Poetry

By

Alberto Quero

Coming Back

I

I come back from the world and the absence,

I come back from the watchfulness

and the convulsion,

from the riot,

from the place where the sunrise disguises

what is exhausted and harsh.

I come back from the horde,

apathetic and confusing,

from the throng, which never remains silent

I bring discoveries,

tough and dense,

findings of edges and defense,

of deceit and bitterness.

But hate is tiresome

and I no longer care about the last fury:

weariness I call it.

Now, when nothing I await

and every breath ceases or becomes a damage,

I wonder which cautiousness will shelter me,

which one will protect me from the scrutiny and the roars

or from the most endurable ill wills.

The one which may persist,

-an intermittent voice whispers to me,

a purple reverberation that comes from far away,

from beyond the known stars-

whichever may lodge what is intangible and upright,

it says,

the one which may postpone the flames

and depict indulgences,

it says

And I listen

II

I, then, decide to reappear but just to forsake:

I hide my previous sword,

a naïve clash of mirror and rebelliousness

now perplexed and defenseless.

I mark a fire, fragmentary and occult,

a docile wish of drowsiness and emancipation;

Also, I find again the evidence,

the covenant of blood and wine,

the treaty of  delayed  certitude,

craving and deity in the memory:

the vestiges of a prayer are reborn.

Therefore I make a pact with that elderly conviction;

I want to intuit a sky,

a stairway that may go up to the endless night,

a space of unbreakable similitude,

an exodus towards a dwelling of stoppage and pleas.

III

Hence, I proclaim an amazing and obdurate stillness,

so that it may drain and rescue

like any invocation of beginning,

like something that beseeches all traces,

like a promise of remaining tenuous

and exempt from inquiries.

I will devote to loosen the urgency,

to abjure of clutters,

and to find a shelter made of breeze

and the most unconceivable glitter;

I want to embrace a serenity

which may be able to convoke or surrender

and may call a woman banner of all things immovable.

I swear, thus, to find a whispery increase,

a shield of waiting and freshness,

a long peace of searching and listening.

I call: may that wish sign my way.

Alberto Quero

Poet and narrator. He holds a BA in Literature and Linguistics, a Masters in Venezuelan literature and a Doctorate in Humanities by the University of Zulia, Venezuela. He is a member of the Venezuelan Association of Semiotics, the Venezuelan College of Educators, the International Writers’ Parliament of Colombia and the Iberian American Writers’ Society. He is the Latin American collaborator for “Literary News” a radio show aired on CKCU 93.1, in Ottawa, Canada.

He has published six books of short stories and a collection of poems. He has written poems in English, which have been published in England and the USA. He has also published many peer-reviewed articles in university journals.