Dossier: Venezuelan Poetry
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Where the smokes / of the sad cooking pots cross paths with those / of the burning clothes / and the grey horizon disarrays its mist / there I wait -
We leave life behind when my father and I cross the tropics like a bullet / on his black motorcycle / pressing rays of sunlight melt as we go and the breeze blows strong / around this black metal colt... -
The day twists on me / the word, I must not say / the myopic arrhythmia of my poor lengths / that erode -
Where else was he going to be? Certainly / not up there, getting hungry amid so much silence, / so many saints in ecstasy, so much celestial sphere / obsessed with measuring the centuries -
I know of the sea breaking against a wall / how it scares me when its swell rises too high / when its waters grow cool and it is impossible. -
They taught me to beg / with my hands together / and to receive with them open / every day and every night -
Mr. Quintana / and the origami on his shirt / the watch guiding his hand / to pick up toys from the asphalt / and canaries from the balcony -
I mean no offense to anyone, but I have a right to not be here, to have left, taking into account the fact that my parting is merely a consequence. And I don’t mean for you to feel guilty (in the end,... -
I wanted to be a man, / a good man / who understood my Father / and his mixing of earth / with our flesh. -
Giving any name to this selection of Venezuelan poetry might generate a biased, if not reductionist, perspective of the writing of a few poets born in the eighties and nineties. Nor does it help much...
