Poem Jaime 45, from the book La risa de Demóstenes, rara, II.

Editorial Palabra Viva, Medellín, 2009.

Translated by Miguel Falquez Certain.

JAIME’S 45TH POEM

(It’s not that I have been extremely influenced. Pangs from the left auricle; bigheaded Inca.)
Jaimeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Thirty-three Peruvian poets born up to 1930, good ones, you are left with the long-sleeve shirt waiting for a good idealistic analysis: González Prada, Eguren, Lora y Lora, Valdelomar, César Vallejo, Parra del Riego, Santos Chocoano, the Peña Barrenechea brothers.
Spelucín, Alberto Hidalgo, Gamaliel Churata, César Moro, Xavier Abril, Oquendo de Amat, Martín Adán, E. A. Westphalen, José María Arguedas, Moreno Jimeno, Sologuren, J. E. Eielson, Leoncio Bueno, Salazar Bondy, Blanca Valera, Manuel Scorza, Romualdo, Washington Delgado, Cecilia Bustamante, C. Germán Belli, Gonzalo Rose, Paco Bendezú, Américo Ferrari, Pablo Guevara (with all his books published in one year).

Hopeful sonneteers with alchemic gold as symbols, with the worst Andean rage, as Baroque as Garcilaso, as nonconformist as Manuel González Prada and Carlos Oquendo de Amat, and as virginal as Vallejo and his framework of mundane laments. Parra del Riego and Marinetti’s Futurism with his polyrhythms honoring sports in the ’twenties.

Martín Adán at the Beatnik poets’ readings. “I would like to be the mailman of the sad people / so they bless my shoes.” From Juan Gonzalo Rose: the last Ulysses before the technological revolution.
A minor poet like José Lora y Lora and “The canary that dies before singing its song.” From Chiclayo to Lima. The Colónidas (Alberto Hidalgo, among others). The Aprista poets, like Spelucín ― Quechuans of suicidal breaths. Lost Indigenismo without Churata and his “Golden fish,” or Arguedas and his last bullet.
Jaimeeeee! Within normal parameters, at the 20th Century pyramid, the Peruvian poets have never rested easy since the disappearance of the twin Sapa Incas, exterminated by Francisco Pizarro and Diego de Almagro (the Dark Interregnum).

Due to the deviation of very Oriental, Epicurean structures, everything got gradually confused during nights of monarchic dominations.
Making a whole empire full of hopes disappear because of the gold and the silver, to pay for wars carried out by Habsburg, the Miser, and his successors ― it’s a joking attitude you should strike with them instead of going against my skeptic criticism with phagocytes. Oh, Sextus Empiricus!
Jaimeeeee! There are no more satires left with their respective codes that may help you get out of a jam and finish up the book of disrespects. There are no more Ballads ― the first couple of gold diggers have kept everything for themselves, and then they die just like that! Oh, cutie pie! Idealistic matter.

And if we agree, then why don’t we move to Peru and enjoy this silly, encapsulated master’s degree and get cozy with Vallejo and his Catholic Socialism?

To Pedro Granados & C. Alfonso Rodríguez (for the books they gave me on Peruvian poetry)

 

 

Original version in Spanish:

POEMA JAIME 45

(No es que este súper influenciado.

Ramalazos del auricular izquierdo; cabezón inca).

Jaimeeeeeeeeeeeeee!, 33 poetas peruanos nacidos hasta 1930, buenos, te deja con la camisa de manos larguiruchas en espera de un buen análisis idealista: González Prada, Eguren, Lora y Lora, Valdelomar,

Cesar Vallejo, Parra del Riego, Santos Chocoano, los hermanos Peña Barrenechea.
Spelucín, Alberto Hidalgo, Gamaliel Churata, César

Moro, Xavier Abril, Oquendo de Amat, Martín Adán,

E.A. Westphalen, José María Arguedas, Moreno Jimeno, Sologuren, J.E. Eielson, Leoncio Bueno, Salazar Bondy, Blanca Valera, Manuel Scorza, Romualdo, Washington Delgado, Cecilia Bustamante, C. German Belli, Gonzalo Rose, Paco Bendezú, Américo Ferrari, Pablo Guevara (con todos sus libros publicados en un año).

