RIA MASAE
Ria Masae, nació en Nueva Zelanda y se crió en Samoa, con una pizca de sangre china. Estudiante del BCA (Bachelor in Computer Application) en el Manukau Institute of Technology en Auckland. Masae Ganó en 2015 el premio New Voices: Emerging Poets Competition, y en 2016 el Cooney Insurance Short Story Competition. Hay contribuido con trabajos en publicaciones de Australia y Nueva Zelanda, incluyendo Landfall (#230, 2015); Otoliths (#36, 2015); y Blackmail Press (#37, 2014). Ria Masae disfruta siendo miembro del Colectivo de Poetas del Sur de Auckland, cuyo trabajo incluye facilitar talleres de poesía para organizaciones y escuelas.
Dossier de poesía actual de Nueva Zelanda, preparado y traducido por Andrea Rivas.
http://circulodepoesia.com/2016/09/poesia-de-nueva-zelanda-ria-masae/
Noughts and Crosses[1]
Adán
Nunca fui tu anochecer en Eva.
Tus costillas patriarcales
construyeron la caja de mi pecho
pero el tambor de mis latidos
siempre ha sido mi propio himno.
Dios
nunca fui tu caída.
Tus viejos testamentos
no conocían razón para ser
tallados como profecías en piedra
en los pozos de mis palmas.
Demonios
nunca fui su campo de batalla.
Así que tiré mi espada y escudo
y me arrodillé con el círculo
de su Legión
con corazón y brazos abiertos.
Porque pertenezco entera.
Pertenezco preciosa.
Pertenezco viva.
Pertenezco.
Siempre lo he hecho.
Apretando arena
Mis pies se hunden en la arena
mientras vago a través de las costas curtidas
del pueblo de mi abuela en Samoa.
Las olas no se precipitan a saludarme
he estado fuera demasiado tiempo y
este pedazo del Océano Pacífico
no olvida fácilmente.
Me detengo y miro hacia el mar
prístino como en los folletos de viajes
no hay necesidad de Photoshop
no hay planes de desarrollo del gobierno
no hay colonización
Cierro los ojos y espero
El viento mensajero sopla
saladas palabras en mis oídos –
Puede que hayas tomado tu primer respiro
en la fauna de mi gente, Aotearoa
pero has descuidado el ombligo de las arenas y las aguas
donde la génesis de tu
existencia tiene sus raíces.
La brisa fresca me deja entonces
para ser golpeada por los rayos del sol.
No me percaté de que apretaba la arena
hasta que sentí los granos de seda regándose desde
el espacio[2] entre mis dedos;
granos de anhelos pasados
deslizándose hacia un pasado perdido.
Moviéndonos aún
Nos mareamos hasta las náuseas en las
ruedas de la calamidad
vuelta tras vuelta tras vuelta
hay gula en nuestra adicción al sufrimiento.
Nos lavaron el cerebro para creer
que la salvación explota solo desde el caos
-La belleza salpicó del Big Bang.
Pero yo he encontrado
que la lucha perpetua solo crece
un corazón en las piedras
desde donde no puedo
probar los colores de esta tierra
o escuchar las contracciones de mi pulso
o ver palabras danzar en una voz
o aspirar el crepitar de un volcán apasionado
o sentir el alba de pertenecer…
solo un bulto irregular y quieto
sólo
en una pradera de suspiros.
Notas de la traductora
[1] El título refiere al juego de “gato” o “Tres en raya”.
[2] El verso original no utiliza la palabra “space” sino “Va”. El concepto de “Va” es un concepto existente en la cultura samoana, pero también en la maorí y japonesa ―donde es llamado wa―. Va es el espacio en medio, la intermediación, no espacio vacío, no espacio que separa, sino espacio que relaciona, que mantiene entidades y cosas unidas en la Unidad-que-es-Todo, el espacio que es el contexto, dando significado a las cosas. Los significados cambian cuando la relación/contexto cambia”.
Ria Masae
New Zealand
Mere & Child - Penny Howard
I am a New Zealand born and raised Samoan, with a smidgen of Chinese blood. I was born a Central Auckland girl and vow (half-heartedly) to die a Central old lady. Last year I completed a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Auckland. Currently, I am in my second year at MIT (Manukau Institute of Technology) studying towards a Bachelor of Creative Writing degree. I favour prose writing as I want to publish a novel one day, but enjoy poetry as another creative outlet.
Cross Religions
He spits at the idol feet of Jesus
and sleeps on the cathedral steps
waiting for God to come
and answer him Face-to-face
cos he ain't got time for go-between mediators
he wants to hear from the Horse's mouth
why only the Devil's drink can burn his pain
in his darkest hours.
The priest told him
he must pray to Jesus for salvation.
He replied with a grubby middle finger,
'I shit on your thou art thou!
I'd rather fly to the heavens
on Zeus' winged stallion
to wrestle my answer from Yahweh,
than ride economy-class
on Mr. J's damn ass!'
Just Another Haiku
The Brown Paper Bag
Kid, inhaled deeply to make
life worthy again.
The Artistry Effect
The weaver proceeds
with skill and care
to weave a fine cloak
of communities - of life.
