On Poetry and Culture Shock

This post is going to mix the poetry with something very practical: how to compost. This is an adaptation of the way we do it at home. If this is too long, just scroll down for Juliet Wilson's gorgeous poem .

You need:

-A house with a garden or something of the sort. A front garden is not enough: you need a space that is either not open, or not very near a door or a window. The reason is that compost smells a bit (done properly, it really smells just a bit). You also need a bit of privacy because it is going to attract every species of bug in the neighbourhood. My compost has, at the very least: three types of flies (and I assume, their eggs), one or two types of ants, two types of crawlies with names I don't know, and slugs. None of this is going to get into your house, as the food supply is much steadier and yummier where they are, but you don't want passers-by, neighbours, etc. thinking that you live in a sty. 

-Two compost bins. You can use ordinary rubbish bin as long as they are big (let's say, three or four feet high) and with a lid that closes well. In some garden shops, you can be bin especifically designed to make compost in them. If you are improvising, all you need is a lid on top (to keep the contents hot, and the smells in; the final result is much better quality) and some opening at the bottom; you could drill holes near the base. I will call the compost bins the November and the February bins. 

What to do:

-Throw on your compost bins all the organic waste from the house except:
-oily stuff, because it doesn't rot. It goes rancid. Fried food is OK.
-Paper, because it takes forever and ever to decompose. Tea bags are OK.
-Anything with an animal origin is compostable but smells really, truly awful. No meat, fish, or dairy. Egg shells must be crushed, otherwise they don't mix with everything else. -Excrements from humans and carnivores. Droppings of herbivores (pets) are OK.
-Anything with a lot of salt on it. For example, salted nuts, or pistachio shells.

You can add garden waste, except twigs and branches. Garden waste doesn’t rot as nicely as kitchen waste so it’s good to have both.

-When you throw something with long hard fibers, like melon shells or celery stalks, cut it up in little pieces first. Small things compost faster. I don't like to see in my bin anything bigger than a walnut. 

-Keep the area near the bin very clean to minimise smells.
-Never use any sort of pesticide on your compost.  The bugs in there are doing their job, and if you follow reasonable cleanliness they are not a health hazard to people or to your home. The only thing in the compost that you don't want there is the (very occasional) slug, because they will eat up all your greenery later. It is much easier to crush a slug into the soil than to bother with poisons. 

The composting process:

The most important thing is that after putting compost on the ground, you need lots of water so that the plants don’t die of “overeating”. This means that composting time is autumn to winter, the rainy months. Here you have a handy calendar:

AUGUST: last time to add anything into your November bin. This way, everything will have time to mature for a few months.

EARLY NOVEMBER: empty the contents of your November bin on your plants. It must NOT smells really bad. If it smells fermenting, sour, rotten, it is not ready yet. Proper compost smells sweet and earthy. It is not a smell you’d use as perfume, but it’s not that bad. 

LATER IN NOVEMBER: when your November bin is empty, don’t add anything more to your February bin.

FEBRUARY: empty the February bin if it is mature.

Homemade compost is not just good for the plants. You will see how many birds are attracted to your garden because of the bugs.

And now, the poem:

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Este post va a mezclar la poesía con algo muy práctico: cómo elaborar abono casero. Ésta es una adaptación de la forma en que lo hacemos en mi casa. Si no tienes ganas de leer tanto, al final del post está el precioso poema de Juliet Wilson. 

Necesitas:

-         una casa con un jardín o algo parecido. Que no dé a la fachada: necesitas un espacio que o esté relativamente cerrado, o que no ande muy cerca de una puerta o de una ventana. La razón es que el abono inmaduro huele un poco (bien hecho,  de verdad que no huele mucho). También hae falta que el sitio sea discreto porque vas a atraer a montones de bichos. Nuestro abono tiene, por lo menos: tres tipos de moscas (y asumo que sus huevos y larvas), uno o dos tipos de hormigas, dos tipos de bichos reptantes con nombres que no sé, y babosas. Ninguno de ellos quiere meterse en tu casa, pues el suministro de comida es mucho más constante y más rico donde han llegado, pero no quieres que nadie que pase por allí, ni los vecinos, piensen que vives en una pocilga.

