Poetry. Translation. Translated from the Spanish by Steven J. Stewart. Before his death in 2000, Rafael Perez Estrada was one of contemporary Spain's most imaginative and unique writers. He created a body of work that often defies classification, crafting fantastic realities from myth, fable, and his own Mediterranean surroundings. Perez Estrada's writing has been compared to that of Borges and Calvino for the way it incorporates the fantastic to alter our perception of reality. "An heir to the great masters of the weird such as Michaux and Kafka, [Perez Estrada] creates a protean world born from the fabric of our culture and that of many other worlds. In his poems we enhoy and fear being introduced to people, objects, and beings already known to us; we find the lost key as well as new connections and correspondences existing in our time"--Juan Carlos Galeano.
Poetry. Translation. Translated from the Spanish by Steven J. Stewart. Before his death in 2000, Rafael Perez Estrada was one of contemporary Spain's most imaginative and unique writers. He created a body of work that often defies classification, crafting fantastic realities from myth, fable, and his own Mediterranean surroundings. Perez Estrada's writing has been compared to that of Borges and Calvino for the way it incorporates the fantastic to alter our perception of reality. "An heir to the great masters of the weird such as Michaux and Kafka, [Perez Estrada] creates a protean world born from the fabric of our culture and that of many other worlds. In his poems we enhoy and fear being introduced to people, objects, and beings already known to us; we find the lost key as well as new connections and correspondences existing in our time"--Juan Carlos Galeano.
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Poetry. Translation. Translated from the Spanish by Steven J. Stewart. Before his death in 2000, Rafael Perez Estrada was one of contemporary Spain's most imaginative and unique writers. He created a body of work that often defies classification, crafting fantastic realities from myth, fable, and his own Mediterranean surroundings. Perez Estrada's writing has been compared to that of Borges and Calvino for the way it incorporates the fantastic to alter our perception of reality. "An heir to the great masters of the weird such as Michaux and Kafka, [Perez Estrada] creates a protean world born from the fabric of our culture and that of many other worlds. In his poems we enhoy and fear being introduced to people, objects, and beings already known to us; we find the lost key as well as new connections and correspondences existing in our time"--Juan Carlos Galeano.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781931236379 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Hanging Loose Press |
| Publication date: | 03/25/2004 |
| Pages: | 142 |
| Product dimensions: | 57.50(w) x 87.50(h) x 5.00(d) |
Read an Excerpt
Devoured by the Moon
Selected PoemsBy Rafael Pérez Estrada
Hanging Loose Press
Copyright © 2004 Mark C. AldrichAll right reserved.
Chapter One
SOMBRAS
La sombra es el reverso del alma.
En el Japón del período Muromachi un joven samurai regaló
su sombra a su Señor, y como la sombra es el ancla del cuerpo,
el guerrero, ya libre, vo1ó al infinito dejando tan só1o la cadencia
de un haiku amoroso.
Hay sombras asesinas.
Los niños juegan a lo imposible pisando sus sombras.
En las aglomeraciones hay que procurar no perder la sombra:
nada tan triste y peligroso como el ir con la sombra de otro.
El pulcro procura que su sombra no se arrastre excesivamente,
que no se ensucie y que nadie la pise.
En el naufragio de la Medusa una madre, viendo ahogarse a su
hijo, le arrojó su sombra en forma de salvavidas. Dice la leyenda
que la mujer, ya sin sombra (y sabido es que la sombra es el
cordón umbilical que une a la persona con la tierra), murió al
poco tiempo, en cambio el hijo, con dos sombras, acabó sus
días como gigante de feria.
Para limpiar las sombras hay que pasarlas ante un espejo.
Las sombras de los aingeles son rafagas que se confunden con el
vuelo de los pajaros.
Cuenta Plinio el Viejo de un país poblado por sombras sin
hombres.
SHADOWS
Shadows are inverted souls.
