Evolving game
Manuel Fihman in Spanish
…on change dans la vie, on évolue,
et comme l’exocet pourchassé par le congre
se sent pousser des ailes, Olympie s’adapte.
-Eric Chevillard
a.
The offspring move mandible jointed it moves up and down like clouds
sometimes do and from side to side as all clouds do
at night it allows transparent and dense saliva to flow
upon drying it has the appearance of milk sand an ink
some mornings the offspring is in the garden they play their bodies transform
breastplates open out of holiness flesh becomes sectioned thorax upon thorax
the bony orbits expand and become disconnected its eyes are uncovered
(hybridization is a childish game)
they are Lemuriformes bear the appearance of ghost and monkey in the morning
in fact that is the moment when the breastplate sheds its flesh and flowers
the entire bony plain vibrates in homage to ruffled lemurs and howling monkeys
later each tentacle segments and takes on the hardness of something dry and alive
b.
The offspring move the tongue dances inside while the breath does its thing
that is how they learn about ghosts the ancestral line
they are Arthropods Passeriformes Quelonii
the ones who cry over their open chests
(centipede hummingbird tortoise the bisected one
sometimes the vulgar is oddly strangely elegant)
this is the most ancient cellular agglomeration a lovely conspiracy of genes
two rivers flow from the garden as a helix if one believes in that kind of thing
one for her one for him both for the great lizard if you believe
the fiction that is the architectural acid fills the invisible cathedrals
each organ a gospel the most beautiful the least useful
the vestige of a voyage (no destination or progress on this trip only movement)
to catch bubbles in their gossamer helms they want to become sea spiders
in order to eat fold-rich frogs and salamanders they want to be giant waterbugs
(the game includes the use of little sticks as stilettos trembling beneath the lip
and since it is a game no one can see the hand which holds it it is an organ)
c.
The offspring move their entire body articulated into a thousand sections
one for each ancestor ghost people ape people
one for each ancestor flora people spider people
the offspring is in the garden building a babel with a sweet nucleus
it is fond of mules fond of alloys fond of games
it chews on leaves to be poisoned by latex and to move the unhinged bodies
each tentacle clutches a leaf each section swells rebellious
it chews cane and sand and powdered milk to make their grand white night ink
to decorate lips teeth tongues uvulas to become bleached
that is why it moves at play lets the wind blow up its skirt lets scatter
its seeds colonizers shoals collections of ascending cells
the game has no impunity but there is amnesty
no justice but there is mercy
and at night the offspring shuts its mouth to silence the game’s aches
each swollen section releases the fever each bone contains the growing pain
what is rigid becomes soft flaccid sets along with the evening sun
the game has wisdom but camouflaged subterranean
has hierarchies but free of obligations pliant
d.
The clouds move extinguish certain sounds their excesses they limit
the repercussions of certain words with their tongues
they chase the players with their extinguished eyes
the false gaze of the monkey ghost its pale eyes
(to say pale is to take a shortcut it means yellow and green and pale means ashen and white as clouds
as a certain horse as a thousand diseases
and a thousand feathered and scaled and floral lineages)
the clouds move along the vista are transformed into tentacles sections
they become pieces and gather as if someone had sprinkled quicksilver in ditches
small ones ditches to play at river and stars hoping for hardening
the feathered lineages go in and out of the clouds the river’s roar frightening them
they lose lose feathers the ape lineages collect them the floral lineages eat them
just like the stiletto game they eat them in play to feel the other to ape
the floral lineages’ mimicries are close are called in play pistils
(as an example we say pistil and not petal)
the game has winners and losers
when playing against the clouds the birds lose
when playing against the apes everyone loses
e.
The lineages move become and lose flesh bloom and die in the garden
everything is written down in night ink on the targets
thus the stilettos and roots know where to aim
(mutation is child’s play)
another morning and they are unique Pelecaniformes feathered whale heads
look like pelicans and storks and whales in the morning various structures open
the ditches and channels in that beautiful imaginary head fill with spermaceti
the game is learning to see with it to see without pale eyes and with sea wax
the game is learning to swim in air to move guided by quicksilver of the sea
now they lose feathers not out of fright but out of modesty so as not to brag
so as not to boast about their prey by painting their faces with blood like apes
the game rewards modesty though it does not punish hypocrisy
the game believes in evens but also odds
there is no progress merely movement
everything mimics the orchid and its counterpart
everything mimics the bond between link and link
everything is broken and strung in this line
f.
The line moves like a needle passing through reptile tongues
like a ring breaking mammal septa
made from frozen mercury until hardened
or alloyed with the pale ape’s pale silver
the movement in this case could be the tremor appropriate to a state of fear
otherwise it is the movement from living to dead from organic to inorganic
this exists even that which never was and never will be in the garden exists
even fire exists if one believes in such things fires other
than the synaptic or the red hue of certain bloods certain feathers and pistils
(mimicry is child’s play)
eels are pertinent
g.
The categories become contrivances they harden just like the thoraxes
the fixing of ideas on the lobe
a finger moving over warm clay
if one believes in such things clay is a genetic principle the opposite and reflection
the aggregation of silicates the decomposition of the organic towards the inorganic
that giant centipede moves through the brush towards the nest eats the tiny bird
it is eaten by a chameleon that chameleon devours a tiny waterbug
it is eaten by a civet that civet eats a small gibbon and falls
into a trap everything is recorded in the flesh even its random movements
the game is swollen with breath
it is an old fruit on the tree
it forces them to think about the smell of the world
h.
The offspring move in rafts of vegetation small accidents
no difference between floral people and ape people
no difference between bat people and feathered people
biological dispersion magnificent vestiges
expelled from the garden to the garden if one
do not touch the water or the sharks crabs anemones algae win
do not touch the light or the cats canines raptors lizards win
do not touch night nor underground nor mountain nor plain nor ice nor volcano
thus is the game played daily in the garden
Translated by the author
~~~~~
Manuel Fihman is a Venezuelan poet and translator. His work has been published in Venezuela, Spain, Mexico and the United States. He is the author of Caballos hebreos (Caracas: Eclepsidra, 2012).