-         Dos composteras o cubos para compost (otro nombre para el abono vegetal). Puedes usar un cubo de basura normal si es grande (un metro de alto por lo menos) y con una tapa que cierre bien. En algunas tiendas de jardinería venden composteras, que vienen muy bien porque eliminan al máximo los olores y consigues que el calor interior aumente mucho, pero vamos, en mi casa hemos llegado a usar simplemente bolsas de basura de jardinería (bolsas de plástico muy grandes y muy resistentes). Si estás improvisando, lo único que necesitas es algo grande que tenga tapa por arriba y alguna apertura en el fondo. Puedes hacerle agujeros al cacharro que sea, cerca de la base. De ahora en adelante, voy a llamar a los cubos “el de noviembre” y “ el de febrero”.

-         Un cubo en la cocina separado del cubo de la basura normal.

-         Una pala para sacar el abono del cubo y repartirlo por el jardín.

Qué hacer:

-         Tirar en los cubos toda la basura orgánica de la casa excepto:

-         Aceite y grasas, porque no se descomponen, se enrancia. La comida frita sí sirve.

-         Papel, porque tarda años en descomponerse. Sirven las bolsitas de té e infusiones.

-         Cualquier cosa de origen animal es compostable, pero olerá realmente muy mal y atraerá a bichos más feos y asquerosos (una nidada entera de larvas de mosca es un espectáculo bastante terrorífico). Nada de carne, pescados, o lácteos.

-         Las cáscaras de huevo hay que chafarlas, porque si no no se mezclan con lo demás.

-         Excrementos de seres humanos y de animales carnívoros. Los de los herbívoros, por ejemplo un conejo que tengas de mascota, sí valen si te empeñas.

-         Cualquier cosa con mucha de sal. Por ejemplo, cáscaras de pipas.

-         Sirven los restos del jardín, como hojas secas, o restos de podar, pero esas cosas no se descomponen tan bien como los restos de cocina, así que es bueno tener las dos cosas.

Si echas algo con fibras duras y largas, como cáscaras de melón o tallos del apio, córtalo en trocitos primero. Las cosas pequeñas se pudren más rápido. Personalmente, no me gusta echar al cubo nada más grande que una nuez o así.

-         Mantén la zona cerca del cubo muy limpia para reducir al mínimo los olores.

-         Nunca le eches pesticidas al abono. Los bichos están haciendo su trabajo, y si con un grado de limpieza razonable son inofensivos. Lo único que no conviene es que haya babosas (que solo aparecen de vez en cuando), porque serían capaces de comerse todo el verde de tu jardín. Es mucho más fácil chafar una babosa o partirla en dos con una pala

-         un peligro para la salud a poblar o a su hogar. La única cosa en el estiércol vegetal que usted no desea allí es el lingote (muy ocasional), porque comerán encima de todo su greenery más adelante. Es mucho más fácil machacar un lingote en el suelo que incomodar con los venenos.

Cómo abonar:

Lo más importante es que después de abonar, hay que regar abundantemente para que las plantas no se mueran por exceso de abono. Esto significa que el momento adecuado es el otoño y el principio de la primavera, los meses lluviosos (al menos en Andalucía).

Aquí tienes un calendario sencillito:

AGOSTO: última ocasión para echar cualquier cosa en el cubo de noviembre. Así, todo tendrá tiempo para madurar.

PRINCIPIOS DE NOVIEMBRE: vacía el cubo de noviembre echando todo el compost a las plantas. No debe oler mal. Si huele a fermentado, ácido, o a podrido, no está listo todavía. El estiércol vegetal bien hecho huele a tierra, y un poco dulzón. No es un olor que vayas a querer usar de perfume, pero no es desagradable.

MÁS ADELANTE EN NOVIEMBRE: cuando el cubo de noviembre esté vacío, ya no se echa nada más al de febrero.

FEBRERO: vaciar el cubo de febrero, si está maduro. Si resulta que no necesitas tanto estiércol, y tus plantas están preciosas y con una abonada al año te basta, lo puedas guardar en bolsas de plástico, o regalarlo.

El estiércol vegetal hecho en casa no es bueno sólo para las plantas. Verás cuántos pájaros van a tu jardín: es para comerse los bichitos.

Y ahora, el poema:

Nada termina - todo se transforma,
cambiando de dirección como los ríos.
El día se hace noche, los cuerpos se descomponen
para dar de comer a las rosas, liberando espíritus.
Cuando la Tierra muera (ya sea
por nuestra mano o después de milenios de paz
en órbita con una estrella moribunda) átomos
de selva amazónica serán
parte de seres fabulosos
que ni nos imaginamos
en un planeta con la atmósfera de helio, tan lejos
que parece más allá
del final del espacio.

