Vincent Nunez, Cordoba from Aguilar de la Frontera, died on a day like today in 2002. He is considered one of the most relevant Andalusian poets of the second half of the last century. Some of his works are Elegy to a Dead Friend, Earth Days, Ancestral Poems, Sunset in Poley, which won the National Critics Award. Or three books of aphorisms: Enthymema, Sophism y sorite. In 1990 he was awarded the Silver Medal of Andalusian Letters. To remember or discover it this is a selection of his poems.
Vicente Nuñez - Selection of poems
Loving You
Loving you was not a bouquet of roses in the afternoon.
Leave you any day forever and not see you ...?
I still have another bigger hell left.
Wait for you to come back beyond death.
***
A poem
Is a poem a kiss and that is why it is so deep?
A poem - do you love me? - sits down - don't talk-
on my lips that abdicate singing if you kiss me.
Is a poem written, embezzled, embraced?
Oh sweet maze of light, oh dark,
oh high and secret confusion, my love.
***
Your hands
I know very well that it will not be your hands
red, of irrefutable human clay,
the ones that will hurt me in spite of themselves tomorrow.
Yours is my dream? Mine are your vain
realms of labyrinths and arcana.
I know very well his ruffian condition,
and how much the one who always wins loses
except for two sovereign assaults.
What were they worth without me, what has endured
from when they burned like stars,
from when I kissed them without loving you?
An ash of fallen gold,
a few flashes that were not theirs ...
Rag roses in the hands of death.
***
Chant
The one who passes ignored by the arches of the world.
The one who spreads his gold cloak on the ground.
The one who breathes in the forest the sound of the rain
and forget her care under the willows.
The one who kisses your arms and trembles and transforms
despite the onslaught of everything and himself.
The one who in your shadow groans like a tremulous gem.
The one who passes, the one who extends, the one who aspires and forgets.
The one who kisses, the one who trembles and transforms. The one who moans.
***
Sunset
The cave with no one who knew the water
and the slate spatulas of the sea against the rocks
they were not a music above,
or even provoked in front of wooden boats.
The cold of the Most High,
behind the solar bonfire of the mountains,
a thick hiss poured out and we throbbed.
"Angels are, and not counted ships."
And when you said it
without that effort that disables the memory,
a tender breast suddenly sprouted:
Angels are, left to their accoutrement;
while joy overwhelmed me.
***
Letter from a lady
I have often thought of a line from Eliot;
the one in which a persuasive and battered lady
he serves tea to his friends among fleeting lilacs.
I would have loved her because, just like yours,
my life is a useless and endless wait.
But lo and behold, it is late, and she died long ago,
and from a banally perfect old letter
its memory diffuses perennial and rare aroma.
London, Nineteen Seven. Dear friend:
I was always sure, you know, that one day ...
But try to excuse me if I digress; it is winter
And you are not unaware how little I take care of myself.
I'll wait for you. The junipers have grown and the afternoons
they culminate towards the river and the red islets.
I am sad and, if you do not arrive, a subject of sighs
will sink the cabinet, of a checkered satin,
in the filthy dung of boredom and defeat.
For you there will be a tower, a distressed garden
and some humid bass bells of harmony;
And there will be no tea or books or friends or warnings
Well, I will not be young nor will I want you to go ... ».
And this lady of Eliot, so soft and serene,
it will also have vanished among the lilacs,
And the sinister banner of suicide would burn
a moment in the room with its opaque scream.