THE SHOUT - poem from "El somrís trist de Sylvia Plath" - (Sylvia Plath's sad smile)

    It is a pleasure to share this poem (translated from catalan language to English by myself) from my poetry book "El somrís trist de Sylvia Plath - Sylvia Plath's sad smile".

    This poem, called "El crit - The shout" was inspired by the sentencing Rosenberg couple to the electric chair in June, 1953. This fact caused a very strong impact in Sylvia's mindset. This poem  is about capturing those feelings.

THE SHOUT
(June 19, 1953)

"There are no more than a million carpenters
makinge coffins without a cross. "

Federico García Lorca

A dark light burns the fields of memory.
Some God will forget the weight of the blood
and the shadow of the hangman 

will dominate the silent city.
Night closes the gates of mercy,
erases the verses of the girl contemplating
—from a Barbizon window,
with insomnia—
the fire of a red moon.
The blindness of the convicts illuminates the room
of the strange shared loneliness.
A shout to Rome breaks the ropes
of the glass bell.
Two electric shouts
dance the waltz of death
sitting in a chair.
A dark light burns the blood.
The flowers of the morning watch over death,
they smell like ash.

ACT OF FAITH

This poem is, I'd say, as a part of my poetry, my personal way of seeing life. I write poetry because I need put my feelings in a piece of paper, with no wishes of beeing recognized as an important poet, with no pretending reach immortality. Just what I need, just what I love. Really hope you enjoyed.

ACT OF FAITH

I do not intend to go beyond where I came from.

Let others play their fortune
on acrobatic jumps and searching out of North
in the wide cloister of distant footprints.
I only know that I long to know myself
from the rocks of solitude and from the sea
that stains of blue the salt of my words.
Remains the eternity in the red marble of wrath
and on the rusty plate of envy. I do not want
drink the secret potion of immortality
nor leave in my verses the wild perfume
which display the herbs in the cemetery.
At the end, I am nothing but a pitiful soul
with mortgaged time, debtor of a woman's love
I do not deserve, lucky poet's apprentice
who found happiness doing what he wanted most:
love and be loved,
and write.

GEORGE SQUARE, a poem from Seas of grass (Book of Scotland)

Seas of grass is a book I've just published this year. Written in Spanish, received the poetry prize "Miguel de Cervantes in Armilla" coordinated by the Armilla town hall, in Granada, Spain. Here you find the poem called "George Square", that belongs to the first part of the book, by Clide Valley. The translation to the English version has been done by myself.

GEORGE SQUARE
(Glasgow)

Under a thin curtain of rain -and his melancholy-
we cross the leaden anatomy of Glasgow,
the streets badly injured by dreams of war
that rising from the silt of the river Clyde
to the sacred precincts of the neo-Gothic cathedral
where light passes through a taciturn
current of dry leaves and slow water.
The freezing rain falls steady as a blade
mowing small fragments of landscape,
as blurry pieces of an unfinished puzzle
decomposing at the edge of the evening
for leaving us the oxide profile and empty
of a town beautifully shaded.
Two musicians cross the heart of the square
with guitars on his backs, knocking furiously
the face of the rain asleep on the puddles,
with his hands tearing the invisible threads of music
anticipating the outbreak of a coming storm.
Anyone else -nor we, witnesses with no umbrellas-
crosses over the cobblestones of wind and the ash
of a day burning in furnaces of oblivion.
It rains on the memory of the shadows.
Only severe statue of Sir Walter Scott
-on the top of an imposing column-
belongs unmoved in the rain,
as rowing returning from a shipwreck
to put a line of peace over the sand.
Only time stands the pass of time.
The rest are steps erased by the rain.

POET'S CORNER - Poem

Here you find another poem that belongs to "Book of Britain-Cuaderno de Britania". This poem was written after visiting Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey. In this corner are buried many major English writers. One of them, T.S. Eliot. Most visitors stepped on his grave without considering the importance of his poetry at the universal level. This was very shocking to me and I decided to write this poem.

Poets' Corner

(Westminster Abbey)

                          This is the dead land.

                                    T.S. Eliot

Under the arches of vanity,

between the walls raised

with time of fear of fire and iron,

between the mists of superstition,

beyond the dumb stone that everything relates,

lies a nothing wider than the sea.

In prayer it hits my chest, in the smoke

dragging the wings of incense, in the eyes

quiet for not seeing what it happens,

the nothing endures as the voice of the sea.

In the corner where life was -and the word

was word stitched to the lapel of time-

in the area where sigh the tracks with the flower of silence,

the nothing writes with ash the origin of seas.

On the tomb of T.S. Eliot a thousand steps crosses

the slab stuck in the silence. Step his name

and follow the path of the fallen heroes.

In the sea of nothingness there are no voices or names.

ST. MARTIN-IN-THE-FIELDS - POEM

This poem belongs to my poetry book "Cuaderno de Britania-Book of Britain". St. Martin-in-the-Fields is a church next to Trafalgar Square and is a very unique place because, as I wanted to reflect on my poem, in the crypt there is a cafe-restaurant where tables are placed on the graves and you can taste a tea with cookies in a nice conversation.

ST. MARTIN-IN-THE-FIELDS
The stairs leading to the crypt leading to life.
There, the light recovers the echo of a darker time,
the truth that the slabs show with robustness of death,
with the hardness of names clung to destiny
and dates sewn to the memory of all that was life
to foot of the stairs leading to the crypt.
On the tombs a few tables for tea,
noise of conversations, words that adhere to today,
people reading, listening, contemplating
the daily drama scene, the miracle
of that indefatigable treadmill of life, of the wheel
where always runs the supreme law
of all that happens, it all happens
on the silent slabs of death.

(from Cuaderno de Britania)

AS THE DAWN OF EVERY SUNDAY

Some years ago I lived one of the magic moments of my life in Port Vendrès, a town located in the South of France, close to Coilloure (where poet Antonio Machado died in 1939) and to the Spanish border. It's a small town, in the seaside, with nice views and a peaceful atmosphere. A wonderful place to love and to be loved.

AS THE DAWN OF EVERY SUNDAY
(Port-Vendres)

In the morning, looking out from the balcony,
watching the lights of the bay,
the fishing boats moored, the masts
tearing the sky that is spying us
from the rounded island of the moon.
Your head rests on my shoulder, your hand
playing with my lips, printing
a new desire for existence, confirming
the response of a free love and sincere
naked as our spirit
which aims to mature like a fine wine.
Covered by this seascape
I feel your embrace in the heat of the moment
the vertigo of this inner journey has just begun,
this desire to live together and hourly
the day that gives us the passion
of lovers, with the miracle
of this shared sea
that pulls all loneliness
and want to slip from our skin,
as the dawn
of every Sunday.

José Luis García Herrera

DRIVING TO SADNESS

Driving to sadness

Driving to the nowhere land
I miss your hand in my shoulder,
your smile lighting the night darker
and the way as you make it fun.

Driving to the sad end of my life
I cry for all the good times we live
crossing the years as one heart
that beats much stronger than the sun.

Driving to the city of loneliness
I write my last poem with wounded lips,
with the taste of your longed kisses
walking by the fields of my cheeks.

Driving to the avenue of a cold december
I feel that I will die under the moonlight,
that never and ever I could find
the best woman in love I can remember.

by José Luis García Herrera