Letras Canarias 2014 Agustin Millares Sall

Not Worth It

You say it is not worth
putting the blue I sleep under the sheets,
pass by, knowing nothing,
turning a blind eye to what happens,
keep the thirst of stars locked.

You say it’s not worth
losing the love speech,
that reason street,
that joy breaks his words,
that passion confess: there’s no blood.

I tell you not worth
the gray always get away with it,
the black rescind an
and say “cross and Stripes” to Glee air.
‘ll be back to the load and I say here will not be
hiding his head under the wing,
say “did not know”, “I’m outside”,
“living in my tower, and only I know nothing.”
you say, and I repeat it is not worth.

No Vale

Te digo que no vale
meter el sueño azul bajo las sábanas,
pasar de largo, no saber nada,
hacer la vista gorda a lo que pasa,
guardar la sed de estrellas bajo llave.

Te digo que no vale
que el amor pierda el habla,
que la razón se calle,
que la alegría rompa sus palabras,
que la pasión confiese: aquí no hay sangre.

Te digo que no vale
que el gris siempre se salga con la suya,
que el negro se desmande
y diga “cruz y raya” al júbilo del aire.
Vuelvo a la carga y te digo: aquí no cabe
esconder la cabeza bajo el ala,
decir “no sabía”, “estoy al margen”,
”vivo en mi torre, sólo y no sé nada”.
Te digo y te repito que no vale.

Salute

I salute you and greet friend chant
as if I had always known.
can not be wrong after you’ve heard.
Thou art of the sun I’ve waited so long.

Hail friend hug you excited
through the fog through which the day.
With a wealth of poetry and light
the darkest corner had been lit.

The path you teach me I is not unknown.
‘ve gone for it without knowing calm.
before your words reach my soul
and your ideas had burnt my life.

It is true that these years have not lived
, but only the time spent beyond us
that there are higher star without even suspecting
that the great century forging many have passed.

You gave your freedom is like giving everything
for the joy in ringing the bell.
A piece of your life brindas every morning
for the whole world to get out of the mud.

I assure friend who had never been
so close to life at this time.
doubt where your breath comes not possible.
You go by the plain of a clear sky.

Poet I declare that your accent is deep
in the veins that carry the rivers of a planet.
poet I declare that you are a poet
and sing announce that tomorrow the world.

II

I declare that writing poetry poet
is the true state of man
is singing the truth is to call by name
the demon holding the evil day and night.

The poet is the cry that the earth releases
the first mountain currency aurora
bell song playing when
the first heart that hurts the war.

Posted in art without ever untie
his unity with the peoples of the whole vision
the poet is the man who is first to point
to gain impetus to the sea combat.

The poet is the town that refuses to die
in sudden night where everything is forgotten.
Where there is no freedom there is no poet alive.
No bird fly where the air does not exist.

I declare that the poet is a rage
when something goes against the sun to guide us.
poet languishes if the earth cools
when there is no heart, no justice.

Poet I declare that the hard way
of the poet is always found a brother.
poet I declare that the poet is human
but sometimes we do foresee the divine.

Saludo

Yo te saludo amigo te saludo y te canto
igual que si te hubiera de siempre conocido.
No puedo equivocarme después de haberte oído.
Tú eres parte del sol que yo he esperado tanto.

Yo te saludo amigo te abrazo emocionado
a través de la niebla por donde pasa el día.
Con tu enorme caudal de luz y poesía
el rincón más oscuro se hubiera iluminado.

La senda que me enseñas no me es desconocida.
He marchado por ella sin conocer la calma.
Antes que tus palabras me llegaran al alma
ya habían tus ideas incendiado mi vida.

Es verdad que estos años no los hemos vivido
sino sólo pasado que el tiempo nos supera
que hay estrellas más altas sin sospechar siquiera
que forjando el gran siglo muchos han transcurrido.

Diste tu libertad que es como darlo todo
para que la alegría repique en la campana.
Un trozo de tu vida brindas cada mañana
para que el mundo entero pueda salir del lodo.

Yo te aseguro amigo que nunca había estado
tan cerca de la vida como en este momento.
No es posible la duda donde llega tu aliento.
Tú vas por la llanura de un cielo despejado.

Yo poeta declaro que tu acento es profundo
que llevas en las venas los ríos de un planeta.
Yo poeta declaro que tú eres poeta
porque anuncias y cantas el mañana del mundo.

