Mercedes Roffé
From Mayan Definitions
Sometimes
It is said
when something is not always possible
a habit or a way not very
frequent
not everyday
--which does not mean never
It is usually said when once in a while something
such as feeling sad or lonely or happy or pretty
happens as if we´d said every so often
one day it does, two days it doesn´t
one day it does, three days it doesn´t
but not regularly
not every two
or three days
or every Saturday
or Thursday
or two out of four Fridays
but for instance one Friday it does
and then it doesn´t
and then, two or three weeks later
it does and then it doesn´t for five or six or fifteen days
and then again, it happens.
It might also be the case
that we come to forget something for a while
or somebody
and then we suddenly see it --we assume--
or have it or remember it or miss it once again
somewhat later
and somwhat later one more time
and again and again a little later
Or it is said with regard
to something that happens
usually in the soul
like a rhythm
or with a certain rhythm
that we usually ignore
that we rather recognize
every time
and when we come to realize that it reappears
that it has already appeared many times and we have recognized it
then we say that it happens
every certain time
every certain measure
of a time we are unaware of
just like feeling like singing or
falling in love
just like the rains come
sometimes
From Night and Words
Boredom
Tedium
when the day dies down.
Like when a river dies down
and awakens
the one cradled by the river.
The whisper of the water
that goes
silent:
Roar --not voice.
Not iris --fog.
And farther behind
the void.
Moon
of unmalleable metal
where nothing is mounted
nor inscribed.
Tedium
like a kingdom.
Until
recovering
the inhabited
condition of silence.
Like when
the river dies down
and the one cradled by the river
finally awakens
or for the first time
wakes and sees
anchored in the bays of the night
the tartans of dream.
Self Portrait on the Shores of a Frozen River
Je ne donne
spectacle que de mon âme
L. Aragon
Diamonds
teeth
lime
Carrara
flagstone and granite
A capricious chessboard
without queen or pawn
Sometimes
not even the river flows
High the crest towards the sun
haughty and foolish
scolds and threatens
the warm, clear day
the wave halted like the step
at the hour of Pompeii
Sometimes
not even the river flows
Twitching face, rough
peaks
milky or ashen
quartz
bits
of a bursted cupula
salt
rocks
islands
rectilinear
lotus
brittle fauna
of a candid, lethal tropic
(The compact
blinding
whiteness of the coast
devises
an annoying beach)
Sometimes
not even the river flows
A seagull
breaks its flight, white
Slender, unfolded
flies over
the calm
and the flight
adjusts itself to the stillness
Sometimes
not even the river flows
From the blue boulders
the junipers
feign
a ghastly flower
bronchi
forever drowned
a charred and begging
hand
Sometimes...
Incrusted in the inertia
it stabs like a sorrow
the blackness of a branch
Night and Words
By candlelight
the words
were losing all reality
that bit of weight that drags in their hems
as they hang from the iron S's
the carcasses and their flies.
Fabrication
--almost a lie.
The tingling of the tin plate
flatterer of emptiness.
Masquerade
--almost a lie.
Rings of smoke like souls
take away the breath
of a faint enthusiasm
without voice or past.
Fog
dust
nothing
The ephimeral.
How to withstand
the ignominy?
The inanity of saying
just words
sea mustache bingo blue fields caves
rings books breakfast
train
sword
Nothing is nothing
Close your eyes tight until
the blue
overflows the glass.
"Here, drink.
Let's toast to everything. And give
the credit to silence. Here
you have it."
The inanity of saying
just words
cradle extension tribe grass minstrel ditch
colophon
A hollow
inflated
by the felicitous gymnastics of pronouncing
the echo of a past
--the final blow of the corvina's tail
against the dry sand.
Guts
Have guts
Let’s withstand
in the illusion of THE LIGHT
the words
will die far away
perhaps in the bend
where desire embraces memory
before the somnambulent gaze
of an indifferent or mordant other
"There's no plot," I said.
"No intrigue or ending."
Only the return. There's no
possible scaffolding. The night
nonetheless
withstands.
Against all gravity, the night
withstands.
It inevitably
withstands.
Argentine poet Mercedes Roffe is the author of seven poetry collections.
Her work has been widely published throughout Latin America as well as in
Spain and the US. It has also been translated into French (Editions du Noroît,
Quebec) and Italian (Quaderni della Valle, Bari). Among other distinctions,
in 2001 she was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, one of the
most prestigious awards for a writer in the Americas.
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