Poetry in Spanish, French and English

The Prelude to Alma Mater II

Alma Mater II will be a continuation of my poetry series on my university and life experience. The second book will be divided into three sections, by language and topic, as follows:

Part I: Versos para decirte que también tu me amas (Español)

Part II: La Vie Continue... (Français)

Part III: It is all about us. (English)

However, Alma Mater II could appear as three separate books, as recommended by one of my publishing agents, one for each language. That agent had also recommended to publish each section in Alma Mater I, as a separate book, but I was enticed to publish it as a entire collection.

The contradictions and paradoxes in Alma Mater II will be significant, probably reflecting the difficult times we live today when the book is being written and compiled from other neglected manuscripts, not included in Alma Mater I. For the reader, the poetry in Alma Mater II should reach an important level of intimacy with the writer to attain real contact with the story told.

Here are some of the poems that are being written, edited or compiled from earlier manuscripts at the moment.

Poetry in Spanish (Poesía en Español)

VERSO LIBRE

Escribo un verso libre, sin ritmo ni métrica

para contarte lo oculto de nuestro secreto

te llevo ganador en mi pasos perdidos

te siento en el alma mientras me piensas de lejos.

Te agrada el silencio bajo la oscuridad de la noche

en que beso tus labios con la cadencia libre del verso.

Me gusta la miel de tus labios, me agrada el deseo

que tengo por tus caricias tiernas y tus abrazos de seda.

Me agrada el silencio en que callas sin aliento

y se lleva el ritmo del tango que bailamos una vez.

Me agrada el perfume que me trae la brisa marina y

me da cándido el recuerdo de mis dulces tiempos

la piel tendida al lecho, sudando profusa

romántico deseo, que va vibrando por dentro.

Y eres tu siempre, cercana, latente, viéndome

escribir un poema que trae el rítmo vano del viento.

EL CORCHO ATRAPADO EN EL VINO

El corcho se fue al fondo de la botella

sin romperse y sin dañar el vino.

Y pareció multiplicarse en miles con los reflejos

de la botella, oscuro, como si cada copia pereciera

así, cada uno de sus reflejos dio una versión nueva

del corcho, genética inútil, cándido corcho atrapado

en el jugo rojo del fruto de la vid y de la labor del hombre

y se fue resquebrajando con el tiempo, la luz se desvaneció

y la oscuridad tomó posesión, y sólo un lampo de luz

vibró a través del vidrio de la botella y volvió a mostrar

el cilindro destrozado por el alcohol, y añejado por el tiempo.

Mis amigos llegaron para decirme que ya no había más vino.

Desde entonces me he dedicado a la tarea inútil de sacar

el corcho de la botella, y entretanto, brillan sólo sus reflejos.

Poetry in French (Poésie en Français)

MON AMIE

Mon amie, je respire ton arôme d'un café colombien
sur tes yeux ouverts, je respire le désire qui te fait sourire
je respire sur tes yeux qui me font battre le cœur

et c'est toi qui me libère des amours d'autre temps.

Mon amie, je sens dans tes mains, sur tes bras
les amours des amis qui se sont oubliés de toi
et ces sentiments te touchent tout lentement

comme un amour mordu, fugitif qui ne revient point.

Je te reveille avec un poème, comme si nous avions passé

la nuit ensemble, unis, nous en dormant avec des rêveries

qui s'ouvrent silencieuses sur ton art en toutes les couleurs.

Je dégoûte tes vins au moment où je rêve d'un café parisien
où les jeunes gens se baisent passionnément, où la douce et

l'heureux s'oublient du temps perdu en la grande fête.

Poetry in English

Second Class Man, First Class Woman

I do not have any class, you said one time
my class is in my heart and above all
yet we fly to our destiny together
as the mystic flower joins us forever.

My French teacher said that verb souffrir
belongs to all groups, for everyone suffers
yet happy our bodies embrace one another
and the flower blooms a new sunny day.

My class is in my heart, indeed, alone or with you
no sense to argue that you are of a first class
above all nature, like a white flower blooming purity.

Class and style go hand on hand, shoulder on shoulder
like men who work hard, like women dancing at sunlight
our styles merge together, so only one style remains.

The art and style of loving

Loving with style is not just about two beings
that lie on each other resting vividly in the soul
the art and science of love is in the feeling
the energy that flows like curves in artwork.

My words are the lines that color the landscape
that we both paint in order to create our best
we can be together, ah!, misunderstanding of dreams
daydreamer and sleepwalker, awaken to a new belief.

Differences arise from our diverse expectations
but I can see in your smile and your bright eyes
the true happiness I can see nowhere else.

It is not a matter of style, the art of love is natural in all
it flows with energy like lines in an abstract picture
where espresso blends all the blues you truly love.

Celestial Blue

White and light blue lines blend into shapes
that I recognize come from your imagination
since something alike I have ever seen before
yet the words that melt the lines say love.

The lines are hard, assertive like your hands
arms that stretch your pencils each time
your finger vibrating under the espresso
served warm, exotic, in an cafe where we meet.

