. Caballos Privado delagravedad delosnavíos. criaturas Delashermosas Como algasenunocéanodeluz. Y eres isladentro deisla. fuerzas.Sin losmanicomios. alzarse Viendo deldía. blancura Y quedasinmersoenladesesperante delantiguoanimaldelainocencia.la muerte eltiempoenque descubres elenrejadoLlega tras detupecho Moisés Mayán Fernández | /// 127 /// . José Saramago Children, if they can, grow. if they can, Children, Strange Animal, Innocence Animal, Strange You come to the latticework and see the motionless animal. You grow pale grow You animal. and see the motionless to the latticework come You Though heralded death still surprises. Disrupts. Though heralded death still surprises. open the cage/heartIt forces with its inner cave-ins. Deprived of vessel gravity. Of the beautiful creatures Of the beautiful gravity. Deprived of vessel Arabian horses. in their holds. the Atlantic who cross animal strange that And Quetzals. Monkeys. Greyhounds. Innocence. of Bikaner. in the confines captured Like seaweed in an ocean of light. And you’re the island within the island. you’re And in an ocean of light. Like seaweed The time comes when you discover behind the latticework of your chest of behind the latticework you discover when The time comes animal innocence. the death of the old exasperating whiteness. in day’s immersed linger you And the insane asylums up. go Watching Limp. You search for signs of aggression. Tooth marks. Arrows. marks. Tooth for signs of aggression. search You well in the throat. flowing The blood killing. of who’s redness warn the murder don’t you And on fur. fingers of some The mark Wide open. Or a clot of pain in the eyes. & death (Natural The death of innocence is natural. –I know). association terms with a complex are Incapable of making martyrdom precise. poverty of language. Oh, nights of the specimen that knows Agonal Water dog. Not antelope. by its fatality. defined it’s animal But a strange Fire bird. Innocence. of Bikaner. in the confines captured Something of you parts with it. It splinters against the stumps partsSomething of you with it. captured innocence. you of the prison where up. Of growing an adult. of becoming the hazard It’s Fissures. Landslides. the arm of God Seasons The human cycle. landscape. dangerous in life’s reaps deep into asylums.go lose innocence is to To drop. by drop potion delirium’s take on To \\\ 128 \\\ | Moisés Mayán Fernández No hay otros paraísosNo hayotros quelosparaísos perdidos. volver.Quieres Pero esimposible. sinbarrotes.Jugueteaba enlaplaniciedeunpecho Y elanimal—apenasunacría. Como tú. dezinc. enlostechos de lalluvia feliz. Y eras elmundo. era de casas lamúsica Y tedespertaba veces.Al álbumdelasprimeras Cuandolamanzana Y quieres volver alasfotografías. delantiguoanimaldelainocencia. la muerte eltiempoenque descubres elenrejadoLlega tras detupecho Galgos. Monos. Quetzales. Avesdel sol ydelasombra. elAtlántico.que ensusbodegascruzan árabes. Caballos Con laresignación criaturas de lashermosas amarras.Soltar Con lagravedad delosnavíos. De lastardes dedomingo. Despedirse. Del abueloysushistorias. Delaabuelaysusdulces. lospórticos).(Inmensa tras DelDíadeReyes. donde crecimos.De lacasa Delmiedoalanoche. ligereza delvelocípedo enlospasillos. De lametálica Hay queaprender adespedirse. Moisés Mayán Fernández | /// 129 /// The time comes when you discover behind the latticework of your your chest of latticework the behind discover you when comes time The animal innocence. the death of the old back to the pictures. want to go you And When the houses album of first times. the To up to the music woke you And the world. the blockon were happy. were you And zinc rooftops. of the rain on Like you. the animal –just a baby. And Playing chest. in the flatlands of an unbarred around impossible. But it’s back. want to go You paradises. other than lost Thereparadises are no We must learn to say good-bye. learn to say must We metallic in hallways. lightness the velocipede To dark. of the being scared To up. grew we where the house To Day. Kings Three To behind the arcades). (Immense Grandma and her sweets. To Grandpa stories. and his To Say good-bye. Sunday afternoons. To With the gravity of vessels. Cut loose the moorings. With of beautiful creatures the resignation Arabian horses. in their holds. the Atlantic who cross Birds of sun and shadow. Quetzals. Monkey. Greyhounds. \\\ 130 \\\ | Moisés Mayán Fernández Prehistoria quedamos túyyo”. de Cro-Magnon contempla sudesapacible imagen ypiensa: “Ahora solo frente aquel espejodehielo, estéporsurgirlapoesía. Elúltimohombre del donlo haprivado delhabla. No imaginar, puedesiquiera queallí, a laausencia, pero soloconsigue gemidos monocordes. evolución La El hombre deCro-Magnon cantarle voz para deseatenerunahermosa los únicos. perdida. deunaestirpe embargo poseedordelabelleza de belleza Rara rostro, donde coinciden elanimalyhumanoincipiente. Rostro sin Magnon secontempla. su Elespejodeuncharco helado ledevuelve Bajo lasombrairregular elúltimohombre deloshelechos deCro- pero eterno. hagamos el poema aimagen del hombre, Moisés Mayán Fernández | /// 131 ///

