Cartografías del silencio
1
Una conversación empieza
con una mentira. Y cada
interlocutor de ese
supuesto lenguaje común
siente la partición del
témpano, el distanciarse
como con impotencia, como
si se enfrentara
a una fuerza de la
naturaleza
Un poema puede empezar
con una mentira. Y
destrozarse.
Una conversación tiene
otras leyes
se recarga con su propia
falsa energía, no se
puede destrozar.
Se nos infiltra en la
sangre. Se repite.
Talla con su estilete sin
retorno
el aislamiento que niega.
2
La emisora de música
clásica
suena en el departamento
hora tras hora
levantar, levantar
y levantar de nuevo el
teléfono
Las sílabas que
pronuncian
una y otra vez el viejo
guión
La soledad del mentiroso
que vive en la red formal
de la mentira
girando el dial para
ahogar el terror
debajo de la palabra no
dicha.
3
La tecnología del
silencio
los rituales, la etiqueta
la confusión de los
términos
silencio no ausencia
de palabras o de música
ni siquiera
de sonidos en bruto
El silencio puede ser un
plan
ejecutado con rigor
la copia heliográfica de
una vida
Es una presencia
tiene una historia una forma
No lo confundas
con cualquier clase de
ausencia
4
Qué tranquilas, qué
inofensivas empiezan
a parecerme estas
palabras
aunque comenzaron con
pena y enojo
¿Puedo atravesar esta
película de lo abstracto
sin lastimarme ni
lastimarte?
acá hay dolor suficiente
¿Por eso transmite la
emisora de música clásica o de jazz?
¿Para darle una razón de
ser a nuestro dolor?
5
El silencio que deja al
descubierto:
En La pasión de Juana, de
Dreyer
la cara de Falconetti, el
pelo rapado, una gran geografía
escrutada en silencio por
la cámara
Si hubiese una poesía
donde pudiera ocurrir esto
no como espacio en blanco
ni como palabras
ajustadas igual que una
piel sobre los significados
sino como el silencio que
cae al final
de una noche que dos
personas pasaron
hablando hasta el
amanecer.
6
El grito
de una voz ilegítima
ha dejado de escucharse,
por ende
se pregunta
¿Cómo es que existo?
Este era el silencio que
quería romper en vos
Tenía preguntas pero no
ibas a responder
Tenía respuestas pero no
podías usarlas
Es inútil para vos y
quizás para otros.
7
Era un asunto viejo hasta
para mí:
El lenguaje no lo puede todo–
anotalo con tiza en las
paredes de los mausoleos
donde yacen los poetas
muertos
Si el poema pudiera
transformarse
a voluntad del poeta en
una cosa
un flanco de mármol al
descubierto, una cabeza en alto
radiante de rocío
Si pudiera simplemente
mirarte a la cara
con sus propios ojos, sin
dejarte dar vuelta
hasta que vos, y yo que
ansío hacer esto,
fuéramos iluminados al
fin por su mirada.
8
No. Dejame tener esta
tierra,
estas nubes pálidas que
se demoran amargamente, estas palabras
moviéndose con precisión
feroz
como los dedos de un
chico ciego
o la boca del recién
nacido
violenta de hambre
Nadie me puede dar, hace
mucho
adopté este método
sea el grano que se
vuelca de la bolsa de red
o la llama de bunsen que
se volvió baja y azul
Si cada tanto envidio
las anunciaciones puras a
la vista
La visio beatifica
Si cada tanto quiero
volverme
como el hierofante
eleusino
y sostener una simple
espiga de cereal
Para el regreso al mundo
concreto e incesante
lo que de hecho sigo
eligiendo
son estas palabras, estos
susurros, conversaciones
de las que una y otra vez
despunta la verdad húmeda y verde.
Versiones en
castellano de Sandra Toro
Cartographies of Silence
1.
A conversation begins
with a lie. And each
speaker of the so-called common language feels
the ice-floe split, the drift apart
as if powerless, as if up against
a force of nature
A poem can begin
with a lie. And be torn up.
A conversation has other laws
recharges itself with its own
false energy, Cannot be torn
up. Infiltrates our blood. Repeats itself.
Inscribes with its unreturning stylus
the isolation it denies.
2.
The classical music station
playing hour upon hour in the apartment
the picking up and picking up
and again picking up the telephone
the syllables uttering
the old script over and over
The loneliness of the liar
living in the formal network of the lie
twisting the dials to drown the terror
beneath the unsaid word
3.
The technology of silence
The rituals, etiquette
the blurring of terms
silence not absence
of words or music or even
raw sounds
Silence can be a plan
rigorously executed
the blueprint of a life
It is a presence
it has a history a form
Do not confuse it
with any kind of absence
4.
