Juan Camilio Gomez-Rivas: RASHM
(1, 2, 7, 9, 10 et 12)
Translation: Juan Camilio Gomez-Rivas
I
Veiling their faces, a translucent cover
Of impressions and shapes
Emanates from their ghosts,
And penetrates into their bodies…
A hasty encounter
In the doorway:
Long enough
To defer payment of accounts
And renew contract
Between passengers and captain.
II
My tongue
Is an oar that goes before me
Licking,
The craving for landing
Across a strait.
And between the two shores
My body is the dancing pendulum of a clock, swinging
With the frenzy of the rowers
As they rotate in their beating of the water…
VII
Or the trackless wilderness of a cloud
Asking the rain
Of the earth:
Is my fruit that which awaits me
In the withholding of the water?
Between your hands my skin is transparent:
Sunken deep within, my etching and markings,
And all that has eluded me,
A quivering-like the creeping of ants-
In the tingling of my fingertips.
Hodgepodge and jumble in the Bosphorous,
And the lingering, obsessive apprehensions,
Like the earth split in two,
Both parts peek, and stare
Like voyeurs
At each other:
Dubious, ambiguous borders
And the uneasiness and disquiet of desires.
X
"Je est un autre"
In the narrows of your lips,
My desire carries no document of passage
Or identification.
It shares quarters with my ghosts and apparitions,
Furtively detailing
For each a life story
XII
Waters like the wooden planks of a stage
With isles and numbered seats;
Passengers become both audience and players
Sitting
Regarding
Each other on stage…
Sitting lightly
In eager wait
Of another play
In which they are dancers
In a dream unending
With the ending of the crossing
