Author: Pablo Saborio

BASED ON

bukowski_burning_in_Water_drowning_in_flame

‘in the madhouse a man kisses the walls

and dreams of sailboating down some

cool Nile’

I have this book open at page 93.

I don’t know why.

It could have been another page

even another book.

if it belongs here

IN YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS (you fool)

should you consider

finding a knife

and begin carving the letters

of the thing of tomorrow

on that table in front of you

we are all arms around the world

and we share the flesh

and it’s going to be hard to explain

why bukowski decided to write

‘the dark is empty;

most of our heroes have been

wrong’

it is opposite of the page: part II

of his book Burning in Water

Drowning in Flame

was he dissatisfied with the idols

that humanity has been able to cough up so far

was he frustrated with the incomplete answers

that savants have left after more than

2500 years

we are left in the dark

as to the reason he decided to title

part 3 of that book:

At Terror Street
and Agony Way

imagine writing

‘it was a splendid way in Spring

and outside we could hear the birds

that hadn’t been killed

by the smog’

as a subtitle to your third chapter

was he implying

that it’s a miracle

that the morning is not stained

with our mumbling

that the evening is not polluted

with our parades

 

the last page

the last three lines

state unequivocally

I will never understand men

but I have lived

it through

 

AND I UNDERSTAND HIM

BECAUSE HE NOW SLEEPS

LIKE PLASMA IN A

CLOUD OF  MEMORY.

ANTIPoetry

I’m not a nihilist

Nihilist_poet

What happens at city
when blank is a building
and the corner is brutish
and the road ahead pale
like something at the end of time
see nihilism is a tentative position
an aggressive form of modesty
because below the blue sky
a head is incapable of understanding
the many things that are absurdly naked
in the world;
of all words
we select a crown
to place that holy concept
over our heads like laurel
to impress the wavering leaves of trees
see nihilism is nothing about thought
but about feeling what thought cannot attain
at the light you stop and feel the beast
the wise thunder of blood
and what happens when city
is trembling and being chased
by whiteness or a hot drunkenness
you pick a word
and make claim that it will save you
under the streetlamp
like a natural haze
at that common street
you remember like an ascetic
that this flesh will be forgotten

 

Contemporary Poetry

Q&A

Poetry_for_children

Father what is bigger than the moon?
The earth my child.
Why?
Because if the earth were an empty bird’s nest,
it could fit several moons inside.

What’s bigger than the earth?
A sun my child.
Why?
Because if a sun were an orange
then the earth’d be a tiny crumb of bread.
If you were starving, which one would you pick?

What’s bigger than a sun?
A galaxy my child.
Why?
Because if a sun were a bee,
a galaxy would be a swarm of bees
flying in hypnotic circles, ellipses
and parabolas around their hive.

What’s bigger than a galaxy?
Human thought my child.
Why?
Because thought is like a net
that can catch all the bees in the universe
and put them in a jar and study their
colors, structure, venom, instincts,
language, and habits.

What’s bigger than human thought?
Emptiness my child.
Why?
Because thought is like a tiny bubble in the vast
sea of nothingness that surrounds us, leaving
little more than a local ripple on the surface
once it expires.

What’s bigger than emptiness?
Mystery my child.
Why?
Because mystery is the quality that all things
share in their being or nonbeing.

What’s bigger than mystery?
You my child… you.

- dedicated to my unborn daughter

Contemporary Poetry

A noun is a thing that serves as a vehicle for the quality of its adjective

2013_poem

In the sky
whiteness
travels like a passenger
inside the cloud
I have seen it journey
across the blue
until it reaches the golden
arc of horizon
where it suffers
through a whim of fate
a mutation
from pure whiteness
to the brightness
of the gold;
but abruptly
as a bullet
entering a vein of blood
the vehicle cloud
turns red
in the throb or throe of twilight
and whiteness dies like a sigh
in the expanding gloom
of purple tinge.

 

 

Contemporary Poetry

la gran idea

poema_la_Gran_idea

 

 

Hay una idea
que quiero expresar
en palabras sencillas.

