SECTION SEVENTEEN
POETRY PAGE TWO

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COLUMN FIFTY-SEVEN, MARCH 1, 2001
(Copyright © 2001 Al Aronowitz)


(Photo by Carlos Arturo Puerta)

[From Colombia's celebrated poet, Raúl Henao of Medellin, here's another poem in Spanish, accompanied by its English translation, both from Raúl's La vida a la carta or Life a la carte.]

PASAJES 

Monedas más delgadas que la tela de un sueño
suspendidas en el aire encharcado del sol

Un río que corre como un atleta como un sabueso  

Sin orillas hasta donde se arrastra el ala
un cuerno de caza una viola con la garganta abierta
por la que corren sangre y semen
 

El borde humedecido de una carta gorjeo de la
alcantarilla vientres borrachos sexo de mil chorros
de agua un árbol sordo al hacha
 

Esos mecheros de palomas de luz perchas de las que
cuelgan las estrellas
 

Unos ciclistas con las ropas en llamas cruzando
las esquinas
 

que miran caer lagente hacia arriba aspiradas por
una manga huracanada
 

Eternos pasaj'es desllzándose por innumerables
arcadas desaparecen baj'o las manos de un músico
tocando un órgano de capilla ardiente.  ##

* * *

PASSAGES 

Coins more tenuous than the fabric of a dream
suspended in the sun-flooded air
 

A river than runs like an athlete like a bloodhound  

Shoreless as far as the dragging wing
a hunting horn a viola with blood and semen
running down its open throat
 

The dampened edge of a letter gurgling of the drain
drunken bellies sex of a thousand showers
of water tree deaf to the hatchet

Those sockets of doves of light roosts of those that hang the stars  

Some cyclists with their clothes in flames crossing
the streetcorners
 

who watch the people fall upward sucked
by a cyclone funnel
 

Eternal passages sliding across innumerable
arcades disappear under the hands of a musician
playing an organ in a burning chapel.  ##

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