In Japan during the Muromachi period, a young samurai gave
his shadow to his Master. Since the shadow is the body's anchor,
the warrior, now frese, flew off into eternity, leaving behind the
cadence of an amorous haiku.
Some shadows are homicidal.
Trying to step on their shadows, children play at the impossible.
While in large crowds, you must be careful to not lose your
shadow. There's nothing so sad and dangerous as moving from
one shadow to another.
Excessively tidy people are careful to keep their shadows from
dragging too much, and to keep them from getting dirty or being
stepped on.
In the wreck of the Medusa, a mother, seeing her child drown,
threw him her shadow in the form of a life preserver. The legend
says that the woman, now without a shadow (and it's well
known that the shadow is the umbilical cord that joins a person
to the earth), shortly died. The child, however, with two shadows,
ended his days as a giant in a circus.
Shadows get cleaned when they are passed through a mirror.
The shadows of angels are gusts easily confused with
the flight of birds.
Pliny the Elder tells of a land populated by shadows without bodies.
En el Gran Concilio de Alejandría, los Padres de la Iglesia discutieron
vehementes la cuestión de si al morir el cuerpo también
muere la sombra.
La sombra mas transparente es la del pajaro que no llega a tocar
el cuerpo del que es sombra.
Los amantes exactos tienen una sola sombra.
Cuenta Tacito haber visto a un perro huyendo de su sombra
que le ladraba furiosamente.
El hombre puro no tiene sombra.
La sombra de la palabra es el eco.
In the Great Council of Alexandria, the Church Fathers vehemently
debated the question of whether or not the shadow dies
with the body.
The freest shadow is that of the bird, never touched by its master.
Perfect lovers share a single shadow.
Tacitus claims to have seen a dog fleeing its own
furiously barking shadow.
A pure man has no shadow.
The shadow of a word is an echo.
ESPEJOS
El espejo es el antecedente remoto del clne.
El espejo es una invitación a la resurrección del pasado.
Los adolescentes, en la fiebre de la soledad, creen que la imagen
del espejo es parte de un sueño, y la conocen.
Las adolescentes buscan huellas de besos en los espejos.
El espejo es la presentación diaria del desconocido íntimo.
Hay espejos tan tímidos que se rompen ante el esplendor de un
desnudo perfecto.
Los espejos, en su frialdad, no tienen memoria de su antropofagia
estética.
Hay espejos tan corteses que se niegan a reflejar a lo desagradable.
¿Qué espeja un espejo ante otro espejo?
El espejo es el principio de la teoría del conocimiento.
El espejo es enemigo de la repetición y cuando la sufre, miente.
En la oscuridad el espejo perece.
El soberbio espera un aplauso del espejo.
En las casas de placer el espejo hace ménage a trois.
MIRRORS
The mirror is a distant precursor of the cinema.
A mirror is an invitation to resurrect the past.
Adolescents, in the fever of their loneliness, believe their image
in a mirror is part of a dream.
Adolescent girls are always examining mirrors for the residue
of past kisses.
A mirror is a daily presentation of the intimate unknown.
Some mirrors are so shy they break before the splendor
of a perfect nude.
In their frigidity, mirrors are not conscious of their
aesthetic cannibalism.
Some mirrors are so courteous they refuse to reflect
anything unpleasant.
What does a mirror reflect when placed before another mirror?
The mirror is the beginning of theories of consciousness.
Mirrors despise repetition, and when they suffer it they lie.
Left in darkness, mirrors perish.
The pompous expect applause from a mirror.
A mirror in a house of pleasure creates a ménage a trois.
Inesperadamente la bruma se abrió al fulgor vivísimo de la hoja
del cuchillo: La muerte y el espejo en un solo objeto. Alzó la
mano y con ella el arma, y al hacerlo, como un cazador místico,
el acero reflejó el vuelo de una tórtola. "Nada puede sostenerse
en un arma mortífera," dijo el muchacho, mientras que, vertical,
el ave caía a sus pies.
