a waking - octavio paz

A Waking
by Octavio Paz (tr. Eliot Weinberger)

I was walled inside a dream.
Its walls had no consistency,
no weight: its emptiness was its weight.
The walls were hours and the hours
sorrow, hoarded forever.
The time of those hours was not time.

I leapt through a breach: in this world
it was four o'clock. The room was my room
and my ghost was in each thing.
I wasn't there. I looked out the window:
not a soul under the electric light.
Vigilant streetlamps, dirty snow,
houses and cars asleep, the insomnia
of a lamp, the oak that talks to itself,
the wind and its knives, the illegible
writing of the constellations.

The things were buried deep in themselves
and my eyes of flesh saw them
weary of being, realities
stripped of their names. My two eyes
were souls grieving for the world.
On the empty street the presence
passed without passing, vanishing
into its forms, fixed in its changes,
and turned now into houses, oaks, snow, time.
Life and death flowed on, blurred together.

Uninhabited sight, the presence
looked at me with nobody's eyes:
a bundle of reflections over the cliffs.
I looked inside: the room was my room
and I wasn't there. Being lacks nothing
-- always full of itself, always the same --
even though we are not there...Outside,
the clarities, still uncertain:
dawn in the jumble of the rooftops.
The constellations were being erased.

between going and staying - octavio paz

Between Going And Staying
by Octavio Paz

Between going and staying the day wavers,
in love with its own transparency.

The circular afternoon is now a bay
where the world in stillness rocks.

All is visible and all elusive,
all is near and can’t be touched.

Paper, book, pencil, glass,
rest in the shade of their names.

Time throbbing in my temples repeats
the same unchanging syllable of blood.

The light turns the indifferent wall
into a ghostly theater of reflections.

I find myself in the middle of an eye,
watching myself in its blank stare.

The moment scatters. Motionless,
I stay and go: I am a pause.

a where without a who - octavio paz

A Where Without A Who
by Octavio Paz (tr. Eliot Weinberger)

There's not
a soul among these trees
And I
don't know where I've gone

a song out of tune - octavio paz

A Song Out Of Tune
by Octavio Paz (tr. Eliot Weinberger



non visto color de buen verdigay

nin trobo discor ni fago deslay

          Juan Alfonso de Baena

The day is short,
                          the hour long
Motionless I retrace its steps,
climbing its minor calvaries,
I descend on stairs made of air,
and am lost in transparent galleries
--but I don't find me,
                                and I don't see you.

The day is short,                                

                          the hour long.
I see my stubborn hand that writes
its circular words on the page,
I see my shadow on the page, I see 

myself falling through the hour's blank center
--but I don't find you,
                                 and I don't see me.

The day is short,
                          the hour long.
Time drags on, hides, and peeks,
time is buried, clods of air,
time sprouts up, a column of air,
it bashes my forehead, scrapes my lids
--but I don't find me,
                                and I don't see you.

The day is short,
                          the hour long.
I walk through lots and corridors and echoes,
my hands touch you and you suddenly vanish,
I look in your eyes and suddenly vanish,
the hour traces, erases, invents its reflections
--but I don't find you,
                                 and I don't see me.

The day is short,
                          the hour long.
There is a seed asleep in time,
that explodes in the air with a burst of syllables,
it is a word, and it speaks without speaking
the names of time, yours and mine,
--but I don't find me,
                                and I don't see you.

Names are fruit that ripen and fall;
the hours immense, inside itself it falls.

as one listens to the rain - octavio paz

As One Listens To The Rain
by Octavio Paz

Listen to me as one listens to the rain,
not attentive, not distracted,
light footsteps, thin drizzle,
water that is air, air that is time,
the day is still leaving,
the night has yet to arrive,
figurations of mist
at the turn of the corner,
figurations of time
at the bend in this pause,
listen to me as one listens to the rain,
without listening, hear what I say
with eyes open inward, asleep
with all five senses awake,
it's raining, light footsteps, a murmur of syllables,
air and water, words with no weight:
what we are and are,
the days and years, this moment,
weightless time and heavy sorrow,
listen to me as one listens to the rain,
wet asphalt is shining,
steam rises and walks away,
night unfolds and looks at me,
you are you and your body of steam,
you and your face of night,
you and your hair, unhurried lightning,
you cross the street and enter my forehead,
footsteps of water across my eyes,
listen to me as one listens to the rain,
the asphalt's shining, you cross the street,
it is the mist, wandering in the night,
it is the night, asleep in your bed,
it is the surge of waves in your breath,
your fingers of water dampen my forehead,
your fingers of flame burn my eyes,
your fingers of air open eyelids of time,
a spring of visions and resurrections,
listen to me as one listens to the rain,
the years go by, the moments return,
do you hear the footsteps in the next room?
not here, not there: you hear them
in another time that is now,
listen to the footsteps of time,
inventor of places with no weight, nowhere,
listen to the rain running over the terrace,
the night is now more night in the grove,
lightning has nestled among the leaves,
a restless garden adrift-go in,
your shadow covers this page. 

proem - octavio paz

Proem
by Octavio Paz (tr. Eliot Weinberger)


     At times poetry is the vertigo of bodies and the vertigo of joy and the
vertigo of death;
     the walk with eyes closed along the edge of the cliff, and the verbena
in submarine gardens;
     the laughter that sets fire to rules and the holy commandments;
     the descent of parachuting words onto the sands of the page;
     the despair that boards a paper boat and crosses,
     for forty nights and forty days, the night-sorrow sea and the day-
sorrow desert;
     the idolatry of the self and the desecration of the self and the dissipa-
tion of the self;
     the beheading of epithets, the burial of mirrors;
     the recollection of pronouns freshly cut in the garden of Epicurus, and
the garden of Netzahualcoyotl;
     the flute solo on the terrace of memory and the dance of flames in the
cave of thought;
     the migrations of millions of verbs, wings and claws, seeds and hands;
     the nouns, bony and full of roots, planted on the waves of language;
     the love unseen and the love unheard and the love unsaid:  the love in
love.


Syllables seeds.

certainty - octavio paz

Certainty
by Octavio Paz (tr. Charles Tomlinson)

If it is real the white
light from this lamp, real
the writing hand, are they
real, the eyes looking at what I write?

From one word to the other
what I say vanishes.
I know that I am alive
between two parentheses.