Jorge Lucio de
René Magritte. Golconda, 1953.
TO HAVE AN
APPRENTICE UNDER THE SUN (*)
for
Marcel Duchamp
1
To have an
apprentice
under the
sun
is not the
same as
feeling him
in equilibrium
The pistils
the remains
of an organ
that rips
itself apart
drags to
outside of
the stubborn
scenery
2
The thing I
say
is certainly
an ear
or something
easy to say
(nor is it
vile if
seen from
below)
3
Everything
is always
the same
thing
it's always
the
same thing
Everything
is always
what points
-
like an
arrow -
the way
4
In this case
a whisper
of words
almost said
almost thin
with
such clarity
5
I prefer the
swollen
map of
infinity
6
If the whole
world
fits in my
mouth
a pack, a
porch
that swarms
I still
don't know
who I am
I don't
think
who I am
7
To have an
apprentice
under the
sun
It's my only
answer -
the most
plausible
of answers
THE PERFECT
MOMENT (*)
for
Robert Mapplethorpe
Despite such
raw things
the day
menaces
to begin
like this -
in a
grinding
of teeth -
neither more
nor less
THE ORIGIN OF
THE WORLD (*)
for
Gustave Courbet
There is a
vague and talky disease
in that fuzz
of black
beside
gradually
boils - slow cuts
But why
doesn't it puke now
the kakhi
under the
untwisted
of morning?
THE MYSTERY
OF ISIDORE DUCASSE (**)
for
Man Ray
I owe him my
soul more
than to any
in trembling
alleyways -
I come to
shiver with pleasure
at the
voltage that keeps on
making
infamous of
I slowly
succumb
wherever I
observe
myself -
there - I say to myself
and bow
beneath a
of toothless
opals
THE OLD
MAN'S BOAT AND THE OLD MAN'S DOG
for
Eric Fischl
All I think
feel
breat
he a lonely
orgasm
at sea
THE MAP
for
Richard Bosman
A whole
plain
fixing the
stars
without at
least
contemplate
them
THE END OF
THE JOURNEY
for
Joan Brown
Your janus
head appears
from my
I lean
myself to the
left our
melancholy
became a
mean and I´m
about - from
THE MYTH OF
DEPTH
for
Mark Tansey
Morning has
a certain bleat -
some
undefinable body
At
it stays
among the books
It´s
(to go to
bed again)
It's
for
Wallace Stevens
There were
two
reptiles on
the grits
of that
desert of
The big one
hated
insults,
spittles
nails,
prickles and
arrowlike
tails
The small
one
loved
eyes -
shining in the
night -
reminded
the posters
of
Las Vegas
JUST A
MINUTE
Paler than a
human
or the
launching
of a glare
Absolutely
not
a rainy day
OUT OF SIGHT
There's a
delight on the
canvas of
the night
I will know
it in a slow
frowning
Till I oblige
myself
to stay
in myself -
far and near
of myself
LIKE WATER
IN THE WATER (Second
version)
A phosphorescent
way of seeing -
a way of being
and feeling that
a needle deflowers -
a poem from an
intense and dotted
interior that the
finger mouldes
with its nail -
till the anus
finally confess
and the pain
emerges
with a tongue
roughness
THE HUMAN
CONDITION
for
René Magritte
The flesh
detaches from
its bones
while is
left over
and the soul
grazes beyond
the web as
a flogistic
landfill - as
a sticked
projectile
pointed to
the milk
of bears
and stars
WHITE MILL
for
Günther Uecker
Fingers on
the mirror
beg for a
thread -
the half of
what they say
they are
and always
watch -
physical
STARTING
WITH
To see the
other side
flutter-
ing the
nocturnal
vocation
of filling
(draining)
-
I even like
and burn -
I increase
a sun that
always give
me colours -
if it still
says that
the wind
blows -
in brief
: that
AMOROUS
EXHIBITION
for
Francis Picabia
Wish I
could
the nacre
of a noon -
its blue
of a
still
cirrus -
if my
body
no longer
feels
what is
to have
a soul -
under the
sun of a
whirlwind
to be the
nape of
your empty
hands
HEGEL’S
HOLIDAYS
for
René Magritte
I see myself and the
night falls in what I see -
if they splinter me
and my leaves fall
If everyhing I say on
the painted metal in
which I feel myself
without wind
and again, in a
red falling down
from the beginning
FYING FIGURE
for
Louise Bourgeois
Ambiguous like everything
on this side of the window
In the course it always
says other things
from the bottom as
each one uses to be
in heaps - at the edge
of a plausible whisper
A spittle plotted
by slow licks
Injections so
full of life
MIRAGE
I don’t see how to foresee
a naked skin, a rope-walker
with details of anchors
and chords of sun
However is strange
a sad and still smile
on the lips - a distant
and forked look
soaked
of sea
THE GUITAR
LESSON
for
Balthus
1
I don’t throw myself
to life
by chance:
I don’t exist, I glitter. I don´t celebrate
the weeping that oppress me
and exhaust my sources
By chance
: a dinossaur, a whale -
an impression of a few digits
In a rappel à l’ordre I make the light
and the
space
constitutes my collage -
it receives me in an
incoherent mirror
2
I paralyze
my papers and
the poem loses its calculation, its metal, an
urgency that strings it
and my body dissipates -
a veiled extract
kidnaping the world
What remains in myself
murmurs and
carries me out
undresses
attacks
sodomises me
3
I exclude affections
and once for all
I change myself
around me
If one speak to me
I don’t reply
If one touch me
I fade out and devour
my tongue -
I soil the tabula rasa
of my soul -
I paint a sunset
and then I flee
I feign that
I don’t hear
my guitar
lesson
PROTECTED
VISION
a
Fred Wilson
1
Oh God, a dog
inside out
that I search
in vain and
refuse in my
useless skin
I accuse you
and such act
completes
me -
2
I don’t know
if I love or
ignore you
If you explain
me or
if I complicate
you
understanding
you
3
Tell me if
I’ll be only
dust in your
eyelids -
if are you
who makes
me in
your entrails -
I, an ewe
inside out -
one that denies
your herd -
started already
the triumphal
march
(*)
Translated by Hugh Fox for The Temple, Gu Si, El Templo (P. O. Box 100,
Walla Walla, Washington, 99362-0033, USA), Vol. 3, No. 4, 1999.
(**)
Translated by Leslie Bary for Helicóptero (480 E. 30th Ave. Eugene,
Oregon, 97405, USA), Vol. 3-4, 2001-1.