Spain has been saddened this week by the death of Antonio Puerta, a player for Sevilla FC. One of the most promising players, only 22, in the (officially) best football team in the world. Something that makes me especially sad in the whole tragic affair is that Puerta, who had a very rare and very hard to diagnose heart disease, fainted twice in the last few weeks. If his doctors had discovered the real cause of that, he would be alive today, at the cost of not being a professional athlete any more. Evidently, everyone concerned would much rather have Puerta alive, but imagine the shock and the tragedy to the poor guy, if he had known that he could not keep working on his dream. 

Athletes are the modern heros, like soldiers used to be. And this is a little bit from one of my favourite epic poems. Context: In the Middle Ages, Maldon was a strategic port in south-east England, and the locals had to fight off the Vikings on a couple of occasions. On the second one, the Saxons had the honourable defeat told in the poem The Battle of Maldon. I'll skip the Old English version.

Brihtwold spoke, and raised his shield; he was an old companion. He shook his ash spear and boldly exhorted the men: “Purpose shall be the firmer, heart the keener, courage the greater, as our strength grows less. Here lies our lord, all cut down, the hero in the dust. Long may he mourn who thinks now to turn from the battle-play. I am old in years; I will not leave the field, but think to lie by my lord’s side, by that man I held so dear.

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Estamos todos tristes estos días por la muerte de Antonio Puerta, jugador del Sevilla, (oficialmente) el mejor equipo del mundo. Era apenas una joven promesa, sólo tenía 22 años. Algo que me parece particularmente trsite de toda esta tragedia es que Puerta, que tenía una malformación cardíaca muy rara y muy difícil de diagnosticar, ya había dado un par de sustos este verano. Si la causa se hubiera descubierto, hoy estaría vivo, pero a costa de dejar el deporte. Evidentemente, todos querríamos que estuviera vivo, pero es difícil de imaginar la desilusión y el shock para el pobre muchacho, si hubiera sabido que iba a tener que abandonar su sueño.

Los atletas son los héroes de hoy en día como en otro tiempo lo fueron los soldados.  Este es un cachito de un poéma épico que me encanta. Un poco de contexto: en la Edad Media, Maldon era un puerto estratégico en el sureste de Inglaterra que los vikingos atacaron en un par de ocasiones. La segunda vez, los Sajones sufrieron una honorable derrota que se cuenta en el poema La Batalla de Maldon. 

Brihtwold habló, y alzó su escudo; era un viejo compañero. Sacudió su lanza de fresno y animó a los hombres audazmente: "Nuestro propósito será más firme, el corazón más fuerte, la valentía mayor, cuando flaquean nuestras fuerzas. Ahí está nuestro líder, destruido, el héroe en el polvo. Que lo lamente, largo tiempo, el que piense ahora en huir de la batalla. Soy viejo en años, ya; no me iré del campo, pienso yacer junto a mi señor, junto al hombre al que tanto quise.

It is with great pleasure that I wake up this blog, with John Donne's Meditation XVII and in honour of Small Blue Thing. How could you believe you were alone?

No man is an island, entire of itself
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main
if a clod be washed away by the sea, 
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, 
as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were
any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls
it tolls for thee. 

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Es un placer despertar este blog y además con la Meditación XVII de John Donne y en honor de Small Blue Thing. Recuerda que nunca estás sola. 

Nadie es una isla, completa en sí misma
todos somos partes de un continente, piezas de un todo.
Si un pedazo se lo lleva el mar, 
Europa es más pequeña, igual que si fuera una colina, 
como si fuera la casa de tu amigo, o la tuya propia, 
la muerte de cualquiera me reduce, porque pertenezco a la humanidad.
Por eso no preguntes por quién doblan las campanas,
doblan por ti.

I haven't read much from Dylan Thomas. But, how can I help loving this extreme disciplining of one's desperation? 

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.  
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

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Conozco muy poco de Dylan Thomas. Es inevitable que me encante este poema, y el autocontrol de la desesperación que muestra.  

No entres con calma en la plácida noche,
La vejez debe arder furiosa al final del día;
Lucha contra la muerte de la luz. 

Aunque los sabios al fin aprecian lo oscuro,
Al no haber sido relámpagos sus palabras,
No entran con calma en la plácida noche.

Salvajes que atrapan el sol al vuelo,
Y aprenden tarde cuánto así lo ofenden,
No entran con calma en la plácida noche.

Los solemnes, moribundos, si entienden que
Ojos ciegos pueden brillar y ser felices,
Luchan contra la muerte de la luz.

