DEBORAH LANDAU [16.517]

DEBORAH LANDAU

Es una poeta americana, ensayista y crítico.

Bibliografía: 

Orchidelirium, Anhinga Press , 2003 (winner of the Anhinga Prize for Poetry).

The Last Usable Hour, Copper Canyon Press, 2011.

The Uses of the Body, Copper Canyon Press , 2015.

LOS USOS DEL CUERPO

Antes de tener hijos

tienes un perro.

Entonces, cuando nace el bebé,

esperas que el perro se muera.

Cuando el perro muere,

representa un alivio.

Cuando tus bebés dejan de ser bebés,

quieres un nuevo perro.

Ves dónde acaban

las utilidades del cuerpo.

Pero nosotros sólo estamos en el medio,

Solamente en mitad del camino.

Los órganos más viejos creciendo en los bolsillos afelpados

rozándose hasta el desgaste.

Estamos aquí y pronto no estaremos

(a pesar de la confortable cama con perros de peluche almohadas, libros y un reloj.)

El chaval con sus calcetines y sus pijamas.

Una serie de colisiones accidentales.

Presión en el pecho. Todo el mundo

respira por ahora, dentro y fuera, toda la noche.

Tienen que ser cosas tristes.

Entro en la cocina pensando en dulcificarme.

Los huevos duros no van a hacer nada.

Ostras. Desinfectante. Mantequilla de cacahuete. Ginebra.

Gran cara de niño, sin esperanza.

Tengo veinte, treinta, cuarenta años.

Un amigo dijo Escucha,

tienes que intentar calmarte.





SOLITARIA

Ese verano no quedaba en mí nada de la niña que fui.
Se hizo evidente poco a poco.
De repente ocurrió.

En la piscina, yo pesaba más que la luz.
Picada de viruela y escuálida con un sombrero de ala ancha.
¿Qué será de mi cuerpo

cuando esté tirado toda la noche en el suelo?
Pleno verano. Inspiración. Expiración.
No soy una bombona de oxígeno.

Dos veces a la semana tenemos sexo.
Veo a las ágiles chicas junto a la piscina

casadas con hijos, con anchas

caderas de mujeres maduras.

No puedo ver más allá del punto en el que estoy.
Como tú, sólo estoy de paso.

Quiero mantenerme durante un tiempo.
No quiero nada
ni renunciar a nada, no quiero

estar entre algodones o exhibirme en carne viva.
Si yo retinol. Si yo maratón.
Si yo vitamina C. Si yo carmesí

mis labios y mi pelo moteado.
Si yo cera. Exfoliar. Copular
al lado del pescado contaminado.

Cúbreme, tengo frío. Cúbreme, estoy en mitad del camino.
¿Me aplastarías en el hueco de la escalera?
¿Podríamos acostarnos?

Si los frenos no funcionan.
Si los pesticidas no desinfectan.
Si el séptimo piso expulsa un ladrillo

por la ventana y cae en mi cabeza.
Si un estremecimiento, la menopausia. Cáncer. ALS.
Estos son el ABC de mis miedos.

El médico dice
No tengo una pastilla para eso, querida.
Ojalá, sería una panacea, señoras,
¿gin-tonics en una noche de verano?
¡Te crees inmortal! Desconcertada.

Sucesión de días que no podemos atrapar.

Versión de Carlos Alcorta

https://carlosalcorta.wordpress.com/2015/06/

Solitaire

That summer there was no girl left in me.

It gradually became clear.

It suddenly became.

In the pool, I was more heavy than light.

Pockmarked and flabby in a floppy hat.

What will my body be

when parked all night in the earth?

Midsummer. Breathe in. Breathe out.

I am not on the oxygen tank.

Twice a week we have sex.

The lithe girls poolside I see them

at their weddings I see them with babies their hips

thickening I see them middle-aged.

I can’t see past the point where I am.

Like you, I’m just passing through.

I want to hold on awhile.

Don’t want to naught

or forsake, don’t want

to be laid gently or racked raw.

If I retinol. If I marathon.

If I Vitamin C. If I crimson

my lips and streakish my hair.

If I wax. Exfoliate. Copulate

beside the fish-slicked sea.

Fill me I’m cold. Fill me I’m halfway gone.

Would you crush me in the stairwell?

Could we just lie down?

If the brakes don’t work.

If the pesticides won’t wash off.

If the seventh floor pushes a brick

out the window and it lands on my head.

If a tremor, menopause. Cancer. ALS.

These are the ABCs of my fear.

The doctor says

I don’t have a pill for that, dear.

Well, what would be a cure-all, ladies,

gin-and-tonics on a summer night?

See you in the immortalities! O blurred.

O tumble-rush of days we cannot catch.

I Don’t Have a Pill for That

It scares me to watch

a woman hobble along

the sidewalk, hunched adagio

leaning on —

there’s so much fear

I could draw you a diagram

of the great reduction

all of us will soon

be way-back-when.

The wedding is over.

Summer is over.

Life please explain.

This book is nearly halfway read.

I don’t have a pill for that,

the doctor said.

Domestic

At night, down the hall into the bedroom we go.

In the morning we enter the kitchen.

Places, please. On like this,

without alarm. I am the talker and taker

he is the giver and the bedroom man.

We are out of order but not broken.

He says, let’s make this one short.

She says, what do you mean?

We set out and got nearer.

Along the way some loved ones died.

Whole summers ruined that way.

Take me to the door, take me in your arms.

Mother’s been dead a decade

but her voice comes back to me now and often.

Life accumulates, a series of commas,

first this, then that, then him, then here.

A clump of matter (paragraph)

and here we are: minutes, years.

Wait, I am trying to establish

something with these people.

Him, her, him. We make a little pantomime.

Family, I say, wake up. The sentences

one then another one, in a line. And then

we go on like that, for a long time.

from Blue Dark

 the moon might rise and it might not

and if it brings a ghost light we will read beneath it

and if it returns to earth

we will listen for its phrases

and if I’m alone at the bedside table

I will have a ghost book to refer to

and when I lie back I’ll see its imprint 

beneath my blood-red lids:

not lettered ink 

but the clean page

not sugar 

but the empty bowl

not flowers 

but the dirt 

*

blame the egg blame the fractured stones 

at the bottom of the mind

blame his darkblue glare and craggy mug

the bulky king of trudge and stein

how I love a masculine in my parlor

his grizzly shout and weight one hundred drums

in this everywhere of blunt and soft sinking

I am the heavy hollow snared

the days are spring the days are summer

the days are nothing and not dead yet

*

worry the river over its banks

the train into flames

worry the black rain into the city

the troops into times square

worry the windows cracked acidblack

and the children feverblistered

worry never another summer

never again to live here gentle

with the other inhabitants

then leave too quickly 

leave the pills and band-aids

the bathroom scale the Christmas lights the dog

go walking on our legs

dense and bare and useless

worry our throats and lungs

into taking the air

leave books on the shelves

leave keys dustpan 

telephones don’t work where you were

in the chaos

*

and I couldn’t bear it

the children nearing the place

where the waves wet the shore

vaporous force

rising imperceptibly behind

we were talking about circumstance

horizon-gates swinging open

beneath the cherry blooms

wave rising in the background

impalpable and final

a girl in a white dress       barefoot

wasn’t I right to ask her to move in from the shore

*

this is the last usable hour

bird lured

through the window

a little sweet fruit

I could die here

and the hearsedriver

would take me out of this city

I’d say my name to him 

as we crossed the Triboro

I’d say it softly         the way he likes it

it would be the last time

I’d introduce myself that way