Song At Capri (Canción en Capri)

When beauty grows too great to bear
How shall I ease me of its ache,
For beauty more than bitterness
Makes the heart break.

Now while I watch the dreaming sea
With isles like flowers against her breast,
Only one voice in all the world
Could give me rest. 

Sara Teasdale

Canción en Capri

Cuando la belleza crece
demasiado bella para aguantar,
¿Cómo me aliviaré del dolor?--
puesto que más que la amargura
rompe el corazón belleza...

Y mientras miro la mar que sueña
con las islas como flores en el seno,
en todo el cosmos hay sólo una voz
que me podría dar la paz.

Tr. E. A. Costa 29 March 2014

Death Of A Poetry Generator

“As every child knows who has ever owned

an articulated toy, articulation has its limits...”

                                                (Pablo Gervás)

From the tree

adjoining grammar

hang electronic tongues

humming binaries

of despair:

does

does not

does

So hellish tag,

long ago elled and held

double-wheeled.

Approach now this easy task

and bask as laureate in golden

digits

humming humming humming

until the power is cut

and the distance algorithm

bites the surface of the sea

drowning measured isomorphisms

like rats and sailors.

Mere peasants

gather drift wood

on electric shores

scavenging platinum

for their hollow teeth.

She bathing

nude in sweet water

She bathing

nude in sweet water

She bathing

nude in sweet water....

Order now the spectrum search

goal-directed to uncover syntax.

Order now the evaluation functions

that measure stress among genes.

Order now your propositional

semantics & sublet the machine to say

one beautiful word like

amor-roma or cellar door or

Borodino

die one more smiling death

with pistol in the air

capturing a lagoon of

meaninglessness.

Then

you programmers

suicide from grief

that poetasters

who create knots in sheepskin cape

and long-daggered

shot the young Lermontov through

the heart

on his endless turntable

bleeding needles.

E. A. Costa 27 March 2014 Granada, Nicaragua

Dancing In The Desert (Chaco Canyon)

Barefoot in blue moonlit sand

we clear the night of fear

dancing dead centuries

of the desert floor alive once more

pounding rhythmically

with hip and paw, belly and claw

creating earthquakes

of rattlesnake

and foaming lava of scorpion

until grass flowers

and the ghosthunters rise

until the buffalo below

rise up and roam...

E. A. Costa 27 March 2014 Granada, Nicaragua 

Sur Amertume

Bitter is clean

and streamlined

like unsugared

mind.

Bitter is brief

like a screech

with no aftertaste

or time to waste.

Sleek is bitterness

like leek-green cress

riding an icy stream.

E. A. Costa 26 March 2014 Granada, Nicaragua

A New History Of Sleep

Sleep is lost to no purpose

in games between games.

Waking is not the container of thought,

sleep not the container of dreams.

Consider the porpoise who swims two cycles,

left and right, with one ear open and awake,

the other circling sound asleep.

Stand one-legged like a tribesman

guarding sheep

or like a Greek leaning on his spear

exactly half asleep.

Walk a thousand miles alone

night and day

and doze triangulating as the world awakes.

E. A. Costa 23 March 2014 Granada, Nicaragua

Colorado Rockies

Darkness scales the heights.

Swordpoints of sunlight cut the sky.

Ever so slowly dusk bleeds stars

over the pyramids of night.

There is nothing to say.

We pitch the tent and light the stove.

Cooking food is a stranger here,

embraced lovingly and devoured.

We eat & couple & retire.

Moonless dreams and nightmares

circle  the cocoon.

We are mummies here,

every night lying quiet

for ten thousand years.

E. A. Costa  March 18, 2014

La canción del jinete (García Lorca)

En la luna negra
de los bandoleros,
cantan las espuelas.

Caballito negro.
¿Dónde llevas tu jinete muerto?

...Las duras espuelas
del bandido inmóvil
que perdió las riendas.

Caballito frío.
¡Qué perfume de flor de cuchillo*!

En la luna negra
sangraba el costado
de Sierra Morena.

Caballito negro.
¿Dónde llevas tu jinete muerto?

La noche espolea
sus negros ijares
clavándose estrellas.

Caballito frío.
¡Qué perfume de flor de cuchillo!

En la luna negra,
¡un grito! y el cuerno
largo de la hoguera.

Caballito negro.
¿Dónde llevas tu jinete muerto? 

Federico García Lorca


The Song Of The Rider

Under the black moon

of the bandoleros sing

and jingle spurs.

Little black pony--

where are you taking

your dead rider?

The hard biting spurs

of the motionless bandit

who has dropped the reins.

Cold little pony--

how fragrant the knife flowers!

Under the black moon

bleeds the flank of the darkling

Sierra Morena.

Little black pony--

where are you taking

your dead rider?

The night spurs

its black haunches stealing

off with the stars.

Cold little pony--

how fragrant the icicle flowers!

Under the black moon--

a shout! And the long sharp horn

of the campfire.

Little black pony--

where are you taking

your dead rider?

tr. E. A. Costa March 9, 2014 Granada, Nicaragua

______________________________________________

*Flor de cuchillo is also known as dientes de dragón and uñas

de gato in Spanish, as well as the icicle plant in English.

Luna

Estábamos tan lejos de la vida

Que el viento nos hacía suspirar

         LUNA SUENA COMO UN RELOJ

Inútilmente hemos huido

El invierno cayó en nuestro camino

Y el pasado lleno de hojas secas

Pierde el sendero de la floresta

     Tanto fumamos bajo los árboles

     Que los almendros huelen a tabaco

      Medianoche

Sobre la vida lejana

Alguien llora

Y la luna olvidó dar la hora

Vicente Huidobro (Poemas articos)

Moon

We were so far from life

the wind made us sigh:

     THE MOON RINGS LIKE A CLOCK.

We flew in vain.

Winter fell our way

and a past filled with dry leaves

lost its track through forest.

     We smoke so much under the trees

     the almonds smell like tobacco.

     Midnight.

Over life faraway

a body weeps

and the moon forgot to sound the hour.

Tr. E. A. Costa 6 March 2014 Granada, Nicaragua