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Poems Scribed in Santa Rosa de Copan - written by Kathleen March

 

Santa Rosa # 1      


long long over land writ(h)ing
from ashes to dusty drive

      the border 

faint cells crave music, dance
inwards, mark essence on your
distance
and this blur





Santa Rosa # 2

This is slightly mine now
these streets are simply pieces
of heartsteps and some minds
so present here 
gives
much to thought
to not-wrong shifts
of what to think
or do
and plan 
to kill
that past there




Santa Rosa # 3

margin-walk cobbled together
with bursting wounds
the squeak of rusty bicycle
loss of ear
threaded slide of fingers down arm
to rise of bone or body

this is where stumble happens
or flight occurs
is dying life and sonogrammed hope
of fiction with release to more plan
more margins with names
and reasons

this is called Santa Rosa

and the two, three buds
in the crook of the arm
have green whispers
have root syllables
have the holder
       bound



Santa Rosa  #4

memory will out here and erase
days where none lived
wonder more

you could be part of this
you shriek like iron 
bearing down on center to snap it
you are up hill limping
basket atop sweaty brain
babe on hip on bone
corn on stone ground fine
to find some flavor not grit
or nails spliced by small earnings
or none, like  the missing
fingers of maimed department
store woman

you could be
if you could remember


Santa Rosa #5


Did you look on the map to
count where I am?
Did you watch a thousand bubbling 
in and through store?
Were you nearby when poor couple
stood by register, clung to
counter, silenced a smile of
por favor dame un lempira
so I can buy some dignity?

Or were you watching me watch
and touch and be
leaning deeply into poverty´s stubble
bleary gaze hardly scented with liquor and
almost undressed by hunger
for those red lempiras that were
dancing by bleariness to float
into drawers for safekeeping?

Did you grasp my shoulders
rub my back and hold me close
as I saw register gape open
two red one-lempira notes flying
into four hands holding hunger
and did you hold mine as it
reached into bankofamerica
and freed ten more
straight into hands three and four?

Although I think owner had too much
pride (or hunger)
to thank us?



Santa Rosa # 6

Ninety degrees and rising
temperature means little
when warmth stains within
drips parts of you no one can know
rips red to run down your naked shoulders
makes me magnet and brave
and so strapped to words
that this can be but torture
to see twelve or thirteen in tight
white blouse and bloated barriga

That man there must be her
husband or father
they watch as I word-seek
and come up silent
they taunt me and twelve or thirteen
sticks swollen barriga
out further, arches back,
moves as she sees bus come

     and leaves me behind

Sounds stick to non-tongue
no questions and luckily
no askers nor answers

All I had was this secret chamber
for storing pictures

Later I´ll decide
if companion is husband
from looks they shared and I stole

I´m already sure 
he´s the father


------------------------------

Portrait


Clown appears in doorway
steps into street, laughs
adjusts costume, goes out
into dusty sunlight
sidewalks stare or smile
or snicker at the gait that
feels ancient but goes quickly
to some destination

Funnyface could use some
paint from bright walls
needs 
kind brush for application

There are no tools here but one:
hunger

Clown cannot find a way
for its purchase




Cometa

It is not here not in
knotted amate branches
nor in places the one stalks
with all good intention

Far words unravel, are
displaced by near fire
slashed and burned and
balloonless they still try
to take flight, shed multi-
hued tails and convince
themselves that you are real
even
when your  mirror shows them
tiny syllables of tic-tac-toe
 
All poems offered by Kathleen March, a professor at the University of Maine.  Kathleen takes her students to 
Honduras on a recurring basis.  Thanks, Kathleen

Kathleen offers:  "The Spanish language is one of the most important things in my life because it has transformed my vision of the world and has opened so many doors. Service- or community-based learning for my Spanish classes ended up taking me to Honduras for the first time in 2004. Honduras too has had a profound effect on me because of what students have learned there.

I am a translator and have done enough literary criticism - on Latin American, Spanish and Galician writers - to be ready to pursue my own creative writing now. My campus resume now says: "When I can, I paint... when I can't, I write."  Kathleen March



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