The bare hands cover cowed faceless victims
The hands of guns will give no chance
The long night of slaughtering continues
The ghostly forces perform their deadly task.

Prophetic Matta, you draw the immense inferno
In the sunless hours of South American sleep
While Robotic Uniforms thunder the reeking abyss
And feed with corpses the Hungry Beast.

I sit before you
And let people pass.
“In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.”
And Pollock
And Warhol
And
What are you doing Matta
Among the Sunday Silent Crowds?

I have seen the Andes

And heard of the bullets
The buzzing sizzling sound
I have smelled of my friends
The fried flesh
Paving the path and beyond.

I keep quietly staring
At the Fingers of the Firing Squad
What of the Night, Mr. Matta?
What of the Night and the drums?

Watchman! Watchman!
Our people are sleeping!
South America hangs on the wall
With its fearful mass
And the tear gas
And the broken glass
Did you believe
The cartoon blood of the canvas
Would pass
And reach to the world?

Through the windows
Central Park lies on the grass
Yards of white flesh
Turn Spring-pink
Ice-cream cone
Sun-glass
Bike
Blade
Radio
Fris-bee

Do you know, Matta?
On the wall
The Chilean dreary machinery
Performs the Book burning
Head pounding
Youth killing
Home blowing
Task.

Wearing my hateful mask
Notebook in hand
I do my homework (Good Boy!)
The tears run down
The blood stays dry
The Japanese photographer shoots
The Quiet American walks
And I learn how to write
The Poetry Of My Time.

New York, 1992.

Questions for my Baby

Why does your forefinger
point toward the sky
while you monologue your incomprehensible discourse?
Do your peace and your smile
know that which we ignore?
Are your silence and your startled loneliness
the traits of wisdom?
What a mystery!
Or perhaps a revelation
has arrived with you but stays only with you?

Will mankind be someday
so wisely Hermetic
so peacefully Incomprehensible
so solemnly Smileful
as you are,
Juliana?

Copacabana. December, 1979.

Te falta todo aquello que los necios
                    [y yo también]
Creemos ser el elemento indispensable
Para que los gemidos
                    [que el placer arranca de las gargantas]
Resuenen en la penumbra de los cuartos
                    [adonde se hace el amor].

Pero nunca la penumbra de los cuartos
                    [que encierran y atestiguan nuestros encuentros]
Oyó tantas palabras susurradas
Tantos silencios calcinados
Y el hondo respirar
                    [confundido y anhelante]
Como cuando tu cuerpo que dices
                    [decimos]
Sin formas
Aviene a que el mío participe del milagro
De saberse en contacto con el tuyo.

Incierta, y por cierto inexplicable
Es la química que rige las leyes del deseo.
Pero hay—sin duda— una fórmula exacta
O una excelsa ecuación inmensurable
que evocamos toda vez que estamos juntos.

Cuando tu carne ya exhausta
Finalmente duerme a mi lado,
Una rica fauna de olores
Prolonga en el silencio y en el sueño
Ese milagro de vida y de muerte
Que me resisto a creer
Sea nada más que un orgasmo.

Avenida Santa Fe, Buenos Aires.
Noviembre de 1987.