Sonetistas expectantes con el oro alquímico simbolizado, con la peor rabia andina, tan barrocos como Garcilaso, tan rebeldes como Manuel González Prada y Carlos Oquendo de Amat, y tan virginales como Vallejo, y su armazón de quejidos mundanos. Parra del Riego y el futurismo de Marinetti, con sus polirritmos al deporte en los años veinte.

Martín Adán en las lecturas de los poetas Beatniks.

“Quisiera ser cartero de los tristes/ para que ellos bendigan mis zapatos.” De Juan Gonzalo Rose: el último Ulises, antes de la revolución tecnológica.
Poeta menor como José Lora y lora y “El canario muerto antes del trino”. De Chiclayo a Lima. Los Colónidas (Alberto Hidalgo, entre otros). Los poetas apristas como Spelucín. Quechuas de hálitos suicidas.

Indigenismo desaparecido sin Churata y su “Pez de oro”, ni Arguedas y su última bala.
Jaimeeeee! dentro de lo normal, en la pirámide del siglo XX, los poetas peruanos nunca han dormido tranquilos, desde la desaparición de los gemelos reyes incas, por exterminadores como Francisco Pizarro y Diego de Almagro (el sombrío interregno).

Por desviación de estructuras epicúreas muy orientales, todo se confundió en noches paulatinas de domin-aciones monárquicas.
Hacer desparecer todo un imperio con expectativas, por el oro y la plata, para financiar las guerras del avaro Augsburgo, y sucesores, es una mamadera de gallo que tú deberías de tener frente a ellos, y no contra mis críticas escépticas con fagocitos.

Oh Sexto El Empírico.
Jaimeeeee!, ya no hay sátiras, con sus respectivos códigos, que te hagan salir del apuro, y terminar el libro de las irreverencias. No hay más Romances, la primera pareja de oportunistas se ha quedado con

todo, y así mueren! Oh lindico! la materia idealista.

Y si estamos de acuerdo porqué no nos vamos a vivir al Perú, y disfrutamos de esta tonta maestría encapsulada,

y nos empozamos con Vallejo y su socialismo católico.

A Pedro Granados, C. Alfonso Rodríguez (por los libros obsequiados sobre

poesía peruana)

---

 

Silvia.

Miami, FL, USA.

74th Street was locked up for us, between eleven and fifteen, it was languid and tragic, although it was the urban landscape of some small mansions, and above all, the street where the school Castro Martinez was, a school for bourgeois girls, very beautiful in my feverish teenager memoir. At the time of exiting the school, the streets were filled with colorful uniforms of kilt and blue sweater. In the middle of the block, was the house occupied by the family Castellanos. It was a neighborhood of decent and polite people, today we would say, upper middle class and each and every one denoted the presence of a stable and armonious family.

Los Castellanos were four children two boys and two girls who attended classes in the Kindergarten where Nestor, my brother, and me used to attend classes. Our house was on 73rd street, right around the 74th, almost two blocks from the house of the Castellanos family. Sometimes they came to our house to play soccer, lottery or monopoly. Ours was full of books because our father was a great reader and liked to collect books. There I discovered classic and rustic Editions: Nana by Emile Zola, Red and Black of Stendahl, and Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. I liked those issues because the pages were printed on a very thin tissue paper and were perfectly legible. I remember the sharpness of the printed words. The covers were embossed leather. The house had a porch adorned with a yellow rose whose flowers were visible through the window of my father's studio and so instead of calling like that or office, we called that room “the desk”.

On the desktop, in addition to the furniture of the same name, there were also the book stands that formed our library, where we found many curiosities that were kept as our oldest and great treasures: A magnifying glass with gold rim and handle, porcelain brought from Germany, including along with a bunch of junk, small photo frames, mini-books, cups decorated and lead soldiers. The most curious was into a small jar of alcohol or formaldehyde, where it was a dissected fetus who had been the youngest of our brothers if my mother would not have miscarriaged him. On vacation time, days were long and sometimes we stayed chatting or playing in the corner of the district well into the night when the streets were filled with shadows.

