Four Poems - Miguel James
translated from the Spanish by E.R. Pulgar
Miguel James (1953) is a Trinidadian Venezuelan poet and translator. His works include Mi novia Itala come flores (1987), Albanela, Tuttifruti, Blanca y las otras (1990), La casa caramelo de la bruja (1993), Nena quiero ser tu hombre y otras confesiones (1996), A las diosas del mar (1999), Oda a Naomi (2001), and Kentakes, poemas para la reina y otras obras maestras (2003). He lives in Trinidad.
If We Aged
If we aged another way
If now we were fifteen and the year after turned fourteen
If we arrived at one
we would play all day
we would be happy.
I kiss my sleeping sister and she turns
I look at her other cheek
Heart a dripping faucet
A Rora
Friend
I couldn’t sleep looking at your horse teeth
your horse hair
your young equine body that rides in humid fields
Friend
I couldn’t sleep thinking that I love you
that we’ve grown
that days pass without seeing each other.
Stolen Roses
I appear with the moon and leave with her hug me like a
bear I love you madly Mari don’t do anything with me don’t exploit me
I don’t have cigarettes between my lips put yours on them Mari I’ll send
my pillow to be washed I’ll cut off my telephone lovers I won’t love
the calendar girls your breasts are two chocolate bars I
swear Mari I didn’t look through the crack in the window over you fell all
the stars I would kill queen Elizabeth the mother of? don’t understand me
hear the song of the frogs choke me with your braids Mari
dressed in blue I give you a bouquet of stolen roses I broke all
the store windows of the city Mari Mari Mariiiii ¡ the fu-cking-cops! let’s not
get sad none of them know me I curse myself I have a beard
I am sincere I don’t know you ¿are we sad Mari? ¡ the morgue hug me
bear hug me Mari Mari Mariiiiiii…
E.R. Pulgar is a Venezuelan American poet, journalist, and translator. They are the author of Sonnet to the Serpent and Other Poems (Wonder Press). Their criticism has appeared in Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Playboy, and elsewhere. Their poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Fence, Changes Review, Epiphany, blush lit, and The Poetry Project Newsletter. A finalist for the 7th Rafael Cadenas Young Poets Prize, they founded the Endless Blue salon at the Bowery Poetry Club.