Poems that you love

[cvanshelton]

A couple years ago a got turned on to the Spanish speaking surrealists. It changed my whole writing paradigm. The following is a translation of a poem by Chilean poet Gonzalo Rojas and was one of the first surrealist poems I read. Once I finished reading it, I sat back in my chair and just said, "Shit." In a good way. It haunted me for weeks. I hope you all enjoy it too.

Portrait of a Woman


The night will always be there, woman, to look you in the face,
alone in your mirror, free of your husband, naked
in the exact and terrible reality of that great vertigo
which destroys you. You will always have your night and your knife
and the silly telephone to listen to my slashing goodbye.
 
I swore not to write you. So I’m calling you through the air
to tell you nothing, like the void says: nothing, nothing,
only the same and always the self-same thing
which you never hear, which you never understand
although your veins catch flame with what I’m saying.
 
Put on that red dress that goes with your mouth and your blood,
and burn me up in the last cigarette of your fear
of great love and go barefoot in the air as you came
with the visible wound of your beauty. Pity
for her who weeps and weeps in the tempest.
 
 - Gonzalo Rojas