Not even a sweet night, by Raúl Gómez Jattin

That love of fever and torment That keeping
track of the moon between the coconut palms In case she
brought me presages of your body But in vane
But I was too sick to bear
the intimacy of your caress You wouldn't have known
in me but the tremble of a poet and its death
That fear of looking at each other's eyes was not vane
You were coated with another world You were far away
Specially when I loved you When I was
of you like a cloud in its reflection in the water
Inside but far away Inside in the guts
of a made up and fleeting reality
It was entirely beautiful because I never touched
your body although you wanted and I did too
But before my desire there was my future
You were before my desire of you
before desire there was love
Before love there was life and evil
That love that didn't have a night
Not even a sweet night my love.

Almost obscene, by Raúl Gomez Jattin

If you wanted to hear what I say to myself on the pillow
the blush on your face would be the reward
They are words as intimate as my own flesh
that suffers from the pain of your relentless memory
Do I tell you, yes? Won't you take revenge one day? I say to myself:
I would slowly kiss that mouth until turning it red
And in your sex the miracle of a hand going down
in the most unexpected moment and like by chance
touches it with that fervor that inspires what is sacred
I am not evil I am trying to make you fall in love
I am trying to be sincere even being this sick
and enter the curse of your body
like a river that fears the sea,
but always dies in it.

Raúl Gómez Jattin

Colombia has a long tradition of lawyers who, at some point, do poetry, or become known mostly as poets. Raúl Gómez Jattin is one of them, but not like any other. Other lawyers might turn into poets out of a skillful tongue, out of the habit of lying or pretending. If they say pain, pain could be a show off, or something they're trying to affect. But Raúl's story is fatal enough to read his simple red poetry as written with blood.

After eight years of Law School in Bogotá, he went back to his hometown and, due to his mental ilness, finally became a beggar. He was constantly sick, and he spent months on end in mental health institutions before coming out to see himself on the streets once again. He meanwhile wrote poetry. He constantly wrote about sickness, poverty, insanity and love. He moved out to Cartagena, and there he became well known for being the homeless person who spoke like an angel. He would be invited to cultural gather ups and surprise guests with his well mannered Spanish, and thus his books became popular among some circles. But he never stopped living on parks and streets.

He died as a result of being hit by a bus, and it was never established whether it was accident or suicide.

No more can be said about his life that he himself did not say better.

The God that worships, by Raúl Gomez Jattin

I'm a God in my town and my valley
not because I'm worshiped but because I do
because I bow upon that who gives me
some granadillas or a smile from his domain.
Or because I go visit its high inhabitants
to beg for a coin or a shirt and they give it to me
Because I watch the sky with hawk eyes
and name it in my verses
Because I am alone
Because I slept seven months in a rocking chair
and five in a city's sidewalk
Because a look at wealthiness obliquely
but not with hate
Because I love those who love

Because I know how to cultivate orange trees and vegetables even in midsummer

Because I have a mate
to whom I bapticed all his children and his marriage
Because I am not good in a known way
Because as a lawyer I did not defend capital
Because I love birds and rain
and my naked exposure to them that washes my soul
Because I was born in May
Because I know how to punch the brother thief
Because my mother abandoned me
precisely when I needed her the most
Because when I'm sick
I attend to the charity hospital
Because I respect mostly only that who does it with me
that who works every day for a bread that's bitter and lonely and disputed
like these verses of mine that I steal from death.

The possesed, by José Manuel Arango

Sometimes, 

I feel in my hands
the hands of my father

and my voice is
his voice
a dark terror
touches me
maybe at night
I dream his dreams
and the cold fury
and the memory of unseen places
are him repeating himself
I'm him, coming back
Still  face of my father
under the skin over the bones of my face.

Considerémos, por Roger Edson

Consideremos al granjero que hace de su sombrero de paja su pareja; o a la anciana que hace de una lámpara de pie su hijo; o a la joven mujer que se ha dado a la tarea de arrancar su sombra de una pared...

Consideremos a la anciana que vistió lenguas de vacas ahumadas por zapatos y caminó por un prado reuniendo boñiga en su delantal; o a un espejo oscurecido por el tiempo que fue entregado a un hombre ciego que gastaba sus noches viendo en su interior, lo cual entristecía a su madre, que su hijo pudiera estar tan perdido en la vanidad...

Consideremos al hombre que fritó rosas para su cena, cuya cocina olía como un jardín de rosas encendido; o al hombre que se disfrazó de polilla y se comió su abrigo, y de postre se sirvió un sombrero refrigerado...