that is the house, those are
the blurring faces you could see

Olga orozco


what does it matter whether it is in verse or in prose,
with these words or with those?

Juana de Asbaje





come, sit in the shade


with your head on the stone, eyes slanted heavenward, the trees won’t eat you, it is summer, voices care for their throat in summer, no need to stir up the air, a never tiring wind, put your head on the stone, do you know how to pray?, too much light for those crossed legs, your legs should be tracing angles, your head on the soil, seek a plane of your own, your hands over the river, why not cut a jazmin where it flows into the sea?


smoky walls


there is knowledge in the bricks uninhabiting a floating house
it can no more than smoke and float
memory breathes in the next match,
asbestos bones knowing nothing but asbestos,
floating asbestos over the bricks
memory is a path carpeting the house,
saying it wants to float on the stairs but the stairs don’t,
so smoke and walls with smoke,
memory with hands on the stairs


motion on the plain

a bitter smell like embers or like ice
the March sun clinging to the handrail
by the stirrup landing,
your head inside, upon two shelves
the train does not halt its travel under the water,
the commands must be found,
steam does not govern like smoke,
no iron sheets to guide
winding railroads on clay
getting out means meandering,
nibbling on jaws till they dance


three days and three nights the journey lasts,
if the house is on the other side there will be fish, bugs
on the surface, four pillars clearly sighted,
a lush narrow street,
windows open wide like gulfs
spheres and wagons among the fruit trees




a woman breaking and crushing clods of earth

rain on the wires, that woman breaks clods of earth
crushing them, one hand on the soil, another
on the seeds; her eyes on the man approaching her, she says
I have a daughter in the clouds, an apple on my tongue,
she wets her arms, wets her arms with tow,
the table topples, rings of bread in the paddocks,
the woman with empty gates, foals changing places
in this patch, mother, there are also planks in this patch,
wood is wood, it splinters, crosses,
ropes sparkle like tapestry
tapestries burst into a globe, bodies burst into a globe,
the woman touches a string and it is silk, not
horse eyes, she, hyena lips that have not learnt to smile,
the man cuts flowers with the mouth
of the mother on his chest moves his fingers like suns,
climbs the ivy, wrapped in the silk of his arms,
a flower in his mouth,
his gun loaded, foals
change places in this patch


footsteps on the stairs

it is not the voice in a portrait but only footsteps what remains of his footsteps on the stairs what remains of the stairs over your window not the voice below the partition stuck to your hands the voice on the landing behind your bedroom door the voices of his voice in other voices the absence of his voice in other ways not the deepness of his voice in a drawing but the tangled footsteps on the pillow footsteps on this cobbled sky footsteps that will find you under other footsteps

over the walls
below the pillow
to be obliterated fused severed
the bricks to hammer funnels
to hammer globes



you see no keys in your room

1

an animal covers the doors of the house,
it is his eye that creaks, not yours
arms movement move the roots,
arms movement like cathedrals
more water on the walls, white
a thermometer at forty degree eats dust on your knees
his eyes, not yours, tell part of the story:
hand on the axe, the axe with the executioner
whose white blood for a leap into thin air?

white is the picture on the stairs, whitened cathedrals with blank arms, white charcoals, white planks of feet with white, leap, dust on the windows, eleven times white eyes of your room

2


you run towards the stairs, you slip
is the blue a beret? Mary Immaculate on your head?
there is such bliss in waking close to the grass
the talk in the dream room a case in point:
broken the stairs, always more real than that of the tree
a pair of hands activate the turbine, from above
your legs are tortoises undulating towards the isle,
hell near, in your head



wherever your eye may roam

wherever your eye may roam, horses
even if the mist melts
behind the smoke lurk hooves
in the centre of the isle,
trees wear away the canals
the sun on the water lilies comes as a blow
the horses leap,
cobwebs or devil’s hair
their trotting can also be heard,
a frantic chafing of metals
they will pierce the rushes on this shore
and pierce from side to side the column
of rushes on this shore
always in this place shadows that embrace
departing logs
nests on the metal sheets over the dams



a little water needed

this scent of rain does not suffice,
March is in the picket fences,
in the blemishes on the roofs
in the animal of flesh dragging flesh
to chew on to bury
March in the roadway lines and the misted pane
March in the drought and the walls of this room,
March growing in this thirst, birds shatter in the air,
the trees have exploded, green is but a memory



a circle under the legs

1

a circle under the legs
beyond the glass people forge ahead in their cars
cars forging ahead with their spin, the watch
on your arm spurts like the clock in the street:
don’t go and get lost, the wind loosens ropes
to dynamite your body and split it in two
each with their own guardian, the ritual gallop,
the cloud that overcomes footprints
and the afternoon on your forehead before becoming a flesh wound

the boldness of another story returns, with horses behind
the last one rips off the saddle,
flogging of a whiplash on the bare rump

2


who cares where you gave birth to night,
when your waist melted away in a rope
what if you saw or did not see the woman jumping hurdles
as if they could return portions of her body,
you saw coal and that was the end,
a lukewarm death
you pushed it out to the sea of the city where you lived