Y tú, padre mío, ahí en las alturas,
Maldíceme, bendíceme con lágrimas,
No entres con calma en la plácida noche,
Lucha contra la muerte de la luz. 

Proyecto para un diccionario de arcaísmos, año 2100.

Selva: bosque denso, propio de las áreas tropicales con abundante lluvia.
(Nuevo Diccionario de la Lengua Inglesa, 1982)

Denso es lo más fácil: espeso.

¿Bosque? Hasta los más viejos reconocen
que les cuesta recordar extensiones arboladas.
(árbol: planta alta de tallo leñoso, común en el pasado).

Tropical por entonces era la zona
Tan calurosa como el mundo entero es hoy. 

¿Abundante lluvia? Quienes apenas hemos visto llover
sólo podríamos soñar con su abundancia.

Los documentos de archivo sobre selvas
Contienen fotos de masas verdes, nombres extraños
Y arcaísmos que no entendemos:
Papagayos.
Gorilas.
Ríos.

Tenemos mucho trabajo por delante. 

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Creo que este es uno de los mejores trabajos de protesta ecológica de mi querida Poeta-Artesana-Verde, aunque a ella le parece demasiado pesimista para ser bueno. Me gusta su originalidad aunque creo que tiene algunos errores en cuanto a los hechos: por ejemplo, no me parece posible que no queden ríos en el mundo dentro de noventa años. Y he sustituido "monkeys" por gorilas porque los monos no pueden extinguirse si siguen utilizándose en la industria médica.

I think this is one of the best "ecology protest poems" of my dear Crafty Green Poet, although she thinks it's too pessimistic. I like its originality, although I think it has some factual mistakes.For example, I cannot believe that we will hav no rivers in ninety years, and I've substituted "gorillas" for her "monkeys" because I think that monkeys cannot become extinguished if they're used in the medical industry and research. 

Towards a Dictionary of Archaic Terms 2100AD

Next time I buy myself a poetry book, it should be by Edwin Morgan. I have been fluttering around him for ages.  I love this poem and the beauty it gives to frustration. 

The Archaeopteryx's Song by Edwin Morgan

I am only half out of this rock of scales.
What good is armour when you want to fly?
My tail is like a stony pedestal
and not a rudder. If I sit back on it
I sniff winds, clouds, rains, fogs where
I'd be, where I'd be flying, be flying high.
Dinosaurs are spicks and
all I see when I look back
is tardy turdy bonehead swamps
whose scruples are dumb tons.
Damnable plates and plaques
can't even keep out ticks.
They think when they make the ground thunder
as they lumber for a horn-lock or a rut
that someone is afraid, that everyone is afraid,
but no one is afraid. The lords of creation
are in my mate's next egg's next egg's next egg,
stegosaur. It's feathers I need, more feathers
for the life to come. And these iron teeth
I want away, and a smooth beak
to cut the air. And these claws
on my wings, what use are they
except to drag me down, do you imagine
I am ever going to crawl again?
When I first left that crag
and flapped low and heavy over the ravine
I saw past present and future
like a dying tyrannosaur
and skimmed it with a hiss.
I will teach my sons and daughters to live
on mist and fire and fly to the stars.

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La próxima vez que me compre un libro de poemas debería ser de Edwin Morgan, porque llevo dando vueltas a su alrededor demasiado tiempo. Me encanta este poema y lo que dice sobre la esperanza y la frustración. 

Estoy a medio salir de esta roca escamosa.
¿para qué sirve una armadura, si quieres volar?
Mi cola es como un pedestal de piedra,
En vez de un timón. Si me siento sobre ella
Huelo vientos, nubes, lluvias, nieblas donde
Yo podría, podría volar, volar alto.
Los dinosaurios son imbéciles y
Lo único que veo cuando miro alrededor
Son torpes idiotas en ciénagas
Que miden todo por toneladas.
Malditas placas y escamas
Que no pueden ni aislar de los mosquitos.
Creen que cuando hacen atronar el suelo
Al abalanzarse para pelearse o copular
Que alguien tiene miedo, que todos tienen miedo,
Pero nadie tiene miedo. Los amos de la creación
Están en el siguiente huevo del siguiente huevo del siguiente huevo de mi compañero,
El estegosaurio. Yo lo que quiero son plumas, más plumas,
Para la vida que nos queda. Y estos dientes de hierro
Ojalá los perdiera, y tuviera un pico liso
Que cortara el aire. Y estas garras
En las alas, ¿para qué sirven
Aparte de para estorbar? ¿Es que te piensas
Que pienso volver a reptar en mi vida?
La primera vez que dejé el risco
Y sobrevolé el valle, pesadamente
Vi el pasado, el presente y el futuro
Como a un tiranosaurio moribundo
Y pasé de largo con un siseo.
Voy a enseñar a mis hijos e hijas a vivir
De la niebla y el fuego, y volar a las estrellas.

