Each Poem Poem by Reva Kern

Each poem a bird that flees
From the marked site for the plague.
Each poem a suit of the dead
For the flooded streets and plazas
In the lethal wax of the defeated.
Each poem a step towards death
A false coin of rescue
A target shot in the middle of the night
Piercing the bridges over the river
Whose sleeping waters travel
From the old city to the fields
Where the day prepares its blazes.
Each poem a rigid touch
Of that resting on the slab of the clinics,
A prepared lure that covers
The soft mud of the sepulchers.
Each poem a slow shipwreck of desire
A creak of the masts and rigging
That sustain the weight of life.
Each poem a crash of walls collapsing
Over the icy roar of the waters
The white rigging of the sail.
Each poem invading and tearing
The bitter cobweb of weariness.
Each poem is born of a blind sentinel
Who shouts to the deep emptiness of the nights
The saint and sign of his misfortune.
Water of dream, fountain of ash
Porous rock of the abattoirs
Wood in shade of the everlasting flower
Metal that bends for the condemned
Funeral oil of double edge,
Every day shroud of the poet.
Each poem scatters over the world
The sour cereal of agony.

Translation of the poem CADA POEMA by Álvaro Mutis