The 10 best poems of Julio Cortázar

If we talk about Julio Cortázar, probably the majority of people who know his work will identify his name with that of one of the greatest exponents of Hispanic literature of the last century.

This Argentine writer, although of Belgian origin (although he was born in Belgium, shortly after his family was born he would flee from the First World War first to Switzerland, then to Barcelona and finally to Argentina, where he would grow up), who was also a translator and an important intellectual of his time, will probably be most recognized for his stories and for one of his most novel novels. important, Hopscotch.

Also because of his concern for the Argentine military regime that existed at his time, which can be seen in some of his works. But the truth is that although the best known of him is the literary work, the truth is that since adolescence this author He had a great interest in poetry, having written various works of great beauty that reflect his concerns and his feel. That is why throughout this article we are going to expose several of the best poems by Julio Cortázar.

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10 poems by Julio Cortázar

Then we leave you with a brief sample of poems by Julio Cortázar, which deal with areas as different as love, friendship, melancholy or disappointment.

1. Happy new year

Look, I'm not asking for much, just your hand, to have it like a little frog that sleeps happy like this. I need that door that you gave me to enter your world, that piece of green sugar, with a happy round shape. Won't you lend me your hand on this New Year's Eve night of hoarse owls? You can not, for technical reasons.

Then I stretch it in the air, weaving each finger, the silky peach of the palm and the back, that country of blue trees. So I take it and hold it, as if the world depended a lot on it, the succession of the four seasons, the crowing of the roosters, the love of men.

This poem tells us about the longing for the beings we love and love in special moments, such as the arrival of a new year, and with whom we cannot be due to the distance that separates us. It speaks to us of the memory and of having the other present, fresh in memory of him.

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2. After the parties

And when everyone left and we both stayed between empty glasses and dirty ashtrays, how beautiful it was to know that you were there like a backwater, alone with me on the edge of the night, and that you lasted, you were more than time, you were the one that did not go away because the same pillow and the same warmth was going to call us again to wake up to the new day, together, laughing, disheveled.

Poetry that briefly expresses the sensations produced by being alone with the loved one, to the person you trust and admire and with whom you want to spend your days.

3. Sidewalks of Buenos Aires

As kids we call her: "la vedera" And she liked that we loved her, We drew around her suffering. So many hopscotches.

Later, more compadres, clicking their heels. We circled the block with the bar, whistling loudly for the blonde. She came out of the warehouse, with her pretty braids. To the window.

It was my turn one day to go very far. But I did not forget the "vederas" But I did not forget the "vederas". Here or there, I feel them in the tamangos. Like the faithful caress of my land. How long will I walk around "ái" until I can. see them again !!!

This poetry is dedicated to the land that the author considered his, Argentina, where he would spend a large part of his life. childhood and the one he longed for when he left the country before the rise of the Argentine Peronist military dictatorship between 1976 and 1983.

4. Fall abstract

In the evening dome each bird is a point of remembrance. Sometimes it is surprising that the fervor of time returns, without a body it returns, and for no reason it returns; May beauty, so brief in her violent love, keep an echo for us in the descent of the night.

And so, what else than to be with downcast arms, a heaped heart and that taste of dust that was pink or road. The flight exceeds the wing. Without humility, knowing that what remains was won in the shadows by the work of silence; that the branch in the hand, that the dark tear are inherited, the man with his story, the lamp that shines.

On this occasion the author makes a brief description of the sensations produced by the arrival of autumn and the passage of time, as well as the knowledge that everything will be reborn in spring.

5. The slow heartbreak machine

The slow machine of heartbreak, the gears of ebb, the bodies that leave the pillows, the sheets, the kisses, and I stand before the mirror, each questioning himself, no longer looking at each other, no longer naked for the other, I no longer love you, my love.

A very clear poetry that expresses how little by little the magic and the illusion in a couple relationship has been lost, to the point that love has disappeared.

6. After such pleasures

Tonight, looking for your mouth in another mouth, almost believing it, because this river is so blind that it pulls me into a woman and plunges me between its eyelids, what sadness is finally swimming towards the shore of slumber knowing that slumber is that ignoble slave who accepts false coins, circulates them smiling.

