My poem is a response to each line of Cesar Vallejo’s poem. A reinterpretation, remake, using a model and making it my own, originally written for Mrs. Reder’s English class.
Dwelling on Yourself
By Tyler Mobley
Well on the day I was born,
God paused for a sneeze.
Half alive, half yet to be known
A recoiled pause, before unleashing
Me, desperate from eternity, into wrought hands
Well, the day I wade into the world,
God lay waiting.
Somewhere there is place
we once left, and must return
heard from inner silence,
spoke as fire breathes.
On the day I was born,
God stubbed a toe.
You there listen, listen some more.
Hey, you alright? I’m not leaving.
You may find me in December,
Then be gone by January.
On the day I was born,
God had a bug.
Half alive, half yet to be known
Chew on today, so as to not choke
Why when words drop out of minds, they do not break,
But rest in shallow graves as treasure lost.
Those minds who gaze upon the sphinx wondering,
If it’s too late to bury their heads in the sand.
If one leg is in, and the other is out,
Those young grow old,
And the old become young again.
It’s the mystery in between that joins it all together
A light from under the door
Cast a melody of ebony keys,
On the one who tells of life’s transformation.
On the day I was born,
God faked being ill.
Have You Anything to Say in Your Defense?
By Cesar Vallejo
Well, on the day I was born,
God was sick.
They all know that I’m alive,
That I’m vicious; and they don’t know
the December that follows from that January.
Well, on the day I was born,
God was sick.
There is an empty place
in my metaphysical shape
that no one can reach:
a cloister of silence
that spoke with the fire of its voice muffled.
On the day I was born,
God was sick.
Brother, listen to me, Listen . . .
Oh, all right. Don’t worry, I won’t leave
without taking my Decembers along,
without leaving my Januaries behind.
Well, on the day I was born,
God was sick.
They all know that I’m alive,
that I chew my food . . . and they don’t know
why harsh winds whistle in my poems,
the narrow uneasiness of a coffin,
winds untangled from the Sphinx
who holds the desert for routine questioning.
Yes, they all know . . . Well, they don’t know
that the light gets skinny
and the darkness gets bloated . . .
and they don’t know that the Mystery joins things together . . .
that he is the hunchback
musical and sad who stands a little way off and foretells
the dazzling progression from the limits to the Limits.
On the day I was born,
God was sick,
gravely.
T.R. James Wright (pg.572)
Forche, Carolyn. Against Forgetting: 20th Century Poetry of Witness. New York: W.w. norton, 2009. Print.
Walk Where You Want 