Ana Fores Tamayo
La viuda negra
Loca lectora de la poesía errante:
¿Quién soy yo,
pintada en el lago azulado del espejo,
reflejada en ese triste vistazo—
intercambio de unos ojos negros,
inocencia vestida en trapos de muerte ajena,
llena de máscaras y mentiras del no ser?
¿Quién me convierte en alma de un pie quebrado
por las fracturadas piezas
de un rompecabezas poco natural —
¿Eso es una ilusión de lo real,
eterno instante de un cíclico al revés?
No me busco en el río ensangrentado,
ni en los bosques masacrados.
No en las negruras de la negación;
tampoco en las iglesias corrompidas
encontraré el ritual de mi pena ajena.
Dentro de todo se cae la parodia del bruto eterno,
burguesía repugnante que no la encuentro
porque no la quiero imaginar,
vacío angustioso de la nausea,
envenenado por el mal castigo de nuestro Adán.
Veo las torturas de un progreso estilizado
en el espíritu frustrado,
mientras las sombras de la noche deseada
destruyen ilusiones
ya quemadas en el fuego
de una voz sin voz.
Y el mundo—
falsificado en su triunfo tierno—
se disuelve en la nada
de los tejidos imparciales de una viuda negra
que, con sus dedos largos y existenciales,
rompe y desmantela su vestido blanco
sobre un altar abierto,
desmoronándose,
consagrada por los dioses,
sin alterar alguna voz.
The Black Widow
An interpretation, not a translation
(because translation is never poetry)
Oh crazed reader of the wandering verses:
Who am I,
painted as a cerulean reflection in a lake view mirror,
echoed in a melancholic gaze—
exchanged for black ebony eyes,
innocence dressed in the rags of foreign death,
filled with masked lies of being yet nothingness?
Who transforms me into that soul
perpetuating a broken foot,
through each of the fractured pieces
of a stilted puzzle—
Is that the illusion of reality?
¿Or is it the instant moment of an eternal cycle:
could it be the other way around?
I do not look for me in bloody rivers,
or in butchered forests.
Not in the blackness of denial,
nor in the corrupted churches
will I find the ritual of my grief.
Within all falls the parody of bestial eternity,
loathsome bourgeoisie I cannot find
because I have no wish to imagine its conception,
anguished emptiness of nausea,
poisoned always by Adam’s sin.
I see the tortures of a stylized progress
in frustrated spirits,
while the shadows of the night desired
destroy illusions
already burned in the fired
precipice of a voice without a voice.
And the world—
forged in its sentimental triumph—
dissolves into the nothingness
of impartial weavings knitted by a black widow spider
which, with its existential fingers,
breaks and dismantles her waxen dress
on an open altar and
disintegrates,
consecrated by the gods,
without altering any voice.
NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: This poem previously appeared in Literary Yard. What Rough Beast does not generally post previously published work, but what started out as a faux pas blossomed into a thrupple, and we’re sticking with it.
Poems by Ana Fores Tamayo have appeared in Acentos Review, The Raving Press, Rigorous, Chaleur Magazine, Memoir, Poxo Press, Chachalaca Review, The Evansville Review, K’in, Laurel Review, Down in the Dirt, Twist in Time, Selcouth Station, and Fron//tera, as well as in the anthologies Poets Facing The Wall (The Raving Press, 2018), edited by Gabriel H. Sanchez, and The Spirit It Travels: An Anthology of Transcendent Poetry (Cosmographia Books, 2019), edited by Nina Alvarez. Her photography has appeared in journals and has been exhibited in shows, often displayed along with her poetry.
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