This poetry collection invites the reader to embark on a poetic journey from the perspective of the anonymous oarsmen of Odysseus. Through imagined travel notes, Gabriel Rubio explores the epic of the everyday, fixing the transcendence of small, personal and others’ events. With a close language that preserves the poetic image and musicality, the verses address identity, relationships, desire, and the power of words, offering a view that oscillates between astonishment, critique and irony. The reader will encounter a work that speaks directly to them, celebrating the small Ithacas of life.
Zenda reproduces five poems included in El remero de Ulises (Ole Libros), by Gabriel Rubio.
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Personal pronouns
Seeking you
seeking me
I observe the personal pronouns
on those cold laboratory plates
I understand
that they are they
doubt
before the you all
and I remain
engrossed by the us
the trunk that sums up our life
takes the shape of a canvas
or of a question
For you and me, is there a us?
A us as shelter, home, dungeon?
Are we airport or concert hall?
Are we cinema, are we dawn?
A us tomorrow
and the day after tomorrow?
Does there exist in grammar the gap that binds us,
the letters that define our sum,
the circle that closes our agreement,
the pronoun-curtain
of our premiere?
How far do those strokes
reach the distance of cardinal points
or do they extend like a telegraph wire
to connect your voice and my silence?
For you and me, is there a us?
the blanket that covers us at night?
the core of the subject of the days?
*
Matria
You return to the mother
but there is no body
no skin boundary to contain her
no memory of her in the spaces
there is no volume
there is no trace
there is no sound
The years have passed
tsunamis of forgetfulness
Nevertheless
you return
following the Earth’s magnetism
to the circle of known fires
and you do not seek
what you cannot find
You seek
the anecdote repeated a thousand times
the eyes that listen to you from within
the accent that tastes of shared
the sessions of suspended judgments
the frank beer of the nights
the security of being looked at
It is tenderness
I returned to Matria.
*
Bajar del tranvía en Sergio Cardell
Where there were no parks
nor swings nor fountains nor couples
I walk accompanied by estrangement
over the memory of that barren land
Another city arose on the wasteland
another sky behind the profile of the rooftops
other shadows bear witness
to the privatization of the horizon
or to the homes
that are built in the air
The sound of traffic on the hills
old gravel of silence
without paths semaphores ATMs…
I walk surprised
by sidewalks that rise before my steps
it’s a fictional set
perhaps I am only a bystander
I discover in the corners
confidences that do not belong to me
Stories that are not my stories
they make this city another, different
The constellation of the street map
lifts my memories to semi-divinities
I travel through a domestic horoscope
like a wandering and forgotten star
Dear Sergio, Miriam, Mr. Vicente
Did they exist or are they part of myths
of another universe more lost?
Where there were no parks
acacias arrived one day
ficus trees, palms
celtis and lagunarias
mulberries and jacarandas
and behind them the couples
the strollers
the shops
and the wheelchairs
A city grows empty of memories
other hands or legs that sprout for you
in a body that does not resemble yours
Where there were no parks I discover I did not exist and I shed my name.
*
Desconfinamiento: fase 1
Rain
The blood of the planet
The valley greets us with fingers of crystal
We break the barrier of silence
on the back of a gentle machine
We are one more ox in that painting
of green hills newly revived
Without planes, tractors or trucks
it is impossible to hide our presence
of a parasite species threatened
We trace our footprints
on the dark mirror
deserted road of words
at the edge of the permitted world
we take every curve
as one would unwrap a gift
The water intoxicates the skin of our arms
it enters the car and the clothes
We keep the windows open
umbilical cord between universes
We advance
No one peeks
Temptation of flood on the hill
There are lamias watching in the beech woods
or roes or buzzards or homeowners
The void shouts its conquest of the world
Feeling like the first ones
of a new species.
*
What do we do with the air
What do we do with the air
What do we do with the air
when it breaks and falls
like lead to the floors
and creates that silence of the abyss
of discontinuity of matter
of a capsule of vacuum in the vacuum
and you do not breathe
because it is not there
What do we do with the air
when it loses its comforting consistency
and becomes thick
like the walls of a prison
and it no longer binds you
to whom you love
How is the air repaired
and it becomes again a conduit for our voices
or a treasure map to its mouth
or the edge of all its questions
It is not you
It is not me
It is the air between us
that has broken
and has ceased to be the messenger
of warmth or of cold
It must be the air
It has to be the air
GABRIEL RUBIO
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Author: Gabriel Rubio. Title: The Oarsman of Odysseus. Publisher: Ole Libros. Available at: Todostuslibros.