I Write with Words That Have Shadow but Don’t Shelter - Guillermo Sucre

I write with words that have shadow but don’t shelter

no sooner do I start this page insomnia burns it

not the words but what they consume is what reality starts occupying

the place without place

the agony the game the illusion of being in the world

illusion is not what reality is made of but the ignited lightning

simulacra where ceremonies take place

bright exchanges from the emptiness of desire

there is no longer place for writing because writing is the place itself

of what is erased

we don’t discover the world we describe it in its stubborn elusiveness

I shall no longer return to the sea but the sea lives in that absence

it is the sea when the word announces it

and is spilled over the page like a hand

I shall no longer be at the forest but in the page I write on

and I glimpse its foliage the wind passes by

there shall be no more summer but sun devouring memory

and the great night of sand coming to cover the eyes

and we shall only be able to read what wasn’t written

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Guillermo Sucre (born 1933) Venezuela

Translated by Ilan Stavans

Source: World Literature Today