The best metaphor on tiredness I know is Bilbo Baggins' definition in The Lord of the Rings. Feeling like a pat of butter spread too thinly on too much bread. That's me now. There are too many open windows on this computer, too many books on my side table, too many loose bits of paper with dates & places for appointments on them. Bilbo, I know how you feel. 

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La mejor metáfora que conozco  para referirse al cansancio es de Bilbo Bolsón en El Señor de Los Anillos. Sentirse como un trocito de mantequilla extendido muy fino encima de demasiado pan. Hay demasiadas ventanas abiertas en este ordenador, demasiados libros en la mesa, demasiados trocitos de papel con fechas y sitios en los que tengo que estar. Bilbo, sé cómo te sientes. 

Hoy es mi cumpleaños. Otra vez. Y sólo porque me gusta, y me divierte, os pongo una canción que seguro que escucharé muchas veces hoy en el coche y mañana en la fiesta. Los Planetas, si no ahogando sus penas, distrayéndolas con pastillitas de colores.

Las minas del cielo estallan en quinientos pedazos,
y no es que no lo esperase es que aún no estoy preparado.
En cuanto pienso que lo estoy logrando,
miro y resulta que he cambiado.

Lo intento por quinta vez y me parece sagrado,
y mientras lo intento veo cómo te vas evaporando.
Estoy seguro, tiene que haber algo
que me ayude a soportarlo.
En las farmacias del espacio,
en un laboratorio mágico.

Estoy seguro, tiene que haber algo
que me ayude a soportarlo.
En las farmacias del espacio,
en un laboratorio mágico.
En las farmacias del espacio,
en un laboratorio mágico.

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Today is my birthday, again.  And just because it will definitely play tomorrow at the party, here you have a song that cheers me up. The Spanish indie / pop/ rock band Los Planetas, not exactly drowning their sorrows but confusing them with little coloured pills. 

The mines in the sky burst in five hundred pieces,
And though I expected it I’m not ready yet.
As soon as I think I’m getting there
I look and it turns out everything’s changed.

I try for the fifth time and it feels sacred,
And as I try I see you dissolve.
I’m sure there must be something
To help me bear this.
In the drugstores in Space,
In a magic laboratory.  

I’m sure there must be something
To help me bear this.
In the drugstores in Space,
In a magic laboratory.

Cartoonist Adrian Ramos has had for a few months the motto "More Than Cute" on his website for Count Your Sheep , and it's undoubtedly a good description of it. Cuteness aplenty, with crucial life lessons thrown in every few days.

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El dibujante Adrian Ramos tiene desde hace meses en  su página web Count Your Sheep el lema "More Than Cute" ("Más que bonito"), y es sin duda una buena descripción. Monísimo de la muerte, sí, pero con lecciones vitales ácidas a más no poder cada pocos días. ¿Qué mas se puede pedir?

Words are wonderful things, but sometimes they’re not enough, or they get in the way. I’m going to post my first video because it is impossible to give words to the beauty of Bach’s Cello Suite I. It’s nearly ten minutes but it’s worth it.

Everyone in Spain loves Mario Benedetti, an Uruguayan poet who has gorgeous works on love and harrowing political ones. And his fiction is fantastic too. This has always been one of my favourite Benedetti poems. The translation is mine. 

Rainbow.

Sometimes
of course
you smile
and it doesn’t matter how pretty
or how ugly
how old
or how young
how much
or how little
you really
are

You smile
as if it was
a revelation
and your smile cancels
all previous ones
they instantly expire
their faces like masks
their eyes hard
fragile
like oval mirrors
their biteable mouth
their capricious chin
their fragrant temples
their eyelids
their fear

You smile
and you’re born
takes on the world
looks
not looking
defenceless
naked
transparent

and maybe
if the smile comes
from very
very deep
you can cry
simply
not tearing apart
not despairing
not invoking death
not feeling empty either

cry
just cry

then your smile
if it’s still there
becomes a rainbow.

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 A todo el mundo le gusta Benedetti, ¿verdad? este es uno de sus poemas que más me gusta, y me he acordado mucho de él últimamente.

