Three poems by Elí Urbina
Ratball
Elí Urbina
Ore, mus, domine mundi1
In the green moonlight through the forest,
a sudden tremor shakes the cabin.
Rats, rats invading in hordes; rats,
with steel teeth, with fetid claws;
rats tearing the silence of the paper;
rats moving like the pulse of shadows,
stalking your bare feet and your face;
rats filling the light bulb until it clouds,
skinning the cat, gutting the shepherd;
rats with hairless, rough skin,
like a decrepit scrotum, sniffing blindly;
rats swarming even inside the mirror,
a great mutant tumour about to explode into rats;
rats leaping point-blank in the hallway;
rats when we feel for the exit;
rats like a spill of wiry oil,
reeking of damp and piss,
of secretions and umbilical cord;
rats squealing relentlessly, ah, squealing,
like frying pans or possessed loudspeakers;
rats, rats, pharisees, despots, demagogues,
boring holes everywhere through the world,
always in transit toward their heartbeat;
rats, paradigms of monstrosity,
spawn of a rotted ovary, rats.
1 Through the mouth, the rat rules the world.
Under This Strange Sky
Elí Urbina
Under this strange sky, sunk in silence,
I cut through the darkness with a murky brushstroke.
An immense stretch of sand surrounds me, extending
over the hollow of the world, filling everything with absence.
Erect amid the pain, I mix with the dust,
moving in a circle, always in the opposite direction.
Time is not time, but suddenly it passes.
Tense with uncertainty, the palm of my hand,
a membranous root, reaches out soundlessly.
A swift, almost icy burning rises, erupts.
Violent is the earthly turmoil of anguish.
So many mouths, stones, nails; so many eyes, glass, hair.
Each tremor is an unfathomable cut.
Each step ensnares me, encrusted with guilt.
Abominable matter, crackling substance.
From another darkness, in memory, a face
cries out helplessly. Is its name the name of my wound?
In vain I cleave the wall of flesh of this shadow;
it is all helplessness, pain that never ends.
Beyond The Anonymous Thickets of Silence
Elí Urbina
Beyond the anonymous thickets of silence,
there is someone who yearns to be you and seize your kingdom.
That kingdom, which you see as full of shadows and sorrow,
is the hidden desire of another in exile.
Are you, perhaps, only a mirage, obsessed
with the lushness of an illusory life?
Your hand pierces the fullness of the dream
and, on wakening, breaks the brittle shell of days.
The mirror no longer holds an image for you.
You live on the dark side of every mirror;
a world of grief where you are your own dead.
How can you build a castle worthy of your longing?
You are weary of prayers and their useless bait.
In the sands, you rub the magnet of words
and fail to achieve the abundant bristling of joy.
Your steps towards the void are inevitable, and although
you sense the fall, you are distracted by the pleasures of the flesh.
Beyond the anonymous thickets of silence,
there is someone who yearns to be you and seize your kingdom,
that vast kingdom, full of shadows and sorrow.
Elí Urbina (Chimbote, Perú, 1989) is a poet and director of the magazine and publishing house Santa Rabia Poetry. His work, translated into several languages, appears worldwide. His latest book, Un hombre solo, un solo infierno (Valparaíso Ediciones, 2025), includes his most significant poems from 2012–2024.
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