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Poetry of Issue 9: Ordinary Men and Women

Ordinary Men and Women

brave man in the upper part of light

as far as it is known a passenger from the season

of the dinosaurs to the future ones

a failed experiment of equipping monkeys

with algebra and a certain modest dullness a very discreet charm

essential elements in looking for your secret

like a seamstress who searches in her little boxes

and cannot really find anything among her scattered objects

because man begins in the eyes

and ends there where jumping from one floe to another

eventually there is nothing other than water

of the ocean of what is known forever

(it still smells of the beasts leaving)

an abandoned car is your metaphor

a building with lights turned off     our species may soon be over

in these gray soldiers of the night

whipped by all delinquents and criminals

that today are raising the invisible and so present

lance of the clan chief       the virtual crown of bones

that rests on the sword of power     they too

ordinary men and women but like shamans

able to invoke all the spirits of fear

every time when necessary     such an effective meeting

always has lucrative results

oh you pragmatists assassins thieves and frauds

heirs of the first who smiled secretly

after getting the forecast of an eclipse right

the mammoth’s migration the flooding of the river nile

lords of the ordinary man and woman

their most appreciated and eternal possessions

with the tenderness of a nazi

and the sincerity of a liar

I asked and they who learn the language of fear told me

they are ready to migrate like desperate thoughts

always willing to consider the origin of their birth

the sum of many heaps of skulls      death’s official coin

shame’s small change

during the first frost of the year appearing like rain

a stern goddess sets fire to our homes and only fear is audible

men bow their heads when she arrives 

by Luis Benítez

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