Helmut NewtonIMPOSSIBLE POEM
Let my touch know you for the last time
because I want to learn your face by heart,
because I want to start a poem with:
“In Segovia, on a night of towers, my soul could not,
was unable . . .”
Let me, yes, let me.
Let me at least tire your footprints
for this face-scented pillow
because I want to make a bird out of your skin
to awaken my dead heart.
I loved you head on, completely
and watched myself at length in your hands
seeking to grant forgiveness to my ancient thirst for a shore.
This way for this rose-faced sadness
as if the color carried my barefoot pain.
Sometimes there comes to me a silence of bells
always, always whistling under your skin…
You approached my life like a lone vegetable
stretching your eyes up to the tree’s fullness.
My life was simple, humble,
tender clay to the touch.
Now I am but a blind spring
fleeing the shadow in your gaze.
It’s true that everything was useless and painful;
a pity that you didn’t love me:
it’s been the greatest what a pity in the world.
But come, come near and die a little in my words.
Despite everything you’re my love, my you, my never.
And I can no longer cope with this fateless hollow
weighing inside me like God on the grass.
For neither can I cope with this taste of you in my lips.
Yes: in Segovia the sap died suddenly.
And I could not,
was unable.
© 1953, Eduardo Cote Lamus
From: Salvación del recuerdo
Publisher: José Janés, Barcelona, 1953
Let my touch know you for the last time
because I want to learn your face by heart,
because I want to start a poem with:
“In Segovia, on a night of towers, my soul could not,
was unable . . .”
Let me, yes, let me.
Let me at least tire your footprints
for this face-scented pillow
because I want to make a bird out of your skin
to awaken my dead heart.
I loved you head on, completely
and watched myself at length in your hands
seeking to grant forgiveness to my ancient thirst for a shore.
This way for this rose-faced sadness
as if the color carried my barefoot pain.
Sometimes there comes to me a silence of bells
always, always whistling under your skin…
You approached my life like a lone vegetable
stretching your eyes up to the tree’s fullness.
My life was simple, humble,
tender clay to the touch.
Now I am but a blind spring
fleeing the shadow in your gaze.
It’s true that everything was useless and painful;
a pity that you didn’t love me:
it’s been the greatest what a pity in the world.
But come, come near and die a little in my words.
Despite everything you’re my love, my you, my never.
And I can no longer cope with this fateless hollow
weighing inside me like God on the grass.
For neither can I cope with this taste of you in my lips.
Yes: in Segovia the sap died suddenly.
And I could not,
was unable.
© 1953, Eduardo Cote Lamus
From: Salvación del recuerdo
Publisher: José Janés, Barcelona, 1953
© Translation: 2010, Laura Chalar
