This poetry collection explores love as a path to transcendence through images that craft a sensual mysticism that runs through the word, the skin, nature, and the cosmos as flashes of the absolute.
At Zenda we offer five poems from absoluto (Kálathos), by María Antonieta Flores.
*****
here is told how earrings arise in the forge
you descend abruptly onto the blaze
with a ring of light that has bound you
to another
your dazzling opposite
moans
you bite the desires
in twisted hoops
through your breaking
useless
has been the face of many memories
and you only turn in the spiral of the postures
that transforms the world into a slow lightning
perhaps exceedingly slow
inadequate for the surface of a planet
you have burned
the salt and your nails
while you found the opening
more open
the unexpected angle
bitten
at the start of a new sound
sprung from your entrails
reddened
because they have wedged themselves
in present continuous
and every breath you and he exhale
are primitive nights without fire
nor moon
you writhe in your moan
they writhe in the membranes
of the sky
the only place that opens like a storm
and home
there is no permanent home
nor tremor that does not crack the earth
the new cliffs
*
broken ceremonies
curved curves
pleasures in the heaven of mouths
far from the beds
ritual steps to the abyss
closed eyes on the taut rope
the light of a lightning covers us
Gonzalo Rojas reads slowly
What is loved when one loves?
the marrow overflows from the bones
*
perfect gem between the teeth
engages
light sharp as the awl
in each pore the honey expands
beneath the ash
in a time counted down to death
join the edge of the nails to the tremor at the nape
enter the eyes
and close the eyelids
inside everything fractures
defeated
the bone
the will
the ether dissolved
dawns
white
more white
among the light that breaks
there the moan
a prolongation of exile
the bodies returned
*
the illegible sounds of smoke
there is no need to arrange the postures nor the kisses
nor the paths of the nails
of the hands of the fingers
of the curved skies
the spring of light rises
grows
reaches iridescent paths
the stars crumble
silence travels
and the smoke
to come inside
in a litany
to lie along the Milky Way
without sounds
to fall
far from the atmosphere
*
about how the sixteenth century came to converse
when dawn appeared
and the entire celestial vault changed
the firmament whitened
they appeared
discoveries, wars, outrages
great ambitions poured onto the earth
the poems of Muhibbi and a new world
health does not exist, it is an illusion
you told me while you explored the South Sea
you remembered decisive battles
the Christians captive, the Ottomans
and the last rowing ships
to the dream of the winds I clung
the sails moved toward unknown directions
secrets whispered came
imperceptible as moans
we have reached sovereignty
the absolute
in a minimal particle
dreams expand
***
María Antonieta Flores (Caracas,1960) is a poet and essayist, master in Latin American Literature. Her first poetry collection published was The Lord of the Wall (El señor de la muralla) (1991) and her most recent poetry titles include las conductas discretas (2020), los gozos del sueño (2021), la desalojada luz de la tarde (2024), la intención esquirlada (2024), absoluto (2025) and the essay Elizabeth Schön: Cercanías y aproximaciones (Elizabeth Schön: Proximities and Approaches) (2025). She received the Honor prizes (for complete work) Naji Naaman’s Literary Prizes (Lebanon), in 2016, and the Botón FILUC 2022, awarded by the International Book Fair of the University of Carabobo (Venezuela), for her work as a poet and editor of the digital poetry magazine el cautivo, which she founded in 2004. Her poetry is included in more than twenty national and international anthologies; among them, Il fiore della poesia latinoamericana d’oggi: Terzo volume (II Raffaelli Editore, 2016) and Rasgos comunes: Antología de la poesía venezolana del siglo XX (Pre-Textos, 2019).
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Author: María Antonieta Flores. Title: Absolute. Publisher: Kálathos.