Note on Amplitude & Dispersion
Amplitude & Dispersion existed as an entity in my own mind for a long time. I always intended to make a book out of it.
What it is, is a vast assemblage of disparate poems; the first half started with weighty, ponderous and long spoutings—possibly of not much value—and short dittyish lyrics (also possibly not of much value). But I convinced myself that there was gold in them thar hills, if only I could figure out which it was. (I never did.) For a long time I hoped to find an editor to help me winnow it down (and it would require much of that), and organize it such a way as to make sense of the incongruous styles. (When I say "weighty and ponderous" above I merely mean "iambic pentameter.)
One interesting set came out, and which I have decided to post: three poems that take their inspiration from famous— extremely famous—poems in the Spanish language. (In selecting poems for this website, I have often tried to make the alienness of my style more palatable by including poems which have some kind of a literary reference—it is not unusual for me to begin a poem with a famous line from elsewhere, and now and again (as with the lyric I have up "After Cavafy") to rephrase somebody else's poem in my own language.)
"Tonight I can compose the saddest songs" belongs to Neruda, while "And I don't have the will to live, my heart" and "Today it rains... like never" are both derived from the Cesar Vallejo poem "Heces." These poems are not translations, and hardly stand as originals. When I say "interesting," I mean that the circumstances (and oddity) of their birth was interesting to me, not to imply that they will be so to a reader, or any more so than anything else—but it is always worthwhile and pleasant to examine variances when we find commonalities, as in the many versions of "Leda and the Swan."