Telepatía crónica
No me tientes a buscar
diabólico sentido
en nuestra cita,
con todo y su sacudida, su impacto,
la conmoción que sabemos inminente
entre coyunturas y tendones.
¿Títere? ¿Disfraz y antifaz vacíos,
manejados con hilos y adminículos
desde arriba?
El uno
propio con uno,
el tuyo contigo,
tu entrada y salida a escena,
tu salud y enfermedad,
tu sí y no,
tu derecho y revés,
tu ruido y silencio de marioneta.
La caída del telón.
En aquel sueño, ¿qué era lo que emitías por la boca? Ofensas, altisonantes modos de hablar; revestido de púas o cochambre, lo precioso e infecto. Cuánta confusión, cuántas batallas: avanzas, florete en ristre, careta bien puesta, en equilibrio perfecto . . . y yo permito el ataque, sin oponer la menor resistencia, ni siquiera desenfundo, pese a que he vivido a la espera. Siento la punta clavárseme en el ojo derecho, abriendo de lleno el ventanal. ¿Qué hay allá a lo lejos, qué se alcanza a distinguir, qué relámpagos es? Un pasillo iluminado. Y el ojo izquierdo, el bueno, se mira en ti, te observa en sí. Está fatigado. Se entrecierra, dormita, no puede más, se deja llevar por el río hasta el delta lagrimal, escucha apenas, ya casi en la antesala: “si algo nos enseña el arte, es que la condición humana es sigilosa”. Y hace una sola masa de fantasmagoría, delirios, migrañas, hambre. Un volcán cuyo rostro se enciende de emoción. Cuya boca pide limosna. Es lava. Se lava.
Que me parta un rayo
y se descubra
la falsa intimidad.
Sustantivos que se expanden
sin actos paralelos.
Y aun así
se reproducen
a placer.
¿Qué me ves? ¿Qué me sabes?
¿Quién soy?
Se me vació la cuenca,
estoy estallando,
haciendo erupción.
Y no me extingo.
¿Hay alguien ahí?
¿Hay alguien aquí?
No te vayas, no te me vayas. Qué fácil despedirte entre signos de interrogación. Antes de que logres contemplar el famoso túnel iluminado de que hablan quienes han estado casi al borde; antes de ese último aliento de la conciencia, el del hallazgo de los seres queridos que han partido, esa felicidad suprema que no alcanzan a saber si será bienaventuranza, te voy a jalar para acá. Voy a dar respuesta a tus preguntas “profundas”, “inspiradas”, “de fondo” sin regreso. ¿Que qué te veo? Pues todos los trucos de la pena y la compasión. ¿Que si te veo? Clarito, situada al centro del día, con el sol encima, bajo tu personalísimo Arco del Triunfo, lo que consideraste un merecido lugar de honor en los anales del sufrimiento. ¿Qué te sé? Tu código genético, incluso las dolencias y aflicciones. ¡Bah! Una pifia en pasarela. ¿Quién eres? La sencillez fanática. Y pensaste que con eso acababas de pagar tus cuotas. Pues déjame que te cuente: no hay fuego que se apague. ¿Que si hay alguien al otro lado? No rotundo. ¿Quién vive? El último brillo en la punta del dedo que te soltó. Hay alguien aquí.
Via Corporis
Pura López Colomé
Listen to an excerpt of the original Spanish read by the author:
“Chronic Telepathy” is a selection from Via Corporis, Pura López Colomé’s 2016 collection that grapples with the mind-body connection and how language functions as both a wound and a salve in the healing process. The poems are inspired by abstract oil paintings by Mexican artist Guillermo Arreola, which were themselves inspired by old x-rays thrown out by a hospital in Mexico City.
I was first compelled to translate these poems by what was practically a telepathic experience, in the sense that they spoke to me non-verbally before I could comprehend what was actually written on the page—even though I have no issues reading Spanish. For me, translation and healing are quite similar in that they are both an exercise in recreating an illusory wholeness, all while working through the discomfort of a wound.
Joseph Hutchinson observes in Cerise Press that López Colomé, “[l]ike other hermetic poets, [ . . . ] views language less as personal expression than as a tool for unveiling the invisible. This produces a poetry replete with images that are often abstracted in various ways: unmoored from their apparent occasion or context; blurred, as in a palimpsest, by layers of allusion; made multidimensional through wordplay and gestures, sometimes incomplete, toward symbolism.”
The aforementioned style requires me to also keep a kind of reserve, a discipline, and above all, I must resist any instinct to make radical changes or force the poems in any one direction. So my approach to the text is both restricted and expansive; in other words, it reflects a constant dialogue between the more restrictive, fractured body of the text and the mind’s response to its condition.
I was first compelled to translate these poems by what was practically a telepathic experience, in the sense that they spoke to me non-verbally before I could comprehend what was actually written on the page—even though I have no issues reading Spanish. For me, translation and healing are quite similar in that they are both an exercise in recreating an illusory wholeness, all while working through the discomfort of a wound.
Joseph Hutchinson observes in Cerise Press that López Colomé, “[l]ike other hermetic poets, [ . . . ] views language less as personal expression than as a tool for unveiling the invisible. This produces a poetry replete with images that are often abstracted in various ways: unmoored from their apparent occasion or context; blurred, as in a palimpsest, by layers of allusion; made multidimensional through wordplay and gestures, sometimes incomplete, toward symbolism.”
The aforementioned style requires me to also keep a kind of reserve, a discipline, and above all, I must resist any instinct to make radical changes or force the poems in any one direction. So my approach to the text is both restricted and expansive; in other words, it reflects a constant dialogue between the more restrictive, fractured body of the text and the mind’s response to its condition.
Pura López Colomé was born in Mexico City. A poet, literary critic, and translator, she spent part of her childhood in Mérida, Yucatan, and attended high school in the United States. She studied literature at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, publishing a regular column for the newspaper Unomásuno. English translations of her work include Watchword (Graywolf, 2012), translated by Forrest Gander; Aurora (Shearsman Books, 2007), translated by Jason Stumpf; and No Shelter: Selected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 2002), translated by Forrest Gander. López Colomé has translated works by Samuel Beckett, H.D., Seamus Heaney, Gertrude Stein, Virginia Woolf, and others into Spanish. In 2008 she received Mexico’s Xavier Villaurrutia Award, Mexico’s equivalent to the Pulitzer Prize. She lives in Cuernavaca, Mexico.
Hillary Gulley is a multidisciplinary artist whose practices include both writing and translation. Her literary work has appeared, most notably, in Smithsonian Journeys, The Washington Post, Words Without Borders, and Brick, A Literary Journal. She has translated numerous book-length commercial and literary novels from Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese, while benefiting from the financial support of PEN America, the Vermont Studio Center, the Mystery Writers of America, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