The artist carving a tree
follows the grain
in harmony
with its natural character.
These significant spells
of kinship with all creatures
seen as living
in the carving or cloak.
We cannot simply
govern the process
of the artist -
what criterion we might use for 'worthiness'.
We cannot choose
what is going to reflect
someone's essence.
Look once more
at the uses
we might make
of enhancing value.
What is of importance
is the idea
in the abstract -
in the impossible.
VINYL SUNDAYS
A-Track
We genuflect.
Men dressed by their wives in their Sunday best
kneel on planks of uncross.
Women pass over bread to their children
to deposit in pass-around plate
for confessional clean slate.
Samoan choir sing praises to Jewish mythology.
Tangaloa spits an eye for an eye at our irreverence
He laughs, foreseeing
my first taste of dipsomania lust
is sipping the blood of Keriso.
B-Side
After church
men smoke rollies in the carpark
their backs to the ‘No Smoking’ sign.
Women with backstabbing eyes
smile neon lipsticks
as if painted jujus can mask bullkaka.
I only sing at night because La envies me.
Once, it growled, Suga, stop stepping on my dick!
and tried to burn my voice.
My hymns now flicker
along Masina whispers.
Published in 'Ika 4' 2016
GRIPPING SAND
My feet sink into the sand
as I tramp across the tanned shores
of my grandmother’s village in Samoa.
Waves do not rush in to greet me
I have been away too long and
this slice of the Pacific Ocean
does not easily forget.
I stop and look out into the sea
pristine as the travel brochures portray
no need for Photoshop
no government development plans
no colonisation
I close my eyes and wait...
The messenger wind breezes
salty words into my ears -
You may have taken your first breath
on the fanua of my kin, Aotearoa
but you have neglected the umbilicus sands and waters
where the kenese of your
existence is rooted.
The cool breeze leaves me then
to be beaten by the sun’s rays.
I did not notice I was gripping the sand
until I felt silk granules spill from
the Va between my toes;
grains of late yearning
slipping into a lost past.
Published in 'Ika 4' in May 2016
A Great Grand-daughter's Quest: Part II
Part II - Flights of Fantasy
The Time Traveller
packs her notebook and sharp-eyed pencil
into her siapo knapsack
for she is venturing on a quest
through three flights of history
in search of the noble slave
that is her great-grandfather.
She walks over “POWER”
stenciled in threshold light
out towards the wharf.
I
To secure passage on a mirror ship
sailing across milk glass in hexagon light
the Traveller slips into the shipmaster’s coat
a long-haired beauty
swaying her hips to horny sailors
from a Grimshaw tooth
- there are no milking maids
sitting on whale chairs aboard.
After twenty days and twenty nights
at sea, a boy lookout
spies Godwits puppet-strung in flight.
II
The ship lands on the island
from the Traveller’s dream.
She hacks through a forest of
goliath kauri clovers
that cough up gums of spun amber hair.
A palm sunset mutes light on funeral flowers
under a spider caught in its own clay web.
She comes to a graveyard
and shreds shark teeth across the cheeks
of a ghostly schoolmaster
demanding silence from singing dead children.
A spiral ammonite trumpets the apocalypse.
She runs!
Her pores crying sweat
she halts at a clearing
three oracles assembled in a circle.
The Traveller asks the lizard,
“Please, your Wiseness, where do I go from here?”
The four-legged serpent
tongues a forked silence in the air
its third eye senses light
but cannot see.
The lass moves on
to the wise man of the East
but an Imperial race have tainted him
with toga laws -
halo fractured; enlightenment shadowed.
The girl, feeling hopeful and hopeless
steps in front of forget-me-never eyes
a serpent trunk snorts across the Traveller’s forehead
“To me, you should have come first”
with that, the Traveller falls to the ground
from the elephant’s arsenic touch.
III
The Traveller awakens
under a 3-D gateway carved in
700 AD Polynesian patterns.
Dragon-face turtles
swim in black pillar fires
that stand at the entrance
of a confectionary castle.
A butterfly lingers
as the Traveller beats the orient-dog handle
against the rootless tree door.
The Time Traveller steps
inside the whale jaw.
A giant’s kava bowl
floats over a dinosaur table
and welcomes manuia - drink to the skies!
while ivory royals slice a Sunday roast.
She nods at a Maori elder
backed onto a sacrilegious chair
that seated white cushions,
and side-steps
electric branches drooped over a torture chair
beside a cylinder sink that drains blood and spit.
Up the labyrinth staircase she climbs
then tiptoes through a long dead hall
along the walls, a
cross bleeds poppies
photo faces gaze across at their fallen names
“Let these panels never be filled”…Amene.
At last, the Time Traveller
reaches the doorway to her
mother-island’s entangled histories.
A voice in native language orates memories
but she is drawn to the glass coffins
containing life in past images and words.
Indentured labourer great-grandfather
is that your solemn Chinese face in the photo?
are you one of the field faces hidden under those cone hats?
is that your bent back clawing the plantation soil?
Her quest has come to nought
for she cannot tell.
First published in 'Snorkel #22' in January 2016
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