What Rough Beast | Poem for September 10, 2019

Ana Fores Tamayo
Las azucenas

No tengo lengua para hablar
el ronroneo que cae de las cabezas
en roturas blancas,
quebradas,
negreadas con el reflejo entreabierto del espejo,
lánguido en su eterna soledad.

Arbitraria yo me quedo,
llena y desolada,
sentenciada y llorando,
desorientada en el llegar de más allá
que nunca llega,
y que termina al comenzar.

¿Y que me importan
las palabras
de los dioses encogidos
en esas aguas turbulentas
de ese mismo ciclo otro,
el deseo del infinito abismal
de la obsoleta nada,
de la noche enigmática,
retornada,
como el día de mañana?

Es entonces que maltratan
las espinas de la sangre envenenada,
que terminan los murmurios
del silencio repugnante,
aunque el cielo no recoja,
con sus azucenas,
los pétalos que se caen aislados,
como lágrimas
en la tierra de un dolor sutil.

Day Lilies

An interpretation, not a translation
(because translation is never poetry)

I have no tongue to speak
the purr of falling heads
in waxen ruptures, splintered black,
ajar with the reflection of a mirror,
languid in its eternal solitude.

I stay arbitrary,
full yet desolate,
Sentenced, weeping,
Clueless while reaching a beyond
that never comes,
ending only when it does begin.

What does it matter to me—
Those words
of gods
who lie shrunken
in those storm-tossed waters
of that same yet other cycle,
of that desire for abysmal finite
of that nowhere obsolete,
the enigmatic night,
returned again,
just like tomorrow?

It is then that I mistreat
the thorns of poisoned blood,
ending the murmurs of
emetic silence,
but the sky does not collect—
with day lilies—
the petals that begin to fall
like tears,
in the land of subtle pain.

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 ReviewThe Raving PressRigorousChaleur MagazineMemoirPoxo PressChachalaca ReviewThe Evansville ReviewK’inLaurel ReviewDown in the DirtTwist in TimeSelcouth 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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