Ch'angement d'ambiance I

Hung upon myself

Suddenly I cannot breathe. Something inside me churns and revolves itself between my stomach and my belly. It rotates, heavily, tiring my breathing and my speech, making me slow.  Sometimes, it seems to try and get out of me, all of it at once, like being sick; other times it decides to stick to the walls of my stomach, right at the base. In the end, I start to dribble a fine, delicate thread: it is made of words. With it I spin my mornings and prepare, with the utmost care, my bridges between one dream and another, walking amongst them without ever falling, ever stopping. Like Clarice, that other spider, I construct, I device my web. I conceive each of its phrases, its pearly corners, its solid structures. I walk then, on top of me, gasping for air. Like Lispector, the other web-spinner, I hung upon myself, in my eight eyed gaze everything comprised.

Published in “Cambio Climático. Panorama de la joven poesía boliviana”. Fundación Simón I. Patiño, La Paz, 2009.

Suspendue

Au-dedans de moi je ne puis respirer. Quelque chose s’enroule et se met en travers entre mon ventre et mon estomac. Cela tourne, lourd, fatigue ma parole et ma respiration, me rend lente. Parfois ça essaie de sortir tout d’un coup, comme une nausée, d’autres fois, cela semble s’installer, avec décision, au creux de l’estomac. Finalement, je régurgite un fil fin, délicat, par la commisure de ma bouche: il est fait de mots. Avec lui je tisse mes matinées et j’équilibre, soigneusement, chacun de mes ponts, ceux qui me conduisent d’un rêve à l’autre, sans tomber, sans me retenir. Comme Clarice, ñ’autre araignée, je bâtis, je file ma toile. Je conçois chacune de ses phrases. Ses coins perlés. Ses structures solides. Je chemine ainsi, sur moi-même, manquant d’air, dans les huit yeux tout compris. Comme Lispector, l’autre qui tisse, suspendue.

Extraits tu libre: “Changement d’ambiance” Panorama de la jeune poésie bolivienne. Editition Bilingüe.Traduit de l’espagnol (Bolivie) par Julián Garavito. Sélection, prologue et notes: Juan Carlos Ramiro Quiroga, Benjamín Chávez, Jessica Freudenthal. Editions Patiño, Géneve, 2011.

 


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Ch'angemment d'ambiance II

Any kind of appetizing content

A round drop of matter glides inside of me, small and metallic. The rough cavities of my body let her trough, balancing it gently from one extreme to the other. There is nothing else. She alone rolls across the silence, resonating it. I picture it without polish, her course itself one of dark tones: she turns and goes around whispers as red as mahogany; she traverses warm, soft spots, dark as the umber shadows of the afternoon. She hesitates between one route and the other. Without it, this hard matter strange to my body, I am nothing but an empty shell. A clumsy envelope, devoid of any kind of appetizing content.

Published in “Cambio Climático. Panorama de la joven poesía boliviana”. Fundación Simón I. Patiño, La Paz, 2009.

Un quelconque contenu appétisant

Une goute ronde de matière glisse au-dedans de moi, petite et métallique. Les cavités rugueuses de mon être la laissent passer, en la balançant gentiment d’une extremité à l’autre de mon corps. Il n’ya rien d’autre. Elle soule à travers le silence, en le faisant résonner. Je l’imagine sans éclat, peut-être parce que son parcours je me le represénte sous de nuances éteintes: elle tourne autour de murmures rouges comme le bois ancien, traverse des creux chauds, sombres comme les ombres du soir. Elle hésite entre une direction et les autres. Sans cette goutte, cette dureté étrangère à mon corps, je suis à peine une vulve vide. Une maladroit enveloppe creuse, déporvoue d’n quelconque contenu appétissant.

Extraits tu libre: “Changement d’ambiance” Panorama de la jeune poésie bolivienne. Editition Bilingüe.Traduit de l’espagnol (Bolivie) par Julián Garavito. Sélection, prologue et notes: Juan Carlos Ramiro Quiroga, Benjamín Chávez, Jessica Freudenthal. Editions Patiño, Géneve, 2011. 

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Animalario I

An ephemeral life cycle

For E.

A bubble man has a very short life cycle. It is born from a soap bar, and persists only from the first warm drops of a bubble bath until its very end; roughly, from half an hour to three whole hours, depending on the size and stamina of the specimen.

This iridescent, turgid, multiple creature begins by spreading his perfume, to mark his territory. Afterwards, he extends himself throughout the bubbles’ bath surface, outlining thighs and breast of the female, the one that had confectioned him, in lovely nights of concoction and desire.

His sexual cycle is swift at the very least; although for him it means to consume the larger part of his existence. Once the male has localized the uterus and vulva, he builds a wall around it. It is very difficult for the bubble man to build this wall. Its surface is fragile and he must wait, patiently, to pile and parapet himself, until he can surround and embrace his target. The recipient, cruel but also slightly amused, only experiences this agonizing battle for the bubble man’s life as a mere tickling, a nice preparatory session. When, finally, the bubble man pushes himself in, crashing her swollen inner sides with his, in friction, battle and permission, he explodes. He finds joy as he does so, and she who feels him inside also enjoys it.  The ecstasy elevates them within a foamy tide, leaving them afterwards to the languid, warm luxury of completion.  

