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14th Anniversary Edition, Live Encounters Poetry & Writing Volume Four Nov-Dec 2023.
As for me, poems by Omar Perez.
As for me
as for me, am surprised to be someone
something in itself (in thyself, in songself) surprised
that from a wooden peg: the unnameable!
hangs this cloak of flesh, blood and thinking.
Where does it go, and what does it really do?
if “really” and “do” even exist at all. Surprised
by such a scarecrow based on a true story
which would rather attract the bird and hold it.
I’m referring to
the world of men, with their mechanic horses, electric tigers, plastic elephants;
i am not talking about women, who have their transgenic perfumes, elastic hair,
pelvic logarithms and dynamic creams; nor to children, who enjoy protein lightnings,
encephalitic chocolate, cheese superheroes and triumphant candies;
not to mention, no, the elders: synthetic wheelchairs, apocalyptic swellings,
magnetic coffins and bankcard prostates.
I am referring to the world of men, with their mechanic horses, electric tigers
and plastic elephants.
Ancient History
Atlantis and South Beach collided
a science pop fiction Armageddon
they crushed the last danceable proton
and dancing they subsided.
The metaphysics of procrastination
and the grammar of eternal return
have designed a neon light contour
to illuminate a back-up creation.
Spastic heroes and didactic mobsters
the democratization of self-interest
a conglomerate of clay-footed titans
ready to chew the world and make it softer.
The Muses arrived at the crime scene
of the organized photogenic disaster
epiphany!: may the poems sing
what’s real, and what is not
a brainless chickens splendor
should be reported in a forensic note.
© Omar Perez
Born in Havana, February 19th, 1964. Poet and translator. He has published six books of poetry in his own country: Algo de lo sagrado. Unión, 1996. (Also published in the U.S in 2007, by Factory School, N.Y.; with translations by Kristin Dykstra and Roberto Tejada. www.factoryschool.org/pubs/perez) ¿Oíste hablar del gato de pelea? Letras Cubanas, 1998. (Translated by Kristin Dykstra and published by Shearsman, London, in 2010: Did you hear about the fighting cat?) Canciones y Letanías. Extramuros, 2002. Lingua Franca. Unión, 2009. He has also published a collection of essays on poetry and translation, La perseverancia de un hombre oscuro. Letras Cubanas, 1999. Crítica de la Razón Puta, obtained the 2010 Nicolás Guillén National Poetry Award, and was published also by Letras Cubanas.
In the same year and with the same publisher, Omar Pérez offered a second collection of essays, El corazón mediterráneo. In 2016, he published Filantropical, with Letras Cubanas, and Sobras Escogidas, with Silueta, Miami, Florida. In 2018, Station Hill (N. Y.) published Cubanology, a book of days, while the Alabama University Press printed The race, a poem collection; both translated by Kristin Dykstra. Omar Pérez has consistently translated from the English, Italian, French and Dutch languages.