One of the most enriching, forward-thinking, fastest-growing online creative communities flourishing right now is the Poetry community, especially in those scenes that center on marginalized voices — Women, POC, Neurodivergent, and LGBTQ. Poetry Spotlight is a feature aiming to showcase the work of some of the most talented creators we’ve discovered making waves on the Internet literary circles, inside or outside the mainstream. This third installment is dedicated to the work of Mexican artist Martha Mega.
Martha is a poet, performer, theater director, and musician from Mexico City, and she’s considered one of the leading voices in the Metropolitan scene. She runs the company Sí o Sí Teatro and has recently won the top prize in the literary translation section of the Punto de Partida festival. She released the poetry book Vergüenza (Shame), in 2017, on Mantarraya Ediciones. She has performed throughout the country both as a solo spoken-word act and with Literal Sound Machine, a multi-disciplinary collective that incorporates poetry into their audiovisual performances.
Shame of stillness
did you see, God, what they did to me?
i should not be welcomed so up there
i look another
picked apart
i am another spur on my mother’s side
God, you’ll say i’ve not taken proper care
of this, which was only
mine
there was no one
to fix my hair up a tad
sew up my pride
darn my entrails
who knows if anyone here will pass
to throw a rag
over the hips
before the pictures
someone to whom i’d yell
i am the smell of broken glass that woke you
up last night
the stone where your son will step today
how they’ve left me, God,
these sons of yours
with blades between their legs
snakes
scorpions
fingers made of thistle
cascades of dry sand
under their eyes
because nothing can be heard
who knows if any god here will pass
to whom i’d yell
i am another cry torn off your throat
another shameful landscape of your hand
look at me, God,
if you still have the eyes
and strength
to see it
(Translated by María Cristina Fernández Hall)
Brief
Ours
if it is
will be brief
all that is beautiful is brief
not our bodies
non-encompassable
non-finishable
corruptible
both of us
together
would be a tiny creature
beautiful from sheer terror
a bouquet of fresh feathers
a joy-dough of petals
Ours
if it is
will be brief
almost better if it is not
what is beautiful fevers me
and i play to kill
the path of ants
in my chest
and to tear apart
one by one
the wings of all the sweet words.
On the slaughterhouse door, there was a huge number. It was number five
you wake up screaming in other tongues
even though your mother breast-fed you Hebrew
your father beat you up in Tzotzil
you kept your secrets in Arabic
here there are others who name themselves
aryans, mexicans, tutsis, israelis
pitifully
you’re not one of them
lost brother from Babel
you’ll know what to respond
if somebody asks you
what’s the sweetest thing in life
someone __ i don’t know __ from tralfamadore
what would you say?
i think they should come up
with better lies
or they’ll have to go on without us
they should tell us another story
so we can take strength and crawl
as the unfortunate mammals we are
on to a forest away from the flames
a forest made up of all forests
let them tell us a story about traveling to other planets
let’s go to ardent dresden which is like an ardent moon
or off to whistling acteal we go
to look at the stars or whatever crosses the sky in gaza
let there be the night of February 13th, 1945
or the lacandon morning of December 22nd, 1995
or that evening five years ago when mom did not return
if somebody asks you what’s the sweetest thing in life
do you manage to sleep?
i would say
wake up now
in any tongue
we went and burned down the city while you were sleeping.
Pospone
i will not die because you leave i know
twice i was about to marry
guys that swore they could not live without me
mysteriously
they survived
as did my mother through three countries three
marriages three wars without names
she was never killed by heartbreak
even though she wished so
my world has ended several times
but there’s always another one right behind
like the layers of an onion
there you were in one of these new worlds
fresh like biting a fresh onion
however it will all end soon
for the first time in a definitive way
my scientist brother has calculated it would take some 50 years
to reach the heart of the onion
pandemics floods weapons
of global reach and much
much thirst
what i want to say is
don’t go just yet you could
wait a little
what are 50 years.
Border
i thought, what would i want from a poem
in the desert? would i want a poem
at all?
one that could maybe serve as a staircase
an alternative to dying of thirst
one that survives at least three weeks without trying any food
that knows what to do when i’m bitten by a snake
or how to locate the northern star and why the fuck
should we know how to locate the northern star
if it’s just as lost up there in a desert of bright thorns
as me that knows where i am
what i do not know is where is everything else
i slept beneath the wall
i dreamed of a staircase the biggest
a poem i could follow as a mosquito
on to the next body of water
on to the next body
of anything
as long as it moves
but does not shoot.
