Octavio Paz Poems

 

Octavio Paz Poems

 

 

1. The bridge

Between now and now,
between I am and you are,
the word bridge.

Entering it,
you enter yourself:
the world connects
and closes like a ring.

From one bank to another,
there is always
a body stretched:
a rainbow.
I'll sleep beneath its arches

 

2. Last down.

 

Your hair is lost in the forest,
your feet touching mine.
Asleep you are bigger than the night,
but your dream fits within this room.
How much we are who are so little!
Outside a taxi passes
with its load of ghosts.
The river that runs by
is always
running back.
Will tomorrow be another day?

 

3. Spaces

 

Space
No center, no above, no below
Ceaselessly devouring and engendering itself
Whirlpool space
And drop into height
Spaces
Clarities steeply cut
Suspended
By the night's flank
Black gardens of rock crystal
Flowering on a rod of smoke
White gardens exploding in the air
Space
One space opening up
Corolla
And dissolving
Space in space
All is nowhere
Place of impalpable nuptials

4.Across

turn the page of the day,
writing what I'm told
by the motion of your eyelashes.

I enter you,
the truthfulness of the dark.
I want proofs of darkness, want
to drink the black wine:
take my eyes and crush them.

A drop of night
on your breast's tip:
mysteries of the carnation.

Closing my eyes
I open them inside your eyes.

Always awake
on its garnet bed:
your wet tongue.

There are fountains
in the garden of your veins.

With a mask of blood,
I cross your thoughts blankly:
amnesia guides me
to the other side of life.

5. No More Clichés

Beautiful face
that as if a daisy opens its petals to the sun
so do you Open your face to me as I turn the page.

Enchanting smile
Any man would be under your spell,
Oh, beauty of a magazine.

How many poems have been written to you?
How many Dantes have written to you, Beatrice?
To your obsessive illusion
to you manufacture fantasy.

6. Brotherhood

 

I am a man: little do I last
and the night is enormous.
But I look up:
the stars write.
Unknowing I understand:
I too am written,
and at this very moment

 

Someone spells me out.

7. Touch

My hands
Open the curtains of your being
Clothe you in a further nudity
Uncover the bodies of your body
my hands
Invent another body for your body

 

No, no more clichés.
Beautiful face
This poem is dedicated to those women
Whose beauty is in their charm,
In their intelligence,
In their character,
Not on their fabricated looks.

This poem is to you women,
That like a Shahrazad wake up
every day with a new story to tell,
A story that sings for change
That hopes for battles:
Battles for the love of the united flesh
Battles for passions aroused by a new day
Battle for the neglected rights
Or just battles to survive one more night.

Yes, to you women in a world of pain
To you, bright star in this ever-spending universe
To you, fighter of a thousand-and-one fights
To you, friend of my heart.

From now on, my head will not look down to a magazine
Rather, it will contemplate the night
and its bright stars,
And so, no more clichés.

 

 

 

 

8. Two bodies

Two bodies face to face
sometimes it's two waves
and the night is ocean.

Two bodies face-to-face
sometimes two stones
and the desert night.

Two bodies face to face
they are sometimes roots
at night linked.

Two bodies face to face
they are sometimes razors
and the lightning night.

Two bodies face to face
they are two stars that fall
In an empty sky.

9. Brotherhood

I am a man: little do I last
and the night is enormous.
But I look up:
the stars write.
Unknowing I understand:
I too am written,
and at this very moment,
someone spells me out.

 

10. Someone listen to the rain

Listen to me as one listens to the rain,
not attentive, not distracted,
light footsteps, thin drizzle,
water that is air, air that is time,
the day is still leaving,
the night has yet to arrive,
figurations of mist
at the turn of the corner,
figurations of time
at the bend in this pause,
listen to me as one listens to the rain,
without listening, hear what I say
with eyes open inward, asleep
with all five senses awake,
it's raining, light footsteps, a murmur of syllables,
air and water, words with no weight:
what we are and are,
the days and years, this moment,
weightless time and heavy sorrow,
listen to me as one listens to the rain,
wet asphalt is shining,
steam rises and walks away,
night unfolds and looks at me,
you are you and your body of steam,
you and your face of night,
you and your hair, unhurried lightning,
you cross the street and enter my forehead,
footsteps of water across my eyes,
listen to me as one listens to the rain,
the asphalt's shining, you cross the street,
it is the mist, wandering in the night,
it is the night, asleep in your bed,
it is the surge of waves in your breath,
your fingers of water dampen my forehead,
your fingers of flame burn my eyes,
your fingers of air open eyelids of time,
a spring of visions and resurrections,
listen to me as one listens to the rain,
the years go by, the moments return,
do you hear the footsteps in the next room?
not here, not there: you hear them
in another time that is now,
listen to the footsteps of time,
inventor of places with no weight, nowhere,
listen to the rain running over the terrace,
the night is now more night in the grove,
lightning has nestled among the leaves,
a restless garden adrift-go in,

Your shadow covers this page.

11. Sonnet III

 

Of the green joy of the sky
lights you recover that the moon loses
because the light of itself remember
lightning and autumns in your hair.

The wind drinks wind in its stir,
move the leaves and their green rain
wet your shoulders, your back bites
and it undresses you and burns and returns yelo.

Two ships with unfolded sails
your two breasts. Your back is a torrent.
Your belly is a petrified garden.

It is autumn on your neck: sun and mist.
Beneath the green adolescent sky,
your body gives its love sum.

12. Between going and staying

 

Between leaving and staying doubt the day,
in love with its transparency.
The circular afternoon is already bay:
in its still movement the world rocks.
Everything is visible and everything is elusive,
everything is close and everything is untouchable.
The papers, the book, the glass, the pencil
they rest in the shadow of their names.
Beat of time that repeats in my temple
the same stubborn syllable of blood.
The light makes the wall indifferent
a spectral theater of reflections.
In the center of an eye I discover myself;
He doesn't look at me, I look at me in his eyes.
The instant dissipates. Without moving,
I stay and I go: I am a pause.

13. Scribble

With a lump of coal
with my broken chalk and my red pencil
draw your name
the name of your mouth
the sign of your legs
on nobody's wall

At the forbidden door
engrave the name of your body
until my razor blade
blood
and the stone scream
and the wall breathes like a chest

14. Silence

As well as the background of the music
a note sprouts
that while it vibrates it grows and thins
until in other music it falls silent,
springs from the bottom of silence
another silence, sharp tower, sword,
and rises and grows and suspends us
and while it rises they fall
memories, hopes,
the little lies and the big ones,
and we want to scream and in the throat
the cry fades:
we flow into silence
where silences are mute.

With affection,

Ruben

PD:

The editor have had copy the poems from a source in English, and also recognise the challenge to reconcile the translation with the original words used by the poet.