words for consumption
Brandon Holmquest translating the Spanish of Julia Ferrer
click here for the Spanish text
The best work never gets paid in Art.
There's only salt and bitter bread, going up and down
far away staircases. You have to be prepared
to dream and you have to know how.
Baudelaire
this is the earth
"that hides the secrets of men"
is the world
my archangel of a
single mirror
bell with two faces in the same sense
Because to the rising tree
of cruel life
or death
flowerstrewn in dreams
with wicked flower
to the almost love
now nothing
and in the mud garden walls
small clay doves
eyeing my life
go my leaping hands
that hunt butterflies
measuring the world
that she eats
and I open like a jewel box
to my enemy
in something like a duty
very inside
hypocrite observer of the Infinite
already so close
of what we do not know
Brandon Holmquest edits the poetry and criticism sections at Asymptote and writes poems and translates things, usually poems.
Julia Ferrer (1925-1995) was born in Lima, Peru. In her lifetime she published only two books and had a few poems in small magazines. She also wrote theatrical works for stage and radio, and taught theater at the university level.