but eternal. Prehistory let us make the poem in the image of the image in man, the poem let us make Beneath the uneven shadow of ferns the last Cro-Magnon man gazes ferns of Beneath the uneven at the last Cro-Magnon shadow and animal The frozen where back his face puddle throws mirror himself. neverthelessface A possessing the beauty of a emerging human overlap. Rare beauty of a kind. of ones lost breed. absence, voice to sing to a pretty have man wants to The Cro-Magnon has deprived him Evolution groans. but it only amounts to monochord imagine even he can’t the icy facing mirror, There, of the gift of speech. man gazes at his The last Cro-Magnon that poetry will surface. soon and me.” just you it’s “Now thinks: and unpleasant image \\\ 132 \\\ | Moisés Mayán Fernández Efecto Spielberg un absurdo vestido rojo. delospolinomios cuadráticos.estudiaba eldiscriminante Unaniñacon concentración deDachau. Unmédicorumano. Unprofesor eslavo que Mundial.Guerra Unjoven párroco de quemuriódetifusenelcampo apilados por buldóceres uno de esos cuerpos Soy después de la Segunda Moisés Mayán Fernández | /// 133 /// Spielberg Effect Spielberg I’m one of those bodies piled up by bulldozers after World War II. A young A young II. War bulldozers bodies piled up by of those one afterWorld I’m A camp. concentration parish typhus priest who died from in Dachau’s A Slavic who studied the discriminant professor of doctor. Romanian dress. girl red A young in an absurd quadratic polynomials.

