Today, Flavio Almerighi publishes my poem Sainsbury’s Buddha in his «domenicale», it’s a great pleasure to read translated it his language and to be part of his selection! I recommend you visit his site and enjoy the beautiful poems he selects each Sunday. For those who don’t understand italian, Google Translate makes things much easier!

Oggi Flavio Almerighi pubblica la mia poesia «Il Buddha di Sainsbury’s» nella sua edizione domenicale, tradotta in italiano. È un grande piacere leggerla in questa lingua e far parte della sua selezione! Vi consiglio di visitare il suo sito e di godervi le bellissime poesie che seleziona ogni domenica.

Gioielli Rubati 356: Eterea – Abel Abilheira – Davide De Felicis – Mike Steeden – Francisco Bravo Cabrera – Fernanda Ferraresso – Giancarlo Stoccoro – Mariangela Ruggiu.

O tempo, xordo aos meus desvelos
Segue arrastrando os pes, impertérrito

Un día, nun descanso da tormenta
Libero os ollos, rubios de frotar as meniñas
Nos barrotes de tantas xaulas

De súpeto rodéanos o verán
Por onde fuxiron estes meses?
Foron marzo e abril e maio
Asistindo á muda do envoltorio

Sendo o mesmo son outro
E os meus ollos esgotados
Non recoñecen xa este mundo
Novo que agora, neste intre de paz
Me permite deitarme ao sol confiado 
Rexenerándose cun discreto sorriso 

Suddenly 

Time, deaf to my concerns
Continues to drag its feet, undaunted

One day, in a break from the storm
I free my eyes, bloodshot from rubbing their pupils
In the bars of so many cages

Suddenly summer surrounds us
Where did these months flee to?
March and April and May passed
Watching the shedding of my shell

Being the same I am another
And my exhausted eyes
No longer recognize this new world
That right now, in this moment of peace
Allows me to lie down in the sun confidently 
Regenerating through a discreet smile

O buda do Sainsbury’s de Beckton
alumea no lusco fusco 
as hortensias recén florecidas

Alén das casas e da estrada
que volve para Gales
o vento inmutábel fai vibrar
os órganos fonadores das árbores

mais dende este lado da fiestra
só chega o movemento silencioso 
da sua fala, como océanos contidos

Hai unha hora que un pombo 
voando baixo dobrou a esquina
deixou atrás as casas, cruzou a carretera
mergullando no refuxio desa danza


Sainsbury's Buddha

The Buddha bought at Beckton’s Sainsbury's 
lights up the newly blossoming hydrangeas 
in the dusky twilight

Beyond the houses and the road back to Wales 
the unchanging wind vibrates 
the phonatory organs of the trees

But from this side of the window 
only the silent movement of their speech 
like contained oceans it’s perceived

An hour ago a low-flying wood pigeon 
turned the corner quitting the houses
crossed the road
diving into the shelter of that dance

Ula terra onde o noso clan 
enterraba os pes?

[choran acaso os mexacáns 
polas sementes que o vento leva?
como farían as flores para retornar 
á terra dos seus antergos?]

quizais estea cuberta de chapapote
e só reste un berro apagado 
como o da civilización sen voz 
que traga un burato negro

só fica este falso silencio
esa conciencia, 
contundente como a materia escura,
de ter nacido alén das fronteiras 
da permanencia

Todo foxe arrastrado 
pola forza dunha estrela morta
só permanece inamovíbel,
impasíbel na sua rotundidade,
esta soidade 

Land and Space questions

Where is the land in which our clan sank its feet?

[do dandelions cry for the seeds that the wind carries away?
how would flowers return 
to the land of their ancestors?]

perhaps it is covered in tar
and only a muffled cry remains
like that of a voiceless civilization
swallowed by a black hole

only this false silence
that consciousness,
as strong as dark matter,
of having been born beyond the borders
of permanence

everything flees, dragged
by the force of a dead star
only this solitude remains unmoved,
impassible in its completeness

voume deitar cedo
á volta da noite agarda 
o sábado coas mans abertas
salpicado de paxaros 
e nubes de cor cincenta
o bidueiro peiteará as follas 
arrimado contra a cerca
unha peonia branca
con licenza de maio
lanzará un berro de luz
estremecendo as insubmisas herbas
onde o merlo caza miñocas
a pega os tesouros sementa
mentres os meus pes espidos 
devólvenme a alma á terra