La idea aparece en la mente
salta a la boca
explota en el aire
se muta en palabra
y viaja en concepto;
todo esto
para renacer como idea
en la mente de otro.

Pero regresando a la idea en sí.

Se trata de una idea gorda, grande
casi universal. Hay que visualizarla
para entenderla.

Imagina que la idea
es un campo vasto y abierto, sin límites
ni restricciones de ningún tipo.
En este gran espacio (ideal)
voy metiendo una por una
las cosas que existen.
Ya saben, los árboles, las casas,
las personas, nubes, edificios,
aviones, humo, arena; pero también
cosas que existen pero solo en la mente
como figuras mitológicas, números,
fórmulas, recuerdos, esperanzas;
todas estas cosas
las voy colocando
dentro del espacio de mi universal idea,
cada cosa al lado de una cosa
similar o disimilar,
cosa concreta al lado de cosa concreta,
cosa abstracta al lado de cosa abstracta,
pero también cosa concreta al lado de cosa abstracta
y viceversa:
un número encima de un gato, una emoción
en la sombra un árbol, una oración
entre el marco de una puerta,
hasta la palabra etcétera aparece dentro
de mi idea, al final de la infinita
fila de cosas amontonadas sin fin.

Esta es la idea que contiene todas las cosas
del mundo, inclusive todas las ideas del mundo.
Es decir, no solo hay cosas gordas en mi idea,
como leones gordos o lunas gordas, pero también
está la idea de la gordura dentro de mi idea.

Solo me falta meterle una última idea a mi idea.
Y es una idea idéntica a mi universal idea.
Pero tengo mis dudas de qué va a suceder
cuando meta una idea idéntica
al campo de la misma idea.

¿Se duplicará su tamaño o tendrá un efecto
exponencial? Es decir, ¿se comportará al igual
que dos espejos que se reflejan sí mismos,
produciendo un abismo infinito de reflejos?

Lo curioso es que en mi universal idea
existen todas estas preguntas sobre la(s)
repercusión(es) de introducir una idea universal
adentro de otra idea universal idéntica.

También están las respuestas a estas preguntas,
pero son tantas las respuestas que encuentro
en mi idea universal, que me es imposible
determinar cuáles son respuestas correctas y
cuáles son respuestas erróneas.

Pero sin entrar en discusiones abstrusas y
posiblemente absurdas sobre el futuro de mi idea,
quería comentarles que la idea
se ha podido acomodar en mi cabeza
como un anillo al dedo. El mundo es poca
cosa cuando lo comparo con mi gran idea.

De hecho,
cuando escribo poemas ya ni siquiera vuelvo
a ver el mundo, sino más bien me dedico a estudiar
y atravesar la idea para revelar las simetrías y paradojas
que encuentro en ella.

Poesía Contemporánea

near everything

new_poet_modern

Maybe the air is vertebra
only you walk home
bending the muscle
of time,
a drunk man leaves

on the pub’s counter
the fire of thought
nothing changes

we can amass anguish
into a dragon
and see it writhe in
its halo

find a way knower
comb a molecule at a time
to be handsome

for destiny
that now dissolves in your honey-
dripping cupped hands

perhaps we hang immense
with city at our roots
what matters to be
draped in cloud

when age has a swollen
idea buried like a spine on
the morning soft

earth
step on pure grass
who leaves this animal
to sow in structure

the dream the
struggle
the science

of being such
near everything.

Contemporary Poetry

Qué viene a hacer uno aquí

poeta_moderno

¿
Qué viene a hacer uno aquí
en medio del mundo
sino es poeta
para andar ebrio de la voz
la voz desplegándose
de los pliegues del camino
qué hace uno aquí
sino dialogar con el parlamento
de las cosas
y ver la nube hincharse
en polvo
qué sensación es esa
para pasar sentado
mirando el mundo
en pleno riesgo
de confundirse con él
qué viene a hacer uno aquí
sino es poeta
para contemplar la luz
arrugándose en el agua
en pleno día
a que horá viene
uno a hacer aquí
?

Poesía Contemporánea