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“Naked in Clay” by César Vallejo 🇵🇪 (16 Mar 1892 – 15 Apr 1938)
Translated from the Spanish by Clayton Eshleman
Like horrible batrachians in the atmosphere,
lugubrious smirks rise to the lip.
Through the blue Sahara of Substance
walks a gray verse, a dromedary.
​
A grimace of cruel dreams phosphoresces.
And the blind man who died full of the voices
of snow. Rise at dawn, poet, nomad,
to the rawest day of being man.
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The Hours feverishly go by, and in the corners
blond centuries of happiness abort.
Who spins out so much thread; who ruthlessly
lowers our nerves, cords
already frayed, into the tomb!
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Love! And you too. Black stonings
breed in your mask and smash it.
The tomb is still
womans sex that draws man in!