C L I M B I N G by Robert Lima (LANDMARKS Series)

C L I M B I N G
by Robert Lima

I see myself climbing,
not the Matterhorn, not
Picos de Europa, not
Kilimanjaro, nor the
highest peak of all —
Mount Everest . . .

I see myself climbing
Huayna Picchu in Perú,
teat of the Inca world
with its milk of mist.

It is set higher than its
sister Machu Picchu and
offers aerial vistas of the river
Urubamba and the deep valleys.

I see myself climbing its
steep inclines, foot upon foot,
clinging to the rock face
as bits dislodge in karmic fall
into the waiting precipice.

I see myself climbing, fear and
tremor at each step of the steep
ascent, ever reaching higher
to attain the mountain’s sacred self.

PHOTO: At nearly nine thousand feet above sea level, Huayna Picchu (center) overlooks Machu Picchu, the so-called “Lost City of the Incas.” (Photo by Izabela 23, used by permission.)

EDITOR’S NOTE: Huayna Picchu is a mountain in southern Peru that rises over Machu Picchu, a 15th century Inca citadel. The Incas built a trail up the side of the Huayna Picchu and erected temples and terraces on the mountain ridge. The peak of Huayna Picchu is 8,835 ft above sea level, about 850 ft higher than Machu Picchu. (Source: Wikipedia.)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Robert Lima is a Cuban-born, award-winning poet, as well as an internationally recognized critic, bibliographer, playwright, and translator. As a Greenwich Village poet during the 1960s, he read at coffeehouses and other venues, co-edited Seventh Street. Poems of Les Deux Megots, introduced by Denise Levertov, and the second series of Judson Review. His 15 poetry collections include Celestials, Elementals, Sardinia/Sardegna, Ikons of the Past: Poetry of the Hispanic Americas, and Writers on My Watch (2020). Over 600 of his poems have appeared in print in the U.S. and abroad. Eleven of his poems have just appeared in Greek translation in Noima Magazine. Among his numerous critical studies are works on García Lorca, Valle-Inclán, Borges, Surrealism, folklore, dramatic literature, and translations of plays and poetry.

Cueva de las Manos by Lorraine Caputo (LANDMARKS Series)

Cueva de las Manos
by Lorraine Caputo

I.
Beneath a deep indigo sky
we travail a road through dry landscape
hard grasses, spiked shrubs tipped with frost,
brooks skimmed with ice fracturing
in the late dawn palely painting the clouds
magenta, gold, orchid,
distant polychrome mountains
fleetingly alpenglowed,
the morning star yet bright,
the creamy near-full moon already set
beyond a long plateau, beyond a field where
birds flock, solitary beings in the loneliness of this
Patagonian valley carved by ancient glaciers,
the rising sun yet tinting the pastel heaven,
shadows pooling in the deep folds of the earth,
ochre, bittersweet,
green, taupe.

II.
We now cut across a more eastern plain
molded & scraped by glacial fingers

Grazing herds of tawny & white
guanaco against the tawny landscape
in the tawny light of morn

Down into the steep-walled canyon
tawny, white, faded purple,
eroded crags towering into the celestine sky

III.
On the time-smoothed walls of a shallow cave,
beneath rock overhangs,
guanaco heavy with child gather around a
creamy full moon, millennia-old hands,
ochre, burgundy
bittersweet, cream
touch the stone

hands of a people
long gone … long forgotten
in the loneliness
of this Patagonian earth

CREDIT: “Cueva de las Manos” first appeared in the Zimbabwe-US journal Munyori Literary Journal (18 April 2014) and was reprinted in the author’s chapbook, Notes from the Patagonia (Chicago: dancing girl press, 2017).