Legna\ Rodriguez Iglesias

Legna Rodríguez Iglesias (Camagüey, 1984) is a poet, prose writer, and playwright. She has four books of poetry, the latest being Hilo+Hilo (2015). She has received the Julio Cortázar Ibero-American Short Story Prize in 2011 and the Casa de Las Américas Prize in Theater in 2016. She lives in Miami. \\\ 136 \\\ | Legna Rodríguez Iglesias 99 que consideres ylorompas todoylodesacralicessiquieres osino yenla que entres yenellugarquequieras quequieras enmíalahora Pound leerpoemasymenosdeEzra no espara quemecasarécontigo queelijasmequedorepitiendoy enlapostura yo sujetaacambios cotorra al otro Pound cuantospoemasdeEzra quequieras alahora túquieras a serresidente solohay queserpersona leerseuno yquerer para casarse solo con elseguro laspersonas ynohay socialsepuedencasar que esperar mamáporteléfono queelijasmeadvierte yenlapostura que quieras leerseunoalotropara Pound cuantospoemasdeEzra alahora túquieras aserresidenteque esperar solohay queserpersona yquerer casarse saber quesolocon elseguro laspersonas ynohay socialsepuedencasar te voy quesalióesteañotambiénespoesíayte aleerlaúltimaley no tevoy Pound aleerunpoemadeEzra mamáporteléfono meadvierte quieres forma es para gustará Legna Rodríguez Iglesias | /// 137 /// 99 the phone poetry and you’ll be happy and not to wait want want to each other whenever you as you Ezra Pound poems by changes so it’s you or not i’m not going to read you a poem by Ezra Pound mom informs mom me on Ezra Pound by a poem you to read not going i’m which also is year this out come to law latest the you read to going i’m people can marriedto know get social security with just numbers now married to get and want just be a person to wait to be a resident have each other whenever want to as you Ezra Pound poems by as many to read informs choose the phone mom me on you want and in the position you people can married get with just social security and not have numbers as many married and want to get to read just a person to be a resident a chatterbox subject to choose i keep repeating you and in the position that i’ll Ezra Pound less by poems much married get to not to read it’s the way want and you’ll you want and wherever whenever enter me you like and tear everythingyou and make everything want to unholy if you \\\ 138 \\\ | Legna Rodríguez Iglesias 33 Godot regresará siendoelmismoytodoloqueyo necesitaba en que se conmemora algo en otras de este año sorprendente ya dicho supone quealgúndía simiespíritu mentiría loquetengo quehacer enloadelantese meolvida quealmover undedodespaciorápido despacio siafirmara mentiría delamenteydel y sindudascon del cuerpo jureles entodaspartes unamujervolverme con tomate ycon aceite ycon albahaca capaces sondealegrarme quelaspajasdelaespera siafirmara mentiría unodelosdíasesteañoenqueseconmemora mitreintacada encenderlacocina pedirunfósforo para puerta y encada demiedificio eltimbrecon deseosdetocar detodaslaspuertas emocionalmente peores quelaspajasadosdelamañana sin tomate ysinaceite ysinfuego ysinalbahaca lentoysinfuego alto las pajas que mehago aGodot huelen ajurel esperando en salsa detomate líneas espíritu aniversario Legna Rodríguez Iglesias | /// 139 /// 33 sauce observed the getting off i do waiting for Godot smells like mackerel in tomato waiting i do off tomato in smells Godot for getting the mackerel like flame or high flame or oil or basil or low without tomato in the morningemotionally off at two getting than worse wanting to ring the doorbellsall of the doors in my building door to ask forand at each a match stove to light the when my thirtieth of this year birthdayeach day is observed off while waiting getting can make me happy prove if it would lie i’d and with oil and with basil with tomato turn me back into a woman and certainly everywhere with mackerels spirit in my body and mind and fast slow slow moving a finger that by prove lie if it would i’d on now to do from what i have forget i’d lie if my spirit day imagined one i’d said in other lines is in this surprising already when something year himself and being everything being Godot returned i needed \\\ 140 \\\ | Legna Rodríguez Iglesias 77 a acostarme y a dormir profundamentea acostarme y a dormir y voy a soñar contigo moviéndote ysaqué pues yasaqué mitenedoryyamecomíde olla micuchillo la unpaís queyasabemos losEstados UnidosdeAmérica país incluso siemprees quedarsecoleandoviviendopara sobre lafaz lafazdetierra sien yporquéunosedeleitaenella lamuerte por quéeshermosa duróa esetiempoyespacio sumuerte Dios demodorra mediahora fue cuando se ablandó abandonando movilidad abandonándome yo la felicidad Dios mío eseregalo me me cayó loca delcielo mevolvió esa misma igual y causar yo el movimiento yo sé moverla conozco una lenguadepuerco gorda yrosada como igual milenguaquesemovía y ymorderla lalenguaymeinstabaaladrarle ymesacaba eléctrica Dios míomeregalaste unalenguadepuerco enlaolla vivaquesemovía en laolla voylengua yahora es sinónimo de cualquier realidad loquequiere mío conduje ahí desquició lopeor provocación lamisma que milengua enlavagina metérmela de cocción Legna Rodríguez Iglesias | /// 141 /// 77 cooker and it stuck its tongue out at me spurred me to bark at it and at me to bark and it stuck out at me spurred cooker its tongue bite it and stick it up my vagina it just like that and to move how i know that quiver i know tongue cause the same me crazy drove worst heaven off the deep end the me go made there in it if all delight it actually do we beautiful and why is death why wants country of any face even the United States of America a country we is a synonym know already i’m and now cooker a pig’s tongue plump and pink like my tongue quiveringmy just like my tongue plump and pink like tongue a pig’s my God that gifthappiness the same provocation fell straightof out was when it softened leaving mobility behind leaving me behind i led it death lasted half an hour my God its of drowsiness at that time and space forits tail living wagging alwayson is to keep of the earth the face on the and i ate the tongue my knife out my fork out so i got and i got for cooker and i’ll to bed to sleep hard to go going quivering in the of you dream my God you gave