Herencia

 
Traigo una galaxia para tus días negros, una estrella fría para guiarte en el desierto y un beso que siempre te toque en el momento oportuno

Prozac para la bilis, un témpano para la úlcera gástrica, un reloj de arena congelada y un mil mariposas diminutas que te bailen en la piel.

Un abrazo listo para envolverte en una noche fría, una semilla que siempre germine, un río de agua fresca que fluya en la palma de tu mano.

Una promesa de amor siempre viva, un atardecer con un cometa en el cielo, la sombra de un árbol y palabras hermosas para velar el insomnio.

Una ordinaria noche de paz, una respiración tranquila, una carcajada profunda, una mirada sin aprehensiones y un flujo sanguíneo holgado.

Un beso que te conmueva hasta la punta de las plumas y haga temblar tus escamas de pez y reptil; un beso que incendie tu piel de batracio.

Una cama caliente y una hipoteca con antiácido integrado, una caricia que no te aburra, una vejez sin reumas y una gardenia siempre en flor.

No pasa nada

En algún lugar, la arena del reloj se atasca, regresa, fluye más despacio. Su flujo de silicatos corroe el cristal, su lentitud ulcera.

Allá, más lejos, la nube gira en su propio eje, su derrotero se incendia, su estela sube a las estrellas y la lluvia tarda siglos en caer.

Cerca del horizonte el sol no se esconde, ni el beso se consuma, ni la esperanza huele a mañana. Solo la luna, agotada, sigue su recorrido.

En algún lugar, la ola se detiene en el aire, los sargazos y los caracoles se pudren antes de secarse. La curva de la ola se vuelve polvo.

Dentro de algún tornado el aire suspendido se enmohece, el corazón no explota, el viento huele a futuro y las ráfagas gotean muy lentamente.

Allá arriba en el cielo, un mar de galaxias se frenan al unísono. Solo se escucha un hondo rechinar de astros, un cauce que de pronto flota.

En el bosque, cada gota de humo es una crisálida que espera un verano, una metamorfosis que va y viene, un segundo de un tiempo detenido.

Más allá hay una noche de quemantes caricias, de apresurados besos que se evaporan en la piel. Hay adormilados dedos que rozan el amanecer.

Y el viento no ulula ni se eleva, solo se queda ahí (quietecito), con su olor a moho y hollín, con sus ganas de ser huracán y suave monzón.

Hay un mar con olas suspendidas, con sargazos que echan raíces, donde los peces tienen agallas como alas y temen caer a las profundidades.

Dentro de la lluvia las palabras no son pronunciadas, los secretos siguen guardados, las confesiones son de cristal. Nada llega a su destino.

En la profundidad de las trincheras, las placas tectónicas no se mueven, el deseo no encuentra puerto y el mar no oscila. Nada, no sucede nada.

Tinta de pulpo

En el principio había luz. El pulpo salió y extendió sus tentáculos sobre el universo regando su tinta. Entonces la oscuridad se creó.

Los cefalópodos estaban conspirando y nubes de tinta explotaron en el fondo del océano. A medio día, nubes elevándose al cielo fueron confundidas con la noche.

Una noche, un mar de tinta de pulpo invadió el imperio de la oscuridad. Soñamos las peores pesadillas que jamás imaginamos. Aullamos y gritamos en sueños.

Las sepias se lanzan destellos en una danza eterna. De vez en cuando, un poco de tinta acompaña la danza. El arrecife, siempre ocupado, no se da cuenta.

Hay un camino de tinta de pulpo a lo largo del océano. Solo los navíos en llamas pueden encontrarlo en su camino a la muerte, el olvido y la eterna profundidad del mar.

Escribí una carta con tinta de pulpo y la envié al otro lado del mar. La carta nunca llegó a su destino, pero escuché que un enorme Kraken hundió un barco postal.

Tinta de pulpo corre por mis venas, oscurece mis pensamientos y mi corazón. Tentáculos crecen alrededor de mi corazón y me pierdo en un negro océano.

Durante el día, nuestro amor era simple y sencillo. Por la noche, esparcíamos tinta de pulpo y nos volvíamos Krakens. Nuestro amor era un monstruo de las profundidades.

