About the Poet:
Simon Guzman Zavala, Guayaquil, Ecuador. Poet, lawyer and university professor. He has given recitals in the cities of Spain, Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil and in almost all major cities in Ecuador. Has won national awards, among others: First National Poets Prize novel, House of Ecuadorian Culture, 1966; Only prize in the National Poetry Contest University, teachers 1982; and international, such as the Latin American Poetry Prize Foundation GIVRE Buenos Aires, Argentina 1982; International Award ABRACE, Montevideo, Uruguay, 2007 by his book GRAFIAS. Some publications are: “Dimension of a passerby”, 1973; “Anatomy of a shout” 1974; “Biography Circular” 1976; “Song of hope” 1979; “Songs of Fire” 1983;” Man Manifesto” 1984; “Lascivious” 1981; “Reconstruction of the truth” 1992; “Physiognomies” 1998; “Memorial” 1996; “Poets of the twentieth century” 2002 “Poetic Anthology” 2003; “The forms diluted” (poems of adolescence) 2003; “Traces / Marks” 2006; “Grafias” 2007. Her poetry has been translated into English, French, Hebrew, Portuguese, Italian, German, Romanian and Arabic.
* below the translated versions, you will find the original poems
* Gina is the translator of all other Ecuadorian poets in this series
The Mirror
I know I have never been here
nor have I ever arrived;
the face of this dock has regarded
my life with compassion;
on the other side of this tide there are
peaceful beaches to drop anchor
ship after ship I have grown among ports
feeling the absences
a stubborn castaway from so many voyages
I have returned to relive
I have returned to be a silhouette
a shadow
blood and epidermis.
I drink a beer in front of a dock
I drink another,
longing descends upon me for a woman
falling asleep
on my breast
what color is her skin, my insomnia asks
where is her tiny volcano
to sink my fire into
the lives that I passed through leap forth crossing
time
another memory is born among the wrinkles of life
the city begins to wake up from its lethargy of
early morning
the street is a long, long chain of memories
and ideas
my bones stagger
I see death in the midst of the fog
and I feel rebelling inside me all of
my cadavers
that still have my warm blood
I pick myself up
from this latest fall and see that no one
inhabits this gloomy way
that this port and this dock do not exist
and that I am still dying in another time.
Il Espejo
Sé que nunca he estado aquí
ni que nunca he llegado
el rostro de este muelle ha mirado
mi vida con compasión
detrás de esta marea hay reposadas playas
donde anclar
navío tras navío he crecido entre puertos
sintiendo
las ausencias
náufrago empecinado de tantas travesías
he vuelto a revivir
he vuelto a ser silueta
sombra
sangre y epidermis.
Bebo una cerveza frente al muelle.
bebo otras
me caen las nostalgias de una mujer
durmiéndose
en mi pecho
de qué color es su piel dice mi insomnio
dónde está su pequeño volcán
para hundirle mi fuego
las vidas que atravesé saltan cruzando
el tiempo
otra memoria nace entre las arrugas de la vida
la ciudad comienza a despertarse de su sopor de
madrugada
la calle es una larguísima cadena de recuerdos
e ideas
trastabillan mis huesos
miro a la muerte en medio de la niebla
y siento que en mi se rebelan todos
mis cadáveres
que están todavía con su sangre tibia.
Me levanto
de esta nueva caída y veo que nadie
habita esta desconsolada vía
que no existe este puerto ni este muelle
y que yo aún agonizo en otro tiempo.