DEPRESSION BEFORE FEBRUARY

Let February wait under the fierce sun.
I don't want to keep courage up.
Why does life have to wear high heel shoes again?
It is hot as hell outside but I only see a furious rain.

After thirty days of quiet glory in Olympus,
surprising the goddesses, I need to stay
where I am.
I forgot to be mortal and even my ordinary name.

I was at peace,
enjoying my innocent moment of sweet obligations
and private stars.
I was just a poetess.
Who will lock me behind those bars?
Who will bring darkness?

Somewhere
under an oak tree
I will sleep and dream
as February sinks in
my tired memory

For my soul was so free and light
swimming in oceans of iridiscent words
and beauty. I was a myth.
Now I don't have my self any more,
neither the day nor the night.
My new character is in that dusty drawer
and I know what I have to say by heart.
The establishment savours my powerlessness
and pain.

Let February wait in vain.

Karla Bardanza

LOVE IS HIS SONG

As he nails my bed with sighs and stars,
I watch Venus and Mars standing in his eyes,
sowing seeds of tenderness and desire,
murmuring promisses to the wild skies.

I am Juliet illuminating Romeo's lips
while love howls under the velvet moon.
I am Cathy calling out heathcliff again
to see the moors and the lillies in bloom.

He opens the heart of my heart,
feeding me on lust and delight.
Maybe he is Eros blinding Psyche
as we climb together the wild night.

Love is his song and I hear him,
hiding a ragged Scarlet in my memory
for my heart is nothing but a dry land
where brave Rhet saw a banshee.

He has made a flower of me.
My petals caress his calloused hands
as Abelard kisses Heloise in the dark,
teaching her what he understands.

I breathe his soul, fearing silently
all those things that made me sleep.
But when he holds me I am awake again
and love is deeper than deep.

Karla Bardanza

This poem is a tribute to the greatest love couples of all time.

THERE IS NO SOLACE IN TRUTH OR KNOWLEDGE

My barren soul aches watching the sea
Spilling mad waves and whispers to me
When the clouds crumble under the sun
As men and women fight to be free.

All things wild I carry in my busy mind
And they bloom silently in my dying eye,
Stealing the certainties I used to find
In my disfigured heart that can't fly.

What prevails is hesitation and fear.
How dreary it is to sit here and think,
Feeling this distrust eating what is dear
When everything around does sink.

There is no solace in truth or knowledge
For many are the doubts beneath my lids.
My beliefs I lost when I was at college
And now everything I trust, science forbids.


Karla Bardanza

KITCHEN WITCHERY

I get some water for coffee,
thinking of nothing,
transfixed by the smell
of fresh bread lying
fast asleep on the table.

For a few minutes
my body shrinks.
My kitchen keeps so many
mysteries. My frozen mind
only wants to feel.
I thrust my finger
in the cream cheese
without remembering the knife
in the drawer.
I'm just a naughty girl again.
.
While the coffee-pot
announces the steam, I begin
to grease the tin with
oil and forgetfulness,
I get the flour, the eggs and
the sugar and I mix them,
as I distract my soul.
Such a simple magic!
Then I add butter while I
lend sacredness to life,
changing minutes delicately.

I put that beauty in the oven:
everything is hidden in sweet simplicity.
I wait while it gestates:
a ritual of love.
When my cookies are ready,
I lay the table
-fresh bread, my buttery cookies, coffee and everything else.
I call my daughter, my mother, my sister and my niece.
I put my favourite cd of Tom Jobim on,
and we sing together:

That unnamed peace
that we exercise with great
charm is almost unknown
in postmodern life,
We sit together,
healing through food,
love and deep emotion,
celebrating magic in life,
celebrating our connection.



Karla Bardanza




Brazilian cornstarch cookies

2 cups cornstarch

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter (that equals 12 Tbps)

Preheat oven to 375 F. Sift cornstarch, sugar and salt together, mix the egg and blend in the butter. Knead well. Let stand ten to fifteen minutes. I use a cookie press to drop them on a greased cookie sheet. It makes cookies in different shapes. But usually you shape them into balls in the palm of your hand and drop them on the greased cookie sheet. Then use the tines on a fork to make grooves on the cookies. They look really pretty that way. Some people like to shape the cookies into really tiny balls, others prefer them bigger. Bake for about seven minutes, depending on how big you make them. Let cool and serve with a wonderful cup of Brazilian coffee in
the afternoon.

HESITANT WORDS

Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish it's source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.

-Anais Nin-

As she disappeared into the moonless black,
his heart swallowed his blame, deserting his
mind.
(he was losing himself in himself again)

Staring at the perpetual night,
he saw his flesh crying for her languid eyes,
bleeding his emptness, an unobservalble emptness.

He felt his body speaking:the unknown language
of love.He remembered he was human too.

Life murmured an absolute truth:
metaphors of desire awakened, stirring
that exiled moment while his shadow
pined away, reminding him of all those
words he wasn't strong enough to say.

Her eyes
Oh! Her eyes renewed him.
Her breast
Oh!Her breast fed his Sun and Mars.

