ISILDA NUNES

 

The Roses Withered

 

The roses withered in the dryness of your gaze!

I no longer dream of them, my dear! I no longer cry for them!

Our bodies, which were once just one,

Today are wrecked in the solitude of the words unsaid.

I get involved in a feeling of longing and lethargy,

Fixing the old clock still, at a time that was once ours...

At a time when we loved each other like the sea and the sky.

And I petrify myself on that horizon,

Where my body made anchorage as a boat.

 

Reality deranges me!

Maddened by the echo of your tread on bare walls,

That implicit farewell in the disquiet of your hands

And in the sagging of your will!

The slow arrival of winter disturbs me!

 

The roses you gave me have already withered!

The wet kisses of the older days, are now sinfully dried!

All embrace has expired!

And the grooves on my face exude tired memories,

Loose pieces of a plot that is no longer ours.

The mouth dried up in the refusal of the farewell,

In this delayed death, suspended in the solitude of unsaid words!

I no longer dream of them, dear! I no longer cry!

The roses withered in the dryness of your gaze!

 

The Son Of The War

 

You know mother, yesterday I heard you crying.

I was scared, Mom.

I realised that your tears did not augur a good thing.

Dad hasn't stroked my head in days,

nor you sing Nina Nana.

I feel cold, Mama! I feel night!

I can't sleep.

I hear, continuously, thunders that shatter my soul.

Sirens that pierce my body.

Bullets that assassinate my future.

I sink in the anxiety that floods your womb in convulsions.

Your heart seems to explode.

Your body seems to expel me.

I try to hold on to the cord that coils around my foot.

In vain. It slips away.

Mother, I'm afraid!

Afraid of living in Humanity.

Afraid of dying and killing.

Don't you love me anymore, Mother?

 

In The Dead City

 

in the dead city,

to the cross of indifference,

flow dreams into liquid crematoriums.

the madness decreed ride

shipwrecked desires,

on common walkways.

in the dead city,

Hunger, thirst, invades hospices.

ghosts play at children

And old people get childhood.

emigrated the hugs.

There are no bridges to cross the night.

there are sales in this river,

pain on this ship.

Charon smokes a cigarette in the main ditch.

simply blackout.

simply silence.

only tomb

in the dead city.

and me?

and you?

and us?

 

The Poem Is Born

 

Summon up the gods!

In incongruous morosity, blaspheme the stars.

The cosmos in disarray exudes words

that vogue in the subjective interjections of nothingness.

In the interstices of dreams

Desires pulse in bulimic catharsis

And in alchemical childbirth the poem is born.

 

ISILDA NUNES

 

ISILDA NUNES is a writer, poet and artist who has been awarded with many prizes and recognitions. Her poems have been published in anthologies, magazines and newspapers in about fifty countries and translated into more than forty languages. She is co-author of some sixty national and international anthologies and author of books of poetry and prose. She has participated and organised numerous national and international cultural, literary and solidarity events in her country and abroad. She is: Founder and President of the Assembly of the Association UMEA (World Union of Writers and Artists); Chairperson of the Language, Literature and Oratory Art Committee of Modern Pythian Games; President Pythian Games-Portugal; President of the Continental Union Ciesart and Presidency Council; Director General of the Ciesart Advisers and President of CIESART in Portugal; Member of the Board of Directors of Editorial Atunis; Full Member of the LIK Academy; Ambassador and Portuguese Language Editor of the international multilingual literary magazine The Archer; Vice-President MEL (Mulheres Empreendedoras da Lusofonia); International Consultant and Member of the preliminary Jury for China Poetry Garden Magazine; Chronicler at Helicayenne Magazine; Ambassador for Peace and Humanity IFCH Morocco; Associate Editor at Chinese Poetry Circle magazine University; Honorary Member of the Movements: MIL, ALDCI, Lírio Azul and CEMD.