Five Complimentary Poems ((Selected by D.L. Siluk, Poet Laureate)(Minnesota to Peru))

Five Complimentary Poems
Selected by Poet Laureate, Dennis L. Siluk, Dr.h.c.

Here are five poems Dennis Siluk calls “Complimentary Poems,” three from other writers he feels are very worthy poems, and two written him, for other people. These poems will be in Dennis’ forth coming book, “Silence over a Restless Valley,” due to be published in July of 2008.
The poem: "In the Nick of Time," by Cindy White, is a Minnesota Poem.



CUANDO LA ROSA MUERE
By Apolinario Fermín Mayta Inga

CUANDO LA ROSA MUERE
DEJA UN HUECO EN EL AIRE
QUE NADIE LO LLENA:
Ni el eco de las montañas
Ni la luz que sale de tus lágrimas
Ni el río que en sus orillas herido va sólo.
CUANDO LA ROSA MUERE
DEJA UN HUECO EN EL AIRE
QUE NADIE LO LLENA:
Ni la sombra que el ala de los pájaros deja
Ni los vientos de los trigales
Ni la tristeza de las nubes.
CUANDO LA ROSA MUERE
DEJA UN HUECO EN EL AIRE
QUE NADIE LO LLENA:
Ni un cielo de palomas
Ni los sueños de la yerba
Ni las piedras con su angustia.
CUANDO LA ROSA MUERE
DEJA UN HUECO EN EL AIRE
QUE NADIE LO LLENA:
Ni el color de la mañana.


English Version

WHEN THE ROSE DIES

By Apolinario Fermin Mayta Inga
Translated by Rosa Peñaloza de Siluk
Edited by Dennis L. Siluk

WHEN THE ROSE DIES
IT LEAVES AN EMPTY HOLE IN THE AIR
THAT NO ONE FILLS:
Not the echo of the mountains
Not the light that comes out of one’s tears
Neither the river with its banks, that goes alone

WHEN THE ROSE DIES
IT LEAVES AN EMPTY HOLE IN THE AIR
THAT NO ONE FILLS:
Not the shade of the wings that the birds leave
Not the winds from the wheat fields
Neither the sadness of the clouds.

WHEN THE ROSE DIES
IT LEAVES AN EMPTY HOLE IN THE AIR
THAT NO ONE FILLS:
Not the sky full of doves
Not the dreams from the grass
Neither the stones in its anguish.

WHEN THE ROSE DIES
IT LEAVES AN EMPTY HOLE IN THE AIR
THAT NO ONE FILLS:
Not even the color of the morning.

CIUDAD DE HUANCAYO
By Cesar Gamarra Berrocal

Qué hacer cuando el tiempo
se acumula en mis ojos.
Higuera e historias
y voy atravesando calles
sin ningún sentido:
perdí mi libreta de apuntes
y me viene cualquier nombre
y empiezo a escribir:
“Cuando viajo adquiero cierta capacidad de
comunicación
con mi mundo”
y no abro Udana.
Buda detrás del mostrador
y no sé qué es el tiempo
sólo hay
el viento / el polvo y una plaza.




English Version

CITY OF HUANCAYO

By Cesar Gamarra Berrocal
Translated by Rosa Peñaloza de Siluk
Edited by Dennis L. Siluk

What to do when the time
accumulates in my eyes.
Fig-tree and stories
and I go through the streets
without any direction:
I lost my note book
and it come to me any name
and I start writing:
“When I travel I acquire some capacity of
communication
with my world”
and I do not open Udana.
Buda behind the counter
and I do not know what is the time
there is only
the wind / the dust and a plaza.



Qué hacer cuando el tiempo
se acumula en mis ojos.
Higuera e historias
y voy atravesando calles
sin ningún sentido:
perdí mi libreta de apuntes
y me viene cualquier nombre
y empiezo a escribir:
“Cuando viajo adquiero cierta capacidad de
comunicación
con mi mundo”
y no abro Udana.
Buda detrás del mostrador
y no sé qué es el tiempo
sólo hay
el viento / el polvo y una plaza.


“In the Nick of Time”
By Cindy White (in Part and English Only)

I met Dennis at B&N
Café—a decent place towrite and draw. To
set one’s creative juices
among the crowd. Among
the roar of the blender that
would wind up words for
a poet—any poet.

Dennis is an inspiration,
for this lowly poet, as
I sit in the same B/N
café without him, thinking
of his new life in Peru.
Thinking I might catch
his spirit, his muse and
sprout my words.

It was an honor; still
Is an honor to sit
in this space, where
one poet met another poet
in the nick of time.


The Grand
Papa Oso Hamagsa of Huancayo

By Dennis L. Siluk

Now fill my hands with one…
deep walled is its shape.
Find a cloak to cover me:
so I can sink my teeth into the meat!
Restlessly I wait—
wait I say!
For the Grand Papa Oso-hamagsa
that will soon cover my plate!


