Galgos is a poetry collection about strangeness. The strangeness we perceive and the oddness we feel in a reality that has become solidified. It speaks of children who learned to be, of persisting yearnings, of those oddities who teach us that reality is not all there is.
In Zenda we reproduce five poems from Galgos. A Foster-Care Manual (Maclein y Parker), by Víctor Briones Antón.
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STAND FIRM
Nothing separates you from your life anymore.
Nothing now yields you
as many surprises as your pastJUAN VICENTE PIQUERAS
As a child I didn’t float in the village lake
and I didn’t understand how things are as they are
they threw me into the water
because it was time, without help
leaden skin dragging the body downward
nothing thrashes; only water rises up the rear
they chanted you can while I sank
I remembered the faces of other shipwrecked people
who saved themselves from the chlorine and the sterility
dying stranded on the beach without witnesses
Now I search in this today that is all times
for the lucid drowned man to tell me his journey
and share with him the reward
to tell him that I have achieved it, that no one sees me
to speak to him of the enslaved one left on the island
and of how flesh tolled when it struck the surface
tomorrow we’ll try again, the child trembles
This is how this death, accepted as life, functions
small bitter doses that do not bring you down completely
it’s only a pinch; the pain will pass but
the pain does not pass; it bifurcates, it transforms
into a thick story of overcoming
branches and more branches that cannot bear shoots
repeat, every day we’ll try again
I search for the drowned as a dog buries
for winter a bone and a bulb
vermin, patient skin, I dig holes
in the tree pits with my hands I seek mallows
I slip into the gardens; it’s night and I dig
the earth I shake off restlessly
before the perfection of the myrtle
I am astonished by the tiny flower that thrives
on the thorn at the angle
open mouths, I dig yawns of soil corrupted
I uncover the broken body of the one who has everything
repeat, repeat, repeat; I arrive suffocated to sleep
I search for the shipwrecked
who shared hunger with the seagulls
the day I learned to swim vanished
I crumble on the beach before the waves
and I touch his silence, free of threat
on this shore the loss did not begin
I see it today, bursting with abyss, dressed without people
it wasn’t this deep silence that denied me the truth
the one that hid the lap of an explanation
and left the drowned child where he stood
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FOMO
When I knew for certain
that lying on the couch
all afternoon without doing
anything that guilt demands
does not entail prison or an exemplary fine,
I began to dare myself
to walk in front of those men
who know everything more than anyone
without caring at all about
their opinion and their advice.
When I reached the certainty
that taking care and being cared for
is part of what is stolen from us,
that the new thing isn’t worth a dime
if it only exists to fleece you,
to prey on your attention
and that we should not place it in our laps,
I could stop doing to be seen,
short-circuit the craving,
allow the rivers their discourse,
and life its dignities.
I learned to end up in ignorance.
I suspected something about what Le Guin said about her stories:
that so many epics weren’t necessary,
that it’s time for amphoras and renunciations,
that worshiping the culture of the bite and the spear no longer makes sense.
When I saw that it is possible to sidestep all that inertia of industrial estates and briny dreams, when I did not fall, stabbed by the phantom enemy, when the threat was not fulfilled and the doctrine continued its bullet-ridden course, impossible to bend, I breathed and resolved to be marked as an unproductive person.
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THE HIDDEN CHILD
A late-evening meeting,
the workload piled up, the partner absent.
Having to go despite fever.
Not having enough, aiming for more signals of smoke.
The declaration to amortize what remains of the rent, the courts,
stomach protector, implants, the light,
this year we have four weddings,
kid, I’m not the Bank of Spain.
Tutoring at the wrong times, Damocles’ gym,
the cramp-devouring car, talking to the insurance guy
when your mother dies.
The neighborhood board for nothing, the roof stays with stubble,
the guilt for not going, the fatigue of not wanting
to behold the body that melts.
In the bottom of a drawer, a pocketknife
with which someone carved the first toy.
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THE NAP
Like a stray verse
white walls
with sharp cornices
soft rice-colored light
a nose tired from acetone
a faint hum behind the eyes
words, dust
of wings no longer afraid
Like an object forgotten
that insists on the presence of affection
to thrust the chin
to barely part the lips
and end up not saying anything
to not break the jasmine’s ascent
toward the tuft
trampoline of starlings
trunk above the palm
Letting oneself fall when you feel
the first step of the house
to act like lizards and fruits
to bask in the sun
to turn it into life
to run off
to hide or to offer oneself
To make use of the remnants
like a child learning rhymes
like the strange jaw of the caiman
like the wonder of what falls
like the dust shaken from the shelves
***
MAP OF WHAT NEVER GREW
A kind of wounded angel at the root
Not at the root of the wings, but at the root of communionDANIEL FARIA
Who returns the attempt to the child
the opportunity
to grow at the same time as his desire
to discover a body without drawers
to explode and surprise himself
to remember himself forever capable of touch
Who tells him that his doubt is legitimate
that his longing for the cypress gnaws at the sky
that hail does not strike the summit
that in the emptiest places he can hide
that his open chest behind the oleander
is the perfect hollow to be
Who returns the unblemished torrent
who the pristine map with the cross-eyed north
to his incense-stained groin
Who will come to ask forgiveness from the man
who had to forget the anvil-child
who could not be born after so much ornament
no one will return the child’s calm
nor undo his wary sense of prey
nor dry the ocean between screeches
no one will be able to prevent that when one thinks
so young
to live will always be with fear
with the doubt of having made being broken
merely a child
small hands capable of shaping so much steel
Who returns to him the guilt-free south
you who read the poem
explain to the child who we were
how to evade the censor
how to love well and surrender
how to breathe and lay down the tears
you who are the ground of that creature
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Author: Víctor Briones Antón. Title: Galgos. A Foster-Care Manual. Publisher: Maclein y Parker. Available at: Todos tus libros.
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