Selected Poems

Eve

It was a moony night

populated by aquatic beings.

We swam against the current

tied by our hands,

submerging ourselves in the bar

among mermaids.

Inside the night,

among drunks,

deep in time…

in the craters of the props of midnight.

By the waves of the sights

I saw you passing through

all perspectives at once.

From my end I saw you from inside…

And as that I loved you,

but you confabulated until

a dragon belched through my mouth

the fire of a visceral and

known rage.

My green desolation under the Manhattan planes

pierced you from my pupils.

I wished to undo you, and I did it.

Suddenly, you turned into hair, saliva,

diluted smile,

a distorted image.

The picture of the frightful number…

The night ran like a river

to drain its tentacles in the sea

of the subconscious,

to reveal you that your icons

live in the hippocampus of my lost eyes.

You were so afraid about so much of so much in me…

that your madness turned into a scarecrow for children,

a game of chimneysweepers,

the organ grinder on the shadowed corner,

a life of invented nightmares.

Bésame Mucho

Bésame/ besame mucho/

como si fuera esta noche la última vez…

Consuelo Velásquez

Bésame, bésame mucho, but without touching me,

better yet base me, base me between your arms

like the architectural part of your being

that pretends to be immortal…

Or búsame, búsame mucho, macho…

diving in the unknown waters of my waves,

in the warm lakes of my tears

with your candor of too much,

which I don’t know if it’s macho,

but which passes as such…

And lower me, lower me from the steep

vertigo

of your whispered kisses,

insolent,

phallic,

poisonous;

from the lashes that flog my memory

honoring you.

Dare to dive me, base me, bending me

like you did before kissing me

at your leprechaun’s height

dressed in all the ornaments of my nightmares.

That must be why I allowed you to abuse my sunsets,

touch my skin with your abrasive hands

and awake with me in the middle of your organized chaos…

Creature

Once, and for ever

I will be able to write you on all

bare sheets.

They seem to encode your disguised name.

Without space for emptiness,

you imprint yourself in all my papyruses.

I do not understand the fire that burns you,

nor why your bonfires bathe me.

Bleeding from somewhere not yet understood

I crawl under the table,

I seek between the folds,

I smell the linen cloths of your mummified landscapes,

and once again learn that

you are a creature who belongs to me.

There is nothing more to say,

your name is written

in the borders of myself,

in the hem of my soul.

From: Poemas vivos: El hombre adivinado

(Living Poems: The Guessed Man)

Translated by the author.

Navigatress

The woman who reads

spilled through my body salivates

an elaborate redness

of crude questions

that spring from her hands.

Urgent avid sponge

searches for responses

that would iron

weeping’s nostalgic fuzz.

I have no answers to quench her essence.

I just shove her towards the path of lightening.

I just wear her under my skin.

Translated by Marko Miletich PhD

From: El rumor de las cosas. (The Murmur of All Things)

International Latino Book Awards 2020

Reflection

I touched his wound,

the somber side of barking

the luminous ray of calmness.

I became a voice partially cutting cobwebs

husky brightness

on his home’s hilt.

Unexpectedly, I saw my cuts

reflected in his marks

secret and turgid footprints

that hidden from the crowds

become liquid

in the turbid acceptance of the smile.

Translated by Marko Miletich PhD

From: El rumor de las cosas. (The Murmur of All Things)

International Latino Book Awards

Human God

A cold day in April

you revealed your false

petal condition.

Delusions of being a god

hunger, nightmare

than no man

has managed to overcome.

How many times

I pierced with my knife the flesh

the evidence

and found the captive scream

under the fine cadence

of my hypnotized pleasure.

I only I AM (fe)male,

daughter of human god.

What a curvature! what a doubling!

what a well remained!

rumbling down my throat

dedicated to orchestrate

that uneven taste

trapped in my skin!