me a live pig’s tongue that quivered in the electric quivered that tongue pig’s me a live gave my God you \\\ 142 \\\ | Legna Rodríguez Iglesias 11 que tantoagradan alasfamiliasdemásseisintegrantes todo enunocomo esospaquetes depequeñosjabones deolor ydeficción dialécticas figuras dediálogofiguras ypatéticas deesossíntomasver llena quememantienenjoven mialmadesdeafuera experimento nada nocansarlos secompara aestafelicidad quepara el oxímoron demialmaaumentaron lógicas ylaparadoja figuras sus libros dehermosos lleno usados sobre cienciasagrónomas y veterinarias amialmayrecogí unsacoesta mañanadecidíhacer decaridad unaobra relacionadami almatieneunahipérbole con lanecesidad deafecto igualmenteenquistaday asuizquierda unaonomatopeya palpable enquistado hipérbaton aladerechami almaposeeungran quemide del desímilesmásomenosfascinantesquedanfe mi almaestállena degeneración adquiridas engeneración demetáforas mi almaestállena latencias matemáticas de labasura ymasculino femenino excedida milímetrosvarios agrado quehay enmí Legna Rodríguez Iglesias | /// 143 /// 11 in me various millimeters affect the agronomic a garbageout on bag fullbooks used of beautiful veterinarian and mathematical sciences throbbing me young my soul’s full of metaphors acquired from generation after generation generation from full acquired of metaphors my soul’s the kindness or less fascinating similes that witness full of more my soul’s hyperbaton encystedmy soul possesses a great the right on side measuring the leftand on likewise encysted onomatopoeia a palpable excessive to the need formy soul has a hyperbole feminine and masculine related this morning i decided to do charity for i took my soul and work their logical in my soul increased figures and the paradox the oxymoron i experience you to this happiness that to not bore nothing compares the outside full of these symptoms that keep when i see my soul from of dialogue and pathetic dialectical figures fictional figures of smallall-in-one like those packages bars of scented soap or more that so please families with six members \\\ 144 \\\ | Legna Rodríguez Iglesias 66 mi glandeyprepucio esuntesoro queDiosmediountesoro haitiano a nadie incluidos yatitampocotelomostraré lotengo portodoelcuerpo elmiedo porquequitarme yo notengo miedo yo tengo un tesoro queno haitiano yo aquí yo orino como aquí yo amoaquí essolountipodeasfixia tu vives haitianoyo vivo aquí dónde tunaciste haitianoyo nací aquí menosaltoqueunbaobab menos unedificioimportante de trabajo el miedoañadiéndole solo mimiedohaitianotrabajador durmiendo hombre mínomeladres míopara nomemuerdas queyo tevoy acoser hombre quenointeresa por porhaitianodesnudohermoso haitiano queladra y muerde dedolor decansancio soloafuera durmiendo haitiano varón frente soloafuera durmiendo aunfrente essoloun frío llamado odio mis testículos le hemostrado no intentes dónde túorinas dónde maravilloso desucentroafuera te voy amatar ypobreextraño de mordeduras tipo deasfixia Legna Rodríguez Iglesias | /// 145 /// 66 suffocation bites pain from because and poor strange willkill you where piss do you where try don’t shown called hate haitian man sleeping alone outside facing a cold front is just one kind of is just one a cold front facing outside alone haitian man sleeping from exhaustion outside from bites sleeping alone and haitian who barks because because haitian man of no interest naked because beautiful bite me because i will i sew you at me don’t bark man mine for me don’t outside his place sleeping alone fear my fear haitian worker adding an importantof work tall not as marvelous building not as as a baobab born born haitian i was here you were where here haitian i live live do you of suffocation kind just one it’s here i love i eat here haitian i piss here i haven’t a treasure not afraid i have my fearto take away because i’m either i’ll you to anyone all my body even over my testicles it’s you show haitian me a treasure God gave a treasure it’s my glans and my foreskin \\\ 146 \\\ | Legna Rodríguez Iglesias 22 perder el tiempo o ganarlo yoperder noperderé eltiempooganarlo aunquelas mispalabras correcta operderá derecho sutiempoysuspalabras alfondo estáesoque que perder ylamujer suspalabras quesueñacondebeinterpretar palabras el hombre quesueñacon hallegado sindudasaunaedad palabras enla soñé con ébola lapalabra esto yhevenido derechome hedespertado al fondoyhetecleado melohadictado laconciencia anterior oelalmaa esta hora el párrafo aquello que le dicta la conciencia de transmitir un órgano o encargado convertidos enjugos biliares yechadoshaciaatravés deunórgano fuera loquelerodea comoaquello quehace elpensamientoy trizas ensuconcepto dealmalomásimbécilqueunotienepor es elcorazón eso que ladra y muerde o como como un pajarraco un animal salvaje derecho alfondomásestáesoquelateyduelesindetenersedios interprete mal interprete te hace de lamanera que nohay tiempo acaricié avergonzada cuál no sabría el alma con muela discernimiento delante indígena encautiverio me libre ycon dengue lasviensueños lapalabra Legna Rodríguez Iglesias | /// 147 /// 22 i saw them in dreams i dengue i saw them in dreams of the word caressed them no time there’s in the right way them god forbidgod which know righti wouldn’t now this the man who dreams of words has gotten no doubt to an age where where no doubt to an age has gotten of words the man who dreams interpret her words must of words who dreams to waste and the woman straight back is this making you or waste her time and her words even though i misunderstand waste my words it i won’t waste time or save straight back more toward the back is this beating and hurting straight toward non-stop back more captive bird like a wild animal or like a big native this beating and biting of us ahead the heart have the most imbecilic we of soul it’s concept in its us like thought and discernment surrounds what shatters what an organ with molar outside through to bile and tossed changed an organ entrusted or soul dictates what conscience with broadcasting or soul conscience the previous paragraph by has been dictated to me straight back up and headed and embarrassinglyi’ve woken i’ve typed ebola of the word i dreamt