II

Yo poeta declaro que escribir poesía
es decir el estado verdadero del hombre
es cantar la verdad es llamar por su nombre
al demonio que ejerce la maldad noche y día.

El poeta es el grito que libera la tierra
la primera montaña que divisa la aurora
la campana que toca la canción de la hora
el primer corazón que lastima la guerra.

Colocado en vanguardia sin que nunca desate
su unidad con los pueblos su visión del conjunto
el poeta es el hombre que primero está a punto
para hacerse con bríos a la mar del combate.

El poeta es el pueblo que a morir se resiste
en la súbita noche donde todo se olvida.
Donde no hay libertad no hay poeta con vida.
Ningún pájaro vuela donde el aire no existe.

Yo poeta declaro que la cólera es una
cuando hay algo que atenta contra el sol que nos guía.
Languidece el poeta si la tierra se enfría
cuando no hay corazón ni justicia ninguna.

Yo poeta declaro que en el duro camino
del tiempo el poeta se halla siempre un hermano.
Yo poeta declaro que el poeta es humano
aunque a veces nos haga presentir lo divino.

Ivan Puni – Still Life With Hammer

Ivan Puni

Ivan Puni

 

Léopold Sédar Senghor – Elegy Of Midnight

 

Summer, splendid Summer, nourishing the Poet on the milk of your light
I who grew up like the wheat of spring, which made me drunk
From green water, from the green steaming in the gold of Time
Ah! no longer can I tolerate the midnight light.
The splendor of such honors resembles a Sahara,
An immense void, with neither erg nor rocky plateau,
With no grass, no twinkling eye, no beating heart.
Twenty-four hours a day like this, and my eyes are wide open
Like Father Cloarec’s, crucified on a boulder by the Joal pagans
Who worshipped snakes. In my eyes the Portuguese lighthouse
Turns round and round, twenty-four hours a day,
A precise and restless mechanism, until the end of time.

I jumped out of bed, a leopard about to be snared,
A sudden gust of Simoom filling my throat with sand.
Ah! if I could just collapse in the dung and blood, in the void.
I turn around among my books watchilng me with their deep eyes
Six thousand lamps burning twenty-four hours a day.
I stand up lucid, strangely lucid. And I am handsome,
Like the one-hundred-runner, like the rutting black stallion
From Mauritania. I carry in my blood a river of seeds
That can fertilize all the plains of Byzantium
And the hills, the austere hills.
I am the Lover and the locomotive with a well-oiled piston.

Her sweet strawberry lips, her thick stone body,
Her secret softness ripe for the catch, her body
A deep field open to the black sower.
The Spirit germinates under the groin, in the matrix of desire
The sex is one antenna mong many where flashing messages are exchanged.
Love music no longer can cool me down, nor the holy rhythm of poetry.
Against this despair, Lord, I need all my strength
—A soft dagger in the heart as deep as remorse.
I am not sure of dying. If that was Hell: the lack of sleep
This desert of the Poet, this pain of living, this dying
From not being able to die, the agony of shadows, this passion
For death and light like moths on hurricane lamps at night,
In the horrible rotting of virgin forests.

Lord of light and shadows,
You, Lord of the Cosmos, let me rest in Joal-of-the-Shades,
Let me be born again in the Childhood Kingdom full of dreams,
Let me be the shepherd of my shepherdess on the Dyilôr tanns
Where dead men flower, let me burst out applauding
When Téning-Ndyaré and Tyagoum-Ndyaré enter the circle
And let me dance like the Athlete to the drum of this year’s Dead.
This is only a prayer. You known my peasant’s patience.
Peace will come, the Angel of dawn will come, the singing of birds
Never heard before will come, the light of dawn will come.
I will sleep at dawn, my pink doll in my arms,
My green- and gold-eyed doll with a voice so marvelous,
It is the very tongue of poetry.

