Two Poems

Poetry ~ Roberto García de Mesa
translated from Spanish by Lee Lee Moss

Country
 
You fixate the golden glow of
a tumbler in a gin shack.
You allow it to happen.
The spotlights shake you and
you collapse on the table of glass.
You are sufficient
less,
but you reach the level of excellence.
You let yourself be loved by
the silent revolution
and a place in between the shadows.
You arrive through the back door,
you pilot through the labyrinth
and the distance between you and you is
bearable.
At least, for a few seconds.
Before saying what you think
and entitled
in the academy of the forgotten.
And it is that you belong to a damned country
in a magical place.
Rebel
tied to a color,
a color among millions of stars,
a recognizable color that masturbates you
for a handful of hours.
And it is that the crisis suggested this desire,
the one of those who sail at dawn
through that something called
future,
in which not everyone participates,
in which some witnesses fantasize about
enslaving thought and
designing the orgasms of a society.
And we forget, maybe, for a few hours.
And it is that I don't know...
something resounds
or something
fades
or outlasts,
with the melody that always emerges,
with its imperfect orchestra,
with the arrangements they make
the ones that have
the experience of other lives
in this,
those who carry a principle
of uncertainty
nailed
in dark circles under the eyes.
~

 
Theater of
 
The theater of cardboard boxes, of garbage bins, of forgotten hours, the theater of toilet paper, the theater of those who stayed trapped in the ashes of their enemies, the one that loses, that of the shattered, the theater of humiliations, of glory and the strange, the theater of silence, of politics and of dreams, the theater of freedom, of mortals, of the decadent, of the mystics who ceased to be, the theater of the birds that bite, the porn-theater, the theater of the oratory in the depths of the sea, the theater that has left the theater of its own accord, the theater of corners, of the odd ones, of those who are outside, of those whom I like so much, the theater of exact pleasure, of inner masks, the theater that embraces me, the one that makes love to me very slowly, the theater that needs force and not the characters, the moment of force and the fragility of spirit, the theater of oblivion, the one that tells you love me slowly even if you were to feel fast, the theater of reasoning, the theater of unrest, the theater of a decisive moment, of surprise or of painful and eternal onslaughts.
~


(Spanish originals part of the poetic series Los pactos, published in
Superficie de contacto, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, España, Ediciones Idea, 2017)
Translation: Lee Lee Moss
~

Roberto García de Mesa (Tenerife, Spain, 1973) is a poet, playwright, dramaturge, narrator, essayist, philologist, exhibition curator, stage director, visual artist and musician. He holds a licentiate in Law and a doctoral degree in Hispanic Philology. García de Mesa is a member of the Academia de las Artes Escénicas de España and leads his own theater company. He has published more than fifty books of poetry, theater, short narrative, essays, conversations and critical editions. His works have been translated into several languages, including modern Greek, and have appeared in magazines in ten countries. In Greece, Roberto García de Mesa has published the following books: Hamlet Post Scriptum (Hamlet Post Scriptum, translation by Ati Solerti, Athens, Vakxikón, 2017), Razón y canibalismo (Reason and Cannibalism, translation by Vassilis Laliotis, Athens, Bibliothèque, 2017), La edad del frío. Conversaciones con Antígona (Age of the Cold. Conversations with Antigone, bilingual edition, translation by Konstantinos Paleologos, Athens, Bibliothèque, 2018), Superficie de contacto. Retórica (Contact Surface. Rhetoric, translation by Ati Solerti, Athens, Vakxikón, 2018) and Los cuerpos remotos (The Remote Bodies, translation by Ifigenia Doumi, Athens, Bibliothèque, 2019).
​

---

Lee Lee Moss was born in Graz, Austria. After living and working in Vienna and Brussels, she spent close to twenty years abroad. Fifteen of those calling New York City home, with subsequent sojourns in Montreal, Manila and Hong Kong. Following her return to Europe, she currently divides her time between Austria and Spain. Lee Lee is a retired dancer with international performance experience, active in photography and videography, writing and translating, drawing and painting, as well as theatre and design. Ms. Moss, in line with her core pursuit of deeper meaning, further applies herself towards studies in philosophy, energy systems and consciousness.
​

---