bimagazine an artistic project of the American Institute of Bisexuality AIB american institute of bisexuality
non fiction fiction poetry poetry visual arts music film theater
Inside BiMagazine Poetry  
Hugo Santander publish date: 02-29-2008
Sonnets to Coralie  
A Coralie Santander,
Whose absence kindled all feelings into words
 

I

The cruelest wind came from the meadows
Virgin furrows where we used to graze,
I, ill-born creature, adopted by the beasts
That nature grows and feeds

Our bodies used to be the shelter of a sky
Blue or gray, free from the impurities of earth
Milk and honey used to come out from your palms
The source of all the brooks and seas I knew

After the voice of your departure came
I ground and broke my teeth at night
Vestige of many atrocious dreams
Cleansed by charitable souls at dawn

How the air tries in vain to fill your gap
I remain faithful to you even without you
Forging arrows out of foreign words
Expecting to pierce a diamond heart

II

You leave, then, the treasures of El Dorado,
With words as threatening as death
The orchid and the hummingbird no longer touch you
They will fade off with this, my mien, as well

I can’t recognize you in the one that moves away
Casting me on the Caribbean shores
My spouse used to flank anger and sorrow
Without yielding to adversity and detachment

The vestiges of the union I deemed happy
Are drawn in the flat I had just built
Barren by your cause, now devastated
Though perhaps I’m the one who dies at every step

¿Whereto your warm embrace?
¿Whereto the games we used to play?
Holding to your written promises I wait
To be redeemed by the woman I engaged

III

It was a day before my birthday
On November tenth two thousand eight
Though I was fated to learnt it before Christmas
Thunderbolt that scorched the Andean heights

Vultures envious of your prize
Chuckled on the imperfections of my love
With a polite grind you gave me a cup of tea
Among linen covers your hands put me to sleep

When I woke up you were no longer there
Unwilling to recognize my woe
I called your name for forty days and nights
Mire and hush came out from the earth

Then a light broke out from the sky
“These are the coldest dungeons of my soul”
I heard confounding echoes of your voice
Since then I fight with angels for your prompt return

IV

You, who were in charge,
Of all the beatings of my heart,
Ditch what I deemed so dear to you
And ask me to go on with lethal wounds

You, whom I confided,
The fees and genii of my soul
Lay them to rest into the deepest tomb
They still cry for help in non-believing grounds

You, the one in charge,
Of all our happy days and tranquil nights
Evade me as a leper torn out by crows and hyenas
And deny me the solace of an embrace

You, for whom I built the cities of the world,
Brings indolence and humiliation in return
Expecting my forgetfulness or hate
As if I could carry on without the water and the sun

V

The darkest hour shimmers
Under the beams of toil and obligation
Acclaims and compliments are heard
Announcing the feats I reached for her

A gray sedan comes out from the past
To bring me over the roads and towns
I once promised for a sparkle of her mirth
Bequest that fortune conceded and rebuffed

A colleague of mine asks me for her love
I reply that such is the gloss of contempt
Amongst adulteresses and bachelors
She shrugs her shoulders at my name

But my heart deny her tearless days
Against her coldness and belief
I know they are but delusions of the flesh
Bursts of laugh that sprout, rot and die

VI

A turbulent month ends
And a gentle breeze caresses my palms
You write me asking me for a break up
Yes, I won't turn my back on you

It was at night when I woke up
And you were no longer there
One night when you ignored my care
One night when I expired in the Caribbean Sea

One night when I painfully understood
I was less than a stranger to your world
Though one night this hustle will be dust
Away, then, I’ll kiss my friend again

For we live many an infinite being
From pain, misery and reward
Secret that God revealed at the beginning
Solace of a fair love-weary life

VII

You confess that you have hurt me
And that you feel uncomfortable about it
That you cannot go on sharing your life
With this mix of reflection and belief

That you don't wish to leave a trace
Of the flaws that wrecked your care
For you had already spelled them out
Amid caresses and vows of concern

I announce I never heard them
Or if they were uttered by your lips
Your smile, the sweetest I have known
Banned their rancor from the stars

Endless pictures of a cheerful wife
Proof my devotion and deny your claim
In them the inscrutability of your misdeed
And the perils of ecstasy and war

1 [Next >>]

 

Hugo Santander
Hugo Santander was born in Bucaramanga, Colombia in 1968. In 1990 he graduated in Social Communication from the Universidad Javeriana where he also started a Ph.D. in Philosophy.

Hugo has written several entries for the Hodder Education Encyclopedia Essentials of Philosophy and Ethics (London: 2006.) He is also the author of The Crisis of Atheism, published in The Philosopher, the Journal of the Philosophical Society of England, and a novel sold in both Colombia and Spain: Nuevas Tardes en Manhattan (Manhattan New Soirées).

His first long-feature documentary Manatí: Portrait of a third-world happy Town, was edited in London between 2003 and 2006. His long-feature digital film Hamlet Unbound was produced in 1998 in Philadelphia, with no budget and with non-professional actors. Hugo lives currently in his hometown, where he works as an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Communications and Media Arts, Program in Audovisual Arts at the Universidad Autónoma de Bucaramanga, UNAB.

hugosantander.com
Copyright © 2008 bimagazine.org  All Rights Reserved