{"id":497,"date":"2010-04-19T12:29:38","date_gmt":"2010-04-19T12:29:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/nucleus-import\/?p=497"},"modified":"2010-04-19T12:29:38","modified_gmt":"2010-04-19T12:29:38","slug":"underwater-poet-andres-alfaro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/underwater-poet-andres-alfaro\/","title":{"rendered":"Underwater Poet &#8211; Andr\u00e9s Alfaro"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"leftbox\"><img src='https:\/\/mahmag.org\/nucleus-import\/media\/7\/20100419-underwater_bubbles0.jpg' width='209' height='279' alt='underwater poet' \/><\/div>\n<p>\nThe dictionary brain<br \/>\nonce containing the<br \/>\ndarkest secrets of humanity<br \/>\nsuddenly bursts like a bubble<!--more-->&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8211;<br \/>\n<b>Underwater Poet<\/b><\/p>\n<p>The poet under water<br \/>\nis pressured all the same<br \/>\nwhile the ocean\u2019s algae and fungi<br \/>\nattack her soul<br \/>\nand bulging balloons<br \/>\nbecome her eyes.<\/p>\n<p>The dictionary brain<br \/>\nonce containing the<br \/>\ndarkest secrets of humanity<br \/>\nsuddenly bursts like a bubble<br \/>\nand sends a million fragile bubbles<br \/>\nout to join the darkest treasures<br \/>\nof the deep blue sea<br \/>\nof which she once wrote,<br \/>\n\u201cI am not but a creature of this blue planet<br \/>\non which I have learned to love<br \/>\nwithout being loved,<br \/>\nto care for<br \/>\nwithout being cared for,<br \/>\non which the infinite bad<br \/>\nis outweighed by the miniscule good<br \/>\nand hence will certainly cause<br \/>\nmy euphoric demise.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8211;<\/p>\n<p><b>An Artful Transformation<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Art snobs singing a gleeful tune<br \/>\nin clandestine underground breweries<br \/>\nabounding with scandalous sculptures.<br \/>\nI hear their jubilant racket from outside the gates.<br \/>\nCurious, I enter<br \/>\nbut I\u2019m met with<br \/>\nthe transformation of their chorus into silence<br \/>\ntheir clothing into transparency<br \/>\nand their once mirthful eyes<br \/>\ninto horrid, hollow sockets of pretension.<br \/>\nTheir sudden insecurity<br \/>\nsecures my fate<br \/>\nas my stomach and brain<br \/>\nbegin to fail me<br \/>\nand my skin bubbles and boils,<br \/>\nplaguing me with<br \/>\nthe torment of humanity\u2019s<br \/>\nwintry exclusions.  <\/p>\n<p>-San Jose, Costa Rica, April 2010<\/p>\n<p>\nAndr\u00e9s Alfaro is a poet, musician, translator and teacher who is currently the editor of the Mahmag Spanish section.  He is set to start his MFA candidacy in Literary Translation at the University of Iowa in August, 2010.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The dictionary brain once containing the darkest secrets of humanity suddenly bursts like a bubble<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":548,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/548"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}