PHOTO: “Hands at the Cuevas de las Manos upon Río Pinturas, near the town of Perito Moreno in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina” (Mariano, 2005).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I wrote this poem, “Cueva de las Manos,” during my visit to that site. It is the major Aónikenk indigenous archaeological site in all the Patagonia, on either side of the modern-day border (Chile-Argentina), and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Cueva de las Manos is in the Cañadón del Río Pinturas, just off Argentina’s Ruta 40. (Find my coverage of it at this link in the guidebook I wrote about Argentina – Viva Travel Guides – Argentina, 2011).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Lorraine Caputo is a documentary poet, translator, and travel writer. Her work appears in over 180 journals in Canada, the US, Latin America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and Africa, as well as in 12 chapbooks of poetry – including Caribbean Nights (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2014), Notes from the Patagonia (dancing girl press, 2017), and On Galápagos Shores (dancing girl press, 2019). She also pens travel pieces, with stories appearing in the anthologies Drive: Women’s True Stories from the Open Road (Seal Press, 2002) and Far-Flung and Foreign (Lowestoft Chronicle Press, 2012), and travel articles and guidebooks. In March 2011, the Parliamentary Poet Laureate of Canada honored her verse. She has done over 200 literary readings, from Alaska to the Patagonia, and journeys through Latin America, listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth. You may follow her Latin America Wander travels on Facebook and at latinamericawander.wordpresscom.

PHOTO: The author with a mico friend in Colombia’s Amazon jungle.

Lima, Peru, 29 April 2020, COVID-19 Lock-up by Rose Mary Boehm (MY FRONT DOOR Series)

Lima, Peru, 29 April 2020, COVID-19 Lock-up
by Rose Mary Boehm

These bars surprised me when we bought
the flat. Hated living behind bars.
But most people in the days of the terror
lived behind bars, and soon they
made me feel safe
in Lima, the town of thieves.

Coronavirus, and the bars are no longer
in place to keep out, but to keep in.
How many weeks has it been?
Too many, too few… It’ll be a while
yet. There are those who don’t believe.
Who defy the orders, authorities
who can be bought, too many who
drink, dance and make merry,
too many who die.

A conspiracy of death. The elderly, the young,
the black, the white, the gay, the poor, the evil,
the out of work, the workers,
and prisoners.

And we have become prisoners
of reason and of fear.
The front door opens,
the gateway to another world.
Trapped inside by nano aliens.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I live in a country that was torn by what many people call a civil war, but what even more people want to call terrorism. It was a bad time, and there were indeed terrorists who blew up what they could, often indiscriminately. That’s what gave birth to the bars at doors, bars instead of fences, bars protecting windows. When we moved here from Europe, it was a bit of a shock, but the reasons were clear and I learned to live with them.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: German-born, Rose Mary Boehm lives and works in Lima, Peru. Author of two novels and Tangents, a full-length poetry collection published in the UK in 2011, She’s a three-time winner of the Goodreads monthly competition. Recent poetry collections are From the Ruhr to Somewhere Near Dresden 1939-1949: A Child’s Journey and Peru Blues or Lady Gaga Won’t Be Back. Her latest full-length poetry manuscript, The Rain Girl, will be published by Chaffinch Press in 2020. Visit her at rosemaryboehm.weebly.com.

Amazonia by Rose Mary Boehm (Where I Live Poetry & Photography Series)

AMAZONIA
by Rose Mary Boehm

When the dog’s front half disappeared
under a heap of soggy leaves, I kicked
away that mix of rotting vegetable matter
and saw it. Man, I smelled it. It made
curious humming noises and something like
the sound bubbles make when they burst.

Decomposition, they call it. When the dog
had calmed, we just stood there under the giant
ferns. From the nearest kapok hung a termite
nest like a tumorous growth as large as a backpack.

Flesh had again become part of the earth. No CSI
in Amazonia, no cell phone connection, no 911.
Man or beast, who cares.
Just matter to be reabsorbed.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: In the rainforests of the Amazon and its tributaries, nature can’t be controlled. It gives and takes away. Here one understands that death and life will forever be united in their interdependence.

IMAGE: “Rain Forest, Peru” by Aidan Moran. Prints available at fineartamerica.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm lives and works in Lima, Peru. Author of two novels and a poetry collection published in 2011 in the UK, Tangents, her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in two dozen US poetry reviews as well as some print anthologies, and Diane Lockward’s The Crafty Poet. She won third price in the 2009 Margaret Reid Poetry Contest for Traditional Verse (US), was semi-finalist in the Naugatuck poetry contest 2012/13, and has been a finalist in several GR contests, winning it in October 2014.

Rubble by Steven W. Baker (Where I Live Poetry & Photography Series)

RUBBLE
by Steven W. Baker

The street by my house is made of rubble
Mortar and brick dumped against the rain
Discarded pieces of broken ceramic tile
Lumpy detritus bridging muddy puddles
Someone’s dreams once built now gone.

In dry weather the ubiquitous brick walls
That line even the most impoverished road
To keep out the reason for their existence
Form wind tunnels for dust storms
To sweep dirt and trash to new locations.

