Monday, October 13, 2008

"Kisses" a poem by Juan Parra de Riego, translated and edited by DL Siluk

“Kisses”
(Madness before death: with commentary notes)


Note: All poems for this book were selected (or chosen with careful review) in August of 2007, except for “Kisses,” chosen, and added to this selection in, October, of 2008 for its extraordinary content, intensity, and external effects.


English Version

Kisses
By Juan Parra del Riego
Translated and Edited by Dr. Dennis L. Siluk
And Rosa Peñaloza de Siluk (10-11-2008)


Sounds of doves kissing under the moon
you have left in my mouth.
Honeycombs with delirious and wild happiness
you have left in my mouth.
Red and pure hearts of children
you have left in my mouth.
Fields with its happiness of goats and bells
you have left in my mouth.
Your dreadful and blue paleness like my death
you have left in my mouth.



Notes: this extraordinary work (poem) “Kisses” chronicles the ensuing death march; he, Juan Perra was slowly undergoing, and may have been written prior to his last breaths. Much of his poetry was written the last year of his life (1925), and it clearly radiates out in this poem, “Kisses.”
In “Kisses” Juan Perra takes us through some painful moments, his increasingly strained body, and mind, devastatingly brings us into its madness itself. The reader is drawn into his intensity, that his insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as if going to a good movie. He writes—unknowing perhaps, the tragedy of life—the pure truth, if not for some (and surely for me), the happiness and madness in life itself, without pretense, before death. He talks to life itself, as if it was his mistress.




Spanish Version

Besos
Por Juan Parra del Riego

Sonidos de palomas besándose a la luna
me has dejado en la boca.
Panales de alegría delirante y salvaje
me has dejado en la boca.
Corazones de niños colorados y puros
me has dejado en la boca.
Campo con su alegría de chivos y campanas
me has dejado en la boca.
Tu palidez terrible y azul como mi muerte
me has dejado en la boca.

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