isabeloftheriver

poetry, fiction

[isabeloftheriver]

#multilingualism #bilingualism #bilingualwriting #spanishwriting #bilingualwriting #spanglish #nonbritish #writinginenglish

[isabeloftheriver]

My new novel in Spanish, “El tiempo que falta”...  434 pages, published by Friends of Alice Publishing, available on Amazon...  #scifi #noir #time #dystopia

[isabeloftheriver]

Re-edition of The Moon at the End of my Street, a collection of factual and fictional poetry, published by Friends of Alice Publishing and available on Amazon...  #moonpoetry #moon #streetpoetry #factualpoetry #fictionalpoetry

[isabeloftheriver]

A few excerpts from my latest collection of dark stories Paradise & Hell, published by Friends of Alice Publishing, and available on Amazon... https://www.amazon.co.uk/Paradise-Hell-Isabel-del-Rio/dp/0995644144/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1541424458&sr=8-1   #noir #shorstories #sci-fi #darkstories #hell #paradise

[isabeloftheriver]

[isabeloftheriver]

My collection of short stories in Spanish, "Una muerte incidental", published by Friends of Alice Publishing, is now available on Amazon, in both paperback and Kindle versions...  #dystopia #noir #death #labyrinth #sci-fi #inmortal #distopía #muerte #laberinto

[isabeloftheriver]

[isabeloftheriver]

[isabeloftheriver]

Fragments from my writing

[isabeloftheriver]

Fragmentos de mis textos...

[isabeloftheriver]

Stranger is love...

[isabeloftheriver]

[isabeloftheriver]

Stranger is love...

[isabeloftheriver]

[isabeloftheriver]

Friday 23rd September at 7pm do not miss an evening of music and poetry.  I shall be reading a couple of short plays for two players, one in Spanish and the other English.  See you at Kabaret at Karamel!

[isabeloftheriver]

Borges and I

by J.L. Borges (translated into English by Isabel del Rio)

It is to Borges, that other one, to whom things happen.  On my part, I stride along Buenos Aires and, without even thinking, I stop to gaze at the arch of a hallway or at a storm door.  I have received news about Borges, and I see his name written in the faculty list or in a biographical dictionary.  I myself like sand clocks, maps, 18th century typefaces, the etymology of words, the flavour of coffee, Stevenson’s prose.  That other one shares the same tastes, but so vainly that they have become the traits of an actor.  To state that the relationship between us is hostile would be an exaggeration.  I live, and I allow myself to be lived, so that Borges can devise his writing, and it is precisely that writing that justifies who I am.  It is not too difficult to admit that he has accomplished a number of pages of significance.  But those pages cannot save me.  It may be because anything that has any value does not belong to anyone, not even to the other one.  Instead it belongs to language or tradition.  And so in all, I am destined to lose myself decisively, and barely an instant or so of who I really am will survive within the other.  I am gradually relinquishing everything to him, although I am clearly aware of his perverse habit for distortion and aggrandisement. 

Spinoza believed that all things strive to persevere in their being.  And so a stone wishes to be eternally a stone, and a tiger desires to be a tiger for eternity.  I myself will need to remain within Borges, not within myself (if I am anybody, that is).  But then I recognize myself less in his books than in many other books or even in the strenuous strumming of a guitar.  Years ago I tried to free myself from him, and so I moved from the myths of the slums to the wordplay on time and infinity.  But those pastimes belong only to Borges now, and I will have to devise something else for myself.  And so my life is a flight from all this.  And I have lost everything.  And all things belong to oblivion.  Or to that other one.

I am not even sure who, of the two of us, is writing this page.

  #borges #spinoza #literarytranslation

[isabeloftheriver]

My darker side

a poem from my poetry collection “The moon at the end of my street”:

 my dark side as that of the Moon, never

explored

even by me, never even stepped

upon,

no giant leaps for

anyone to call the shots, some describe it

 as the far side, but is it perhaps too far away

to bother about exploration?

Or could it be that with one small step

you are in, right

inside the darkest of sides, for it is perhaps not

as far away as you

 anticipated?

Like the Moon, I am drifting

away from Earth, the only planet

I know, the only certainty

we have for now, given our senses

and our way of thinking, warped or not, but then where

am I

 going about my business like the Moon, travelling through

space at

1.3 million miles an hour?  Is it

that she, the Moon,

wishes to run away and become satellite to

a gentler, more

 decorous  planet, in another solar

system, galaxy,

galaxy of galaxies,

and given enough time, the dark side

will be

darker

 without us ever 

having seen that side, but solely having

imagined it as

evil, menacing,

a little treacherous for

a mere subordinate

 of our planet, where

shadowy forces play it

out, where

we could even find

the reply that will answer all

questions like some wildcard, however

 murky and gloomy and sticky

like mud the reply

might be, however

perplexing

the clarification,

and like the Moon

 I cannot

but think about my 68 per cent of dark

energy, my 27 per cent

of dark matter, and

like the Moon, I am

sometimes visible,

 and other times imperceptible,

yet despite all renewed.  Oh Moon, you

who attracts and repels,

let the tides not be

against

me, let your rays

 lighten

my nights, refresh

my days, to thee I pray, I sing,

together we will

discover

our darkest

side,

 and confirm that there is nothing

to the dark side, the Moon's

and yours, except that

the light

never shone there

before

  and a quarter of

a million miles

away is

really no distance at all

between

us

[isabeloftheriver]

THE MOON AT THE END OF MY STREET...  my new collection of factual and fictional performance poetry...