A small herd of dairy cows wanders by
As if they belong here in the smoky city
Their lovely eyes showing little interest
In the road that leads from grass to milking
They’re just on the way to their fate.

Horse carts, school children heading home
Gardeners on bicycles with their lawnmowers
Maids walking efficiently to beat the setting sun
Lonely taxi drivers heading to their next fares
All stir dogs beyond gates to rouse from naps.

In the future (how easily we assume)
This lazy ersatz street will finally be completed
Men will come in trucks and dump real gravel
Then neatly put down six-sided paving stones
And civilization will come bustling by my window.

Everything will be transformed as if by magic
But I will know what lies beneath the thin veneer
I will remember the dust and the bricks and tile
The horses and cows that are no longer allowed
The reason why everything always has to change.

I won’t forget either how my life has moved on
Built atop losses I never wanted to endure
Past the dreams I fought to keep alive
The beloved people who shared my path
For far too few a breath we held together.

When my street is all paved but is broken
The men will come again in their big trucks
To dig down into the hidden dusty layers
Of the rubble on which the present will be built
And know that what is lost can still sustain.

©2015 Steven W. Baker

PHOTOGRAPH: “A Dirt Road Winds Toward Sajama” (the highest mountain in Bolivia) by Joel Sartore. Prints available at fineartamerica.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Steven W, Baker has lived (at least six months) in Greencastle, Indiana; W. Lafayette, Indiana; Bloomington, Indiana; Ft. Wayne, Indiana; Indianapolis, Indiana; Cedar Lake, Indiana; Crown Point, Indiana; Chicago, Illinois; Morris, Illinois; St. Joseph, Michigan; Grand Rapids, Michigan; Chillicothe, Ohio; Portland, Maine; Salem, Massachusetts; Providence, Rhode Island; Clarksville, Tennessee; Sarasota, Florida; Orlando, Florida; Phoenix, Arizona; Hamilton, Montana; Niagara Falls, New York; Toronto, Canada; Mexico City, Mexico; Jakarta, Indonesia; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Ponce, Puerto Rico; Marigot Bay, St. Lucia; on a sailboat in the Caribbean; London, England; Guangzhou, China; and Santa Cruz, Bolivia, where he currently resides with his lovely Bolivian wife. He has also traveled extensively around the world. He has been writing almost all his life, having written his first of four novels, The Yuma Cave Mystery, when he was in the eighth grade. He has never tried to get a novel published . . . maybe someday. He is not a big fan of self-publishing. He has a BA and MA in English and studied creative writing under poet Felix Stefanile at Purdue University. He has essentially lived two lives as a poet — as a young man in college and shortly after when he published a lot of work in underground newspapers and obscure journals, most of which are probably now defunct. His second life as a poet began a quarter century later, after his divorce from his first wife. He has now gathered a large body of unpublished work from this period that was written for himself and his close friends, but his first book from all that will be coming out this summer, Sun and Moon, which gathers 61 poems, some of which are rather long.

Railway, poem by Fred D’Aguiar

RAILWAY
by Fred D’Aguiar

Long before you see train
The tracks sing and tremble,
Long before you know direction
Train come from, a hum
Announces it soon arrive.
So we tend to drop on all fours
Even before we look left or right.
We skip the sleepers or walk
Along by balancing on a rail.
We talk about the capital
Where the train ends its run
From the interior stacked with
The outsized trunks of felled
Trees and open-topped cars of bauxite.
We always hide from it unsure
What the train will do if we
Stand next to the tracks.
It flattens our nails into knives,
It obliterates any traffic
Caught by it at crossroads,
It whistles a battle cry,
Steam from the engine a mood
Not to mess with or else.
Rails without beginning or end,
Twinned hopes always at your back,
Always up front signaling you on,
Double oxen, hoof stomp, temper
Tantrum, stampede, clatter
Matter, head splitter, hear us,
Stooped with an ear to the line—
greenheart, mora, baromalli,
purple heart, crabwood,
kabakalli, womara.

SOURCE: Poetry (December 2008).

