La Resaca Issue 2

Translation of Antonio Machado's poem

XV 

Come sing with me in chorus: There’s nothing, nothing we know,
from an arcane sea we came, to a mapless sea we’ll go…
And between the two enigmas is the serious mystery;
three arks are locked by an undiscovered key.
By light nothing is lit, by the sage nothing is shown.

What does the word say? Or water from the stone?

XVII 

Man’s only rich in hypocrisy, relies
on ten thousand kinds of lying disguise,
and from the spare key to his house he labors

to make a lockpick good for robbing his neighbor’s.

XXXI 

Heart, resounding yesterday,
the ringing of your small
gold coin has gone away?
The box you hide
your wealth in, before time breaks it,
is emptying inside?
The few
things that we know, let’s trust
they won’t turn out to be true.

XLIV 

All passes and all stays,
but passing is ours, for we
pass along making roads,
roads over the sea. 

 

XLV 

To die… To fall like a drop
of sea in the sea so vast?
Or to be what I’ve never been:
one, with no shadow cast,
no dream, alone, going on

with no road, no looking-glass?

Gerald Friedman grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, and now teaches physics and math in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He has published original poetry in various journals, recently Cold Moon Journal, The Daughter's Grimoire, Rat's Ass Review, and Cattails, and other translations of his from Antonio Machado will be published this year.  You can read more of his work at https://jerryfriedman.wixsite.com/my-site-2

En sus diez mil disfraces para engañar confía;

y con la doble llave que guarda su mansión

para la ajena hace ganzúa de ladrón.

 

XXXI 

Corazón, ayer sonoro,

¿ya no suena

tu monedilla de oro?

Tu alcancía,

antes que el tiempo la rompa,

¿se irá quedando vacía?

Confiemos

en que no será verdad

nada de lo que sabemos. 

 

XLIV 

Todo pasa y todo queda;
pero lo nuestro es pasar,
pasar haciendo caminos,
caminos sobre la mar. 

 

XLV 

Morir.. ¿Caer como gota
de mar en el mar inmenso?
¿O ser lo que nunca he sido:
uno, sin sombra y sin sueño,
un solitario que avanza
sin camino y sin espejo? 

Catholic Girls

 

My cousin finds her rosary beads

buried in a drawer.

What am I supposed to do

with these?

 

We talk about the stained glass

at St. John’s where we attended

Mass and school. How the colors

shone in the sun during the day

but blackened at night as if church

was only part of daily activity,

night on its own without God or priest.

 

We both abandoned those windows

along with confessions in a creepy

closet-like room, the priest sliding

a divider, metal mesh all that separated

the soft voices of penitents

from the earthly baritone of God.

 

My cousin asks if I remember the incense

that filled the church and made us cough.

I feel a tickle in my throat.

 

She lowers her voice.

 

Last week I went to a wedding at St. John’s.

Big Catholic family, Mass, the whole bit.

I thought it would look weird

if I didn’t take communion,

thought it funny when the priest said,

Body of Christ and the wafer dissolved,

slid down my throat. Now, finding this rosary,

I just, you know?

 

She pauses.

 

Do you think I’m going to Hell?

 

Three marriages, two divorces,

a child killed in a car wreck.

No, I declare. Jesus won’t mind.

Robin Wright lives in Southern Indiana. Her work has appeared in, As it Ought to Be, Bombfire, Loch Raven Review, The Beatnik Cowboy, Spank the Carp, The New Verse News, Rat’s Ass Review, One Art, Young Raven Literary Review, Undertow Poetry Review La Resaca, and others. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and her first chapbook, Ready or Not, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2020.

21st Century Herod 

No different than you.

No different from me. 

Innocent civilians, 

75 years of dehumanization 

festered in the darkness.

Sewn into slings, 

of little broken arms. 

Schools bulldozed 

with children in class. 

Entire lives spent trying, 

now lay under the rubble,

of those who refuse

to be appeased.

Now architects

draw up new blue prints 

for fabulous five star

restaurants, and museums.

Right on the coast

with an ocean view.

Prime real estate

will make worlds marvel,

and forget the open graves.

And King Herod ordered

the death 

of all boys under two, 

in Bethlehem. 

Over 2,000 years later, 

the megalomaniac declared, 

'This is a time of war",

and brought the sickle

waved above his head, 

down with a mighty force. 

Tricia L. Somers - Bio 

Trish lives with her Significant Other and some other crazy cats, in 

Los Angeles Ca.  She has had essays and poetry in The American Dissident

(print) Journal in every issue since 2020, in spite of her fierce debates with 

it’s editor, some of which are found on it’s pages. Her work can also 

be found in The Weekly Avocet, New Verse News, Rat’s Ass Review and else

where online. She is included in The Poetry Marathon Anthology 2022. You 

can read her current essay and poem every couple of weeks at her Substack 

page, entitled “ Bitch n Complain” .

Revelation

we cannot see what lurks

what might embrace 

until the blinding veil

draws us deeper

I Ching (Book of Changes)

brown leaves clutch

crystalline branches

dulcet fall collides

with adamantine winter

a leaf turns

surrender

Fay L. Loomis was a nemophilist (haunter of the woods) until her hikes in upstate New York were abruptly ended by a stroke; she now lives a particularly quiet life. A member of the Stone Ridge Library Writers and Rats Ass Review Workshop, her poetry and prose are published in a variety of publications, including five poetry anthologies.