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| Venus Mejía |
ONOMÁSTICO
El del espejo sabe cuánto y desde cuándo has codiciado este perímetro de nieve.
Julio Trujillo
Veo a alguien que no conozco
frente al espejo,
es un niño ciego
que escribe aullidos entre pliegues
ajenos.
Morir como desaparecer
debería transcurrir despacio.
Tendríamos que sacar a orear la sangre
de vez en cuando
para hacer la digestión de las horas.
Tomo a diario
la dosis de cinismo
como una tregua de la carne.
Le apuesto al futuro
en partidas antiguas;
la infancia puede ser un deporte oscuro.
“Si recuerdo quien fui, otro me veo,
y el pasado es un presente en el recuerdo”.
Vivir es distinto a otros destinos.
Sólo presiento el océano
inmersa en el río.
La vida de la flor
está en la destrucción del agua.
Surgimos del vientre del tiempo.
Nace el hambre
en sus pezones de niebla,
en el hierático rumbo hacia el abismo
y en el peso genital del desamparo.
No es que reniegue
de su impaciente sombra.
Enciendo la máquina del día,
hago trampas con el reloj
para conjurar un mañana aterido.
Se entristece la resaca
y piensa por qué no ha podido
retardar los mares.
El mundo fue creado en el horizonte de su aliento,
ya sólo el suelo me reconoce
entre los escombros de la rutina.
El recuerdo nos mantiene ocupados
en un laberinto de promesas.
El futuro es la puerta
que seguimos tocando
con una plegaria.
Vivir ya sólo es estarse quieto
en la epifanía de un verso.
La muerte puede encontrarme
a tres calles de la memoria.
Wolves
There are wolves outside, my child, wolves that can sense your skin and your blood; wolves that can erase calendars only to touch you. There are wolves maddened by the freshness of your womb, wolves perturbed by the movement of your hair and the instinct of your cry.
My child, wolves don’t rest, they won’t settle while the dew reminds them of the girl’s perfume. There are wolves in the houses, too, my child, wolves that smile while we pray for our food, my child, wolves that salivate every time you sit on their laps to tell you a story.
Asylum of birds (two poems)
Every time a bird is born,
a cell swallows it.
Time carries it
through the cloister of its entrails,
through that vertiginous tunnel of hours.
The cell has decorated its entrails
with a sky wallpaper.
There, the bird loses its speech.
Phonemes fall from its beak
without ever being plucked from the tree of words.
There, it knows fear.
It shows up in the form of the wind and whispers:
“there is no integumentary appendix that can graze
the syntax of a dawn”.
Therefore, it is always confused.
Once it saw a sunrise between the cracks,
and immediately punished its eyes
for describing a flicker.
Heaven still calls out to him.
The asylum keeps its pact with insomnia,
it won’t let go of the latch of the hours.
In the beginning was the moment.
In front of it, everything seemed eternal.
Then came the fall of day,
birds of wakefulness subdue the air now.
By then, I was struggling with that gloom.
The birds heard my heat and made me their concubine.
Now I am infected with glass spores that move down
my entrails.
It is time to leave this asylum that was my home.
Their bodies remain in a trance, their bellies eclipsed
with worms,
my years remain at the edge of the moment
with the mineral stature of weeping.
Translated by Victoria Ochoa
TREES
In this city of beatings
the trees have been imprisoned
with bars of concrete.
From my window
I see their branches trying to reach
a trembling of the mirror which encloses
the sleeping wind.
That is why,
I still keep the portrait of its leaves
in a suspended hour;
and I sleep on the edge of a dagger
until the night is exhausted.
Translated by Germain Droogenbroodt
Biography
Tegucigalpa, Honduras, 1979. Poet, narrator, editor and teacher. Graduate in Letters from UNAH and Master in Hispanic Language and Literature from UNAN-León. Co-founder of Editorial Ixchel in 2012 and Solsticio Ediciones 2024. Professor at the National Autonomous University of Honduras. Winner of first place in the short story contest: “Julio César Anariba” 2017. He has written literary criticism and his work has been partially translated into English, French, Italian, Tamil, Mandarin and Garifuna.
Publications: Poetry: Ad Líbitum, Editorial Ixchel, 2012; Venus [in] Victa, Editorial Ixchel, 2016; Wolf Woman Manifesto, Goblin, 2018; Asylum of Birds, Malpaso/Ixchel, 2022; Thalassophilia, BGR, Spain, 2023; Entelequias, Cölmenart, Costa Rica, 2023; Death three streets from memory, Vocálibus, Mexico, 2024.
