from The Rolling Image
Tr. Thomas Rothe
Like a diver pressing against the
bottom of the sea to propel himself
up to the surface.
Antonin Artaud
Like a diver pressing against the bottom of the sea to propel himself like a diver who
propels himself at the bottom of the sea like a diver trying to rise to the surface
trying to come up for a breath of air like a diver just about to plunge in
like that man who takes the right position to come up to jump
like a diver crushed by the deep waters trying
like someone holding his breath and trying like someone wanting to come up
like someone who internally propels and wants to plunge in like someone who propels and breathes
like someone coming up like someone sticking his head out of the water and breathing
like someone seeing the sky after so much time at sea
like someone coming up like someone breathing
Like a diver pressing against the bottom of the sea to propel himself
up to the surface like that man who breaks the tension and enters
like that man who has been to the bottom of the sea and sees nothing
like that man who has been in the middle of darkness and comes up
like a diver pressing to plunge in like someone jumping
like someone coming up like someone going in pulling his head out and breathing.
Stop to consider the movement of someone’s feet –it doesn’t matter whose– take a step
another step stop to consider their hands the movement of each finger
someone knits –for example– someone dances and moves their body stop right there
to consider that body in movement the eyes stop there the mind there stop right there
someone closes and opens their eyes –blinks– stop there to consider their face
their mouth yawning or screaming –never mind at who or what– stop for a moment
to consider that thing screaming and spinning there before us inside outside
stop that screaming thing of that thought coming and going and spinning
stop to consider that screaming thought inside stop
leave that spinning that p e r s i s t e n t spinning that comes and goes and repeats itself
e x c e s s i v e l y e x c e e d i n g l y shatter it stop it
the snow –they say– melts ( ) with a little sun.
Something starts moving something rolls spins keeps its erratic course
someone walks leaps runs something someone moves something spins
turns around comes back always wanders haphazardly aimlessly an apple
a dreidel spins over there an old man walks a trail for miles
and miles –inwards– an old man spins leaps
“everything I saw beckoned me to travel” (he writes) over there –tracing a map–
over there every hill river every bend of time over there the apple spins
tracing small circles the accelerated dreidel practically in the same spot
spins as if still it spins practically jumping in the air
a bird moves across the sky up there (outside) a plane traces a line
inside something someone spins internally keeps its erratic course
aimlessly a car an apple leave and enter the scene
–tracing a map– over there life pushes on.
Someone makes use of the word like someone who drinks a glass of water
like someone who drinks a glass of wine one serene the other drunk
the word says and doesn’t say it means and means something different
someone says someone has the word someone clarifies specifies responds
someone asks another person claims to have the words claims to have the word
the gold of the tongue he says the gold (just like that) the gold of the tongue
someone claims to have that another person holds it robs it someone else lets it go
like a river with no water he lets it go like a frantic dog someone doesn’t want to hear
doesn’t want to listen the words (he says) are rabid they bite
someone fears words he fears someone else may exchange a word with him
point-blank with a knife the word is a sharpened knife
(says someone else) the word kills like a sword like a river with water
the word saves (so they say) the word (he says) is a lifejacket
that is the word (he says) that’s where reality has fangs
that’s where words are hammering
over there (inside) like someone hammering a tattered couch.
And now I’m going to headbutt the words a loud bang
why is the river so dry? why does the water have no whirlpool?
outside the fish is the serpent the river an impoverished dog
the migrating fish sinks deeper into remembrance
there are fish and there are no words
the bait is the trap the banging the source –the water supply–
the head that bursts to see the firmament
the stars fall the loud banging one by one they light up and extinguish
the pack of dogs bark
the river below the fish sinks deeper into remembrance
outside inside the loud banging the drums beat to announce
the pack of dogs bark
the bells dream they light up and extinguish
the bait is the trap that the fish bites
the wet word e s c a p e s.
The birds unwaveringly leap into the void they leap
unwaveringly (she feels time pulsating) it’s October
and there’s no net just the moment that continues its course
of the day from day to night then thus (she unties the knot)
just as our ancestors must have leaped like this
into out of unwaveringly (she unties the knot)
it’s more than three words it’s more than a play on language
three birds one after another following their impulse
time pulsating it’s October a cold morning
no nets the sky clears.
Tania Favela Bustillo (Mexico, 1970) completed her doctorate in Latin American literature at UNAM. From 2000 to 2010, she formed part of the editorial board of the journal El poeta y su trabajo, directed by poet Hugo Gola. Among her latest publications are El lugar es el poema: aproximaciones a la poesía de José Watanabe (APJ, 2018), the poetry book La marcha hacia ninguna parte (Komorebi, 2018), and Remar a contracorriente. Cinco poéticas: Hugo Gola, Miguel Casado, Olvido García Valdés, Roger Santiváñez, Gloria Gervitz (Libros de la resistencia, 2019). She is currently a full-time academic at the IBERO.
Thomas Rothe holds a Ph.D. in Latin American Literature from the Universidad de Chile and currently lectures at the Universidad Católica de Chile. He has published translations of the following volumes of poetry: Jaime Huenún’s Fanon City Meu (Diálogos Books, 2018), Rodrigo Lira’s Testimony of Circumstances(co-translated with Rodrigo Olavarría, Cardboard House Press, 2018), Julieta Marchant’s The Birth of Thread (TinFish Press, 2019), and Emma Villazón’s Expendables (OOMPH! Press, 2019). With Lucía Stecher, he has translated into Spanish Edwidge Danticat’s Create Dangerously (Banda Propia, 2019) and Claire of the Sea Light (Banda Propia, 2021). He is currently coordinating a collaborative translation of Carlos Soto Román’s 11, forthcoming from Ugly Duckling Presse.