WHILE
Before the end of Aquarius
the pale shell will come off
Of the petty masts that hold me persistently
to the acid days that I have left and that push me to leave
meanwhile the tears of a burning salamander fall
as the universe cools
while the creator’s belly accelerates
while the verb contracts
to give birth to the next big bang
that brings its reincarnated flame
in a kind of divine reset to understand us better
since in this past centuries it only brought us a great question
that spits out my insignificant and forgotten life
towards another portal that returns me
To embrace the warm name of our unfinished love.
But between the hollow that leaves the universe without answers
nest the bonds of the flesh that impede the ascent
and the moan of an abject night without constellations is heard
as the star winks its neutrinos at each turn of an earthly extinction
while we have faith in a time forward
while an unthinkable curve reverses the hours
while a simultaneous love is repeated on a balustrade
letting out the molten sweat of lovers
that are hidden in oblivion
of cosmic amnesia
that corrects everything
like the late moment
or the early instant
but always opportune for a kiss
like marbled death
neither before nor after
if not with the precision dictated by the oracles
with his charming concert of algorithms without obituaries
like when the same lovers loved each other twice
in different centuries and places.
Enrique de Santiago, Born in Santiago, Chile (1961). Visual artist, poet, researcher, essayist, curator and cultural manager. He studied a Bachelor of Art at the University of Chile and at the Institute of Contemporary Art (Chile). Since 1984, he has exhibited in individual and group exhibitions, counting to his credit around more than 100 exhibitions.
He has edited five books: Fragile Transits Under the Spirals in 2012, with La Polla Literaria; Elegía a las Magas and the book essay: El Regreso de las Magas, both with Editorial Varonas. In 2018 he edited La Cúspide Uránica with editorial Xaleshem and Dharma Comunicaciones, and Travel Bitácora with Editorial Opalina Cartonera.
He has participated in various poetry anthologies, both in Chile and abroad. He has collaborated in the newspaper La Nación with articles on new media art, and in magazines such as Derrame, Escaner Cultural and Labios Menores in Chile, Brumes Blondes in Holland, Adamar from Spain, Punto Seguido from Colombia, Sonámbula from Mexico, Agulha de Brazil, Incomunidade de Portugal, Styxus de Rep. Czech, Canibaal de Valencia, Spain, Materika de Costa Rica and other printed and digital publications.
Visual Art by Enrique de Santiago
translated by Mitchell Pluto
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