It was my first dream before my verses
for it is my desire to always see you there
for before its begin a new year ends.

The hot tea is in your hands afront your art
now there are lines, the heat flowing
charming energy filling your breath and mine.

On Freedom, Love, and Happiness in Literature

THE SEARCH FOR LOVE AND HAPPINESS

According to J.P. Sartre, man is destined to be free. His beautiful intellectual essays compiled in L'Être et le Néant (Being and Nothingness) affirm so, and he challenges the human being as being the nothingness, which allows that philosophical concept into any dimension. He had also talked about liberty and freedom in his The Roads to Freedom (Les Chemins de la Liberté), a trilogy where he exhibits society in search for freedom through its enormous social complexity. Le Diable et le Bon Dieu is one that juxtaposes good and evil in search for true freedom. And so do La Mort dans L'Âme and L'Âge de Raison, where the latter has an enormous and controversial existentialist social focus. Sartre's straight perception of mankind's freedom is truly natural, and in some aspect conceptually equal to Rousseau's perception of man's freedom in contact with nature, as depicted, in his short essay Dialogues et Rêveries du Promeneur Solitaire, a principle highly opposed and critized by Voltaire.

On the other hand, we encountered ways to happiness with a different perspective. In Manon Lescaut, Abbé Prévost describes happiness not in the sense and essence of happiness itself but in a controversial friction with reality and society, as “passing through a tissue” transparently like in the poem Allegro by 2011 Noble Prize winner T. Transtromer. This is likely to match Nietzsche's approach to dealing with public relations and approaching life in general. Perhaps Lou Salomé would certainly disagree with her alienated admirer. Manon Lescaut had a particular impact in my adolescence perception of happiness and that of my early adult years, after a loud in-class reading drill of the entire novel in French at the Alliance Française.

Bertrand Russell has depicted happiness and freedom in many aspects, especially in relation to loving and being afraid to love. Russell suggested that being afraid to love was also being afraid of living, and therefore being dead in the soul.

1982 Nobel Prize Winner, Gabriel García Márquez, despicts a life long novel of love and happiness in his Love in Times of Cholera, where love survives over decades of distance and loneliness and it is found when finally the characters encounter themselves in the mood for love, after a first marriage. In contrast, for Flaubert, Madame Bovary represents the love of opportunity, the chance to cheat, escape reality and enjoy passion, a joie de vivre, that finally translates into tragedy, so happiness is brief and futile.

For others happiness and love intersect one another. In Colombian romanticism, María by Jorge Isaacs, and La Voragine by José Eustasio Rivera, love takes a dual dimension. In the former novel, Isaacs reveals María's unattained love through a restrained libido, disease, depression, and finally death, which creates a myth of inner platonic happiness on the one hand and a constrained taboo on the other one; the latter novel foresees a taste of violence in the feelings of passions over love and happiness, where the main character starts narrating his emotions and passions over his love for Alicia. That story is somewhat comparable to the The Count of Montecristo by Alexandre Dumas, which highlights the need for revenge to attain free happiness and resilient love.

In Latin American literature, Julio Cortazar exemplifies the art of writing a novel by disarranging chapters in any way in time, following many paths, to finally enjoy some freedom and happiness. La Maga is an essential “Frenchy” character depicting the feminine touch needed in any reading tour of his novel.

Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío analyzes love in many of his poems like Palomas Blancas, Garzas Morenas and Sonatina in his poetry book Azul (Blue) with a sense of hope and despair. This is conceptually similar to Neruda's love poetry.

Love and religion mix in historic novels such as Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, and in Frederic Lenoire's L'Oracle della Luna, and many others of similar content and nature.

German Poet Reiner Maria Rylke (another man interested in Lou Salomé and possibly her true lover) discovers the beauty of love in sensuality and naiveness. A similar approach is in the trend of Spaniard Federico García Lorca who enhances love with a great Spanish folkloric taste. For others like Marquis of Sade, love encompasses passion and pain. Sadism shows critically that love bites and hurts, and his life was probably the worst example and evidence that certain minds needed to contemplate pain to attain pleasure, which resulted in the concept of sadomasochism, as it implies both parties complementing and accepting one another. Indeed, there are certainly Freudian implications to repression and abuse in that mentality and perception. 

In contrast, in the Bible, the sense of love is usually highlighted by an act of forgiveness to attain happiness. It is probably the way to the Christian Nirvana. In particular, Psalm 119 shows the essence of Christian belief in having no inequity to those who hurt us and follow the way of the Lord. This is emphasized by Jesus teaching when he suggests: “I am the way, the true, and life. He who believes in me will not die forever.” John further enhances this belief in chapter 3 verse 16, in the New Testament. I personally believe that forgiveness is the most significant and important act of love, since it implies letting go what hurt us. It is possible to be good and love, yet forgiving is the most truthful act of love, beyond physical or integral love, possibly, as described by Paul Jagot in his Psychology of Love (Psychologie de l'Amour.)

Finally, when Jesus forgives our trangressions, we become clean and clear, new creatures to live happily ever after. This is the greatest gift of Christian belief and philosophy to attain salvation.