Sunset is always disturbing whether theatrical or muted, but still more disturbing is that last desperate glow that turns the plain to rust when on the horizon nothing is left of the pomp and clamor of the setting sun. How hard holding on to that light, so tautly drawn and different, that hallucination which the… Continue reading Jorge Luis Borges
Being with you and not being with you is the only way I have to measure time. — Jorge Luis Borges, from “The Threatened”, The Book of Sand [El Libro de arena] (1975)
your voice in this being unable to move away from my gaze things dispossess me make of me a ship on a river of stones if your voice is not rain alone in my feverish silence you unbind my eyes and please may you never stop speaking ever — Alejandra Pizarnik, from “Presence,” Antología Poética… Continue reading Alejandra Pizarnik
Moonlight on the water showed it vivid against the sky. Further back, she was watching me. She began to sing a song. Worn out by love, by terror, I knew her voice was creating the secret half of the world. —Diana Bellessi, from “Pursuit of the Dream,” Nobody Gets in Here With Words, The Twins,… Continue reading Diana Bellessi
All absence lives in the night. — Alejandra Pizarnik, from “untitled,” Uncollected Poems (1962–1972), translated by Cole Heinowitz (Jacket2.org, Feb 23, 2014)
[…] what happened (to Kafka) is the same as what happened to me: he withdrew he went too far into solitude and knew — he must’ve known — you never come back from there — Alejandra Pizarnik, from “Psychopathology Ward,” Extracting the Stone of Madness: Poems 1962 – 1972. (New Directions; 1 edition, May 17,… Continue reading Alejandra Pizarnik
The shadow covers the outer petals The wind makes off with the final gestures of leaves The foreign, now twice-silenced sea inside a summer pitied for its lights A longing from here A memory from there — Alejandra Pizarnik, from “Dusk,” Extracting the Stone of Madness: Poems 1962 – 1972 (New Directions, 2016)