Bucolic poem with bare feet

I'm going to bed early
at the end of the night 
Saturday with open hands awaits
sprinkled with birds
and clouds in grey colour
the birch will comb its leaves
stuck against the fence
a white peony
with May's license
will let out a cry of light
shocking the unsubmissive grass
where the blackbird hunts worms
the magpie sows treasures
while my bare feet return
my soul to the earth

navegaba camiño de Irlanda 
seguindo a migración do bonito
a primeira vez que perdín de vista 
a estabilidade da terra firme

daquela expedición extraordinaria
lembro os avistamentos de cachalotes 
a música de Juan Luis Guerra
e ter escrito unha carta de amor

ao terminar a xornada no barco
percorría marabillado a cuberta 
constatando a continuidade do horizonte
unha illa de mar todo ao noso redor

Towards Ireland

I was sailing towards Ireland
following the tuna migration
the first time I lost sight 
of mainland’s stability

of that extraordinary expedition I remember: 
a) the sightings of sperm whales
b) listening to Juan Luis Guerra
c) and having written a love letter

at the end of the day
I walked the deck in wonder
noting the continuity of the horizon
an island of sea all around us

Recorro la acera de arriba abajo
Pasando en mi mano las letras de tu nombre
Como un rosario aguardando a la entrada del paraiso
Llevo rojo en la sangre y en los zapatos
Solo el 12 por ciento de raza mora, lo suficiente
Para no morir de tu ausencia, ni estrellarme contra tu deseo
Llevo incrustada una oportunidad en los ojos
Y en la yema de los dedos el tacto de tu piel erizada
Solo el doce por ciento de mi cuerpo es mucha carga
Cuando me quedo aquí solo sin tu espalda
Pensando en mis manos ociosas que se ocupan
desgranando las cuentas de tu nombre

My idle hands

I walk up and down the pavement
Counting the beads of your name in my hand
Like a rosary waiting at the entrance to paradise
I carry red in my blood and in my shoes
Just 12 percent of Moorish race, enough
To not die from your absence, nor crash into your desire
I carry an opportunity embedded in my eyes
And on the tips of my fingers the touch of your bristling skin
Just 12 percent of my body is a lot of burden
When I stay here alone without your back
Thinking of my idle hands busy
shelling the letters of your name

I have to thank Manuela Timofte one more month for publishing my poem Traits in which I give some clues about what I am, or how I see myself.

Traits

O papel é consistente, fermoso 
tanto que mesmo o enunciado 
dunha serie de problemas matemáticos
loce redondo, completo, case arte
cando se escribe coidadosamente
sobre o gran fino de tons marróns

así que pensei no meu poema inacabado
desgastado de tantas voltas como leva
e do ben que o recibirían cada un dos 
cento sesenta gramos por metro cadrado
e o leito áspero do niño de abella:
repouso para un camiñante cansado

quizais sen me decatar acadou a fin
e só agarda polo elegante trazo azul 
na acolledora superficie da folla dobre cara
para ceibar os corenta e dous versos:
a miña carta de presentación
na sociedade poética galega

Poems paper

The paper is consistent, beautiful
so much so that even the statement
of a series of mathematical problems
looks round, complete, almost art
when carefully written
on the fine grain of brown tones

so I thought of my unfinished poem
worn from so many turns as it has
and how well each of the
one hundred and sixty grams per square meter
and the rough bed of the honeycomb grain would receive it:
rest for a weary walker

perhaps without realizing it has reached the end
and only waits for the elegant blue line
on the welcoming surface of the double-sided sheet
to release the forty-two verses:
my letter of introduction
to the Galician poetic society

Mentres o resto da colmea hai tempo atopara un oco nun tronco podre no que durmir o inverno
Canso de tropezar ano tras ano nas mesmas esquinas arrinquei os ollos 
E como un orfo boteime ao monte tratando de aprender de novo as proporcións 
Cos pes espidos piso follas secas en descomposición e nas uñas incrustado levo restos de casca de bidueiro
Nun tempo, seguro, han florecer nas cuncas baleiras nonmesquezas azuis cos que gozar da beleza do troncos brancos e recoñecer o valioso humus

Forget-me-not

While the rest of the hive had long ago found a hole in a rotten trunk in which to sleep the winter

Tired of stumbling year after year in the same corners I tore out my eyes

And like an orphan I threw myself into the woods trying to learn the proportions again

With my bare feet I step on dry, decaying leaves and in my nails I carry remains of birch bark

In time, surely, blue forget-me-not will bloom in my empty sockets with which to enjoy the beauty of the white trunks and recognize the valuable humus