How calm, how inoffensive these words
begin to seem to me
though begun in grief and anger
Can I break through this film of the abstract
without wounding myself or you
there is enough pain here
This is why the classical or the jazz music station plays?
to give a ground of meaning to our pain?
5.
The silence that strips bare:
In Dreyer's Passion of Joan
Falconetti's face, hair shorn, a great geography
mutely surveyed by the camera
If there were a poetry where this could happen
not as blank space or as words
stretched like skin over meanings
but as silence falls at the end
of a night through which two people
have talked till dawn.
6.
The scream
of an illegitimate voice
It has ceased to hear itself, therefore
it asks itself
How do I exist?
This was the silence I wanted to break in you
I had questions but you would not answer
I had answers but you could not use them
This is useless to you and perhaps to others
7.
It was an old theme even for me:
Language cannot do everything-
chalk it on the walls where the dead poets
lie in their mausoleums
If at the will of the poet the poem
could turn into a thing
a granite flank laid bare, a lifted head
alight with dew
If it could simply look you in the face
with naked eyeballs, not letting you turn
till you, and I who long to make this thing,
were finally clarified together in its stare
8.
No. Let me have this dust,
these pale clouds dourly lingering, these words
moving with ferocious accuracy
like the blind child's fingers
or the newborn infant’s mouth
violent with hunger
No one can give me, I have long ago
taken this method
whether of bran pouring from the loose-woven sack
or of the bunsen-flame turned low and blue
If from time to time I envy
the pure annunciations to the eye
the visio beatifica
if from time to time I long to turn
like the Eleusinian hierophant
holding up a simple ear of grain
for return to the concrete and everlasting world
what in fact I keep choosing
are these words, these whispers, conversations
from which time after time the truth breaks moist and green.
1.
A conversation begins
with a lie. And each
speaker of the so-called common language feels
the ice-floe split, the drift apart
as if powerless, as if up against
a force of nature
A poem can begin
with a lie. And be torn up.
A conversation has other laws
recharges itself with its own
false energy, Cannot be torn
up. Infiltrates our blood. Repeats itself.
Inscribes with its unreturning stylus
the isolation it denies.
2.
The classical music station
playing hour upon hour in the apartment
the picking up and picking up
and again picking up the telephone
the syllables uttering
the old script over and over
The loneliness of the liar
living in the formal network of the lie
twisting the dials to drown the terror
beneath the unsaid word
3.
The technology of silence
The rituals, etiquette
the blurring of terms
silence not absence
of words or music or even
raw sounds
Silence can be a plan
rigorously executed
the blueprint of a life
It is a presence
it has a history a form
Do not confuse it
with any kind of absence
4.
How calm, how inoffensive these words
begin to seem to me
though begun in grief and anger
Can I break through this film of the abstract
without wounding myself or you
there is enough pain here
This is why the classical or the jazz music station plays?
to give a ground of meaning to our pain?
5.
The silence that strips bare:
In Dreyer's Passion of Joan
Falconetti's face, hair shorn, a great geography
mutely surveyed by the camera
If there were a poetry where this could happen
not as blank space or as words
stretched like skin over meanings
but as silence falls at the end
of a night through which two people
have talked till dawn.
6.
The scream
of an illegitimate voice
It has ceased to hear itself, therefore
it asks itself
How do I exist?
This was the silence I wanted to break in you
I had questions but you would not answer
I had answers but you could not use them
This is useless to you and perhaps to others
7.
It was an old theme even for me:
Language cannot do everything-
chalk it on the walls where the dead poets
lie in their mausoleums
If at the will of the poet the poem
could turn into a thing
a granite flank laid bare, a lifted head
alight with dew
If it could simply look you in the face
with naked eyeballs, not letting you turn
till you, and I who long to make this thing,
were finally clarified together in its stare
8.
No. Let me have this dust,
these pale clouds dourly lingering, these words
moving with ferocious accuracy
like the blind child's fingers
or the newborn infant’s mouth
violent with hunger
No one can give me, I have long ago
taken this method
whether of bran pouring from the loose-woven sack
or of the bunsen-flame turned low and blue
If from time to time I envy
the pure annunciations to the eye
the visio beatifica
if from time to time I long to turn
like the Eleusinian hierophant
holding up a simple ear of grain
for return to the concrete and everlasting world
what in fact I keep choosing
are these words, these whispers, conversations
from which time after time the truth breaks moist and green.
(de "The Dream of a Common Language" Poems 1974-1977)
ADRIENNE RICH (EE.UU, 1929-2012)
ufff terrible...amo su poesia por esa terriblidad
ResponderEliminarhola. soy de Lima, me parece interesante la traduccion, ando haciendo un proyecto editorial me gustaria contactarme contigo para ver si podemos llegar a un acuerdo sobre la traduccion de algo de su poesia...
ResponderEliminarpor favor escribame a: alfredo.lazart@gmail.com