Sergio\ Garcia Zamora

Sergio García Zamora (Esperanza, 1986) is a poet, literary critic, and editor. He graduated from the Central University of Las Villas in Philology. He has published eleven books of prize-winning poetry. Most recently, the Fundación Loewe awarded him their prestigious Young Poet’s Prize (2016). \\\ 150 \\\ | Sergio García Zamora La madre poeta. elpadrelo haría deBeethoven. mejor: oacaso como lohace lamadre del que andepiano, merecupere quenunca para delenternecimiento, como para sobre todapianoymedejacaer losdedoslatapadel teclado vuelve parece un piano. el xilófono, no mi madre. pero si mi madre quiere se elpiano;Beethoven era lodesupadre, laeducaciónmusical. unxilófono Beethoven, quenodebiósertanmalocuandoelhijofuebueno. lode quemeenternece.una zurra todoestáenproponérselo como elpadre de musical,se vuelve depercusión, sevuelve ymeda unatablilla searranca xilófono, no mi madre. pero si mi madre quiere un instrumento, se vuelve musical depercusión,instrumento demadera. detablillas hecho el mi madre oyendo seenternece unxilófono. segúneldiccionario: Sergio García Zamora | /// 151 /// Mother my mother goes soft listening to a xylophone. according to the dictionary: to the according softmy mother goes listening to a xylophone. the bars. of wooden made family, musical instrument in the percussion wants to she turns but if my mother an into not my mother. xylophone, she pulls off a bar and she turns percussive, she turns musical, instrument, it like all about suggesting it’s soft. makes me go me a beating that gives so was the son when bad that been have couldn’t who father, Beethoven’s a education. musical his father’s, thing was the piano; Beethoven’s good. but if my my mother. not the xylophone, like a piano. looks xylophone mother wants to she turnsmy into a piano and she lets the lid fall on so i’llgoing soft, back never from be able to come piano, so fingers i’m mother like the poet’s or even better. do it. father would like Beethoven’s does. \\\ 152 \\\ | Sergio García Zamora I Una casasinático un país hecho desótanos. un paíshecho queseavecina.tormenta Peor sináticoesunpaís sinático: queuna casa eláticodelpaís.inocente? Desempolvar Atisbarla porsuojodebuey su mejor líder, en su mejor héroe, en su mejor poeta? ¿O en su hijo más de unpaís?¿Ensumontaña másalta?¿Ensumentelúcida? Peor sin ático es un país sin ático. que una casa ¿Dónde queda el ático III sinático.el áticodeunacasa encierro aescribir. Meencierro aescribir. Meencierro. hace en frío Qué cualquiera.un café preguntan, Si conmigo. quesalíacaminar dirás Me reconocerse como unasesinoreconoce aotro asesinoenesasmesasde uncongreso. celebrarán nunca mejordelosmisántropos esquesaben Lo o tres conocidos. Nada personal. mejordelosmisántropos esque Lo verdadera. Prefiero noencontrar amásdedos paseareninviernopara un rato. Unaexcusa verosímil quelosamigos perdonan. Unaexcusa de lavidaescondido delavida. preguntan, Si quesalíacaminar dirás Me encierro sin ático. en el ático de una casa Me encierro a escribir II la felicidadperdida. Y fotos, dezapatos. encajas cientosdefotos adornos navideños. Cadáveres de lainfancia perdida, perdida, de lafe de guardarpara cadáveres: juguetes rotos, santosdemadera, con los elárbol inútiles, sololasdejanenelático. nada, para sirve Unáticonunca salvo soportarlo. Además, deningúnmodolasfamiliassedeshacen delascosas año. Imaginaelhorror algunasratas. dedescubrir No creo quelogres de jugarallí; quelimpiarlo, nitendrás aunqueseaapenas unavez al alsubirlaescalerilla; losniñosquegustan nivan acaerse vas acaerte Amor mío, sinático: piensaenlasventajas devivirenunacasa jamás Sergio García Zamora | /// 153 /// I II III A House with No Attic with A House Worse than a house with no attic is a country with no attic. Where’s a Where’s than a house with no attic is a country with no attic. Worse country’s In its most lucid mind? In its attic? On the highest mountain? To its best poet? Or its most innocent child? its best hero, best leader, storm on the approaching To keep an eye dust off the country’s attic. than a house with no attic is a country with Worse its porthole. through a countryno attic: of basements. I lock myself away in the attic of a house with no attic. I lock myself I lock myself in the attic of a house with no attic. away a on gone tell them I’ve If they ask, to writeaway life. of life hidden from I prefer excuse. A real friends A verisimilar excuse will forgive. little walk. I know. people only in winter so I to stroll or three up with two meet is that they’llThe best thing about misanthropes personal. Nothing is that they The best thing about misanthropes nevera conference. hold at recognizes murderer another another like a murderer recognize one a little walk on gone tell them I’ve If they ask, café. those tables in some I I lock myself to write. away I lock myself to write. away with myself. with no attic. so cold in the attic of a house It’s lock myself away. My love, think of the advantages of living in a house with no attic: you’ll house with no attic: of living in a of the advantages think My love, won’t there play to like who children the ladder, the neverfall