Clouds

Israel Centeno

Nothing surprises me anymore.

Just the southern seas, and how Robert Lois Stevenson decided to invent them,

maybe just absinthe and some episodes of Rimbaud’s youth,

the black magician, him. The slave trader, him. Mauvais sang.

Borges in front of Borges, both seated, in both universes in front of Charles River in Cambrige,

Marijuana betraying me one afternoon in Pasadena.

Nothing surprises me, I’ve stood in front of a cadaver. A mannequin, the dispossession of a soul, and I was able to converse with myself and with the absent

But the winter and the snow, the desert and the dunes, the seasons or the lack of seasons, the prejudices, the hypocrisy and not the lack of honesty.

Wind. It surprises me. The power of the air fluttering that hits my body,

the fire

my lungs emptying and filling, that confuses me, amazes me and terrifies me,

the clouds and the deep blue of all the heavens and all the hells,

the ravens and the ugly predatory wolves as the first of my kind.

I’ve lost my innocence,

nor the howling remains,

nor the trains

nor the boats

only sky and clouds, fire and wind,

waters,

seas,

waters.

Israel Centeno