II Poem by Santiago Mutis Durán

I saw you in the night boy at the door
of your house
with the breast dark, still
making life strange, detached
The moon shining on the banana groves
the town silent the house silent
the waters silent the stars silent the streets
white . . . shining . . . like the breathing
of fireflies
suffocating you.
The asthma around your neck
like a collar of luminous larvae
The house the village the moon the mother the soul
all alone dreaming
under the constellations silent
like the soft sickness slow crossing the eternal
night. Crossing the rocking chair
of the Don your father
waiting
as the blood of the saints
the birds the morning will bring
For many, you were
a blow from a stone on the teeth
a beast
poor hurt
beast
that felt the grinding of the mill cogwheels
that also move the world
and Heaven
with their wings of hunger and fire
so like you

You were immoral
like a corrupt
child
that waits for rewards
and scatters the light
without hearing or seeing
just imposing

You seemed to know where you were going
Knowing your end to remember you makes one's hair bristle
There is not any place
no one waits for us
on the other side of the rain
¿What were you sure about?
I only hear outcries:

Take me to where my enemies are, the serfs
blend me with their blind blood
- so deserving of heaven -
Let them rot in apple sauce

For them your best
your haughtiest
your purest contempt

Many things in you were ridiculous
To hell with explanations

Dominant, proud
like a drunken
god
of miserable flesh
you didn't believe in anything either
that was not for eating

When the blood
was a mantle
of stars
I never saw you kneeling down
to drink pure water

A boy genius
obese
demanding
feverishly facing the luminous bubbles
of the of world's
and his own sickness
joyful in his plunging down

You were lighted by a burning crown

toothless
like an angel
in the sludge

You said that Paradise
was a tall story
but there is something
lying in ambush
in the folds of desire

You had, like all, a nameless angel
that moves the blood
a piece of sun of moon of something
a swarm
that shines like stars
on the deep shoulder
of our shadow

You took advantage
Not always - never
did you respect the god there is in every door
You forced locks
. . . and you
looked upon it with approval

One night
under a tree of lighted up
flowers
I saw you floating among sparkles
and lose your mind
to the limit of the canangas
so white so slow so blue
small fairy diadems
that you joyfully stepped on
And the jealous
vengeful flowers
abducted you
for having crossed the threshold
- it would be stupid no to believe or making fun of the spell -
you trustfully drank the flower of the borrachero
in buds - greedy
and it, despotic
poisoned your entrails
and lost you in paradise, in which you did not believe
Anyway
you had no heart
your shadow was the worst
and the best in you

Someone led you by the hand
- that dawn
to your Death
your own, your first, your only piety?
another drinking bout
of lucidity
Did you look for it?
Did she find you?
He brought her jingles
in love, obedient
You saw her fleeting, darker than ever
face to face
and you gave her the last you had left

They crucified you - one more time
in the "bazaar of Colombian poetry"
An academic stabbed you in your nape:
"a poète maudit
of the intellectual
middle class"
His tongue will dry up soon enough

You did not love the flame that devours man
you desired its body
to burn yourself

You had a shadow like a flower
Everything around you failed
in a puddle of flames

You sank in the prestige of the night
You suffered
like anyone
You were not innocent, you wanted to be something more
terrible: yourself
Chained to freedom
dazzled by a great shamelessness
death made you her own
And already dead, already defeated, broken
your tongue and your legs
you hummed obscene songs
obscure canzonets
You never did accept
the shadow of blood and the sacrament
that sustains life

grasping the white feeding bottle of the sickness

You did not understand anything at all
except the worst in yourself
and you went away

Translation: 2005, Nicolás Suescún