The sky of January, even at night, remained in a deep blue with bright reflections of the moon. Some bourgeois boys challenged the quiet neighborhood with screams echoing up in the yards of neighboring houses, though some have shelters yards. Sometimes we moved to other blocks, but we were scared, because children in each block were different and tried to assemble some fights or attack. So whenever we returned to our streer we had to be aware of my father because he scolded us if returning from work found us outside in the streets; so if we saw him arriving we hid behind a car or a tree and then we went to another house and climbed the interior walls of those other houses and we returned to the interior of ours by entering through the “solar” or backyard and so, Daddy did not realize we were not at home when he came. We became customary to go from one house to another climbing the brick walls that divided the block by the backyards. All of this houses had one or two interior patios or “solares”, connected with the other houses of the block, so that we could gain access to all of the houses in the block without going outside just by climbing the walls and walking just like mischievous cats.

Moms already knew of our routes and suddenly and alternately, all children on the block passed from one house to another and appeared in each of the inner courtyards. The Castellanos family used to live in another block, which corresponded to 74th Street, then if they stayed up late playing with us, their mom came to look for them and pick them up. Chiqui Rodriguez and me shared the concern and astonishment which one of the girls provoked. Yes, Silvia one of the sisters of the Castellanos immensely attracted us; as we passed by the 74th we hid in the trees to see her entering or leaving her house while her friends invited her to play or take some refreshment at the corner shop at the 15th. street .

We stayed hidden often for a lot of time waiting just to behold her, always with great contenment and enjoyment. Sometimes she was with her brothers when we went to pick them up to go to play. On Sundays she came to church with all of her brothers and her parents, always passing mandatory walked outside my window, not just Silvia and their parents, but other girls in the neighborhood that I also liked in many ways, had routines that forced them to move to eye shot out the window of my room. So I was very shy and preferred to contemplate, especially, see how their skirts swaying to the rhythm of their hips and calves as bright velvet skirts with fashion even then covering the knee. School uniforms also kilts, were another attraction of my neighborhood, who only dare to look with a beating heart. What a capacity to feel!, what strong senses when we are just fourteen years old!.

Until one day when walking with one of her brothers, I came face to face with Silvia, my heart seemed to explode. Gradually or rather suddenly, Silvia became my obsession. I repeated her name all day in my mind and I wrote it many times in my notebooks, painted hearts and drew her name next to mine. I used to take a yellow bus to school and her image was with me the whole duration of the trip. Also when my mother or my aunts went shopping and took me as their assistant or helper in the market places full of resellers of beans, chickpeas, rice, potatoes, etc.., With their bundles arranged around each of their stands, the dealers offered their product in a loudly language and disentoned voices, between funny and rude; these peasants became the joke of the houses of families of middle or upper middle class that in their talks ridiculed and despised them by using degrading and offensive expressions. The word "Indian" or India, for example, was no to refer to the Hindu or Indian origin of the peasants, but to insult an determine an inferior status and thus to insult and discriminate them. "That guy is a complete Indian '," "That taxi driver was an Indian" -, Bogotanian ladies have the tendency to insult low class people by saying: " You are a dirty Indian. " Some even specified the tribe: "This is an Apache." There was a language with an unmistaken and clear discrimination attitude towards them and a mistaken assessment of the Indian as a human being. This are wrong ideas and prejudices implicit in the structure of the concept itself.

As if this were not enough, the middle-class families had in their homes two, three and even more servants, with funny names, according to them, Gosvinta Maria Suarez, Tuna Pazcagasa, Marlene Chara, etc., served to these families without any legal protection, or fair retribution for their jobs. Usually under ominous conditions imposed without any remorse. In the Arevalo’s home, for example, maids were treated very bad, they were called oprobius names as “broken feet india, ugly savage, ignorant peasant”, among many others, and not satisfied with this horrible language and bad attitudes, they used to punish by hitting them some times, when the hormones were up to the heads of these ladies, even to drop them in ice water pools where they used to wash their clothes.