Alfonsina vio hermosas palabras escritas sobre el mar con una oscura y mágica tinta. La tinta la llamaba. Ella caminó alegremente, seducida, cautivada.

In the labyrinth of her body

In the labyrinth of her body, her heart was a big cave full of echoes.

Every dawn, a sea of bats came back from the night.

The wind ran across her lungs.

Sometimes soft wind and caress, sometimes tornado and explosion, almost always lullaby and rocking.

The river of her veins was a labyrinth of mute currents pulsating a primitive rhythm.

Some days, red turmoils are formed here and there.

A cavern of sharp crystals is found in the basin of her liver.

A river of bile sometimes runs through: hate, rancor and remorse.

Lost in an idea, twisted and climbed cerebral circumvolutions.

It flew over her thoughts: it was mist, electric impulse and shinning.

A sea of fiber and meat was shaking and expanding.

Waves in the heart go up and down along with the guts and the bones.

Lean muscle and movement.

Made of silk and electric current, her skin is a map of scars, sensations, pleasure and air.

It is a mirror and a constellation of freckles.

Silence and spark, the web of nerves is switched on and off endlessly.

If we ever shine it is because of their light, if they are switched off darkness arrives.

Full of mineral and time they are our history.

They speak about our movement: they will be the dust when once we are gone.

City

He slept under the bridge and in broad daylight in a park.

He smelled flowers and rubbish, perfume and death, desert and shadowed field.

He climbed towers, went down the underground and its basements.

He navigated on streets and avenues, slow and quickly, under the sunray and against the moon.

He heard screams, howls, crickets, tweets.

He lived the silence and the crash, the rust and the crystal, the day in the night and the darkness in broad daylight.

He paraded and was many steps, many hearts, many hands, many causes, many fights. He screamed and the concrete towers remained silent.

He became dustcloud, paper in the wind, the howl of the wind.

He entered niches, rooms, apartment blocks, courts, squares and alleyways.

He heard the walking of the rivers. Rivers of blood, cries and semen. Rivers of sweat and searching. Rivers inside the air, the soil, inside the heart and the gaze.

He became city, concrete and asphalt.

He felt its loneliness, its crowd and its never-ending light.

He flowed in its history and its corrosion.

Vaporosa

Vértigo, mareo y la sensación de hundirse y perderse. Estamos conectados por la respiración. Por un momento, la vida radica en ese espacio.

Labio a labio, respiración a respiración. Los labios se deslizan por la piel. Es el vapor hablando, leyendo la piel, dejando rastros. Un velo que enciende.

Una historia trepa sobre las paredes y ventanas, gota a gota, gemido a gemido. Cada gota es una palabra que no fue necesaria, nunca usada. Vaporosa.

Dos cuerpos yacen en la cama, tocándose mutuamente y a sí mismos, conscientes de la piel de cada uno. Conscientes de su respiración, ese aire que vuelve a la vida.

Mirando el jardín a través de la ventana y a través del tiempo. Perdida y añorando, una melancólica respiración empaña el vidrio. Todas las memorias se evaporan.

Broken mirrors

In the desert of broken mirrors the sun reflects with the splendor of thousand suns.

At night neither darkness nor moon, all the light accumulated.

In the sea of broken mirrors the ripples were cutting reflections on their way.

The sea keeps at the bottom broken and salty reflections.

In the universe of broken mirrors the space was infinite: a duplicated labyrinth of triple nebulas, dark holes and fragmented suns.

In the past of broken mirrors memoirs were distorted, incomplete, multiplied. Reflections of ourselves cut us.

In the forest of broken mirrors, the wind moved the reflections and leaves crashed like crystals: mirror dust under the path of the wind.

In the clouds of broken mirrors, pieces of the world were reflecting.

When it rained, forgotten pieces of ourselves showered us, leaving us damp.

In the sun of broken mirrors storms raise and a thousand fragments reflect the light.

Everything melts and mirrors are formed anew.

In the future of broken mirrors, reflections shine, blinding.

We confuse fragments with precious stones. It is a single light.

Radiant.

In the rainforest of broken mirrors sounds are reflected.

Even at night, with the moonlight, the space is filled with murmurs and green sounds.

In the wind of broken mirrors, reflections howl, become swirls and go mad.

Some winds bring with them the reflections of the desert.

In the present of broken mirrors, fragments disorient us and confuse us.

