Fernando Rendon [Colombia]

 

 

 

Counterhistory 

 
If Odysseus had turned a deaf ear on the sailors
he would have rejected wax and mast
 
would have plunged in after the songs of madness
of those women ended like a fish
 
thus crossed the threshold of this world’s kingdom
there would burst the song of new love in all cardinal points
 
we mortals would conceive children with Dream
a school of invisible warriors would arise
 
the most heartless tyrant would lose his mind
listening to the thunder of reinvented drums
 
the sun and the wind would give back their senses
to the self-willed blind and deaf
 
someone would cure at the root the forest’s old plague
in all latitudes the paths of instinct would be found
 
Ah Troy, exiled from yourself,
your sages publicly shamed
and ferocious cutlass fishes prowling your iron beaches!

 

(Translation by Laura Chalar)  

 

 

Convergence 

 
Lying like logs, our red bark wrinkled, we are as buffaloes who rotting melt on the green meadow.
 
But due to an inexplicable random act, lying like mushrooms on the grass, we explore all the millennia, flee from prehistoric beasts, fight all the wars, are millions of beings stretching under the arc of eternity, while dragon and yearning fight in the clouds.
 
The sun calls us and to hesitate is to die. Fly, fly, beauteous swan of desire, everything can be achieved.
 
Walking on the white dew, remove your shoes: the age of man is that of his gaze upon the legendary forest.
 
(Translation by Laura Chalar)

 

 

Tasks of Enkiddu 

 

You, Cro-Magnon safely arrived at our desert ages, do not belong only in Hittite clay tablets. Live still in the spirits of vegetation.

 

In the cages today men and beasts swarm around. Dismantle, then, as before, the pieces of the traps. Fill in the ditches. Storm the huntsmen’s shelters to mix the dampness in their gunpowder and break their daggers’ blood-dyed blades.

 

Come drink with the herds and the birds, come repeat in the market squares and the fields the tune that reminds one of time’s root.

 

Be again irreducible among us, in a unique land without the oppression of Uruk. Leap over the boundaries, reflect in your gaze the fertile promise, the wild liberty, the full dominion of earthly vigor, of celestial vigor.

 

(Translation by Laura Chalar)

 

  

War

You will always have reasons

You will take out your sword

like an angel

And when you have unsheathed it
you're already a demon

(Translation by Laura Chalar)

Author’s Bionote:

* Fernando Rendón was born in Medellín (Colombia), in 1951. He has published among others “Contrahistoria”, “Bajo otros soles”, “Canción en los campos de Marte”, “Los motivos del salmón”, “La cuestión radiante”, “La rama roja”, “En flotación” y “Piedra de la memoria”. His poetry books have been published in United States, China, Vietnam, France, Italy, Romania, Albania, Cuba, Costa Rica and Venezuela. Actually he is one of three coordinators of World Poetry Movement (WPM), director of The International Poetry Festival of Medellin since 1991 and of the poetry magazine “Prometeo”. The Foundation Right Livelihood Award has decided to grant the 2006 Alternative Nobel Prize to the International Poetry Festival of Medellín, “for showing how creativity, beauty, free expression and community can flourish amongst and overcome even deeply entrenched fear and violence”. He received the Arabian Bahrahill Foundation Prize (Saudi Arabia), Rafael Alberti Poetry Prize (Cuba); Mihai Eminescu (Romania); Mkiva Humanitarian Award as the Foremost Cultural Icon (South Africa), Literary Award 2017 (Bangladesh), Medal Homero for Literature and Art (Belgium) and a jade plate from International Poetry Festival of Lake Qinghai (China).