Greetigs, dear Steemians,
I am following on the critical work started by @josemalavem, who wrote this excellent piece on Acevedo’s work, focusing on one of his collections of poems, El Llamador, whose title poem I endeavored to translate in its entirety and present here to you as a first step to contribute to the more than deserved recognition of this living wordsmith. Through this poem, he introduces himself and by doing it, he provides portraits where each one of us will see, even if fragmented, reflections of ourselves. I hope that in this #NewSteem era manual curators find Steemians such as @oacevedo and give them their due. I will be transferring the rewards of this post to @oacevedo.
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The poetry of @oacevedo, Oswaldo Acevedo (1956), author, of four collections of poems: Now that I crow the eyes (1986), The Caller (1996), Umber/Song of the child of the night (2006) and Lighthouse of Spheres (2016), has the intimacy of a play, the vitality and spontaneity of an impressionist painting, the tenacity and precision of a marble sculpture, the traditional imagination of myths, the modern imagination of science fiction, and the metaphysical depth of a philosophical dissertation. He invites the reader to tune in “stellar frequencies” and conceive an existence that does not obey time or space constrains. The poet’s call is the call of the humanist who, in the best tradition of Walt Whitman invites us to sing the song of oneself, while at the same time celebrate the grandeur of a cosmic democratic vista that would allow us to become one with the world and every living creature in it.

His oeuvre is as prolific as his use of metaphors and juxtaposed images. I have decided to start a series of posts intended to disseminate among English-speaking audiences the work of this beloved poet of ours, a member of @equipocardumen. I believe his work, like that of many other local living writers, deserves to be known, read, commented, analyzed, and appreciated in other latitudes.

_{Same source as previous image, edited at Fotoram.io}

The Caller

Tonight the moon sings
and the verse, like the prayer, seduces.
Hear the accent at the edge of the sword
tonight I am the caller
that of the stellar frequencies                                      5
I am the one of the amazing I
I am the saga of the clamor forlorn
he who saw extinguished birds
curling the towers of the first dusk
I am a symbol in this land                                             10
with the heart enchained
scarce reason
with the specter palpitating in a candle.

I am the faun that returns
from that ritual in the mountain                                15
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that one, that one I am, I do not deny it,
the one of the sidereal fear
I am, excellencies, your graces
that object subject to doubt
a fool asking for celestial judgment                             20
I am a loner in all languages
I am the one behind the prism
twisting its waterway and its flow
he who lost his trace on the beach
while ye founded another lineage                               25
I am the defeated Sagittarius
the lawless one
the wandering sinner I
the thirsty prince of the sand
I am the one who remembers                                       30
the illuminated bird of the mystery
I am, in viva voce, in plain sight,
he who changed his crucifix
for a nest of multiple cloudscapes.
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I am, in this desolate night,                                             35
my own best enemy
my unsatisfied guardian angel
I am, oh archfraternal doctors,
he who was promised a fountain
I am the urgency of the horizon                                      40
he who purifies his successive vapor
he who tries to run away from Time and its measures
that ego of the perennial fire
a helium project in the stall
where fates were discussed                                             45
I am a witness of god and his poetic girl
who prays (every year)
before the painful May cross
I am and I am not who has been
dichroism perceived in its penalties                                50
I am who, supporting the myths,
becomes a proposal for crying
an assault to the Verb in three rounds
I am, do not look for me in thy kingdom,
an undertaken low relief                                                    55
with whom Death made her pact
and beyond that, what?
I am an instinct with its casual figure
the esoteric seminal word
he who knows, the penitent who knows,                        60
who made it possible to annex the territories
why we violated the throne
of an individual empire
I am that freeman who gestated
acevededly side-faced                                                             65
a descendant from the sea
and sign of the delay, that I have been,
semantic, semiotic, and simple seed
I am the one to come, that one I am,
I am also that one, the other, the otherness.                   70

To be continued...

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Translator's notes:

Line 50: dichroism, “the property of exhibiting different colors by reflected or transmitted light” (Merriam-Webster). Human duality as a defect from a moral perspective, not so much so from a physical perspective.
line 65: "acevededly". 'acevedamente' is word play with the author’s last name. It can suggest "from the origin of his race" (the idea of the ancestral).

Thanks for your visit

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