En la última noche, el muchacho se miró en el espejo y advirtió
su ausencla.
El espejo de la tristeza reproduce las imagenes sin color.
Se miró en el espejo y vio cómo su imagen le hacía un gesto
obsceno.
Unexpectedly, the fog opened up before the living brightness of
the knife's blade: the object was both death and mirror. Like a
mystical hunter, he lifted his hand and with it the weapon. The
steel reflected the flight of a turtledove. "Nothing can survive in
such a lethal blade," said the man, as the bird dropped straight
down and landed at his feet.
On the last night, the boy looked for his reflection in a mirror
and noted its absence.
The Mirror of Sadness reproduces images, but without color.
He looked in the mirror only to see his reflection making an
obscene gesture back at him.
SUEÑOS
Los sueños, como irrealidades, estan al margen de su propio significado.
Nos niegan los dioses la posibilidad de repetir los sueños
amables.
El sueño perfecto es el que participa de la realidad y la consume.
Soñar que un hecho se repite en toda su identidad no es una
premonición, sino un sueño que contiene otro sueño.
El sol, como enemigo de los sueños, es la única realidad confirmada
Empezó a soñar y acabó despertando en un sueño ajeno.
Dice el Profeta: Seréis juzgados por vuestros sueños.
El sueño, y no la huella digital, es el método mas eficaz para
identificar auna persona.
El siquiatra teme interpretar sus sueños.
El niño tiene la voz y el sueño blancos.
El hombre que encuentra el sueño perfecto intenta no abandonar
ni el lecho ni la noche.
La Bella era Durmiente porque no quería abandonar un sueño.
Hay sueños con interferencias.
El sueño americano tiene espacios publicitarios.
DREAMS
Dreams, like fictions, are always at the edge of their own meaning.
The gods deny us the opportunity to repeat our pleasant dreams.
The perfect dream is that which takes part in reality and
consumes it.
The experience of déjà vu isn't a premonition, but a dream
within a dream.
The sun, the enemy of dreams, is the only confirmed reality.
He began to dream and wound up awake in someone else's dream.
According to the Prophet, we will be judged according to our
dreams.
Dreams-not fingerprints-are the most effective way of
identifying someone.
Psychiatrists are afraid to interpret their own dreams.
A baby has soft skin and soft dreams.
A man chanced upon the perfect dream and refused to
leave his bed.
Beauty was Sleeping because she didn't want to leave
her dreams.
Some dreams are accompanied by static.
The American Dream comes complete with billboards.
Hay un sueño tan vergonzoso y tímido que nunca sale.
El solitario ni siquiera tiene sueños.
El avaro atesora sus suefios.
El santo sufre de pesadillas eróticas y el asesino goza de sueños
beatíficos.
Hay clínicas especializadas en trasplantes de sueños.
A veces, el pobre sueña con la pobreza.
En la pesadilla del maldito un teléfono suena incesantemente.
There's a dream so timid and shy it never shows itself.
Some people are so lonely they don't even have dreams.
The greedy hoard their dreams.
Saints suffer from erotic nightmares and murderers from
beatific visions.
Some clinics specialize in dream transplants.
Sometimes the poor dream of being poor.
In the nightmares of the damned there's a telephone
ringing incessantly.
ASESINATOS
El artista homieida patenta su erimen.
El asesino diligente prepara antes la defensa que el erimen.
En el erimen, odio es sinónimo de amor; muerte, de eficacia.
El asesino es el amante imperfecto de la víctima.
El destripador desea que una paloma surja del vientre de su víctima.
El criminal delirante después del asesinato intenta succionar,
boca a boca, el alma de su víctima.
Confunde el asesino estertor y orgasmo.
El asesino técnico lleva grabados los efectos espeeiales del
crimen que pretende.
Es el criminal eómpliee del silencio.
El ahoreado es una lección praiefiea de las teorías del movimiento,
las oscilaciones y el péndulo.
Las mas de veces, la "sangre fría" es sangre coagulada.
