Poetry: Alicia Minjarez Ramírez, Mexico

Exclusive: Poetry from Europe and other Western locations: Curated by Agron Shele

LONTANANZAS

Translated by: Alaric Gutiérrez

To my beloved angel. M.B.

I built you up

From diaphanous drops

that clarify

the thin contour

of the wind’s arms.

Those dancing

upon my face,

hold up and excuse

the rising of

light stealth birds

on the horizon.

Sky wings bearing

fragrant

polyphonic aromas,

diluting

moist loams

in vetiver

and bergamot,

disseminated

over your body’s

drought.

I envision you

In my silent

barren palms,

as drops

upon my river;

ecstatic the open sea

conspires,

flows against formed

verbal tide,

in ivy

language.

Warp naked

fanciful voices,

dawning

deep inside my skin,

cracking

desire’s opacity.

I built you up!

while it rains

FLASHES AND SHADOWS

I will find you

Far beyond history

Where the zephyr

Is concealed and surfaces,

Where immersed poems

Flashes and shadows;

The tongue goes back

To the ocular sound

Of swinging words

Around the stems

Of your rivers.

Autumn leaves awaiting

For the rumbling night,

Postponed silences

Singing.

Shy hours leaving

Frizzed cracks in the mud,

Like airily stars.

Inert prayers

Flowing unnamed

And confined to the wind,

Versed in the glare

Of your pupils.

PAST

Behind that door

are all the things

which bordered my past.

Stripped illusions

untouched by words,

sheltered and helpless

in the heat of the past hours.

Flows of dreams

throbbing immensity

dragging the continent.

Dusty tide converging

adorned by smiles,

moon in balance

in this cave painting.

Ecstatic mornings

in nightly suns,

luminescence,

harmonic discrepancy

in the green channel,

your pillow

the evening of my hands.

Hypothetical consonants

defying the night

inversed cups

of the same sky,

coded tongue in codices

inspired in your mouth

for my ear.

As one who sees

opaque footprints

thrown into the battle

of the night,

I happen by inertia

where the stone

becomes the lake

with no more arms

than the airily sight

enlightened and eternal.

I advance helpless as the rain,

wind that doesn’t turn back,

never returning water

reflecting my diffused face.

Last contemplation

of the knocker.

I brick up the door,

drink up my words…

And resume my steps.

Translated by Alaric Gutiérrez

Biography

Poet, Translator, Singer, University Professor,  Broadcast locution Radio and T.V.

She was born in Tijuana Baja California, Mexico.  Winner of a special mention and a medal in the International Poetry Prize NOSSIDE Italy 2015, recognized by UNESCO.  Awarded with the IWA BOGDANI Albania Award, 2016. Awarded with the Third Place in French Poetry in the International Poetry Prize ‘Sous les traces de Léopold Sédar Senghor” at Milan, Italy, 2016 recognized by ONU and UNESCO.  Winner of a mention in the NOSSIDE Poetry Prize, Italy 2016.

She was considered among the International Poets published on the XXI Century World Literature Book released at New Delhi, India, 2016.  Her poems have been translated into: English, Albanian, French, Cameroonian, Arabic, Chinese, Taiwanese, Portuguese, Polish and Italian. And published in more than 50 International Anthologies, journals and magazines around the world. 

Setu, May 2018