Reflections divert us. We only hear the rustle under our feet.

In the city of broken mirrors, reflections of success, wealth, failure and pain get confused.

Astounded, reflections don’t move.

In the moon of broken mirrors, the gaze of the lovers and the mad are reflected.

In new moon, the secrets of the tide don’t go back to the sea.

In the body of broken mirrors reflected words run through veins and viscera.

Every now and then, some of them escape from lips and lungs.

Los mitos han cambiado

Los minotauros son procesados en rastros. Los laberintos se volvieron clubs nocturnos. Los mitos ya no son más que paquetes de carne y pistas de bailar.

Las sirenas viven en acuarios y brincan aros junto con los delfines. Sus lamentos no se escuchan: los gritos del público son ensordecedores.

Escila y Caribdis trabajan en México. La primera todavía devora cuerpos humanos. La segunda hipnotiza sobrevivientes con mentiras y shows de TV.

Los pegasos trabajan como mulas pero con cargas más pesadas. Con sus plumas se hacen almohadas y estolas para petulantes actrices de televisión.

Poseidón trabaja en plataformas de petróleo. El pago es terrible y los horarios extenuantes. Es un esclavo moderno que siempre es culpado por los derrames.

Venus tiene una compañía de citas en línea. Es versada en algoritmos amorosos y PayPal. Cuentan los rumores que no ya no confía en Cupido.

A Cupido le va muy bien a pesar de los rumores. Sin las restricciones de antaño, ahora puede ser más creativo. Sus flechas nunca se equivocan.

Atenea está muy ocupada. Es una viajera incansable: ¡hay tantas guerras por doquier! Pero nadie la venera, es solo una ilusa y triste espectadora.

Odiseo es uno de los diez fugitivos más buscados. Está familiarizado con el cruce ilegal de fronteras y se le ha culpado de la última epidemia de gripe.

Medusa todavía anda por aquí. A veces se le puede ver en las pantallas de TV o detrás de una idea nueva. Está hecha de terror: tenle miedo.

Las cosas que tengo

Tengo un jardín de helechos negros en el fondo del mar profundo.

Nuevas frondas se desenrollan lentamente acariciando la obscuridad del mar. Te puedo llevar allá.

Tengo un bosque con tus lágrimas, miedos, esperanzas y amores.

Tengo un arroyo que siempre fluye, un bosque en plena floración.

Tengo algunas esperanzas abandonadas escondiéndose dentro de la lluvia. Solo las veo cuando llueve y reviven antes de ser lavadas de nuevo.

En la cicatriz entre dos océanos tengo tu pena, un par de aretes y todas las lágrimas que has perdido. Ven, también tengo limonada.

Dentro de las horas más oscuras de la noche tengo cuarenta elefantes que hablan con el fuego, veinte tsunamis que le susurran al viento, cien nubes que pueden derretir tus vísceras y tres volcanes como botana.

Tengo una llama que es mi sombra. Me sigue a donde quiera que voy, me lame y me quema. Unas veces es caricia, otras quemadura. Por dentro.

Tengo un lugar dentro de mí misma donde el hielo es perpetuo, donde el silencio susurra y la luz de luna es filosa como una daga.

Tengo dentro de la curva de una ola las voces de las caracolas, sus susurros y secretos. Es el único lugar en que el océano es sordo a su propia voz.

Tengo un puñado de polvo de olas en mi mano. Lo estoy guardando para ti. Lo arrojaré sobre ese acantilado en medio de las dunas del desierto.

Tengo unas vías de tren en medio del mar. Los erizos ruedan sobre ellas, deletreando en cada vuelta –y en tiempo real- las novedades del mar.

Tengo el fuego de tus ojos en la punta de mis dedos. Lo demoro sobre la tierra, incendiando todo lo que toco. Esta noche llegaré al océano.

Fast

Fast goes the family, the birds, the sea, the fishes.

Fast goes love, the welcomes, the farewells.

Fast the coitus, full speed the orgasm, the kisses, the good byes.

Fast the judgment, the prejudice, the hate, the devotion.

Fast, so fast, ipso facto, hurried.

Fast the food, the alcohol, the coffee that burns. Fast.

Fast the relationships, the executions,  s l o w  the revolutions.

