6 poems by Magda Portal, the rebel poet

 

6 poems by Magda Portal, the rebel poet

María Magdalena Julia Portal Moreno, known as Magda Portal, was born on May 27, 1900 in Barranco. She was a Peruvian writer, politician and feminist. She was part of the literary vanguard of our country and is considered one of the most important poets of the 20th century. José Carlos Mariátegui praised her, calling her the "first poetess" of Peru. She passed away in 1989.

Bows

 

Today I think everything is false

 

In this this smoke love

 

From the two ponds

 

Glaze of your eyes

 

Where my pupils are immobilized

 

until reality excited

 

of your two infinite hands

 

 

 

only the anguish of tonight is true

 

palpable between my cold hands

 

and the crying that falls inside me

 

and this desire to ask for forgiveness.

 

 

 

 

Ambiguous emeralds of my laughter!

 

Lavish decoration of my sadness borders

 

like two green eyes that have seen the sea a lot

 

and who feel nostalgic to sleep in her bosom

 

 

 

Bless you Time

 

because you affirm the anguish

 

That this love is just a dream.

Sea of joy

 

I am a sea because I would not have been a river

 

A sea without channels

 

Of green joys

 

I of deep solitudes

 

an encompassing sea

 

of Life and Death

 

From which they depart and to which they converge

 

all the forces of life

 

 

 

I am a sea like that calm sea

 

what do my eyes see

 

and that surrounds the Earth

 

with his superb white kiss

 

 

 

I am a sea

 

twilight pupils

 

i voice of aurora

 

like that blue sea

 

the one I woke up on my first trip

 

that sea of open arms

 

of perennial youth

 

where my hope rests

 

white seagull

 

with pink pupils

 

I am a sea.

Genesis of Life

 

The incoherent pain

 

To Jose Santos Chocano

 

I want to go with outstretched hands over the Void.

I want my

 

hands feel the Shadow and cannot grasp it, blind, impotent

I

 

I don't want the Abyss to answer my question with its terrible voices:

"What

there is?" I want to carry a regret inside, a doubt, a broken wing whose

 

Blood always drips in Space.

 

II

 

My heart beats a mother and drowns me

 

 

 

the voice of her voiceless purrs

 

pushing my bones

 

 

 

coldness of my disconnected hands

 

to feel heat

 

 

 

talk to me a strange root is growing

 

 

 

talk to me but

 

 

 

I do not want it to be reborn.

The parade of looks

 

To seraph of the sea

 

The voyager of all seas

 

I was sad

 

like midnight birds

 

lying in the dark

 

 

 

Like the highlands without trees

 

facing the cold winds of

 

the coast

 

 

 

sad as the strong

 

i like the losers when

 

early death begins

 

indifference

 

 

 

LOVE I was sad

 

My sides were bloodied

 

my goldfish died

 

and perfidy number ONE wobbled

 

my balance

 

to the attraction of the abyss

 

 

 

I the midnight birds

 

They haunted the shipwreck of me

 

Heart in the forsaken sands

 

 

 

BUT YOU ARRIVED

 

YOU for whom my arms

 

They opened in a cross

 

and the dream spiders wove

 

the infinite silk of amnesia

 

 

 

YOU excited conqueror

 

of my wild tribes of sadness

 

 

 

where did you take the religion of a

 

new joy like airplanes

 

over virgin forests

 

 

 

Hoi the suit of our souls

 

is the rainbow of smile

Liberation

One day I’ll be free, even freer than the wind;
my verse will be bright with daredevil liberation
after I’ve freed myself from this secret shame
that plunges its sharp splinter into my heart.
One day I’ll be free with my arms open wide,
with my eyes open and unshielded before the sun,
Fear and Memory won’t be hiding
crouched in ambush, the better to rip me apart.
One day I’ll be free . . . I’ll be free, I know it,
with a huge smile that flowers from the heart,
with a huge smile that I don’t have today.
And then I won’t have the ghost of my shame,
the coward silence that tamps down my Emotion.
Someday I’ll have achieved the truth of my Self!

 

 Liberation

One day I’ll be free, even freer than the wind;
my verse will be bright with daredevil liberation
after I’ve freed myself from this secret shame
that plunges its sharp splinter into my heart.
One day I’ll be free with my arms open wide,
with my eyes open and unshielded before the sun,
Fear and Memory won’t be hiding
crouched in ambush, the better to rip me apart.
One day I’ll be free . . . I’ll be free, I know it,
with a huge smile that flowers from the heart,
with a huge smile that I don’t have today.
And then I won’t have the ghost of my shame,
the coward silence that tamps down my Emotion.
Someday I’ll have achieved the truth of my Self!

 

Source: Magda Portal. Complete poetic work. Daniel R. Reedy | Fund of Economic Culture.

With affection,

Ruben