Translated by Marko Miletich PhD

From: El rumor de las cosas. (The Murmur of All Things)

International Latino Book Awards

Red is the Color

I need the red taste of your saliva,

the goosebumps of your company,

the crude light of your laughter

to whip this noise in my head

and run naked

on the beach of your back.

Forgetting my one-eyed blindness

alas I see

with your blind eyes,

I galop

riding on suicidal periods

blindly among Bolaño’s

condemned forests.

Softly singing,

I taste ants

from a dish of dreams,

capricious, enchanted;

continuing to desire the taste of your food,

prepared in the oven where many years ago

you used to incinerate me from time to time,

to receive in your palate

the electrifying discharges

of my algae body.

Today I need to hear your fabled laughter

to remember who I am,

where I come from,

make fun of myself

and risk even my bones.

From: Encantamiento. (Enchantment)

Translated by Professor Rolando Pérez PhD

Blind Enchantment

                                    I don’t want to sing of loves/loves are missteps

                                    they are cold sun rays / green claws of the senses.

                                                                                    Garras dos Sentidos

                                                                                    Agustina Bessa-Luis

The shrapnel of your kisses

keeps reaching

my temples and ears.

Your music which doesn’t consider

my reasons becomes

the red balloon to which

my enchanted heart is fastened

by your flute.

I run through

the eaves of your wings,

as always, in the open air,

at the risk of everything

for a breath of your desires.

How different from the lifeless sounds,

of the soaking fears,

that call me to deflate

in battles, and dulls me

like a can opener

with its drunken manners.

Thank God,

your smile is hidden

at the bottom of the drawers

from where I bring out my body

bathed by your wings.

What will I do with my clumsiness

to show you who I am,

and that you are

the answer to the riddle?

It is enough

that your aroma soaks me

up to the marrow, that I wait for you

in the word that does not exist,

drowned with pleasure,

in the river that are your notes

on my back.

When I don’t know what I am

maybe you could see me…

Who will deliver us

from the spell, from the enchantment

of not seeing each other in unison?

From: Encantamiento (Enchantment)

Translated by the author.

-Image: Soldier’s goodbye & Bobbie the cat, Sydney, ca. 1939-ca. 1945 / by Sam Hood

Linda Morales Caballero is a poet, writer, journalist and professor. She is the author of seven books of poetry and one book of prose: El libro de los enigmas, (The Book of Enigmas) Some stories of the latter have been adapted into a short film, Lips, directed by Mauricio Zapata and awarded at festivals in New York and New Jersey. A play with five of her stories was staged at the SanFest festival in Madrid in 2017 and has led to the performance of several monologues in New York and Madrid.

Her most recent poetry book, El rumor de las cosas, (The Murmur of All Things) was awarded the International Latino Book Awards.In 2019 she was honored by the FILLA 2019 at Lehman College. In 2021 she was among the three finalists for the Ernest M. Hemingway Prize for her literary career achievements. Her work has been published in several languages and magazines such as: The Robert Graves Review, The University of Dallas Texas Review, Tribes magazine, Your Impossible Voice, Altazor, Hybrido, K1n1, And Then and the virtual ones: East West Literary Forum, Beltway Magazine, Words and Worlds Magazine, among other publications in English, Spanish, Bengali, French, Portuguese, Russian and Arabic.

©Literal Publishing. Queda prohibida la reproducción total o parcial de esta publicación. Toda forma de utilización no autorizada será perseguida con lo establecido en la ley federal del derecho de autor.

Las opiniones expresadas por nuestros colaboradores y columnistas son responsabilidad de sus autores y no reflejan necesariamente los puntos de vista de esta revista ni de sus editores, aunque sí refrendamos y respaldamos su derecho a expresarlas en toda su pluralidad. / Our contributors and columnists are solely responsible for the opinions expressed here, which do not necessarily reflect the point of view of this magazine or its editors. However, we do reaffirm and support their right to voice said opinions with full plurality.

Posted: May 1, 2023 at 8:39 pm