Fast the censorship, the torture, the usury.

Fast the burning. Fast the reading.

Fast the deception and the disappointment. Fast and damn quick.

Fast the information, the fashion, the disillusion, the forgetfulness.

Fast the pleasure, slow the sorrow even if you rush it.

Fast the destruction, the annihilation. Fast. In a thunder.

Fast the bicycles, the moon, the batrachians. Fast goes life.

Time zone

It was night when the sea exploded.

We all rose with a salty gusto on our lips and a deafening silence of waves.

Midnight was entering when the flowers crystallized.

Asleep we felt, suddenly, the smell of leaves and stems, eclipsed until then.

Dawn was rising when volcanoes spread in underground rivers.

We woke up with an igneous and vaporous roaring below the earth.

It was day when the night evaporated.

In wakefulness we waited for the sky to darken while the heat raised and consumed us little by little.

It was midday when the clouds leaked to the earth.

A sticky silk covered us and there was no ceiling helping us against the burning sun.

Sunset was falling when the deserts cracked.

We heard the uproar and we saw rivers of sand and waves of silence reptating all over.

It was midnight when the air disintegrated.

We inhaled dreams of asphyxia, stretched arms and lips to catch the last wind burst.

Definitions

Life is a hurricane full of fauces and feathers.

In a twist its fangs go deep on you and chew you, in the other one it covers and caresses you.

The night is a sea of bat wings that fall down over us as an avalanche.

The caress of silky wings moves some and drives others mad.

Forgetfulness is a marsh of oil that gulps everything down.

Every now and then, the most luminous flowers come out of its waters. Shining.

Desire is a tide of foamy mist that sticks as it strokes the skin that goes forward rattling. It is the air that closes.

Dawn is a wave of modest and sparkly faeries with little bells on their feet.

Only birds and the river embrace so much luminosity.

Pain is being inhabited by a castle with doors that open and close, screeching and slamming.

It is the corridors we walk endlessly.

Anger is a wounded beast that runs through the veins scratching the guts.

It is an ivy that suffocates the viscera. It is stabbing the water.

The day is an uproar, an explosion, a tweet concert, is the wind rising, is wings and photosynthesis. Comes and goes and goes around.

Doubt is a lost tide, never wanted, never expected, never forgotten.

Comes and goes, grows and shrinks. Sometimes, it seems to disappear.

Sadness is a flock of swallows flying in circles inside the chest.

Every now and then, one of them crashes against the heart.

The afternoon sun is an omen epidemic that ends up in a very red sunset full of green clouds. As it were.

Ego is a ravenous monster.

Blind and deaf, lost in a labyrinth, it only knows its own size and the flatteries that feed it.

Hate is a wick looking for the sun, a volcano in the iris, a worm coiled under the skin, the sweetest drug and the biggest promise.

The sea is a wreckage, a déjà vu, an insomniac dream, the silence that roars, the sleepy horizon. It is what we were, what we are and will be.

13 Medusa variations

Text and image by James Knight

1. Dreams

At twilight Medusa becomes a tree. Brittle branches grasp at the wind hissing through her leaves. She twists under mineral dreams.

2. Little Black Dress

Medusa queues to pay for a little black dress. She’ll knock 'em dead tonight. But, fearing mirrors, she’ll never know how she looks in it.

3. Humdrum I

In Medusa’s kitchen, the kettle hisses and spits. She sits at the table, buttering toast. Her eyes are empty; her mind’s elsewhere.

4. Book

Medusa is turned into a book, bound in snakeskin. Left on the shelf for years, her pages yellow with age and envy. Her secret words will never be read.

5. Mermaid

Medusa swims through the starless abyss, harpoon in hand, hunting. Her eyes are pearls, her hair a crown of gaping eels.

6. Alice

He glimpses the reflection of a coil of Alice’s hair as she darts between still white soldiers. In the frame of a mirror, she’s vulnerable.

7. Humdrum II

Medusa’s mother-in-law clucks over the baby, pecks his cheek. Afterwards, in the stony silence of the kitchen, Medusa plans a roast chicken.

8. TV

They sit in their millions, fixed by her stare.

9. Creation Myth

Medusa is the first monster. She hisses sweet nothings that become the sea. At night, she’s mesmerised by the silver shield of the moon.