from Think of a year. once just even if it’s to clean have it, won’t you either, Besides, could handle think you it. I don’t of discovering rats. the horror them in they just leave rid families get of useless things, no way there’s broken for to cadavers: hanging on except useless, attic is An the attic. from Cadavers Christmaswith decorations. tree the saints, wooden toys, of photos hundreds photos, And lost happiness. lost faith, lost childhood, in shoe boxes. \\\ 154 \\\ | Sergio García Zamora El camioneroyyo nos puedeengañar. Bukowski,poema de Charles viajaba a casa. fue mientras un camionero gruñó, nada. para sirven nunca unpoema, vez queescuché laprimera un música y el camionero se colocó sus gafas. estos programas de radio, lohabíanlogradoarruinar. nigolpizas ni borracheras despuéspusieron sobre desupadre. lasgolpizas parecía decirqueaél, Bukowski, Charles nombre: sobre desupadre orgullo lasborracheras hablabacon y cierto bestia. pero elcamionero siguióescuchando. lodeBukowski notenía subió elvolumen. encualquiermomento, pensé, apagalaradioesta de un camión.fue en la cabina un programa era radial y el camionero unpoema, vez queescuché la primera Bukowski, unpoemadeCharles Sergio García Zamora | /// 155 /// The Truck Driver and Me Driver Truck The the first time i heard a poem, a poem by Charles Bukowski, was in the Charlesby a poem Bukowski, a poem, the first time i heard and the truck it was a radio program driver turned up the cab of a truck. but second. to turn off the any is going radio this jerk i thought, volume. he thing was incredible: the Bukowski the truck driver kept listening. somewhat spoke proudly drunk his father getting about beating him. and he was sayingit seemed like what drunken was that bouts and beatings they played later on Charles Bukowski. able to ruin been him, hadn’t he these radio programs, truck and the music his sunglasses. driver put on by Charles a poem a poem, the first time i heard pointless. are growled, trucka sometimes driver can home. going was i when was Bukowski, fool us. \\\ 156 \\\ | Sergio García Zamora Poemas conneblina neblina quemehacen recordar amiabuelo: hoy unsoltremendo. habrá espléndido como Inglaterra. poemascon neblina, horrendos poemascon sin ver Londres, y morirse Resfrío Gran sinver ciudad otra niotro país másbajolaneblina, como uncuerpo la hierba el deagarrar ariesgo doble fantasmal. poetasneblinososgustandetendersesobre losnuevos horrendos poemascon neblinadonde laslucesdelautodescubren tu países, conquistó Inglaterra. ciudades enotras que poemascon neblina, de esa ciudad,fuese privativa como sino hubiese neblina enotros sinhaberidoaLondres,gustan denombrar a Londres como silaneblina conducir, deestrellarse. sinoesariesgo poetas neblinosos losnuevos poemas con neblina, horrendos poemas con se logra neblina donde nunca Sergio García Zamora | /// 157 /// Poems with Fog with Poems poems with fog, horrendous poems with fog where you can’t drive unless can’t you poems with fog where horrendous poems with fog, the new foggy poets like to name risk crashingyou into something. exclusive that to fogif as were LondonLondon, to gone having without by in other cities conquered fog countries, in other wasn’t as if there city, car with fog poems lights where horrendous with fog, poems England. the new foggy out poets like to stretch ghostly double. your uncover riskingGreat the the grass another body beneath the fog, on like just city seeing another without or dyingand Cold London, seeing without poems with horrendous with fog, poems splendid country like England. willbright be today fog and of my grandfather: that make me think sunny. \\\ 158 \\\ | Sergio García Zamora Balada paracolgarse la sogaalcuello. Villón, norobé esto. nimatépara siquieren entonar mibalada, pónganse lo bajandelahorcaunpoetadespuésotro. esto, para noescribí dice se está entre putas y ladrones. a François Villón, el maldito, lo suben y ytomar elmando.piensa deshacerse delcabecilla entre poetastambién bandas, por un monje. a ese diablo criado el maldito de François se ríe: otro susbandas; lopidenpara todosquieren ensuscochinas aesefrancés no gané el favor del rey, ser un muñeco para de paja. un poeta después de después deotro. nofuialauniversidad, dice Villón, serunpelele; para a François Villón, elmaldito, losubenybajan de lahorca unpoeta Sergio García Zamora | /// 159 /// Ballad for Hanging Oneself for Hanging Ballad François Villón, that devil, one poet afterpoet one him to and sends another devil, that Villón, François to be a Villón says, to college, go i didn’t the gallows. him from lowers after poet one be a straw to man. favor king’s win the didn’t pushover; in their they all want that Frenchman foranother wants him their gang; laughs: that devil François a priest. raised by that rogue stinking gangs, even among ridthinks about getting of the ringleader and taking over. one devil, that Villón, François and thieves. whores among poets you’re this gallows. the afterpoet from him lowers and to him sends another want if you i stole and killed. why this isn’t Villón says, i wrote, why isn’t neck. own your round put the rope to sing my ballad,