He walked straight toward the rain
and got the first bus he saw to her immaculate
feelings and for the very first time, he heard
his hesitant words contracting his chest.

Karla Bardanza

 

THE MEMORY OF PAIN

That sublime air had disappeared.
Her smile was no smile.
Her eyes are dead winds blown
during the tragedy.

For some minutes
she sat there looking for herself
among the wreckage,trying to
rescue her identity, her past
carried away by the heartless
nature.

Her shoulders hold what her
God abandoned but she does pray.
But she does pray every single day
before she goes to bed.

And when she closes her eyes,
trying to sleep, that horror
sits on her pillow again
and all she can see is the mud
moaning and the witless rain.



Karla Bardanza


Dedicated to my people.

Some of you might have heard of the recent tragedy in Rio de Janeiro.It was the worse natural tragedy in our history. More of 600 people died due to inundations and heavy landslides and many people are still missing. More than 10.000 have lost their homes and are waiting for help. Many of them are still without food, water or electricity.

Please, keep the people of Rio de Janeiro in your prayers

MEA CULPA

I sat beside myself,
sowing thoughts in
the rain, enslaved
by tumult, disheartened
as flowers grew on me,
bruising my mind.

I crossed my arms,
feeling the weight of
impassivity, staring at
nothing, looking for nothing,
honoring nothingness.

It was a dayless night.
It was an inaudible moment
of sacrilege of an unsociable sheep
while life followed its insensate flux.

I looked at people around
for some seconds with great
penetration.
They were so concetrated
in their great lives.
I hesitated long enough
to measure mine and find
out I needed serenity.
But where could I buy it?
Was it expnsive?

I couldn't control my hands and legs.
I couldn't control my mind.
Despair pressed me
and I blamed myself for
not knowing what happiness was.


Karla Bardanza

IMPULSE

On some impulse
I put all my hidden words
in his pockets, bestowing
my presence on him.

I couldn't live
an inaudible life
of unobservable heartbeats
any more.
(I couldn't)

His face was full of silence
and for some minutes
my hands dangled
between my knees.

All of a sudden
water began to come out
of his face in big drops
and he talked in monosyllables:
"yes" - he said.

Those heavy memories
showed and wrapped in love,
he enveloped my universe
murmuring his words of passion
once more.


Karla Bardanza

SOMEBODY BROKE MY HEART

-Somebody broke my heart-

What a nameless power is this

speaking by silence?

What is this seed blossoming

on the corners of my despair?

I am so comfortable among

the thorns as an acrid fragrance

perfumes my doubts, my airless

words.

I feel it embracing those dead

promises lost in my pockets.

-Somebody broke my heart-

What is this hiding my soul in

pensive petals?

Why am I kneeling down on

this altar of  rusty roses?

The skies are fractured and

your tongue licks my wounds

softly, gently:

words sewn in the dark

(I don’t want your pity)

-somebody broke my heart-

The same ritual today.

Let me whip my body.

This emotional damage

is so sweet.

This pain is almost art.

I can’t reroute the course.

I don’t know how to heal.

-somebody broke my heart-

Please help me to feel.

Karla Bardanza

AGAIN

He found me at my window,
gazing at the hills between us.

-He left-

He saw me when I was trying
to cross the chasm, wanting
the sea, confused with this
light blinding him and me.

-He left-

He got home when I was climbing
the moon, riding the stars,
taming the north wind, rooted
in sorrow.

-He left-

He left today.
He will leave tomorrow too
For I haven't learnt
how to forgive and
say I love you.

I remember
I tried but
He was so busy
greeting his ego,
reading his passions,
drinking his adventures.

All I had of him
was some rainy years,
some bitter moments
sunk in acid tears.

All I had of him
is hidden in starving verses
of love and despair.

He came today,
His hands searched the past
buried under my skin.

-He left-

He only found pain.

My soul can't bargain
A
G
A
I
N

Karla Bardanza

THIS TRUTH

The echoing dunes called you and me

as we gazed at the stars, fishing illusions

and clouds, spying Venus and Mars.

I remember.

We two saw the disintegration of our

souls, reconciling every element

of our hungry beings to eternity,

weaving promises out of time,

writing the poetry of life without

care and rhyme.

What is love

but a blind force,

a profound experience of

what is divine and mystical,

our water at source.

What is our love

but this beauty that

we can only comprehend in a

primitive form when our souls

are silent and warm.

This truth remains unmoved

as the whole universe surrenders

Itself to us and love walks us through

those tender ways.

We hide ourselves in ourselves,

and life is again ablaze.

Karla Bardanza

AWARENESS

Those sleepy roses

are dreaming in the narrow

mountainous regions

that borders my soul.

I open them petal by petal,

feeling their ethereal fragrance

as the faint moon rises, enveloping

my ever expanding universe.

The shadows of my soul falls

on my ownerless heart.

There is a rainbow shaft of

light there though.

Few are those who can see it.

-I am a narrative-

My self unfolds.

I exist from all eternity.

Those sleepy roses shine forth

and I know deep inside

I am unique,

I am all that has been, that is

and that will always be.

Karla Bardanza