Forgotten purity, how I would like to rescue that pain in Buenos Aires, that waiting without pauses or hope. Alone in my open house on the port again to start loving you, again to find you in the morning coffee without so much inalienable thing having happened. And not having to accommodate myself to this oblivion that rises at all, to erase your little dolls from the blackboard and leave me nothing but a window without stars.

This poem tells us about the feeling of emptiness and hopelessness, of using passions and vices as evasion, as well as of longing for the better times after having ended a full and initially happy relationship.

7. The friends

In tobacco, in coffee, in wine, on the edge of the night they rise up like those voices that sing in the distance without knowing what, along the way.

Lightly, brothers of fate, diocesan, pale shadows, the flies of habits frighten me, they hold me afloat amidst so much whirlpool.

The dead speak more but in the ear, and the living are a warm hand and a roof, the sum of what is gained and what is lost.

Thus one day in the boat of the shade, from so much absence my chest will shelter this ancient tenderness that names them.

One of Julio Cortázar's poems dedicated to friendship, to the memory of those friends that we cared about and with whom we share part of our life.

8. Night

Tonight my hands are black, my heart is sweaty. like after fighting to oblivion with the smoke centipedes.

Everything is there, the bottles, the boat, I don't know if they loved me and if they expected to see me.

In the newspaper thrown on the bed it says diplomatic encounters, an exploratory bloodletting, he happily beat it in four sets.

A very tall forest surrounds this house in the center of the city, I know, I feel that a blind man is dying in the vicinity.

My wife goes up and down a small staircase. like a captain who mistrusts the stars.

There is a cup of milk, papers, eleven at night. Outside it seems as if crowds of horses are approaching. to the window behind me.

Sad poem that expresses the suffering and longing for what was left behind, probably derived from the feelings that the author had when he left Argentina.

9. Recurring ceremony

The totemic animal with its nails of light, the eyes that join the darkness under the bed, the mysterious rhythm of your breathing, the shadow. that your sweat draws on the nose, the day already imminent.

Then I straighten up, still beaten by the waters of sleep, I return from a half-blind continent where you were also but you were another, and when I consult you with my mouth and fingers, I walk the horizon of your flanks (sweetly you get angry, you want to continue sleeping, you tell me gross and stupid, you debate laughing, you don't let yourself take but it is already late, a fire of skin and jet, the figures of the dream) the totemic animal at the foot of the bonfire with its nails of light and its wings of musk.

And then we wake up and it's Sunday and February.

This poem expresses the hug and subsequent relationship under the sheets of a sleepy couple, after waking up.

10. I touch your mouth

I touch your mouth, with a finger I touch the edge of your mouth, I draw it as if it were coming out of my hand, as if for the first time your mouth were ajar, and it was enough for me to close my eyes To undo everything and start over, I give birth each time the mouth I desire, the mouth that my hand chooses and draws on your face, a mouth chosen among all, with sovereign freedom chosen by me to draw it with my hand on your face, and that by a chance that I do not seek to understand exactly matches your mouth that smiles below the one that my hand shows you. draw.

You look at me, closely you look at me, more and more closely and then we play the cyclops, we look more and more closely and our eyes widen, they approach each other, overlap and the Cyclops look at each other, breathing in confusion, their mouths meet and fight warmly, biting with her lips, barely resting her tongue on her teeth, playing in their enclosures where a heavy air comes and goes with an old perfume and a silence.

Then my hands seek to sink into your hair, slowly caress the depth of your hair while we kiss as if our mouths were full of flowers or fish, of lively movements, of fragrance dark. And if we bite ourselves the pain is sweet, and if we drown in a brief and terrible simultaneous suck of breath, that instant death is beautiful. And there is only one saliva and only one taste of ripe fruit, and I feel you tremble against me like a moon in water.

This beautiful love poem tells us about the sensations produced by a situation of intimacy and love and the sensations that awaken us to look at and kiss with the loved one.