OF A COPY OF THE BLACK HERALDS TO FRIENDS IN TRUJILLO
[Lima, July 1919]
Brothers,
The black heralds have just arrived. And they will head to the North, their native land. Speckled, they proclaim: someone’s crossing all the himalayas and circumstantial andes. Behind such stunned panting monsters, an absolutely shrill Solo of Blades rings in the aurora’s writhing … Let our ears perk up—Confession: And on the other side: the good friendly guy, the long-suffering Korriskoso29 of yesteryear, the trembling expression at life. And if I am to make some offering out of this book with all my heart, this one’s for my brothers in Trujillo.
César
[JM]
BOOK TWO 1920–1923
FROM Trilce
I
Who’s making all that racket,1 and not even letting
the islands that linger make a will.
A little more consideration
as it will be late, early,
and easier to assay
the guano,2 the simple fecapital3 ponk4
a brackish gannet
toasts unintentionally,
in the insular heart, to each hyaloid
squall.
A little more consideration,
and liquid muck, six in the evening
OF THE MOST GRANDIOSE B-FLATS
And the peninsula raises up
from behind, muzziled,5 imperturbable
on the fatal balance line.
[CE]
II
Time Time.
Noon clogged up nighttime fog.6
Boring pump of the cellblock backwashes
time time time time.
Was Was.
Roosters songsing7 scratching in vain.
Clear day’s mouth that conjugates
was was was was.
Tomorrow Tomorrow.
The warm repose of being though.
The present thinks hold on to me for
tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow.
Name Name.
What calls all that puts on hedge us?8
It’s called Thesame that suffers
name name name namE.9
[JM]
IV
Two carts grind our eardrums down
three-pwronged10 to our tear ducts, when
we never did anything to them.
To that other yes, unloved,
embitternessed11 in tunnel unsheltered
by the one, and over tough aljid12
spiritizing tests.
I stretched out like a third party,
but the evening—whatta whe to do—
rings around my head, furiously
not wanting two dose up on mother.13 They are
the rings.
They’re the already chawed nuptial tropics.
The withdrawal, best of all,
shatters the Crucible.
That not having discolored
at all. Side by side with fate and cries
and cries. The whole song
squared into three silences.
Heat. Ovary. Nearly transparency.
All’s been mourned. Vigil’s been utterly kept
in deep left.
[JM]
VI
The suit that tomorrow I wore
my laundress has not washed:
she used to wash it in her otilian14 veins,
at the brook of her heart, and I need today
not ask myself if I’ve left the suit
tinged with injustice.
At this our15 when no one’s going to the water,
the fabric for feathering
fledges on my guidelines, and everything
on the nightstand of so much what’ll become of me16
is not all mine
at my side.
They stayed put in her possession,
bonded, sealed up with her flaxen goodness.
And if I knew that she would return;
and if I knew what morning she’d walk in
to deliver me cleaned the clothes, that soul
laundress of mine. What a morning she’d walk in,
satisfied, a goldenberry of labor, delighted
to prove that yes she does know, that yes she can
HOW COULD SHE NOT!
dye blue and iron out all the chaoses.
[JM]
IX
I
