Three Poems by Pablo Saborío

By Pablo Saborío

Perennial

Plato talks  
about his hands,  
how good, so virtual,  
dreamed tools.  

He moves  
through 24 centuries  
as a rope  
carrying a wave.  

My chin rests  
on my palm  
imperceptibly seeking sensation;  
stubs of beard  
soon fated for the sink.  

There is a madness  
that never goes dry,  
is it age entering  
the room as fog: 

we cannot see our hands.  

The blue has invaded,  
a flavor entering flor  
– a flower incipient 

Plato speaks  
of the mind as seed,  
facing death 
but an opening 

a door  
opening like a mouth 
round as earth 

an entrance 
to the radiance 
of a clear blue day.
_______________________________________________

1982 –

I place a hand  
on the battle;  
it is my body.  

Here 
the weapon  
is carried by the weapon.  

This field 
is a storm  
clothed in skin.  

A fight with time,  
against the future 
against the forming  
of formlessness.  

I touch 
my own defeat,  
the ashes of figures  
I moved and abandoned  
to the essence  
of the night.  

The wind  
carves a hollow tune  
through the divisions  
of memory. 

The tongue  
undresses death  
in the shape  
of silence.  

My fingers intertwine  
behind my skull  
as I lie and close 
the windows to the world.  

There  
deep inside the struggle  
emptiness begins to soften.  

The breath  
makes a tide  
for the absent to sway.  

A sea enters and dissolves the flame.
_______________________________________________

kairos 

Has never been 
another place 
than this.  

Where can a door 
when only wide 
as a gate be 
named.  

This is the unique 
only. 

The passage 
for the body  
to take a mind 
into the object 
it holds.  

The way 
for the mind 
to build a body 
into the subject 
it dreams.  

The room is  
an eternal 
furnace. 

The rain disfigures  
with ripple 
each cosmos 
it lands into.  

The well is a mouth 
and the now 
its echo. 
_______________________________________________

About the author:

Born in Costa Rica, Pablo Saborío is a self-taught artist and poet based in Copenhagen, Denmark. His recent and upcoming publications include Conduit, Rigorous, Black Horse Review, West Trade Review, DASH, decomP Magazine, among other literary journals.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons