AL OTRO LADO DEL ESPEJO - José María Álvarez

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AL OTRO LADO DEL ESPEJO. JOSÉ MARÍA ÁLVAREZ
Baudelaire has been seen as the central figure in the modern
Waste Land-one who sees and predicts the destruction of the
age and who also looks back to a romantic past, when men and
women were admirable, even godlike. In «The Balcony «, for
instance, he addresses the «Mother of memories», who
exemplifies all that is beautiful, warm and loving, though her
breath will turn out, after all, to be poisonous. Alvarez too is
haunted by the romance of the past, plagued by the cynic’s
image of the future. This can best be seen in a poem like «Private
Papers»:
My
life from all it was
only drags these
bedraggled locks
Advancing blindly through age
Every year it leaves behind
dreams not dreamed by the next
The golden past
The city
Streets so loved
The abated splendours
of the old licentious streets
Scenes where birds built painful
nests
Cherished images
Ornaments destroyed
Devoured by brilliance everywhere
Like a woman so long desired
whom we see grow old before
we have been able to take to our bed