Por fin el solitario reeibe una visita.
Caín es la acción; Abel, la pasividad.
Caín es inventor del tatuaje.
HOMICIDES
The artistic assassin copyrights his crime.
The diligent assassin prepares his courtroom defense before
committing the crime.
For assassins, hate is synonymous with love, death with efficiency.
An assassin is a flawed lover of the victim.
The disemboweler hopes that a dove will fly out of the victim's belly.
After the assassination, the delirious criminal placed his mouth
over the victim's, trying to suck out her soul.
An assassin confuses the death rattle with an orgasm.
The technical assassin carries with him the appropriate sound
effects for the crime he's planning.
Silence is the criminal's accomplice.
A hanged man is a practical lesson in the theories of movement,
oscillation, and pendulums.
More often than not, "cold blood" means coagulated blood.
Someone lonely finally getting a visitor.
Cain is action, Abel passivity.
Cain is the inventor of the tattoo.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Devoured by the Moon by Rafael Pérez Estrada Copyright © 2004 by Mark C. Aldrich. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................7Translator's note.................................................10
Sombras...........................................................14
Shadows...........................................................15
Espejos...........................................................18
Mirrors...........................................................19
Sueños............................................................22
Dreams............................................................23
Asesinatos........................................................26
Homicides.........................................................27
De la naturaleza de los angeles...................................30
On Being an Angel.................................................31
El inédito........................................................34
The Unpublished Man...............................................35
Melancolía........................................................38
Melancholy........................................................39
Las manos.........................................................40
The Hands.........................................................41
La puta florecida.................................................42
The Flowering Whore...............................................43
El inmóvil........................................................44
Motionless........................................................45
Cierta asimetría..................................................46
A Certain Asymmetery..............................................47
El ojo............................................................48
The Eye...........................................................49
El divan de la magia..............................................50
The Magic Divan...................................................51
Aforismos patéticos...............................................52
Pathetic Aphorisms................................................53
Frecuentaciones angélicas.........................................54
Angelic Frequencies...............................................55
El Minotauro......................................................58
The Minotaur......................................................59
El hipopótamo.....................................................60
The Hippopotamus..................................................61
Los amores prohibidos.............................................62
Forbidden Loves...................................................63
El jacaranda......................................................64
The Jacaranda.....................................................65
El amante absorto.................................................66
The Captivated Lover..............................................67
Mi tío el levitador...............................................68
My Uncle the Levitator............................................69
Cuando huyen las gaviotas.........................................72
When Seagulls Take Flight.........................................73
El visitante......................................................74
The Visitor.......................................................75
Acuario...........................................................76
Aquarium..........................................................77
Ángeles de la desesperacion y el abandono.........................80
Angels of Desperation and Abandonment.............................81
La fiesta.........................................................82
The Party.........................................................83
La importancia de ser un muchacho emprendedor.....................84
An Enterprising Young Man.........................................85
Ante el espejo....................................................86
In Front of the Mirror............................................87
El aullido........................................................88
The Howl..........................................................89
Crónica de la lluvia..............................................90
Chronicle of the Rain.............................................91
La pequeña modelo.................................................92
The Tiny Model....................................................93
La niña...........................................................96
The Girl..........................................................97
El tren...........................................................98
The Train.........................................................99
La ciudad.........................................................100
The City..........................................................101
Elegía............................................................102
Elegy.............................................................103
Tatuajes..........................................................104
Tattoos...........................................................105
Imagenes..........................................................108
Images............................................................109
Caballos..........................................................114
Horses............................................................115
Los oficios del sueño.............................................116
The Functions of Sleep............................................117
La guerra de los sueños...........................................132
The Dream War.....................................................133
El telegrama......................................................134
The Telegram......................................................135
El sueño de la muerte.............................................136
The Death Dream...................................................137
Fugacidades.......................................................138
Flights...........................................................139
El imaginativo....................................................142
The Imaginative Man...............................................143