3


you can write on the walls, the panes, the pillars,
this bladed tongue with silence,
write on the tombs of the house, the eyes
of the house, the monsters of the house,
your knees and the land,
but the bones are deaf,
there are drums by the window,
a breath wrapped in the neck
the noise bonded on the wood,
that stone clattering,
a sound of hooves bonded on the wood


at this very time she looks like Santa Teresa

pond woman in a photo
incomplete the hand moving on your waist
a womb partly open, cords bonding on the cords
the woman is a leopard
a sound shatters, cuts, part of the tongue,
music from stone, playing
a game with the angel, with the child,
womb the blood against the body
against the body outside, womb in the tree of the photo

prose in twos in the heads, blood is given
not taken inside the blood,
eyes on the cords,
your waist between her hands


flowers beneath the earth

you were expecting a meek night, half a cigarette in the weariness, the earth holding your sandals, the axis, a support, the labyrinth, a pink labyrinth with golden stars and sparkles, diadem on forehead, banner lit up inside, the wind embedded in your knees
you expected giddiness, wolves?, arms open like crosses, the glass slipper on the stairs, a love like crystal, the green in perfect sequence, clouds on the run from the window of the plane
lips on skin, nails on flesh, you expected bright lightning, dying better than your corpse to eat flowers beneath the earth

too much noise in this room

there is no point in heeding hands under warm water,
for even so cables graze the blinds and in the trees,
in the column of smoke between the fingers and down to the lungs,
there are presences
someone calls from the next room,
someone will hear the steps and the voice,
it could be a child, it could be a man

your hands are warm,
smoke in the air,
it is possible to walk towards the steps to answer
no need to describe any object,
or weave or unweave any mesh


it might come to pieces again

soft dough on soft stones, your head a bulrush under liquid whiteness, dry milk along high streets
your children pray their song at school, the rings of their legs watchful while the house floats raised on four pillars
it is an evil omen when a tree grows taller than the columns, your mother would say now, were she to witness the child on the roof tiles; a single one splits, the cracks reach the ceilings and in this room the air starts to sustain almost each piece of its furniture
you with your banner, your diadem of flowers, the blood fastened to your wrists, with your hand on the tree before resembling the ivy that weaves ivy in the hedge around your home


what was seen was a volcano

rather have white blankets unwrinkled, they scare
sleeping bags, one
rather have beings jumping cataclysms on the roof, two
too many bruises on their legs,
the stairs should be walked down carefully, three

winter bodies
flow through their hands,
what was seen was a volcano
black cloth over black bags
bags out into the street,
trees do not escape their positions
trees do not escape song
the light pole must be tied to the pavement, tie oneself up
to the light pole on the pavement,
blank slate on the pillow
nail in the movement of one’s eyelids


then there are doors, laughter in the house

you would like to run, wash
the candle wax , the stem of the rose,
salt from the cables
but the walls knit behind the posters
you would like to see the man that crosses fixed in the window,
the oak crosses fixed from the door
but you see stone beads in the hands of the stones
the bricks seal smoke against,
she poses with you in a portrait
knits, cuts with her eyes, the arms in the image smile
she hides if the cloth moves ahead over the smoke,
blind legs play: brushing voices within the footsteps
you would like to hear her, yes
but she splits her forehead over the fixed cross
sealing what has broken in the image
little is seen for much is erased
behind the smoke she knits
no one’s drivel, from thread to thread,
lush rivers like on the outside


trains

1

the train is inertia in this town,
a sinking mass, north and south its own image,
glass hands in the dining-car,
breaking through knots the plain, describing the flatness
on the table, close to the mouths, an animal
enlarges the design of its fingers,
for some time now the west has clung to the windows,
a smooth passage gently aging,
the rain can be adulterated,
trafficking bones along with flesh,
hail beats down intermittently
to one side the animal its gullet full and, head on,
the rounded forehead of the train, deserted and frozen
like the surface of those rails
seeing not, watching the inertia dividing the flesh, the foolish
gesture of the animal in its greed,
the knots enclosing the stones,
the mass hollowing out to release them



2

a frozen light survives, snores, melts away, speaks of what is now: the stabbed sky, the water on the sleepers, the calm death-throes of lightning over the mountain
speaks of the stupid face of the moon, of an oily breeze where birds can but slip about, the inconsistency of the fruit, this untimely habit of trees sprouting in spring
train at a standstill, the afternoon a mix of debris and wind, a skinny boy hanging down from a branch, near the female with her young
the herd walks, trots, with troubled slowness
wagons behind, rust over questions
you walk, run with troubled slowness, the skinny boy swallows the debris, the inconsistency of the fruit, the stupid face of the moon, he can but slip in the oil, wanting only to pulling stones from the guts of the female
the train picks up speed, the night in a moor of voices, the skinny boy lifts the moon with his hand, places it face down in the oil, shrinks