Acknowledgements | /// 161 ///

Acknowledgements (35). Tractatus Tractatus from is taken “The Death ofThe epigraph from Objects” Routledge, York: New Ogden. C.K. by Translation . Logico-Philosophicus 35. 1990. Earlier versions of the introduction and many of these poems in of these and many Earlierthe introduction of versions 2018) and The Jan/Feb 1. Review in Kenyon (XL. appeared translation Wolf Poetry Complete from comes “Café Bulevar Effect” The epigraph from Burton Raffel by and Alla Translation . of Mandelstam Emilevich Osip 119. 1973. Press, SUNY Albany: Burago. Editors / Translators:

KATHERINE M. HEDEEN is a specialist in Latin American poetry and has both written extensively on and translated contemporary authors from the region. Her translations include collections by Rodolfo Alonso, Juan Bañuelos, Juan Calzadilla, Juan Gelman, Fayad Jamís, Hugo Mujica, José Emilio Pacheco, Víctor Rodríguez Núñez, and Ida Vitale, among many others. She is the Poetry Translation Editor for the Kenyon Review and a two-time recipient of a NEA Translation Project Grant. She resides in Ohio where she is Professor of Spanish at Kenyon College.

VÍCTOR RODRÍGUEZ NÚÑEZ (Havana, 1955) is one of Cuba’s most outstanding and celebrated contemporary writers. Over 40 collections of his poetry appear throughout Latin America and Europe, and he has been the recipient of major awards all over the Spanish-speaking world, including, in 2015, the coveted Loewe Prize, the highest honor an unpublished book of poetry can receive in the region. He has compiled three anthologies that define his poetic generation, as well as another of 20th century Cuban poetry, La poesía del siglo XX en Cuba (2011). He has brought out various critical editions, introductions, and essays on Spanish American poets. He divides his time between Gambier, Ohio, where he is currently Professor of Spanish at Kenyon College, and Havana, Cuba. El vuelo (Estudio para una ilustración publicada en El Caimán Barbudo), / The Flight (Study for an Illustration Published in El Caimán Barbudo), 1982

The original art used for the cover design of this volume, seen above in its original version, was generously provided by Tonel. (Cover design and typography is by Elae / Lynne DeSilva-Johnson)

TONEL (Antonio Eligio Fernández, Havana, 1958) is an artist, critic, curator and educator. A graduate of University of Havana in Art History (1982), he has exhibited extensively, including at the Havana, Sao Paulo, Berlin, and Venice biennials. He has most recently shown his work at a solo exhibition Ajústate al tema, which opened in December 2018 at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana, Cuba. Since 2006 he has taught as an adjunct professor and a sessional lecturer at the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. He is currently a visiting artist and scholar at the Latin American Studies Center at Stanford University. RECENT & FORTHCOMING FULL LENGTH OS PRINT::DOCUMENTS and PROJECTS, 2018-19

2019

Y - Lori Anderson Moseman Ark Hive-Marthe Reed I Made for You a New Machine and All it Does is Hope - Richard Lucyshyn Illusory Borders-Heidi Reszies A Year of Misreading the Wildcats - Orchid Tierney We Are Never The Victims - Timothy DuWhite Of Color: Poets’ Ways of Making | An Anthology of Essays on Transformative Poetics - Amanda Galvan Huynh & Luisa A. Igloria, Editors The Suitcase Tree - Filip Marinovich In Corpore Sano: Creative Practice and the Challenged* Body - Elae [Lynne DeSilva-Johnson] and Amanda Glassman, Editors KIN(D)* TEXTS AND PROJECTS

A Bony Framework for the Tangible Universe-D. Allen Opera on TV-James Brunton Hall of Waters-Berry Grass Transitional Object-Adrian Silbernagel GLOSSARIUM: UNSILENCED TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS

Śnienie / Dreaming - Marta Zelwan, (Poland, trans. Victoria Miluch) Alparegho: Pareil-À-Rien / Alparegho, Like Nothing Else - Hélène Sanguinetti (France, trans. Ann Cefola) High Tide Of The Eyes - Bijan Elahi (Farsi-English/dual-language) trans. Rebecca Ruth Gould and Kayvan Tahmasebian In the Drying Shed of Souls: Poetry from Cuba’s Generation Zero Katherine Hedeen and Víctor Rodríguez Núñez, translators/editors Street Gloss - Brent Armendinger with translations for Alejandro Méndez, Mercedes Roffé, Fabián Casas, Diana Bellessi, and Néstor Perlongher (Argentina) Operation on a Malignant Body - Sergio Loo (Mexico, trans. Will Stockton) Are There Copper Pipes in Heaven - Katrin OttarsdÓttir (Faroe Islands, trans. Matthew Landrum) 2018

An Absence So Great and Spontaneous It Is Evidence of Light - Anne Gorrick The Book of Everyday Instruction - Chloë Bass Executive Orders Vol. II - a collaboration with the Organism for Poetic Research One More Revolution - Andrea Mazzariello Chlorosis - Michael Flatt and Derrick Mund Sussuros a Mi Padre - Erick Sáenz Abandoners - Lesley Ann Wheeler Jazzercise is a Language - Gabriel Ojeda-Sague Born Again - Ivy Johnson Attendance - Rocío Carlos and Rachel McLeod Kaminer Singing for Nothing - Wally Swist Walking Away From Explosions in Slow Motion - Gregory Crosby Field Guide to Autobiography - Melissa Eleftherion KIN(D)* TEXTS AND PROJECTS

Sharing Plastic - Blake Neme The Ways of the Monster - Jay Besemer GLOSSARIUM: UNSILENCED TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS

The Book of Sounds - Mehdi Navid (Farsi dual language, trans. Tina Rahimi Kawsay: The Flame of the Jungle - María Vázquez Valdez (Mexico, trans. Margaret Randall) Return Trip / Viaje Al Regreso - Israel Dominguez; (Cuba, trans. Margaret Randall)

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deeply discounted Book of the Month and Chapbook Series subscriptions are a great way to support the OS’s projects and publications! sign up at: http://www.theoperatingsystem.org/subscribe-join/ GLOSSARIUM : UNSILENCED TEXTS

The Operating System's GLOSSARIUM: UNSILENCED TEXTS series was established in early 2016 in an effort to recover silenced voices outside and beyond the canon, seeking out and publishing both contemporary translations and little or un-known out of print texts, in particular those under siege by restrictive regimes and silencing practices in their home (or adoptive) countries. We are committed to producing dual-language versions whenever possible.