10. Cupid

Medusa meets the man of her dreams in a hall of statues. She shoots love’s arrow through his heart, then caresses him until he’s rock hard.

11. Humdrum III

She inspects her grey skin in the hand mirror.

12. Art

Medusa takes up sculpture. Her subject is terror. Her material: life.

13. Reflection

Lost in the Garden of Eden, Medusa chances upon what she takes to be a reflection of herself: a woman, ripe with sin, stroking a serpent.

This prose poem appears in "Head Traumas". You can buy the book here.

Grandma’s eyes (13 unpleasant stories, dreamt up for the purpose of terrifying and mystifying)

Text and image by James Knight

1

She found the book at twilight in the silence of the forest. It was bound in red leather. When she opened it, the pages turned into moths and fluttered in drunken spirals, aspiring to the moon.

2

In Grandma’s garden are gnomes, roses, a lovingly mown lawn. But her greenhouse is home to a thousand desperate twisted things, gasping, blind.

3

She pauses before the door to the forbidden room. The apple-shaped doorknob is warm, smooth. In her other hand: a key like a snake's tongue.

4

Grandma sips a cup of tea. A broken wolf stares at her from the prison of a picture frame.

5

The curtains of her eyelids are the forest. Denser and denser into the heart, into the wet darkness, into the house of phantoms.

6

Grandma’s teeth are knives, hatchets, crenellations, the serrated canopy of the endless forest.

7

When she breaks the mirror she swoons into a long, restless sleep. Her lips turn to rose petals, her hair to snakes. Her sex becomes a seashell. Put it to your ear: listen to the mermaids murmuring in an ocean of blood.

8

Red roses proliferate in the Kingdom of the Wolf. Grandma’s skull is a cave. Inside, you’ll hear the voices of the dead.

9

Her heart is a mirror whose surface reflects the witch, an apple, a rose bush, a broken sword.

10

In Grandma’s eyes you’ll see a red moon, red shoes, secret flames, the howling storm. She shows her bleeding palms to the heavens.

11

Opening the door to room 13, she finds herself entering a candlelit bedroom. Her double is sitting at the dressing table, smiling at her own reflection.

12

In the Medusa coils of Grandma’s floral wallpaper: the statue of a wolf.

13

An axe, a grin, a labyrinth of trees. The girl, now a woman, writes her name in blood on the mirror of the moon.

This poem belongs to the collection published as "Head Traumas" that you can buy here.

13 cyborg poets

Text and image by James Knight.

1

Lost in the Vision Matrix, J0hn Clare transmitted a distress signal designed to be audible only to himself.

2

T5 El10t ran on a complex algorithm that produced seemingly fragmentary results. However, if you run Imagewise an underlying order appears.

3

C0ler1dge suffered a non-integration glitch. His Narco Neurons were in permanent conflict with routines instigated by a Homily implant.

4

Walt Wh1tman’s predilection for free verse was the consequence of a series of malfunctions in his Metrical Regulator.

5

The deadly Anne 5ext0n devoured boys, cars and prayers, blades whirring, shutter eyes snapping. Afterwards, sated, she cat-napped in a coffin.

6

When the archaeologists finally extricated the monolith from the embrace of the petrified forest, they found Tenny50n embedded in it.

7

Spinning a web of words, J0hn D0nne’s Sp1der Appendage resembled an eight-fingered hand. In its nimble frenzy it misspelled “dove” as “love”.

8

Lew15 Carr0ll processed language through a series of Whimsy Filters, generating reams of dream words, realms and dream worlds.

9

W1ll1am Blake wrote Songs of Innocence after his Logic Node was shut down. Following a S1N upgrade, the Songs of Experience howled from him.

10

W0rsdsw0rth’s operating system crashed every time he looked at a lake, mountain or gorge. The problem was caused by oversensitive Sublimity Receptors.

11

Alexander P0pe’s Syllepsis Module strained his vegetables and his relations with other poets.

12

Sylv1a Plath smashed her way out of the iron foundry, Thanatos mode engaged. Later, she made the word “BABY” from scrap metal.

13

Hibernating in her Death Pod, Em1ly D1ck1n50n still emits little noises that some commentators claim are philosophical questions.

This poem was published in James' book "Head Traumas". You can buy it here.