Dedicated to…No: 2024 Written 10-20-2007 by Dennis L. Siluk,
in Huancayo, Peru


A day,
Along the River Mantaro

And so, down the River’s mouth
(weighed with rays of the morning’s sun)
until I reached its bridge, rustic red,
flat was the water before me,
a stillness, with boat rowing by
(a holiday weekend, with friends…).

The light from the sun, now shown
on the embankment, between me
and the river—boats drawn
without sound; I watched splashes
from their oars—; rocks green to gray
in the far!...
A cool breeze smooth across my face,
the boy leaps up through the brush
…a flower in hand for me.
It was all part of one day (revived)
along the River Mantaro,
in the Spring of 2006.


No. 2015, written in Huancayo, Peru, 10-11-2007, to be published in the forth coming book, “Silence over a Restless Valley,” in July, of 2008.

Dedicated to the boy and his father (Kike and Jose Arrieta)



























Rock me to Sleep
(A poem on Suicide)


Suicide is an invitation for death, there are many reasons for it, a fatalistic attitude is good enough for suicide, or rejection of life per se, claiming death is nothing more than a charming quietness thereafter (therefore, a wishful desire; how foolish you may say. On the other hand fear of death can be an awful thing, death in this way of thinking, is a way for lives that are preoccupied with fear, and filled with attempts to win God’s favor and avoid His anger: this way of thinking paralyzes one with fear of death, just the opposite). In any case, many people lean towards the tendency to go to the opposite extreme and find death, wake it up. So I shall give you a poem, one with a poignant final word for, or on death, one that a suicide would use, called ‘Rock me to Sleep’.

We need not give heed to boldness, denial or fear, one need only find Christ, for death is certain, and will come sooner or later anyhow, but during the interim, we may simple remember as death is certain, so is heaven, and there we can bath in our victory, for there in heaven are no powers that can separate us from the love of Christ. And now here is the sad, but true thinking poem, a suicide might ponder on:


Death of death, please rock me to sleep
Where the quiet realm rests, for people like me.
No worries, no evils, no fear or to rise
Out of my breast!…
Lower the coffin, ring the Chapel Bells
Let them tell, of my sorry life
And my scornful quest.
And if death shall not come
I shall wake it up…to take my life.
For there is no other remedy,
There is no happy light.
So death, death, please rock me to sleep,
Where the quiet realm rests, for people like me.





















Three Poems form:
Jauja (Peru)

Note (and small summery of the poems): For me these following three poems are interrelated simply because they are all from Jauja, although two are from a town-let called Chongos, the other one from the ancient hillside capital of the Wanka world (700 to 1450 AD), Tunanmarca (all within the Jauja area). Here is where the Inca Empire (from Cuzco) came and subdued the Wanka Capital in the half of the 15th Century. Some 15,000-inhabidents lived on this mountaintop city that is being renovated as I write these three poems, called Tunanmarca. Access to the city is a bit difficult; it is about 12,500- feet above sea level, and there are two defense walls to its summit, but it is worth the hike up the hill. The Cani Cruz (otherwise known as the ‘The Cross of Pain,’ is in the small town of Chongos, the cross dating back to 1601 AD, and the Old Shepard Lady of Chongos, I met by the oldest Church in the Mantaro Valley, 1556 AD with her heard of sheep, perhaps in her 80s, as often these old folks of the Valley are, and continue their daily chores as everyone else does.


The Old Shepard
Lady of Chongos

“It is late, quite late.
And I, I am one of few, awake!
What I love is by my side.
I spent all morning talking,
as I bend and rise
under the moving sun—!
They speak to me—, the sheep,
clear as the eyes of chickens!”

No: 2009 10-5-2007



Visiting Tunanmarca
(700 to 1450 AD)

Oh, on this early afternoon I think
I shall live forever!
I am bound in my carefree flesh;
wrapped in these old Wanka ruins.





























Two Poems on Life

Surprised by Morning

There is an unknown dilemma that is by us…;
day has come, and evening has arrived on time.
As for the evening, shades of darkness fell,
so I noticed looking through the glass windows.

I sat quietly back in my white plastic chair
on the Platform, and wrote this poem,
thinking and looking:
“How did it all come about?”
“How will morning be?”

At last I found myself in bed,
the waters of my mind, rose and fell;
then I wakeup, surprised, somewhat,
morning had arrived (it was here).


Note: No: 2008, October 2, 2007, written on the Platform, in Huancayo, Peru, 2.55 PM


“Upon His Death”
(An Elegy, before Death)

Now close his eyes—please, for all his breath has gone.
For, they will not open up here, on Earth again!

For years, life has fed upon his ivory bones
That with his breath gave in (to death) all at once.

Deep inside our minds, we decay, suffer on…!
Until our minds, bodies and souls say: it’s enough.

Now let him be, and his body let us bless
That came to earth, at birth, and goes to heaven to rest.



