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Three poems by Carlos Cociña
Translated from the Spanish by Alec Schumacher
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Translator’s Note
Aguas servidas, Carlos Cociña’s first book of poetry, was published in 1981 during the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet and most likely passed censorship (after being denied for a year) because of its highly codified character. Cociña related to me that he wrote the book with a scientific textbook by his side; the poems explore the nature of seeing, the structure of the gaze, of what is allowed to be seen, and what we allow ourselves to see. In some ways, this book anticipates the theoretical framework of “percepticide” that has sought to explain the phenomenon of people turning a blind eye to forced disappearances in the Southern Cone. The book begins with a series of fragments in which the author writes and rewrites poems that attempt to capture the nuances of seeing and its implications. In later poems, the gaze is shifted to the social body, exploring the possibilities of the word, and condemning the horror that surrounds what was taken away, the emptying of lives, spaces, and vision. Aguas servidas demands that we examine our acts of seeing and the social connections forged by our perceptions that define human experience.
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2. The second fragment
(first written transmission)
“The Structure of the Gaze”
(Fragment)
The instinctive eye
that opens on the ridges
among the thickets,
the eye set on its prey,
and the plunder,
sustenance.
I am the eye of the fly
shining cupola that discerns, immobile:
something moves…
from the animal
I am an eye in matter
and I wear myself out
and I shatter the papilla.
An eye that strips gravity
and force,
torn between the straw and the beam,
an eye blinded by light,
that rotates the pupil
until it discovers the mark
on that other face.
And if mass floods the eye,
among the substances,
the wet eyelid
is the cavity that gives access
to what once were objects.
Penitential Act
Even though everything is filled with lights,
of unequal strength,
flooded by bulbs on all sides,
still the shadows
strain to return to the slightest glimmer,
or the imperceptible flicker
of some filament,
or perhaps some mercurial fluid,
or perhaps atomized.
Needless to say, everything shines,
and the pores, and the skin
shine in the reflections of glass,
the incandescence of the twisted filaments
in the heat within the light that illuminates the face.
Yet, imperceptibly, by a movement of the thumb,
or the gentle brush of rising warm air,
the fold of this suit that reflects its own color is altered,
lengthened in a barely nuanced ray;
That is why the shadow, barely insinuated,
chooses the unforeseen moment
to mark the bead of sweat, untouched by the light.
4 A
Each capillary vessel was unable to resist the pressure and ripped,
spreading the liquid into the cutaneous folds, and this was repeated
throughout the entire fiber affected by the fist upon which the weight of the body
was exerted at three times its force. The hematoma on the face,
with blood spilled on the eyelids and in the ocular globule,
spread over the body with each new strain, and the ruptures
grew greater until the force of the flow diminished until
the pulsations slowed to the rhythm of blinking, barely perceptible in
the bruised body.
After all of the resistances that failed to soften the blow,
the osseus filaments vibrated to their maximum length to
finally reach the level of molecules and stretching the spaces between
elements; in these vibrations the discharge begins that would trigger
the disintegration of the already fragile cohesion of
the fractured areas of the bone. The flesh is torn and there is no harmony
in the balance.
A drop of saliva covers the concave part of a piece of rubber that upon approaching
the piece of skin, absorbs it into the vacuum, leaving
a convex sealed elevation of the epidermis. The electrodes are placed securely,
when the poles interchange in the flashes of contact that fall
from the electrons in a chain reaction, and thus continue
until there is a possibility of reaching the earth.
///
2. El segundo fragmento
(emisión escrita primera)
“Estructura de la mirada”
(Fragmento)
El ojo instintivo
que en los lomos
se abre por entre los matorrales,
el ojo fijo en la presa,
y la rapiña,
el alimento.
Soy ojo de la mosca,
cúpula brillante que distingue inmóvil:
algo se mueve…
desde el animal
soy ojo en la materia
y me gasto
y me trizo la papila.
Ojo que desgrana la gravedad
y la fuerza,
trizado entre la paja y la viga,
ojo a la luz cegado,
que gira la pupila
hasta descubrir la marca
en ese otro rostro.
Y si la masa anega al ojo,
entre las sustancias,
el párpado mojado
es la cavidad que accede
a lo que fueran los objetos.
Acto penitencial
A pesar que todo está lleno de luces,
de desigual potencia,
inundado de ampolletas por todos los costados,
aún las sombras,
empujan por volver al menor destello,
o el imperceptible pestañeo
de algún filamento,
o quizás qué líquido mercurial,
o quizás atomizado.
Para qué decir que todo brilla,
y los poros, y la piel
brilla en los reflejos del vidrio,
la incandescencia de los filamentos retorcidos
en el calor que en la luz ilumina el rostro.
Sin embargo, imperceptible, por un movimiento del pulgar,
o el leve roce del aire caliente que sube,
se altera el pliegue de este traje que refleja su propio color
alargado en un rayo apenas matizado;
por esto, la sombra apenas insinuada,
escoge el instante imprevisto
para marcar la gota de sudor, que la luz no toca.
4 A
Cada vaso capilar fue incapaz de resistir la presión y se rasgó
esparciendo el líquido en los pliegues cutáneos, y esto se repitió
en toda la fibra afectada por el puño sobre el cual se ejercía
el peso del cuerpo en el triple de su potencia. El hematoma de la cara,
con sangre desparramada en los párpados y en el glóbulo del ojo,
se esparció por todo el cuerpo en cada nueva presión, y las roturas
fueron mayores hasta que la fuerza del flujo decayó al punto que
las pulsaciones eran al ritmo del pestañeo apenas perceptible en
el cuerpo amoratado.
Después de todas las resistencias que no lograron amortiguar,
los filamentos óseos vibraron hasta el máximo de su longitud para
finalmente llegar a nivel de moléculas y estirar los espacios entre
elementos; en estas vibraciones empieza la descarga que desencadenaría
la desintegración de la ya quebrantable cohesión de
las áreas trizadas del hueso. Se rasga la carne y no hay armonía
en el balanceo.
Una gota de saliva cubre lo cóncavo de una pieza de goma que al acercarse
al pedazo de piel, la absorbe en el vacío, dejando
una elevación convexa y cerrada de epidermis. Los electrodos se afirman,
cuando los polos se intercambian en los destellos del roce que cae
de los electrones desencadenados para alcanzar al próximo, y así seguir
hasta tener la posibilidad de alcanzar la tierra.
Carlos Cociña, born in Concepción in 1950, is an award-winning Chilean poet, editor, and professor. His poetry spans multiple decades and styles, from the 1980s to today. His work experiments with scientific discourse and technological strategies, and he is considered one of the pioneers of digital poetry in Chile. His recent awards include Santiago Municipal Literature Prize in Poetry (2014), the Lifetime Achievement Award at La Chascona Poetry Festival (2017), and the Circle of Art Critics of Chile Poetry Prize (2017).
Alec Schumacher is a professor and translator at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. His research and translation are focused on Chilean poetry from the Neo-avant-garde period of the 70s-90s. He has translated poetry by Jorge Arbeleche, Elvira Hernández, Luis Correa-Díaz, and is currently working on Aguas Servidas with Cardboard House Press.
