The Uncertain Geography of Lightning: Poems of Bartomeu Crespí

Mercurius is pleased to present four poems from the young Catalan poet, Bartomeu Crespí, who edits Mercurius’s Catalan-language sister, Turbamulta, along with Pep Joan Noguerol and Andreu Arranz.

The original plan was to create a single dual-language literary journal that would act as a hub for international English-language writers and local Catalan-language writers, with all texts published in both languages. When this approach was deemed too demanding in practice, two magazines were born, Mercurius for English-language writing, and Turbamulta for Catalan-language writing. The idea is to translate each other’s work from time to time, as and when the mood takes us.

Why I write

The aim of art is to illuminate the elemental depths that the world denies.
- Maurice Blanchot

I write poetry because I have a difficulty communicating with the world. Poetry helps me communicate. I have a desire to speak with the internal, as well as those in my proximity. Everyday language has its limits. Poetic language multiplies the number of ways I can communicate with the world.

Four Poems selected from his forthcoming collection The Uncertain Geography of Lightning (translated by Thomas Helm).

I TRUST the stars and planets for their silence. people should also be like this: in constant motion, but secret. keeping still in the eyes of others. that is: to talk a little and run a lot. and run so quietly that if others want to know who we are they will have to invent telescopes.

FOURTH LIMPID EXAMPLE OF THE SECOND THING

for P.J.N., the multicreature

his obligatory birth
forced him to look for shelter 

dazzling in the sun
in secret modesty.  

He grew towards the bottom of nowhere
as a protest.

he faked his death in the void;
forever 

one lair inside another
distilling light, 

a shadow under a shadow
trembling with beauty.

There is always, out of sight,
A place of contagion
ANDREU VIDAL

I’ve seen another place
where meanings dance and dodge
our understanding. I’ve seen another
place where things exist, beyond the signs,
a place where amorphous forms take shape,
and the dead sergeants of language lie.  

I’ve seen another place
tied to the first ray of the pure light
where numbers have been detached from their digits
and the weight of matter is black ink
that shatters gravity, sanity, and moderation.

I’ve seen another place where the stones rest
and things, with their bloody muteness, mock
our eyes and faces,
our mechanisms so ill-suited
to catch the moans of the absolute.

See how the dust flies inside the houses,
how the shadows of the pine trees go wrong.
see how they speak without saying a word,
all those stones along the way.

now throw away your theorems,
and ascend to the place where you said
you have lanterns insulting the night
beyond the stars  

in the open air or in the penumbra
or in the azure that promises you infinity
attempt to instil in laws and regulations
the wisdom of inaccurate words. 

So you will see how the august speeches fall,
how the shadows of the pine trees go wrong.
how rigid measures bend
performing acrobatics in their intestines. 

and when you remove time from the hours
search in the pause of happening
a new language that can solve you
the difference between being and existing.