Moist, she gets up once she is finished; the scaly remains of the bubble man on her body, and her skin gleaming, her eyes indolent, dedicates herself to her tasks.

However, the emergence and struggle of the bubble man have not happened in vain. Very soon, inside her, a new life will begin to form, to materialize: a trans-substantiation.  A new soap bar, soft and warm, will appear next to the female’s drawer. And nature, Madame Terrible, will continue its course. 

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Fotos de Wara A. Godoy.

Animalario II

A rose opens

A rose opens her legs; she lets her perfume ascend from the ground. No one is prepared to know, only other roses, ignorant of their behavior as a very hungry and powerful rose-pack.

The rose blossoms, opens herself, aggressive, arrogant, exuding her terrible aroma, ready to devour. He who approaches cannot ignore, it is impossible to do so; to miss the slow spreading of the rose’s open petals.  Her thorns are barely safe keepings; fake earrings to scare away the unsubstantial ones. The true attack of a rose takes place outside, on the field or country lane, impervious for the smell-blotted, endearing for the transient.

Mother Nature, that ardent woman, who forges beings on whim, she is the one that has determined the existence of the feeble, the abstract ones. They, ignoring their intrinsic weakness, think themselves strong, bold, and immortal. When the rose opens, they cling on to her, driven by desire, and call themselves promiscuous, attackers and conquerors; the insects. The sweet male butterfly penetrates; drinks, and gets inebriated, retreating once he believes himself satisfied; but in truth, the real possession, the real abuse, is having been perpetrated by her, oh ethereal rose. 

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Fotos de Wara A. Godoy.

Animalario III

A bird man

A bird man arrived flying through my window. The cold outside steamed the windowpane and I could only distinguish a white, naked shadow, which at first I mistook for a large bat seeking refuge.

He came inside shivering and crashed on my bed. Red-eyed and confused, he looked a bit unsure as to what to do or say in this kind of situation. “At this time of night everything can happen, including ghosts”, I said to myself. And since I had been spending the last couple of days pretty much on my own, with no one to talk to or even to bump against –lost among cigarettes, computers and books-, the first thing I did was to cover his penis and wings with a blanket, holding him tenderly, and then I put the kettle on. Bird men get to me, after all.

“Have I come far?” He asked. He had been wandering lost under the fog, and my light on was the first one he could find. Clearly in shock, he kept smiling at me as if he knew me from somewhere, despite my disheveled appearance and sleepy face. He wouldn’t say anything else, and I will not know to this day whether he came from far away or not. For that I will always hate this impious city, the bitch that insists on keeping us all apart.  

I put on some drum music, and despite of that he kept on shivering. His feet were cold, his wings kind of shrunk and his skin had goose bumps. So, letting out a sigh of resignation, I got naked, already knowing that a woman’s body can warm up a bird man.

The gray, cold dawn had already arrived when he appeared to finally come into his senses. With a scream he spread his wings –milky and red, a bit dirty on the edges-, and jumped off the mattress, knocking down flowers and teapots in the process; making a mess of my books, my paintings and my life, just before climbing to the window’s edge. For a brief moment I thought him a normal man and, fearing for his life (mine is a tall nest, far away from the noisy streets down below) I ran towards him. My naked, bewildered appearance must have startled him, because he jumped out, only to rise again, singing to the sun, utterly forgetting the night, the cold, the fog and my stupid refuge.

He left, rising to the horizon… and I, closing all windows, cursed this bad habit of mine: this going-about-saving-bird-men thing. Exhausted, I could scarcely begin to face the newspaper under the doormat, the starting of a new job day, or the dawn. “I will work the late afternoon shift”, I decided, and dragged myself back to bed. 

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Fotos de Wara A. Godoy.

Animalario IV

An empty glass that refuses to be filled

A tiny naked woman appears behind a liqueur glass. She starts to climb it, and her miniature sex looks magnified behind the crystal.  Her skin is dark and she has wild, long hair. Velvet legs embrace and surround the glass; tiny arms push and press her up against it. Finally, she rises to the edge. The liqueur glass is small; square at the bottom and broad at the rim. It’s hard to climb it, but she persists.

Why does she do that? What is she looking for? To drown, perhaps? To jump, as if it were a swimming pool; to let herself sink, to feel herself go, to be swallowed and drank? Maybe all she wants is to dilute, like a raindrop merging with the sea. The tiny woman ignores my questions and continues; she sits on the rim, takes impulse and jumps in, like a frog with light skin jumping into a dark well.

She is effervescent, foam originates where she falls.

She sinks at first, and then she surfaces, swimming around, playing with the liquid. I don’t know whether I should drink her or not. Who am I, to drink women from a bottle? Nobody, that’s who, and still, I do it, and her feet are the last thing I push down my throat; I can feel her slippery fingers on my tongue. I swallow her whole (completely), and reach out for the next drink, whatever it is.

Another tiny woman materializes around the glass – at this point, there is a successive line of women- and whilst devouring them I feel only the soft crunching of their knees. Worst suicides do happen, you should know. Who am I to refuse them this consummation? I’m nobody, that's who, and hereby would love to present them with a toast: To you, the girls that sink!

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Fotos de Wara A. Godoy.

Concurso Municipal de Historieta

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