Jonathan Simkins – Four Translations



Ernesto Noboa y Caamaño (1889-1927)



The Danaides

There was the scent of womanly flesh,
wounds and the waxing of a curse,
and a yawn of light from the firmament
illuminated a miracle of profiles.

Striking with simultaneous steel
they pierced the bodies from above,
as the cackling bark of Cerberus
muffled the screams of agony.

Bearing the emblems of divine fury
from the smoke of a forbidden aerie,
the judgment flowed from Triptolemus,

while down in the gray bog of Acheron
lights of the felled grooms flitted
like fireflies in Charon’s boat.


Las Danaides

Hubo aroma de carnes femeniles,
ayes e imprecaciones de tormento,
y un bostezo de luz del firmamento
iluminó un milagro de perfiles.

Golpeó con ruido isócrono el acero
de una prora en la riba inconocida,
y escuchó la legión estremecida
el trágico ladrar de Cancerboro.

Con atributos de Censor supremo,
desde la cima de un abrupto monte,
dictaminó el castigo Triptolemo;

mientras sobre el fangal del Aqueronte,
en un esfume gris, al son del remo,
se alejaba la barca de Caronte.



Disgust

To live what’s passed through hatred of the present,
to watch the future with clear eyed terror,
to sense poison indifferently swelling the veins,
facing inevitable depravity, and unattainable love,

journeying wastelands of ash and thistle,
a cobra’s fangs slicing my heel,
endless thirst and never ending sun,
a golden thorn stuck in the heart stone,

to ease the weight of this strange existence,
to find in oblivion the final solace,
dazed, intoxicated with impossible fury,

with infinite zeal, with fatal blindness,
drinking the mercies of golden champagne,
sucking venom from the Flowers of Evil.


Hastío

Vivir de lo pasado por desprecio al presente,
mirar hacia el futuro con un hondo terror,
sentirse envenenado, sentirse indiferente,
ante el mal de la Vida y ante el bien del Amor.

Ir haciendo caminos sobre un yermo de abrojos
mordidos por el áspid de la desilusión,
con la sed en los labios, la fatiga en los ojos
y una espina dorada dentro del corazón.

Y por calmar el peso de esta existencia extraña,
buscar en el olvido consolación final,
aturdirse, embriagarse con inaudita saña,

con ardor invencible, con ceguera fatal,
bebiendo las piedades del dorado champaña
y aspirando el veneno de las flores del mal.



Poem

On the alluring bust you rest
in the ribboned bodice, pristine and crisp,
in the studded agate necklace with
Golcondan diamonds and pearls of the Valois.

Your pupils gleam to the distant lights
possessing you, torturing you
with arcane nostalgias, memories
of fame, dreams of love.

Coiled within your perfectly round breasts
a Cleopatrine cobra lies in wait
with ruthlessly efficient poison,

and in the lightning stream of your volcanic blood
you nurture the spores of a demented race,
proud harbingers of cruelty and bloodlust.


Poema

Descansa sobre el busto tentador que engalanas
con el jubón ceñido de crujiente surá,
el collar donde esplenden ágatas neronianas,
diamantes de Golconda, perlas de los Valois.

Tus pupilas se pierden en visiones lejanas
y alucinadas miran más allá . . . más allá;
parecen torturadas por nostalgias arcanas,
tal vez ansias de gloria, sueños de amor quizá . . .

Se esconde en la impoluta redondez de tu seno
-con la aleve eficacia de su letal veneno-
el áspid cleopatrino de la sensualidad.

¡Y en el ígneo torrente de tu sangre volcánica
llevas, acaso, el germen de una raza vesánica
de amor, orgullo, muerte, fanatismo y crueldad!


Ernesto Noboa y Caamaño (1889-1927) was an Ecuadorian poet and member of the “Generación Decapitada” (Decapitated Generation). Influenced by the French symbolists and the modernismo of Rubén Darío, he is one of the most widely read poets in Ecuador. Most of his poetry was collected in a single volume, Romanza de las Horas (Romance of the Hours), published in 1922.



Medardo Ángel Silva


It Goes With Part Of Me

It goes with part of me this fading afternoon;
my pain of living is a pain of loving,
and to the sound of rain in the old alleyway,
I’m overcome by an infinite desire to cry.

What are childish things, tell me;
to have an ageless unconsciousness
in the kingdom of sun and spring,
of the nightingale’s song and the April dawn.

O to be a boy again! Soft and gentle
like a melody or perfume, twilight or sunrise,
a flower radiating the scent of life,
a star oblivious to the night’s dark heart.

Se Va Con Algo Mío

Se va con algo mío la tarde que se aleja;
mi dolor de vivir es un dolor de amar;
y al son de la garúa, en la antigua calleja,
me invade un infinito deseo de llorar.

Que son cosas de niño, me dices; quién me diera
tener una perenne inconsciencia infantil;
ser del reino del día y de la primavera,
del ruiseñor que canta y del alba de Abril.

Ah, ser pueril, ser puro, ser canoro, ser suave;
trino, perfume o canto, crepúsculo o aurora!
Como la flor que aroma la vida y no lo sabe,
como el astro que alumbra las noches y lo ignora.


Medardo Ángel Silva (1898-1919) was an Ecuadorian poet and member of the “Generación Decapitada” (Decapitated Generation). He died at the age of 21, and much of his literary work was published posthumously. He is believed to have committed suicide, but he may have been murdered as the result of a love triangle.


 

Author’s Statement on Beauty

In regards to the pursuit and apprehension of beauty, I am most interested in revealing what is hidden. I think that when we perceive the inner aspects of something, we are able to glimpse, if only partially, its original, primordial form. It’s not the sound of the ocean we hear in the seashell: it’s a reflection of the object’s internal music. It’s that constellation of sound which I try to render through my translations when literal readings do not yield a poem’s essence.


 

Jonathan Simkins lives in Denver, Colorado. He is the author, with artist Justin Ankenbauer, of the ekphrastic chapbook, Translucent Winds (Helikon Gallery & Studios, 2016). The title poem of his second chapbook, This Is The Crucible (The Lune, 2017), received a Best of the Net nomination. His poems have appeared in various publications, including Crack The Spine, Gingerbread House Literary Magazine, Requited Journal and Wilderness House Literary Review, among others, and his translations of Ernesto Noboa y Caamaño have appeared or are forthcoming in The Bangalore Review, Hinchas de Poesía and Visitant.