With the index finger of a tear | Wafi Salih

Wafi Salih, 1965, venezuelan poet. She is called a master of contemporary haiku. 

She is Magister in Latinoamerican Literature from the Andes University with a doctoral project in the field of history and 19 different publications on: essay, poetry, story and theater. She is also known as “the humble poet”, due to her dedication as faithful lover, to literature and teaching. In her remarkable labor, we can refer to the permanent workshop of artistic formation: “José Antonio Ramos Sucre”.

Her thesis about genre, is a reflection that inquires about the society cultural production mode and its effects into the social being, this book was published by Monte Ávila Editors (2007), under the name “Las imágenes de la ausente” (“The images of the absent”), an innovative proposal about feminism, published in Mexico, 2019 by Hilal editors.

She has been partially translated to arabic, french, italian and english languages in different literary studies. Also has been object of literary criticism from writers of different countries, from different views.

Tomás Martínez Sancho, spanish poet, in his book “Raíz de Médano” (2014) (“Médano roots”), perceives the poetry of Salih as a fusion between East and West cultures. The poet and researcher Carlos Montesinos, who had been studying Salih´s work, since 20 years ago, created a literary category called the “Wafismo”, reinforced by references and philosophical reflections.

The passion of Soledad Vasquez Armella, venezuelan writer and translator of Salih´s literary work to english, writes from her inner experience in the interpretation of her poetry. Archeology of the luminous she dives into the symbolism, the intimate and the spiritual aspect of her poetry, in a serie of essays in process.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Facebook: Wafi Salih/ Instagram: @wafisalihreal/ Correo: santapalabra@hotmail.com.

Blog: wafisalih.blogspot.com

POEMS 

Selection of 5 poems of the book: “With the index finger of a tear”, (“Con el índice de una lágrima”).

MOTHER

Something

nameless

was in the dust

of the house

Her silence

concedes

a tacit

complicity

Something loose

Over the old

carpet.

NACIB

Your shadow

in the broken

mirror

of the sand

Expands me

in the arid

formless

under 

the sun

Defeated

suicidal.

PRONOUNCING THE BEAT

Tell me, what battle

lacks on the entrails

without a God of insanity?

Drunken

suns

of night

Lead

to other hell

the hell

Life

you come from living

so far

Cracking

the chest of light

with nobody.

INFINITE BODY OF THE DARK

Someone adds shadows

to the croak of the frogs

Spells

the broken window

Where

lapidary

copy

the afternoon

The closed

paradise

of a pond.

WE

A tiger roars

at the background

of this day

Mirrors

exhales

an unspeakable fire

of razors

Release in a goodbye

its emptiness

at the corners

Battles without heroes of destiny

I absorb the bitterness

of all the nights together

This burst of hell that is life

Where it has been

repeatedly greedy

the happiness

with me.

APPRENTICE

Still alive

the undone hours

of my childhood

Something sings them

Forest of jaded

ruins

In the blind

universe of water

makes reverence

to ashes

Push in my bones

fill up

with sun

The dust

collected

of these

letters

Upon a wall

of sad

minutes

The bird´s

epitaph

is read

in air.

MEDITERRANEAN

This paper boat

that the rain brings

slow and lost

Remote and borderless

In the port of this cold morning

drained the sea and sank in your eyes.

SELECTION OF HAIKU 

From the book “Water consonants” (“Consonantes de agua”)

All so quiet

but still the cuckoo

of the heart.

At the bottom of the river

the pebbles falls

from the rain.

Hurt bird

my open hand

your sky now

White path

over my head

traces the moon

A kid shakes

pebbles on a bamboo

the milky way

I am bare feet

the dew over the grass

and Budah in the air

To my beloved

calla seems

the palm of my hand.