INHERITANCE OF THE SLEEPLESS 61
under the jasmine,
there are beautiful sentences.
I search with hands of fog,
something in my bones.
And to my aid comes,
the girl who knows
read backwards.
TENIA
She had the profile of a raven
and she covered her navel
with a lotus
she in dreams
she drank beer
with Alejandra Pizarnik.
She wanted to rent a small apartment
in Latin American Union neighborhood
only to have parties or orgies.
An apartment where beer
will fly like a raven
and the girls in full frenzy
they will remove the lotus from the navel
and the men will arrive like castaways
and burst in at sunset.
then someone comes back
to rent that apartment
and before putting the furniture and inhabiting it
read aloud to Alejandra Pizarnik
and a lotus enters through the window
pushed by the evening air.
INHERITANCE OF THE SLEEPLESS 82
I
lightning strikes
the blood bans
the eyelids of a son confuse the stone,
he has spilled on his knees
that burning milk,
which they throw in the face of the lamb.
II
I was spawned
in full abyssal torture.
and I have shields
about all my children.
III
You have petrified aspirations
and you say that you will become
in wolf at noon,
and you will bite a blue breast.
IV
You moan from the preacher’s throat
and thorns appear,
you want to be and not be at the same time
under any sky
pleasure shatters the night
and your bones watch over you in the hunter’s house,
and he ash in orgy with lightning
it’s just the picture
of that mother that she said
please open the door for me
welcome me, my house is burning down
she will burn me
and all my children.
V
I forgive him, but he repeats
I forgive him and he tells me
I want all my children together
forming a tragic link.
VI
I’m the father,
I drag bags with abundant fruits,
vegetables and goat cheese
I visit all the markets
all vegas and slaughterhouses
at five in the morning,
he wore a marbled coat,
a split in the middle of the forehead,
the sea spends angels and demons
and I spend the gold
with what should I cover
the mouth of all the unearthed.
VII
And who wants to sit at my table
he can talk to me at sunset
about my old gold digger aspirations
while we bite fruits,
and goat cheeses.
VIII
my children say
I have minotaur feet
and that I’m crazy.
IX
They were distributed.
The first met lightning envelope
and he finished as server in fifths of recreation.
The second was tempted by alabaster prostitutes
and he ended up ripping the bones out of all the fish with his mouth.
The third was suckled by a mule
and he ended up inspecting faucets.
The fourth was confined in a monastery
and ended up transcribing dictations from a blind nun.
Suddenly I wanted to have them all with me
forming a tragic link
on the precipices of the species.
X
And the mother in the hunter’s house
hid in the meantime
she said: “for now I am safe here,
although everyone outside
see the ash in orgy with lightning
and that is the image that remains of me in them”.
I will put my children to shelter
I’ll get them up at dawn
they will have the plague of a wolf that bit a blue breast
and they will fall one after another
and I will put compresses on the body
and I will invade my mother’s house
and the living room will be enabled as a sanatorium
and I will wake up at dawn to serve them
like a blind nun
and I will fear that a few steps of minotaur
are getting closer.
XI
those were my kids
and they were my gold digger pride
Of that gold that I will ever find
to cover once and for all
the mouths of all the unearthed.
XII
Come and let’s continue biting fruits
and goat meats and cheeses
That’s why I’m at five in the morning
with a marbled jacket,
and a split in the middle of the forehead,
in all vega, slaughterhouse and market.
That’s what lightning goes for
against all the prohibitions of the blood,
That’s why I choose alabaster prostitutes for my children
and with ashes I increase the abyssal torture of generation,
and with shepherd’s throats, I increase the desire
of those who want to be wolves at noon,
and bite a blue breast,
and have petrified aspirations,
or pluck fish bones with their mouths
and from the confused stone I make a shield
under which the wolf will drink burning milk
in the snout of the lamb.
written by © Rodrigo Verdugo
Rodrigo Verdugo Pizarro: Santiago, Chile, 1977. Poet and collagist. He was secretary of the Pen Chile and formed part of the Surrealist Derrame Group. His work has been published in national and foreign journals and anthologies being partially translated into: English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Arabic, Uzbek, Romanian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Dutch Albanian and Greek. He has participated in collective exhibitions in: Spain, Portugal, Czech Republic, Costa Rica and Egypt. He is author of: “Veiled Knots”, Ed Derrame, 2002, “Broken Windows”, Olga Cartonera, 2014, “Advertisement”, Rumbos Editors, 2017 and “3 Anuncios, 3 Annonces”, Plaquette, Coedition Mago Publishers, Home Notebooks Bermeja, and Hesperides Publishing House (Argentina), Hispanic Academy of Fine Letters (Spain),2019
Feature art photo Mercenaries at the neural pipelines Oil, collage 9inx12in Mitchell Pluto 2022