Few, even avid readers, are aware of the startling statistic reporting that less than three percent of all books published in the United States, per UNESCO, are works in translation. Less than one percent of these (closer to 0.7%) are works of poetry and fiction. You can imagine that even less of these are experiemental or radical works, in particular those from countries in conflict with the US or where funding is hard to come by.

Other countries are far, far ahead of us in reading and promoting international literature, a trend we should be both aware of and concerned about—how does it come to pass that our attentions become so myopic, and as a result, so under- informed? We see the publication of translations, especially in volume, to be a vital and necessary act for all publishers to require of themselves in the service of a more humane, globally aware, world. By publishing 7 titles in 2019, we stand to raise the number of translated books of literature published in the US this year by a full percent. We plan to continue this growth as much as possible.

The dual-language titles either in active circulation or forthcoming in this series include Arabic-English, Farsi-English, Polish-English, French-English, Faroese-English, Yaqui Indigenous American translations, and Spanish-English translations from Cuba, Argentina, Mexico, Uruguay, Bolivia, and Puerto Rico.

The term 'Glossarium' derives from latin/greek and is defined as 'a collection of glosses or explanations of words, especially of words not in general use, as those of a dialect, locality or an art or science, or of particular words used by an old or a foreign author.' The series is curated by OS Founder and Managing Editor Elæ [Lynne DeSilva-Johnson,] with the help of global collaborators and friends. WHY PRINT / DOCUMENT?

The Operating System uses the language “print document” to differentiate from the book- object as part of our mission to distinguish the act of documentation-in-book-FORM from the act of publishing as a backwards-facing replication of the book’s agentive *role* as it may have appeared the last several centuries of its history. Ultimately, I approach the book as TECHNOLOGY: one of a variety of printed documents (in this case, bound) that humans have invented and in turn used to archive and disseminate ideas, beliefs, stories, and other evidence of production.

Ownership and use of printing presses and access to (or restriction of printed materials) has long been a site of struggle, related in many ways to revolutionary activity and the fight for civil rights and free speech all over the world. While (in many countries) the contemporary quotidian landscape has indeed drastically shifted in its access to platforms for sharing information and in the widespread ability to “publish” digitally, even with extremely limited resources, the importance of publication on physical media has not diminished. In fact, this may be the most critical time in recent history for activist groups, artists, and others to insist upon learning, establishing, and encouraging personal and community documentation practices. Hear me out.

With The OS’s print endeavors I wanted to open up a conversation about this: the ultimately radical, transgressive act of creating PRINT /DOCUMENTATION in the digital age. It’s a question of the archive, and of history: who gets to tell the story, and what evidence of our life, our behaviors, our experiences are we leaving behind? We can know little to nothing about the future into which we’re leaving an unprecedentedly digital document trail — but we can be assured that publications, government agencies, museums, schools, and other institutional powers that be will continue to leave BOTH a digital and print version of their production for the official record. Will we?

As a (rogue) anthropologist and long time academic, I can easily pull up many accounts about how lives, behaviors, experiences — how THE STORY of a time or place — was pieced together using the deep study of correspondence, notebooks, and other physical documents which are no longer the norm in many lives and practices. As we move our creative behaviors towards digital note taking, and even audio and video, what can we predict about future technology that is in any way assuring that our stories will be accurately told – or told at all? How will we leave these things for the record?

In these documents we say: WE WERE HERE, WE EXISTED, WE HAVE A DIFFERENT STORY

- Elæ [Lynne DeSilva-Johnson], Founder/Creative Director THE OPERATING SYSTEM, Brooklyn NY 2018 DOC U MENT /däkyәmәnt/

First meant “instruction” or “evidence,” whether written or not.

noun - a piece of written, printed, or electronic matter that provides information or evidence or that serves as an official record verb - record (something) in written, photographic, or other form synonyms - paper - deed - record - writing - act - instrument

[Middle English, precept, from Old French, from Latin documentum, example, proof, from docre, to teach; see dek- in Indo-European roots.]

Who is responsible for the manufacture of value?

Based on what supercilious ontology have we landed in a space where we vie against other creative people in vain pursuit of the fleeting credibilities of the scarcity economy, rather than freely collaborating and sharing openly with each other in ecstatic celebration of MAKING?

While we understand and acknowledge the economic pressures and fear-mongering that threatens to dominate and crush the creative impulse, we also believe that now more than ever we have the tools to relinquish agency via cooperative means, fueled by the fires of the Open Source Movement.

Looking out across the invisible vistas of that rhizomatic parallel country we can begin to see our community beyond constraints, in the place where intention meets resilient, proactive, collaborative organization.

Here is a document born of that belief, sown purely of imagination and will. When we document we assert. We print to make real, to reify our being there.

When we do so with mindful intention to address our process, to open our work to others, to create beauty in words in space, to respect and acknowledge the strength of the page we now hold physical, a thing in our hand, we remind ourselves that, like Dorothy: we had the power all along, my dears.  the PRINT! DOCUMENT SERIES is a project of the trouble with bartleby in collaboration with the operating system