Poetry / Poesía

I write lyric poetry combining the music and metrics of both Spanish and English in my Gibraltarian-British-Mediterranean attempt at creation. Poetry, for me, functions as a means of resistance to the politics of reality and as a way to dream and believe the idea of the self. The verses in my books pursue my own take on identity, desire, loss, the pursuit of otherness, romance, pain and other aspects of conscious existence. My poems are meant to be read and performed, having no preference for one or the other. After publishing five collections of poetry in Spanish I have now commenced the insane venture of writing poetry in English, the language I was originally educated in. “The Hollow Tortoise” (Orion Contemporary, 2012) was my first collection in this insanely rich and turbulent language.

Poetry - slideshows

New Poems from "The Hollow Tortoise"

The Hollow Tortoise

In the beginning, you,
the hollow tortoise,
latitude of wonder,
womb of the fish.

Believe in me now,
utter my names,
call me and I am real.

Your voice was soft,
a vision of a voice,
I carved inside me,
emptied my fruit,
spent years or days
trafficking with echoes.

I will exist, you said,
as a wheel does,
as an old poem.

I was alone,
concentrically alone,
you came to me
naked as the sea,
one touch was enough
to advance my madness.

Sing me into flesh,
you, the primordial bird
you, the numinous egg.

I stared into night
in search of a song,
nothing preceded you,
not even spheres,
not even the water,
not even a flower.

The First Descent

The night of my descent
I wore shades and a tie,
dark tones for a walk
through the conduits of hell.

I bore no flute nor lyre,
no strings to arm a guitar,
no shield of drunken light,
no voice to vex the cave.

I, Orpheus the child,
would fall as I rose,
a reed of smoke
in the mouth of a void.

Sick of the overhead train,
sick of the common cold,
sick of the lack of birds,
and the tyranny of phones,
I timed the final plunge,
like synchronizing tea
to its perfect point of darkness.

First tidings of hell

Do you wonder, father
what beheld us,
bound here
in this perpetual chess?

Do you ever think
what went on,
the riot and the raid
newspaper boys
hurling bombs,
cocktail molotovs?

Do you even care
how we pray,
what plastic kings
of our design
became masters
of our thoughts?

Father, do you know
where we stand,
why we suckle milk
from sour breasts
and drink and drink
‘til our minds are dry?

Will you intercede
for us father,
the paper pawns,
in foreign winds
incubating tales
to simulate the Gods?

Will you wonder
in your office chair,
why we stay here
in the urban night,
composing songs
for absent ears?

Would it change father
if you returned?
Would I need to sing?
How else would I endure father,
your stratagem of pain?

Tidings of Hell 5

This river holds no fire,
the skinny bold man,
captaining the boat,
owns the whole estate,
there is no queen,
no fallen love restored,
I got pebbles for my eyes
and bread crumbs for my song.

Cheques, bills,
bank statements,
agony of rent deals,
mortgage castrations.
rosters of concern
enslaving the minotaur,
shelves and shelves
of ash and boredom.

Eurydice, release me,
Hades himself
wears shirt and a tie,
I came here to save you,
not to be consumed.

The song of Orpheus

This is my song,
my dream of me,
bereavement of owls,
engine of the toy.

Like a clock deprived
of gears and bolts,
I fall apart
and start to sing.

Singing,
my song was born
to versify your absence,
singing,
the totality of your approach
dispersed the granite season,
singing,
if not songs then mountains
or any forms of longing,
singing,
every you that never was
has a tune to free,
singing,
your sparrow in the verse
was once another sparrow,
singing,
I embellished the visible you
with the invisible you,
singing,
I want your arms, your legs

Other books of poetry by Gabriel Moreno