About the poet:
Dr. Enrique Bernales Albites (b. Lima, Peru, 1975) earned his PhD in Spanish from Boston University in 2009. Currently is Associate Professor of Spanish at University of Northern Colorado. He reorganized the Mythical Peruvian Poetry Group Immanence with the Peruvian Poet Florentino Díaz Ahumada in 2020. He has published the poetry books: Immanence (1998, 2020), Immanence: Return to Ouroborea (1999), 21 poems: Cerridwen (2004), Return to Big Sur (2019), Seventh Poem (2020), the novel The Occupied Territories (2008), and the Anthology of Peruvian Poetry, The clocks are broken (2005). he is a curator in the Literary Site Ablucionistas from Mexico. he collaborates with the ViceVersa Magazine where he shares chronicles and other content of interest.
Big Sur
Acantilados y la fuerza de las olas
Visiones de verano:
un manto dorado sobre el Pacífico violento
Las risas de los niños
Los turistas, una masa humana:
un espacio reducido
La brisa sopla en los rostros
de los amantes. A lo lejos, albatros
en llamas, se arrojan contra
el mar Pacífico. Ella dice:
Es Big Sur. Eso siempre pasa
Los turistas corren despavoridos
huyen en sus vehículos. Godzilla
sale de las aguas
Ella observa calmada
le dice: No te doy paz
Él la mira enamorado y responde:
Es Big Sur: eso siempre pasa.
Big Sur
Cliffs and the strength of waves,
visions of summer,
a golden blanket over the violent Pacific,
children’s laughs,
tourists, a human mass:
a reduced space.
The breeze blows in the faces
of the lovers, far away the albatrosses
in flames hurl themselves
into the Pacific Ocean, she says:
“It’s the Big Sur, it happens all the time”,
The tourists flee in terror,
drive away in their vehicles, Godzilla
emerges from the waters
She looks at him, calmly.
“I don’t give you peace of mind,” she tells him,
he looks at her, lovingly, and replies:
“It’s the Big Sur, it happens all the time”,
mi país
mi país no existe
allí no hay delfines rosados
ni hombres que coman gatos
tampoco piñas tan inmensas que
logren opacar el resplandor del sol
mi país no existe
es la figura de mi padre ausente
yo vengo de mi país
vengo de mí mismo
yo soy sus delfines rosados
el caníbal reductor de cabezas
las líneas de Nazca
el brillo de mis ojos
mi país no existe
mi país soy yo
empieza en el norte
muy cerca de la línea del Ecuador
o más bien en la punta hirsuta de mis cabellos
termina en Tacna al sur
en la frontera con Chile
o diría mejor en alguna uña
de mi pie izquierdo
la capital política de mi país no está en Lima
sino en mi corazón
su población se estima en
un habitante como mucho
carece de una religión oficial
ni siquiera posee su propia moneda
ha nacido del barro primordial
producto de esperma y óvulo
de países más grandes
mi país está sólo en Sudamérica
apenas bañado por la inmensa espuma
del pacífico mar
un día, mi país morirá…
My Homeland
my homeland doesn’t exist
there aren’t pink dolphins there
there aren’t men who eat cats
or pineapples so big
that could block the sun
my homeland doesn’t exist
in the absent figure of my father
my homeland doesn’t exist
I come from myself
I am its pink dolphins
the head-shrinker cannibal
the Nazca lines
the light in my eyes
my homeland doesn’t exist
I am my homeland
it starts in the North
very close to the equator line
or rather at the hirsute ends of my hair
it ends in the South in Tacna
in the border with Chile
or I should say in some nail
of my left foot
the political capital of my homeland is not Lima
but my heart
its population is one at the most
it lacks an official religion
and doesn’t even have a coin of its own
it was born from primal clay
a product of sperm and egg
that came out of bigger countries
my homeland is just in South America
hardly washed by the immense foam
of the pacific sea
one day, my country will die…
