Thursday, October 25, 2012

NO CIERREN LA CASA DE LA LITERATURA


 NO CIERREN LA CASA DE LA LITERATURA

                        Indran Amirthanayagam

No cierren la Casa de la Literatura. Que ya es un referente, un ancla, puesta en el paisaje de la oferta cultural en Lima.  Llegué a la ciudad al inacer la Casa, hace tres anos. Recientemente participé en las festividades por su cumpleaños.  Me ha encantado observar cómo han crecido las exposiciones, las conferencias, los congresos, los recitales de poesía.  Es única, una casa que celebra el arte y una estación de ferrocarril que lleva pasajeros en viajes lentos hacia sus sueños.
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La casa me ha dejado soñar en una ciudad más amistosa, donde las divisiones de clases y grupos están desapareciendo con cada recital, cada apuesta del arte sobre lo que nos une, lo universal en la particular agrupación de sangre y memoria, el ser humano en su gloria y su miseria, su misericordia y sus desencantos, que el artista pacifica con cada metáfora. Dejen que las metáforas sigan teniendo su espacio, sus juegos de luz en los puestos de escena.  Perú que se enorguellece de su Vallejo, su Inca Garcilaso, su Toño Cisneros,  su Watanabe y Varela, su Vargas Llosa esta ya alegrando su pueblo con su Casa de la Literatura.

No dejen que se convierta en una oficina mas para algún ministerio. Dejen que brille con la luz que emiten los artistas peruanos y sus hermanos artistas de otros lares. Desde la puerta de la  Casa de La Literatura, uno siente que esta al inicio de un viaje por el mundo. Dejen que el viaje siga y que todo Perú se quite su sombrero ante el paso de esta metáfora pacifica.


                                    Lima, el 24 de Octubre, 2012

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Death of a Poet by Indran Amirthanayagam



          Death of a Poet

After the poet,
who remains?
We have to fill

absence, distract
ourselves
with words

and music
until sadness
fades, and we look

to the sky,
see his face
in cumulus cloud,

shining out
of the sun,
and think

he is not
the only one
smiling

in Heaven
beckoning us
to think beyond,

the now,
what
happened

to his body
and to our
history.


            Indran Amirthanayagam, October 6, 2012


For Toño Cisneros, a poem, Indran Amirthanayagam



                For Toño Cisneros


Who is Cisneros, he asks?
I don’t know. A poet
wont to drink and
a good laugh. He knew

Fitzrovia in the 60s,
spoke English
like a blue blood,
and had English

skepticism, eye
of the toad crouched
under a stone watching
the giant lizard come

tramping through
the bog. The stone
 has been turned
over,  frog dried

and pulled apart
by the forensic
artists; the work
will now be read

by others less gifted
in declamation, but
let us be grateful
that Toño never

belonged
to the academies,
He lived in Miraflores
and wrote, he said,

for two hundred
of his neighbors,
 who walk
in Parque Kennedy,

on Malecon Cisneros.


            Indran Amirthanayagam, October 6, 2012

Monday, October 1, 2012

Happiness Blues, Sri Lanka, A Poem


            Happiness Blues, Sri Lanka

I don’t know what to say, my friend,
I have some blues that don’t seem right,
too light and fancy free, happiness
and all that putty you poke and pat,

grinning silly, but love is the matter
with me, I have plenty and I want
to start sharing the bounty. How lucky
can a man be, used to melancholy

and raving at the Moon about family
buried by the lagoon, who will
catch the drift along with snowflakes
in this far Northern and European town

that tried to make peace back
in the viper-ridden Vanni and failed;
yet somehow, miraculously, cousins
survived and are making their way
out of the jungle, heads held high;

and throughout the planet
family is saying this effort
to settle foundation stones
of our piece of earth will continue

until the end of time; so nobody
should rest on laurels, or dream
of bitter death, happiness
has me up tonight, generous

and lively. Are you ready
for a roll? A reading
about uncivil fools who think
blood can be washed away,

bones buried in the sand,
that everybody will forget
how one hand clapped
and white vans set off

to prowl? No, my friends,
this happiness will not
be shovelled into the back
seat or stuffed with cloth

down its throat or peppered
in the eyeballs. It will not expire
before midnight. We are
about to play--the crowd

is eager and shouting—
a post-midnight set, happiness
blues, after the reckoning,
the counting of the dead.


            Indran Amirthanayagam, October 1, 2012