Elisa C. Martínez Salazar

from Poems written in the shadow

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
Pablo Neruda

Questions

The sunset. This void.
What follows?
Will a mother's lullaby caress this silence?
These streets are empty. They always have been.
What do your streets look like?
If I see them or if I touch you
will there be secrets for us to keep?
If I die, will you open your 
hands before my presence?
The ocean knows. The night knows.
The sunset. This void.



Eternalness

Obscure tears, flames of ocher
the gods cry when silence is broken.
I live beneath the sunset
in caverns of solitude and gold to conquer.

The vastness of this absence
a timid moonlight bathes
and my ancient spirit, restless,
loathes being ageless.



Time

Time is a sphere.
Our lives disappear in attempts to 
conjure up its nature.
I measure my existence in moments 
to be lived
forgotten. 

Time is a 
child that discovers herself
in a sea of triumph and defeat. 
I can see through her cruel deceits 
and I try to laugh in her face. 

Time is the prey that my words 
conquer every night. 
A verse is the dagger of uncertainty 
cutting her flesh and birthing hours 
for my voice
                             before I’m gone.



I need

I need your silence. 
I need to find my voice.

I need you
to be as open as these doubts
and hear me.
I need to save my ancestors from your (stolen) history
to hide them from your truth.

I need you to remain still as the night or a prayer.
Whispers lurk around to intrude upon my awakening.
Where’s my voice?
I tell myself:
Hold your tears, dear,
hold them when you face these shadows
be a mirror in front of their soul.

Elisa C. Martínez Salazar is the author of Desvelo, silencios y recuerdos, a collection of poems. Her literary work has been published in international journals and anthologies. She has a musical project under the name Elisa Carolina MS. A filmmaker also, her short film The River has been an official selection of film festivals in Argentina, the US, Canada, Peru, Turkey and Chile. In 2021, she was an official screenwriter–director of the I KINO Festival in Santo Domingo, where she had the opportunity to make her short film Zareska. In 2022, the piece was an official selection of the IV Dominican Film Festival and the VII Golden Dragonfly International Short Film Festival.

Web: www.elisacarolinams.com

 
 

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