Short Commentary: Death comes sometimes slowly, or so it seems— (or can be) for us folks watching this happen to our loved ones; perhaps it is harder on us doing the watching, than those doing the dying (?)
We often try to get the last photographs, our facts in order; tell and listen to the last jokes, stories and simple conversations we will forever share, and preserve them deep into our memories. Yes, all these gathered images we truly loved of that individual—and we wait; and until we die like them we simply endure. It’s all called life!... No: 2004 (9-28-2007)

A Chapter in Life and Death
The Mystery of Tomorrow!



Old Dog Ways
(The ways of an old Peruvian Chow Chow)

When dogs grow old—(like Jason)
they seem to want to be left alone
(not completely, but some).
They want to chew their bones
alone…in peace—; they want
to lay down with a gentle-warm wind
(and fall to sleep).
They want to get patted on the head,
now and then; drift along
in a grassy backyard—, check out
the food bin! And like many
people, prefer to be left alone,
with a few—select, good friends!


No: 1998 (9-21-2007); written in Huancayo, Peru on the platform. “Today, Friday, watching old Jason (perhaps seventy), he paces in the back yard, chews his bone, goes to the food bin, by all appearances he has a pretty good life, and he knows it.”


Silence in War (Iraq)

No one sees the bombs and bullets come
anymore, pieces of metal fly by, —
yet voices are crying in silence, as things
fall (bombs, debris and bodies).
One arm left behind, along the roadside,
as the body keeps walking; some
eyes part the face, what direction, the
soldier can’t see. Smells of death,
death that seep out everywhere.
The medic nails a list of the dead,
onto the back of a chair (this is war
at its best, in Iraq).

No: 1992 (9-19-2007). Written in Huancayo, Peru, on the Platform.





“Hill Burning…!”

“The hill is burning!
The hill is burning!”
It frightened all the ants
and bugs…in the
underbrush— (I suppose);
and the butterflies hurled back
their manes, it seemed.
As six-years old, life is simply
watching everything!


Note: when I was six-years old, I vaguely remember, but I do recall lightly, the hill or embankment we had in our backyard, in St. Paul, Minnesota, I let on fire; let me explain: I was somehow captivated with a book of matches I had in hand, playing on that steep hillside, can’t remember how I got them, and I lit the dry yellow tall weeds and grass on fire, thinking I could contain it in a little circle, but of course I could not, and when it got out of control—and it’s blaze grew hot and high I ran a hundred-yards to the back of our house went inside the screened door and told my mother (my mother, aunts, brother, grandfather and neighbors came running out towards the hill, after someone started yelling ‘fire,’ after I had mentioned it of course): thus, I had said only twice, almost exhausted to my mother: “The Hill is burning…” then my mother and brother, two years older than I, and the several other people (in the summer of 1953) grabbed buckets of water, running back and forth, throwing it on the fire. After all was under control, my mother asked me, “Did you light the fire?” I hesitated, but said “…yes.” And for the life of me, I can’t remember what happened afterwards, but I never played with matches again. No: 1995 (9-20-2007). Written on the Platform, Thursday, 4:00 PM, the rain clouds just covered up the sun).


Poems on Death
Part II (9-2007)

Ode to Age

The old man, I watched him
trying in vain—to get into his apartment,
to open the door with his hands and key—which
summoned his brain, in vain;
not working with his eyes, at eighty-seven.

And there, there, in the yard next to him
a boy of ten, his grandson, playing with his dog:
two lives changing, like summer and winter,
rain and snow; one watching the other grow old,
ready to die; the other, youthful, hip to thigh,
loosed hair, waiting for another year to pass
so he can grow up fast.


Note: No. 1994, Daniel and Papa Augusto, and the dog Jason, in the backyard, while the author sits on the platform watching. The clouds in the sky, darkening, it is Wednesday, about 4:30 PM, 9-19-2007, Huancayo, Peru.


Death by Suicide
(…and a long needle)


Suicide is like a long needle in the heart—;
one trying to escape the slum of earth’s dark.
Not seeing the high elm above their heads
(and spring being not far off);
thus, they think to conquer life and death
in just one breath!
So many ways to die, so many coffins under
the sky;
dark shadows everywhere…so many pits
and flash floods in a normal life—
but after winter, there’s always spring:
too bad they can’t see it, from where they stand.

Note: No: 1994 (9-19-2007)

Human-trees


We are human-trees, born from the roots of others—;
with branches for legs and arms…,
we lose days in our lives like trees lose leaves
off their branches.
Water is born within us—.
Like bark from trees, we shed our skin—
and watch the weeds grow around us,
I call them bad-seeds—yet like trees
we must all live our lives out…!

No: 1993 (9-19-2007)





War Poem
No Three


Gnits
((A poem on the Times, and war) (21st Century doom))


Step down please
and love somebody—,
so much to possess…;
so many signs in the world:
like the ripples in the sea
(who can withstand the waves).
Like the leaves falling off the trees,
the armies of the world
are getting ready.
Where are the beams of yellow
and white lights—
that bellows freedom? (such a plight!)
No more walking the streets in
the afternoons.
We should always be together, we
never know how close is doom!


No: 1988 (9-16-2007) Written in the morning,
and rewritten in the evening.