A NEW DIMENSION OF LIFE
It was not a dream
it was reality
these days we were often together
I was fascinated
I thought that I was never able to love any woman again
you are obviously something else
you launched in me continents,
the whole universe
we sat in the car and hugged
through me flying well familiar butterflies
in all directions
life is beautiful
if you have someone that you love excluding yourself
how beautiful it is to love you
and feel the touch of your skin
watch sparking in your chestnut eyes
by trying clumsily to hide
I love every day with you
and love you differently than other women
I wish I just grew old with you
here at 32 degrees Celsius
tell me, you were not a dream
before you went back to your home
I discovered a new dimension of life in myself
while I am touching you, encircling your waist
while I am staring in your eyes
while you are staring in my eyes
while remembering your every blink
every movement
every smile
every pore of your skin
and nowhere to go
Ibrahim Honjo, Vancouver, Canada
A NEW DIMENSION OF LIFE
It was not a dream
it was realit
these days we were often together
I was fascinated
I thought that I was never able to love any woman again
you are obviously something else
you launched in me continents,
the whole universe
we sat in the car and hugged
through me flying well familiar butterflies
in all directions
life is beautiful
if you have someone that you love excluding yourself
how beautiful it is to love you
and feel the touch of your skin
watch sparking in your chestnut eyes
by trying clumsily to hide
I love every day with you
and love you differently than other women
I wish I just grew old with you
here at 32 degrees Celsius
tell me, you were not a dream
before you went back to your home
I discovered a new dimension of life in myself
while I am touching you, encircling your waist
while I am staring in your eyes
while you are staring in my eyes
while remembering your every blink
every movement
every smile
every pore of your skin
and nowhere to go
Ibrahim Honjo, Vancouver, Canada
(Venezuela)
Bio.
Mariela Cordero(1985), Venezuela,is a lawyer, poet, writer,translator and visual artist. She
has won some literary awards:Third Prize of Poetry Alejandra Pizarnik Argentina (2014).
First Prize at the Second Ibero-American Poetry Contest Euler Granda, Ecuador (2015).
Second Prize of Poetry Concorso Letterario Internazionale Bilingüe Tracceperlameta
Edizioni, Italy (2015) Micropoemas Prize in Spanish of the III contest TRANSPalabr
@RTE 2015, Spain. First Place in International Poetry Contest Hispanic Poets mention of
literary quality, Spain 2016. Honorable Mention in the Guido Gozzano Literary Prize Italy
(2018) Her poems have been published in various anthologies and literary magazines and
have been translated into english, french, serbian, arabic, uzbek, russian and macedonian.
She has published the poetry books The Body of doubt (2013) and The identical fire (2015)
“Public Body” by Mariela Cordero
I don’t inhabit a country; I inhabit a body
—broken—
meekly unfurling
over voracious ruins
and breathing the smoke of burnt days.
I don’t inhabit a country; I inhabit a body
without bloom
that suffers
stripped of respite
the indelible tremors
of the recently raped.
I don’t inhabit a country; I inhabit a body
flush with bones
trained
like knives
that turn cruelly
against whoever dares
maneuver
a tentative caress
across its devastated surface.
This body
does not recognize all that is not
a bruise,
an unclosable wound,
or an abrupt act of depredation.
I don’t inhabit a country; I inhabit a body
—ravaged—
that dances with massacre
and, impregnated by the most wretched
of the rabid pack,
only knows to birth death.
I don’t inhabit a country; I inhabit a public body
so diminished
that it’s hurt by my faint footsteps
and tormented by the murmur of my hope.
I curl into myself,
into a tiny docile place
lethargic
from the irregular pulse
of its fabled, bygone beauty
as I devour
each detail of its meager heat.
I curl into myself
and hope that morning
astonishes us with proof
that both
this body I inhabit and I
—survive—
the long night
of the pack.
Translation by Aaron Devine
Translator’s note: “Public Body” strikes me with its visceral language and vivid metaphor. What does it mean to inhabit a public body? How does the devastation of a national body affect and find expression through the personal? Mariela Cordero’s poem has its articulate finger on the pulse and pain of contemporary Venezuelans uncertain of tomorrow’s body. Cordero’s details and precise language are morsels of hope; they are the poet crafting a space in which to survive.
Mariela Cordero is a lawyer, poet, and visual artist from Valencia, Venezuela. She is the author of The Body of Doubt (Ediciones Publicarte; Caracas, 2013) .Her poems have been published and won prizes internationally in Italy, China, England, Spain, Argentina and more. This poem, “Public Body” (Cuerpo Público), won first prize in the 2016 Colectivo Poetas Hispanos International Poetry Competition.
Aaron Devine is a writer, translator, and educator based in Boston,Massachusetts. He is the author of Wonder/Wander: 522 Days in LatinAmerica and translator of Qhapaq Ñan: The Inka Path of Wisdom (AmaroRuna Editions, 2007). He earned an MFA in Fiction (2013) and Certificate in Spanish-English Translation (2011) from the University of Massachusetts Boston where he currently teaches English as a Second Language.
Published in Origins Journal. (United States, 2017)