PHOTO: “Old Bauxite train in Linden, Guyana.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Fred D’Aguiar –born in London of Guyanese parents and raised in Guyana — is a poet, writer, and professor of English and Africana studies at Virginia Tech State University. He is the author of British Subjects, English Sampler: New and Selected Poems, and The Longest Memory, and is the recipient of the David Higham Prize for Fiction and the Whitbread First Novel Award. He lives in Blacksburg, Virginia. His sixth poetry collection is Continental Shelf (2011), available at Amazon.com. Visit him at freddguiar.com.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez discusses inspiration

In the Winter 1981 issue of The Paris Review, Nobel Prize winning novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez discusses inspiration. (Read the entire interview at The Paris Review.) Here are some excerpts:

I can only work in surroundings that are familiar and have already been warmed up with my work. I cannot write in hotels or borrowed rooms or on borrowed typewriters. This creates problems because when I travel I can’t work…You hope for inspiration whatever the circumstances…

I’m convinced that there is a special state of mind in which you can write with great ease and things just flow. All the pretexts—such as the one where you can only write at home—disappear. That moment and that state of mind seem to come when you have found the right theme and the right ways of treating it. And it has to be something you really like, too, because there is no worse job than doing something you don’t like…

Inspiration is when you find the right theme, one which you really like; that makes the work much easier. Intuition, which is also fundamental to writing fiction, is a special quality which helps you to decipher what is real without needing scientific knowledge, or any other special kind of learning…For a novelist, intuition is essential. Basically it’s contrary to intellectualism, which is probably the thing that I detest most in the world—in the sense that the real world is turned into a kind of immovable theory. Intuition has the advantage that either it is, or it isn’t. You don’t struggle to try to put a round peg into a square hole.

Illustration: Gabriel Garcia Marquez by Margarita Karol, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 

My Dog…poem by Pablo Neruda

MY DOG…(Excerpts)
Poem by Pablo Neruda

… my dog used to gaze at me,
paying me the attention I need,
the attention required
to make a vain person like me understand
that, being a dog, he was wasting time,
but, with those eyes so much purer than mine,
he’d keep on gazing at me
with a look that reserved for me alone
all his sweet and shaggy life,
always near me, never troubling me,
and asking nothing.

Ai, how many times have I envied his tail
as we walked together on the shores of the sea
in the lonely winter of Isla Negra
where the wintering birds filled the sky
and my hairy dog was jumping about
full of the voltage of the sea’s movement:
my wandering dog, sniffing away
with his golden tail held high,
face to face with the ocean’s spray.

Joyful, joyful, joyful,
as only dogs know how to be happy
with only the autonomy
of their shameless spirit…

Note on the Author: A native of Chile, Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. Novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez called Neruda, “The greatest poet of the 20th century in any language.”

Gabriel Garcia Marquez Discusses Inspiration

In the Winter 1981 issue of The Paris Review, Nobel Prize winning novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez discusses inspiration. (Read the entire interview at The Paris Review.) Here are some excerpts:

I can only work in surroundings that are familiar and have already been warmed up with my work. I cannot write in hotels or borrowed rooms or on borrowed typewriters. This creates problems because when I travel I can’t work…You hope for inspiration whatever the circumstances…

I’m convinced that there is a special state of mind in which you can write with great ease and things just flow. All the pretexts—such as the one where you can only write at home—disappear. That moment and that state of mind seem to come when you have found the right theme and the right ways of treating it. And it has to be something you really like, too, because there is no worse job than doing something you don’t like…

Inspiration is when you find the right theme, one which you really like; that makes the work much easier. Intuition, which is also fundamental to writing fiction, is a special quality which helps you to decipher what is real without needing scientific knowledge, or any other special kind of learning…For a novelist, intuition is essential. Basically it’s contrary to intellectualism, which is probably the thing that I detest most in the world—in the sense that the real world is turned into a kind of immovable theory. Intuition has the advantage that either it is, or it isn’t. You don’t struggle to try to put a round peg into a square hole.

 Illustration: Gabriel Garcia Marquez by Margarita Karol, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

“The house became full of love. Aureliano expressed it in poetry that had no beginning and no end. He would write it on the harsh pieces of parchment that Melquiades gave him, on the bathroom walls, on the skin of his arms, and in all of it Remedios would appear transfigured: Remedios in the soporific air of two in the afternoon, Remedios in the soft breath of the roses, Remedios in the water-clock secrets of the moths, Remedios in the steaming morning bread, Remedios everywhere and Remedios forever.”…From One Hundred Years of Solitude, a novel by GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ

PHOTO: Mya Jamila, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED