Elzevira

uitgevoerd door Mercedes Sosa

Por la blanda arena que lame el mar
Su pequeña huella no vuelve más
Un sendero solo de pena y silencio llegó
Hasta el agua profunda
Un sendero solo de penas mudas llegó
Hasta la espuma
Sabe Dios qué angustia te acompañó
Qué dolores viejos calló tu voz
Para recostarte arrullada en el canto de las
caracolas marinas
La canción que canta en el fondo oscuro del mar
La caracola
Te vas Alfonsina con tu soledad
¿Qué poemas nuevos fuiste a buscar?
Una voz antigua de viento y de sal
Te requiebra el alma y la está llevando
Y te vas hacia allá como en sueños
Dormida, Alfonsina, vestida de mar
Cinco sirenitas te llevarán
Por caminos de algas y de coral
Y fosforescentes caballos marinos harán
Una ronda a tu lado
Y los habitantes del agua van a jugar
Pronto a tu lado
Bájame la lámpara un poco más
Déjame que duerma nodriza, en paz
Y si llama él no le digas que estoy
Dile que Alfonsina no vuelve
Y si llama él no le digas nunca que estoy
Di que me he ido
Te vas Alfonsina con tu soledad
¿Qué poemas nuevos fuiste a buscar?
Una voz antigua de viento y de sal
Te requiebra el alma y la está llevando
Y te vas hacia allá como en sueños
Dormida, Alfonsina, vestida de mar

Felix Cesar Luna

Rhiannon Giddens sings "Lullaby" is from her collection of slave-narrative inspired folk songs.

Go to sleepy, little baby
Go to sleepy, little baby
Lay your head upon my breast
Not the time to leave the nest
Little cuckoo, little baby
Purty blue eyes, little baby
Purty blue eyes, little baby
Let them close a little more
Soon enough the world is yours
Little cuckoo, little baby
Such a beauty, little baby
Soft as rose, as pale as milk
Yet her hair as fine as silk
Little cuckoo, little baby
Such a shame now, little baby
Such a shame now, little baby
That you are not my own
But
Little cuckoo, little baby
You 'll be grown soon, little baby
You 'll be grown soon, little baby
And go out into the world
If you see my darling girl
Treat her nice now, little baby
Little...
Treat her…

anoniem

Well, I think home spat me out,
the blackouts and curfews like tongue against loose tooth.
God, do you know how difficult it is,
to talk about the day your own city dragged you by the hair,
past the old prison,
past the school gates,
past the burning torsos erected on poles like flags?

When I meet others like me
I recognise the longing,
the missing,
the memory of ash on their faces.

No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark.
I’ve been carrying the old anthem in my mouth for so long
that there’s no space for another song,
another tongue or
another language.

I know a shame that shrouds, totally engulfs.
I tore up and ate my own passport in an airport hotel.
I’m bloated with language
I can’t afford to forget.

They ask me how did you get here?
Can’t you see it on my body?
The Libyan desert red with immigrant bodies,
the Gulf of Aden bloated,
the city of Rome with no jacket.

I hope the journey meant more than miles because all of my children are in the water.
I thought the sea was safer than the land.
I want to make love but my hair smells of war and running and running.
I want to lay down,
but these countries are like uncles who touch you
when you’re young and asleep.

Look at all these borders, foaming at the mouth with bodies broken and desperate.

I’m the colour of hot sun on my face, my mother’s remains were never buried.
I spent days and nights in the stomach of the truck,
I did not come out the same. Sometimes it feels like someone else is wearing my body.
I know a few things to be true.
I do not know where I am going, where I have come from is disappearing,
I am unwelcome and my beauty is not beauty here.

My body is burning with the shame of not belonging, my body is longing.
I am the sin of memory and the absence of memory.
I watch the news and my mouth becomes a sink full of blood.

The lines,
the forms,
the people at the desks,
the calling cards,
the immigration officer,
the looks on the street,
the cold settling deep into my bones,
the English classes at night,
the distance I am from home.

But Alhamdulilah all of this is better than the scent of a woman completely on fire,
or a truckload of men who look like my father, pulling out my teeth and nails,
or fourteen men between my legs,
or a gun,
or a promise,
or a lie,
or his name,
or his manhood in my mouth.

I hear them say, go home,
I hear them say, fucking immigrants, fucking refugees.

Are they really this arrogant?
Do they not know that stability is like a lover with a sweet mouth upon your body one second and the next you are a tremor
lying on the floor covered in rubble
and old currency waiting for its return.

All I can say is,
I was once like you,
the apathy, the pity, the ungrateful placement and
now my home is the mouth of a shark,
now my home is the barrel of a gun.
I’ll see you on the other side.

Warsan Shire from: Teaching my mother how to give birth, Flipped eye, London, 2011,

NieuwerOverzichtOuder