and suddenly life
on my plate of poverty
a thin slice of celestial pork
here on my plate
observe me
observe yourself
or kill a fly unmaliciously
annihilate the light
or create it
create it
like one who opens her eyes and chooses
overflowing heavens
on the empty plate
rubens onions tears
more rubens more onions
more tears
so many stories
indigestible black miracles
and the star in the east
cloistered
and the bone of love
so gnawed and so hard
shining on another plate
this hunger itself
exists
it is the urge of the soul
which is the body
it is the rose of grease
that ages
in its heaven of flesh
mea culpa the cloudy eye
mea culpa the black morsel
mea culpa divine nausea
there is no other here
on this empty plate
but me
devouring my eyes
and yours
__________________________________
From Blanca Varela’s Rough Song, recently published by The Song Cave. Poem © the Estate of Blanca Varela, 2020; Translation © Carlos Lara, 2020.
Blanca Varela
Blanca Varela (1926-2009) was born in Lima, Peru, in 1926. Considered one of Peru's greatest poets, as well as the first woman to win the Federico Garc-a Lorca International Poetry Prize, she has not been translated in English until now. The Mexican Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz praised her poetry and identified one of her gifts as knowing when to be silent if it is time not to write. Carlos Lara (translator) is the co-author of The Audiographic As Data. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two cats.
