10 Finalists in the Autumn Edition of the Poetry Contest

A continuación ofrecemos los
10 poemas que optan a los premios
. En este enlace puedes consultar las bases del premio.

Here are the
10 poems vying for the prizes.

In this link you can consult the prize rules.

Thanks to everyone for participating.

***

1

Bryan Ernesto Pacheco Barboza

A genome of flowers

the birch is the window to the forest between the render
of a water flower with yellow petals
that dissolves into shrubs burnt ochre.
time. we reach it— drunk on living.
we reach it drunk/ passive on paths full of vines.
what else befits us but to inherit the little wisdom
written with salt letters on our skin,
we are already immune to love
we are already inert expiry
we are already celestial darkness
we are already abstinent/sterile
that throw themselves into the waters of autumn.

2

Jorge Juan Codina Ripoll

Architect

the light is a fractured bone against the glass.
the sap flees toward the marrow,
a white collapse.
for weeks the living room has been chewing its own shadow.
the wood coughs,
as if swallowing wasp dust.
this rust does not descend from the sky:
it is born beneath the femur,
it rips at the corners of touch.
we pile dark wool
not to seal the frost,
but to give weight to your absence.
the geometry of the room yields
to wear so meticulous.
I rehearse my death without making a sound.

3

Agostina Laura Sulpizii

I built a table:
wood upon wood
carved with my childlike hands
of a newborn beast
Who could see the flash?

I anointed my tools with sweet perfumes,
sacred:
incense, myrrh, clove
nard, violets, passionflower
sandalwood, elderberry, lemon balm.
One by one I named them
gave them a place and a destination
an echo of possibilities where to begin.

In the middle of the desert
I gave birth to a strange oasis:
what I saw was the shadow
of the shadow
of the shadow.
What is reflected is of dream, and my hands are no longer there.

4

Sara Muñoz López

In the blue dream,
here
I am always,

the body no longer hurts,
I disassembled it from girlhood
that day when (…).

Since then,
exo-skin,
the outskirts of the flesh.

Far
very far,

my life unfolds without me.

5

Marcos A. Rodríguez Pérez

Canvases of Ash

some children play in the sand
the birds’ song falls
in our spring flowers
the storm arrives and it rains

the children run—
then, silence returns
the birds return

the image is natural:
the drops slip on the petals
to burst like tears
against the garden grass
and slowly disappear
beneath the drenched earth

I release the charm—

toward carbonized birds
among the flowers of Lebanon
on an empty beach

6

Marina Serrano Escobar

If sadness were food
it would be onion soup:
a crackling river
that advances down the hallway
to the foot of my bed.

Mother curls inward
and leaves the pupils fixed,
like two beetles
on the pillow.

If I turn my hip,
the furrows of my belly
hiss toward the pelvis.
They are tears that return
to the same orphanage,
this eye
with which I sometimes look at it.

There is a touch of death
at the corner of her mouth,
the same scar
that holds our face.

7

Fernando Mora Bongera

Open House

This house has no walls
nor a drop of mercury.
It is all open windows.
Water is simply water
and wind is merely wind.
When they say snow there is only snow
and if they say bird, everything is a bird.
No one suffers if they say pain
and nothing dies even when they say death.

8

Laura R. Tovar Aceituno

Do You Have the Key?

The ceiling breathes vibrant spirals;
through it, you can feel blue gazes upon you.
They are very stealthy,
they do not want to be discovered.

The furniture belongs to the wind and the curtains to serene thoughts.

—Come in, sit comfortably!

Here you will feel the bubbling silence of the spirals; they will not daze you.

—And the door?

You can see it if you have green intentions.
My house is a chimera; its key has no weight,
but it does have a beautiful shape.
If you find it, you may return.

That said, come in formal attire; do not forget that gazes will be watchful,
spinning in whirlwinds.

9

Mariano Cuesta Juste

Dozen Butterbirds

Twelve butterbirds rest in warm marble nests.
Blue dresses fly through the air
and the metal compresses and accelerates.

The world brushes past me slowly, it breathes me in,
the drops caress the steps I leave behind.

Twelve butterbirds
fly over a silver-gray afternoon,
the distracted silence of dark cars,
the clouds that rise from my mouth, the verbs.

The house is lit up.

Inverted worlds settle on flowers to come.

10

Carlos Alberto Negrón Pardo

You Were

I have loved, with a man’s blush, the gaze of my father,
with a child’s gaze the skirts of my mother,

and all of this has hurt me.

I still wander lost.
My age no longer sustains me.