Poetry

Ya que hemos estado taaan calenturientas ultimamente, decidí bajarle la temperatura a las cosas e incluir dos poemas, uno en inglés y otro en español. El inglés es de Don Lord Alfred Tennyson, Ulysses. El segundo, amado por siempre, Julio Cortázar (porque quisimos tanto a Glenda, y queremos tanto a Julio...), After Such pleasures. Disfruten.

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an aged wife,
I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel;
I will drink life to the lees.
All times I have enjoyed Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those that loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades Vexed the dim sea.
I am become a name; For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known---cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments, Myself not least, but honored of them all---
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades Forever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end.
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains; but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more, A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself, And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, my own Telemachus, To whom I leave the scepter and the isle---
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centered in the sphere Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay Meet adoration to my household gods, When I am gone.
He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail; There gloom the dark, broad seas.
My mariners, Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me---
That ever with a frolic welcome took The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed Free hearts, free foreheads---you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks; The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep Moans round with many voices.
Come, my friends.
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite the sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down; It may be that we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are---
One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Esta noche, buscando tu boca en otra boca,
casi creyéndolo, porque así de ciego es este río
que me tira en mujer y me sumerge entre sus párpados,
qué tristeza nadar al fin hacia la orilla del sopor
sabiendo que el placer es ese esclavo innoble que acepta las monedas falsas, las circula sonriendo.
Olvidada pureza, cómo quisiera rescatar ese dolor de Buenos Aires, esa espera sin pausas ni esperanza.
Solo en mi casa abierta sobre el puerto otra vez empezar a quererte,otra vez encontrarte en el café de la mañana sin que tanta cosa irrenunciable hubiera sucedido.
Y no tener que acordarme de este olvido que sube para nada, para borrar del pizarrón tus muñequitos y no dejarme más que una ventana sin estrellas.

PS: La última frase de un poema olvidado, sin título alguno..."una corona impúdica sobre las sienes"