The cold water in Bogota, one can say, is so cold that it burns. But for me the important thing was Silvia. In the endless masses of the first Fridays in school we were put up for breakfast until after the communion at Mass because we were fasting and some students often fainted. Then came a sermon where we were scared to death with sin, the devil and the demons of the flesh with speeches riddled with biblical images and examples of sinners who repent not on time and were condemned for all eternity. Fortunately I thought of Silvia, winding up at those times, my senses were more acute and loved life thinking about her eyes, hands, slow swaying of her body while walking, and the memory of her high hips into the unbearable bearable . So when I met with his brother and she turned to me, I was transported to heaven, but I was so shy that was confused and unable to spin a conversation. She told me about the singer's fashion, Leo Dan, if I liked, that if I had heard or bought his records. I hadn’t, I replied, maybe so, but did not have his records. She said she was studying painting in addition to attending school and liked a carreer as a professional decorator. I stuttered too good ... yeah, I like painting. It was a girl with many ambitions, and seemed she was very fond of herself, and also confident while socializing.

As she spoke I saw her, wearing a gold bracelet on her wrist. It was an educated girl from a good family who showed her great enthusiasm for life and the anxiety typical of a teenager for learning and getting. -Buy the latest album by Leo Dan, told me when we said good bye. I arrived home and put the radio station “Radio 15”, which was transmitting music for teens and through all these songs, repeating them from beginning to end, not only I learnt about Leo Dan but I learnt about Paul Anka, and the mexicans Enrique Guzman and Cesar Costa. Many sleepless nights and anxiety filled my days of folly. All song lyrics texts that I became enamored of her, "I will follow you ... rivers and seas ... etc. I will have to cross. I dreamed also sending her roses and cards filled with corny lines that flowed indiscriminately of my imaginations overheated by the dual influence of her vivid memories and music that framed in what I considered "my first love, the prettiest girl I had ever dream ... "Her name sprang in the most unexpected moments and playing tricks on me when to call one of my sisters or house maids confused me and whispered the name Silvia, but in the solitude of the refectory, while in church or visiting some precinct wherever I was alone with my thoughts, I always repeated: "Silvia, Silvia, my love! Then I started dreaming about Saturday. The best day of the week. Sunny Saturday with no school, go for a walk Saturday, dance, cinema, yes, cinema, Silvia. Saturday to invite to her to the movies.

I started planning my invitation to Silvia. I thought again and again how should I tell her. I was besieged by questions about whether she would accept. I wiped the saliva, sweat my eyes and hands, and built with lots of phrases that might win her heart, still dreaming of roses and a note to send with my application smart. Thus passed the days of the week, Silvia thinking while I was bored doing my homework. At last I decided to tell my father I wanted to go to movies, I did not say with whom or how. The old accountant, gave me extra work. If you want money for movies, you have to earn it. I take a lot of bills, receipts and accounting notes to a gas station, gave me a journal and told me, "make records of all transactions, complete debit and credit columns for the corresponding month, after finishing the accounts of this month, then you would have earned for the cinema. Many days scoring and adding on an old adding machine branded "Burrouhgs" I think it was an old english one, whose keys weighed 50 times more than those of a piano, especially the number 4 and the decimal point. Finally, at last, came the awaited day, Silvia and I would be able to go out together, to a movie. I could be with her alone for the first time, to chat and meet each other, to find a way to tell her my dreams, my efforts to explain the love She inspired in me. That day set me up before the usual time. Sang several songs while I showered and my brothers made fun of me for my unusual mood.

Few minutes after 10 am, at the time we had planned to talk about our date and waiting Silvia to call me to confirm the time and other details, Uva Jimenez, one of our neighbors living on the other side of the street, knocked forward and pressed the bell urgently. She brought a horrible story, I overheard it when She approached my mother and told her with a shaking voice: "The father of the Castellanos family has committed suicide with a razor blade. He killed homself. He cut his neck. I almost fainted and tried inmediately to call Silvia, but no one answered, no one faced the situation. They just disappeared. The widow and children left the 74th Street house without anyone knowing how or where did they go. Since that day we never heard from them. Silvia, of course, vanished and despite his wonderful memory, spent many years during which I dared not even walk over the sidewalk in front of the house that used to be their home, I just walked away and changed sidewalks.

By Luis A. Miranda.

For more information write to luismiranda98@gmail.com