Translated from the French by Melvin Dixon

(from Nocturnes, 1961)

Jose Guadalupe Posada

Suppose we were chaff, that was lying about
When a very small whirlwind brushed us to the sky,
And then at the moment when we sailed highest,
A wind that was stronger blew us apart…

posada

Goodbye little brothers,
Dear parents, farewell
Here my sins end,
I have no more to tell.

posada 2

Jose Posada  1852-1913 Artist, Illustrator and Cartoonist with strong beliefs during the Mexican Revolution with his publisher Arroyo, illustrating ballads and poems and images for day of the dead

posada mage

decline of our morning consumption

The media we look to them for our news , incisive articles and the best our arts have to offer, well NO it is changing and two things fueled this piece one the Chicago Sun Times says it is doing away with book reviews  http://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/do-we-really-need-book-reviews/ and on the BBC Morning show recently they interviewed the rapper Dizzee Rascal and one question he was asked referred to the intrusion of journalists in his life, his response was that they have to as they are part of the entertainment culture since when have journalists been entertainers is media falling into one big trap of celebrity and gossip , it will no longer have relevance already i see celebrity pregnancies reported before news articles they have slipped down the chain , international news dwindles i guess our social networks are now filling the gap, people journalism blogs and dedicated sites , i have to admit i do enjoy picking up a newspaper but by the time you have eradicated adverts, celebrity and gossip what is left and on tv analyze what you see, it is slipping us by. Another response to Dizzee would be seeing journalists on Survivor and other reality tv , journalists are not entertainers or celebrities they report our society as it is ,they give us the information we maybe cannot find orselves.

One scenario a country with a troubled government , the population will know more of Jessica Simpsons pregnancy and the latest nipple slip than who is governing and  this is dangerous we still need to be informed knowledge is an asset not a luxury let some sensibility return

Charles Bukowski – Last Straw

Charles Bukowski one of his last readings in 1980

Robert Crumb

robert crumb

Merry Christmas

christmas

 

Merry Christmas to all my friends and blog followers thank you for all your comments and support i really appreciate all of you and if you read this in passing on a blog voyage you are always welcome love to all , all the best and enjoy

Breakfast Remedy

coffee gone acrid in the pot

poured into sink,

paper folded on table by

empty breakfast plates,

i popped a warm beer

sipped that instead

i am going to the racetrack

she bent in pale nightgown

you don’t belong there

thirty dollars in the pocket

closed door went to sharp

lit Rabbit out front,

it started first time

radio sparked with static

twisted dial found a station

(you do not belong there)

i should of responded i can

do what i like but avoided

the argument,

instead it became internal

an argument with myself,

music playing

[Kansas sang this is my beginning ]

maybe it was

(i love you)

i knew she did her face expressed

it all

[Tomorrow holds my hand  ]

would it really be there

conversation with her inside

me and radio increased

it irritated me that Kansas

had changed,

(don’t i make you happy)

yes you do very much

my head felt messed up

finding it hard to decipher

what was song , her or me

[Yesterday is dead and gone]

no i could not let it go

from when i first touched

her face 7 years ago

i knew

(don’t i make you happy)

she had been down and

i had been blind

[Buried in the sand ]

that was true i had placed

myself there avoiding what

[the vision stands before me ]

yes she was and i feel that

now,

i had dropped off the interstate

pulled over and wanted to

hit the steering wheel but pain

was not needed,

[and now there is nothing else ]

i hear you

i shouted at the radio,

sometimes a song can place a

reality in you,

tires bit into blacktop

turned about,

moments to return

parked at angle to sidewalk,

ran up the path to the door

opened quickly

dishes washed away

heard no radio

only her singing in the shower

shouldered open door

into steam hot mist

she startled as i took her in

my arms and held her

as if for the first time

of an eternity

dverselogo

Scatterflex

wundt wanted

as i watched the eye

methodic tick,

moved from  side to side,

pavlov stimuli

deeper expressive i feel

no chemical replication

given to how i feel,

as i want to touch the eye,

conditioned and reduced

to basic function,

i was in a hole,

that my mind had opened

a non neutral stimulus

as now i saw her eye

non evasive swaying

encountering me with a look

that withered my root,

amplify the kisses

to a ravenous clamor

of wet hole slurping

my digestion of love

is diminishing,

before any digression

her eye, that eye

consumes retina to cortex

and i become lost

more marijuana

more bourbon,

will i take her back,

can the conditions of isolation

be repealed ,

settling further back

i want aural infusion of music

so that i can decide,

tick click tick click

fractious nerves tingle

i slide to unconscious

knowing after it would

reveal

ray, man, indestructible object or object to be destroyed, 1923

magpie tales statue stamp 185