3

as time passes I believe less in words spoken, one was heard to say, colours began to change at some point along the way and from this angle of the sleeping car, from the windows steamed over with drops from the outside, another sheet of smoke emerges, a poplar grove with dry leaves, a stone bridge covering the footprint on the grass
cypresses and unnameable bushes also abound
folds in the earth from centuries back and this train where you are but an involuntary passenger slides over the sleepers and tracks as so many others might do
then the water, cables between posts and springs, iron walls with dynamite for what cannot be said
now I do not want to look
coal beneath the eyes

a thousand faces expanding your memory
somebody somewhere awaits
come, it is your choice, in the end you have built more serious foundations
enough with ghosts,
you may believe you have conquered the fever but
there is yet coal beneath the eyes,
impossible to throw it out to sea again
the nets are ripped
lightning bolts light your hands now
what you see creeping are stars
come, drag your body along
let your clothes drift away across the water


dad on the ladder

in autumn he would climb up his ladder carrying his clippers on his back, his checked shirt scuffing the metal and the wood, moving in circles while catlike your father covered the slanting steps one by one, sabres like iron stems ending in a wedge
once at the top he would straighten the clippers and start to cut, to have better shade in summer, he used to say
ivy plants are not green in autumn, no caterpillars or flowers in the flowerbeds yet your father piled mounds of leaves and let them dry in the backyard
what came later was a ritual, you loved the smell of smoke of the ceremony
last night, someone cut an ivy and left it by a stone column in the new house
the new house will be smaller than the last one, neither caterpillars nor flowers in autumn, only leaves for the ceremony in the backyard


to get to the house on the isle

wasps swarm, waists the hives,
the water is a plate, your two legs in one,
below, like arrows, shoulders forward, rubbing
the mooring ropes, letting them shrink
look for the angle, step on it hard so it forces you out,
faraway eyes over the body, a different stroke,
a hand over the bulrush, keep calm,
your initials are on the ring, look carefully,
the ladder on the pier is something else, slippery green
when the water rises, lichen wood when it goes down

it is not moss on the head, gentlemen,
pure logic to get to the house on the isle,
it is known the bulrushes swung floating on their wicker,
it is known the air of the house adds breathing,
all you have to do is leave the water, your blouse clinging to your ribs


isles

1

the isle from above,
someone will carry it away on their back
the man sitting on the last newspaper
telling stories, writing
beards and contours that kiss,
writing white stains on the isle,
far from the memory of the isle
the isle on a cloth,
air hollows, sudden falls in this turbulence
the man writes oceans of tombs,
reads his three steps aloud
we fly over black rocks
the man no longer writes,
he bleeds wells at the bottom of the pit
but he rubs his fingers and silence does not exist,
hands with roots in the water


2


the house you see walking is an ocean
no need to pile up logs to bring it here,
cut some flowers with your mouth, mouths with your body, turn round,
don’t look until the rope breaks its throat,
until the back reappears and climbs
clay up your legs, no,
better for the clay to dissolve, without breathing,
let what has to snore, snore
you like it with sand,
dry damp on the planks,
to wrap the halves of your house
open gills, let us go,
stars still creep coal beneath your eyes,
turn round, footsteps have mouths on their body



the house bleeds night

branches and suns from another window,
some steps missing, a few wagons on their rails,
hands crossed over chest, broken
of sweat on the throat, you know
they are branches of his voice in the walls,
on the canals you see its movement
water from your head, the oars weighing anchors
below the keels
you see dry leaves compressing,
you know you are slipping, that the isle is somewhere nearby,
that the fish are not mirages retreating
the bugs fly in wars of inverted cones,
your hand clinging to his rib
if the house bleeds night,
neither caterpillars nor flowers in the flower beds


windows

1

in the sixth window no suns,
in the sixth window a globe of sand,
the womb about to chew the earth
in the sixth window the forge, smoke,
a fleet of bugs riding bugs
in the sixth window splinters
of all the hollows of all the bones belonging to that man
in the sixth window another forge,
another smoke in the sixth window


2


the canals release curved stars
from the craft, Mary the third on your waist
the hug counts, the speed of the wind over the water
Orion is a white lighthouse among the signs,
they say the stretch is shallow if you want to pierce deeply
but floating, the stamens float upon the stems
the position unimportant, who cares
if the air comes now from the rock,
if the oars are ahead, at the side,
just close your eyes till the rain is over,
no matter how you place your head your hands are roots,
the mountain looms behind the rushes,
the house with its eleven windows



and this night too
you can open the door in the undergrowth
and breed fruits that come not from the earth
but from his spine,
you like the gestures of his house,
the encounter endures in the movement of muscles
in his home birds smell of wood,
books inject demands at the corners,
the corners are brains battling against sleep,
the darkness, the fatigue in his home,
are but images

you like his room, you like him as he is in his room,
you like him leaving your shoes by the bed and condemning you
to mixing resurrections with water from hell


not the voice in a portrait

you want to soap down your body, the water blows warm inside your legs, he brought the soap, added oil under the column coming from chrome, he brings stones of salt and of jasmines, he wants to lather your body with jasmines
he removes the towel, the voice hurts, he takes it away, it sinks in spheres creeping up to the marble veins, he closes your eyes, you cannot see him, he places the towel under your head, the stones melt into scales floating on your shoulders, he wants to soap down your body with scales
the voice comes from the cold edge of the bath, the deep tones scare you, he covers them with oil, you will soap down his body with oil