Ars Poetica

by Carlos Martínez Rivas

You’re opposed to Love, its mania
for eternity frightens you,
its insistent nightingale whistle
drives you mad? You only want
to kiss what passes by in the everchanging
eternity of transience? — then
I’m your man! Untrue love never found
a more hospitable heart than mine
to perch in. As 1 arrive
so I leave: alone, and if the skies
remain mute so too does my heart.

But, listen: you won’t betray
your faithless soul. If you see a spark
of the son of man in my eyes, don’t try
to figure it out, or inquire too much into my
accent or what lies behind my laughter.

Where I desire exile and silence
don’t overstep the boundary. The white
vulture of Judgement nests there and only
the frown of a private life it sings!

Translated from Threnody for Joaquin Pasos & other poems
by Roger Hickin