Arco iris.

A veces
por supuesto
usted sonríe
y no importa lo linda
o lo fea
lo vieja
o lo joven
lo mucho
o lo poco
que usted realmente
sea

sonríe
cual si fuese
una revelación
y su sonrisa anula
todas las anteriores
caducan al instante
sus rostros como máscaras
sus ojos duros
frágiles
como espejos en óvalo
su boca de morder
su mentón de capricho
sus pómulos fragantes
sus párpados
su miedo

sonríe
y usted nace
asume el mundo
mira
sin mirar
indefensa
desnuda
transparente

y a lo mejor
si la sonrisa viene
de muy
de muy adentro
usted puede llorar
sencillamente
sin desgarrarse
sin deseperarse
sin convocar la muerte
ni sentirse vacía

llorar
sólo llorar

entonces su sonrisa
si todavia existe
se vuelve un arco iris.

Golg: But it is no manner of use your Honour asking me to go with you on it [the tunnel that leads to the open air]. I'll die rather."

Somebody hates what you love the most. Somebody needs what you fear the most. And it would be madness to try to destroy it. The shame is that no one remembers this vital lesson and we have to pick it out of a children's book.

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Esto lo he sacado de La Silla de Plata, el sexto libro de las Crónicas de Narnia. A los protagonistas los secuestra una bruja que vive bajo tierra, y que había esclavizado a los gnomos que viven allí, en el Mundo Subterráneo. En este momento del libro, la bruja ha muerto. Jill y Eustace son los protagonistas humanos, y Golg es un gnomo. 

Golg: Pero de nada serviría que su Excelencia me pidiera que los acompañara [al túnel que sale a la superficie]. Antes prefiero la muerte.

-¿Por qué? - preguntó Eustace, preocupado. - ¿Qué es tan terrible?”

-Está demasiado cerca del final, de Fuera –Dijo Golg, temblando. –Eso es lo peor que nos hizo la Bruja. Nos iba a sacar a la superficie –fuera del mundo. Dicen que allí no hay techo, sino un horrible e inmenso vacío que llaman cielo. Y la excavación ha llegado tan lejos que con unos cuantos golpes más del pico, se podría salir. No me atrevo a acercarme.

-¡Bien! –gritó Eustace, y Jill dijo –Pero no es horrible ni nada de eso vivir allí. A nosotros nos gusta. Vivimos allí.

-Ya sé que Los De Fuera vivís allí- dijo Golg. –Pero creí que era porque no encontrabais la forma de bajar. No os puede gustar de verdad –¡¡arrastraros, como moscas, por encima del mundo!!

Alguien odia lo que más amas. Alguien necesita lo que más temes. Sin embargo, sería una locura intentar destruirlo. Y lo poer del caso es que se nos ha olvidado esa lección tan importante, y nos la tiene que recordar un libro infantil.  

Today Heaven and Earth smile at me,
Today the sun reaches the bottom of my heart,
today I saw her, I saw her and she saw me…
Today I believe in God!

After having bashed and insulted Bécquer repeatedly I thought I should give you a sample of his work so that you could judge. Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer is something of an institution in my hometown, where he was born. He was a Romantic poet, who wrote poems of unrequited love (very probably autobiographical), compiled posthumously as the Rhymes. He wrote Gothic short stories too. I cannot give an opinion on his prose. I despise his poetry with more energy than he deserves. That little thing above is one of the simplest, shortest rhymes. Bécquer is popular among High School literature teachers and students alike, because he’s easy to understand, easy to write exams on, and of course, when you’re a teenager you can identify with his vision of love. At that age in which your crushes on strangers make you want to write poetry, say, early teens, the Spanish school system gives you Bécquer. Stylistic catastrophes follow.

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Hoy la tierra y los cielos me sonríen,
hoy llega al fondo de mi corazón el sol,
hoy la he visto, la he visto y me ha mirado....
¡Hoy creo en Dios!

Como he insultado a Bécquer un puñado de veces ya, creo que más vale que pongo algún poema suyo para que los demás puedan juzgarlo, aunque me imagino que los lectores en español saben de sobra quién es. Este escritor es poco menos que una institución en mi ciudad, porque nació aquí. Además de estos espantosos poemas de amor no correspondido, escribió cuentos góticos, de los que no tengo opinión. Para su poesía tengo el más absoluto desprecio.

Catullus was a Roman poet from the 1st century b.C.

English traslation adapted from this one.

Let's live, my Lesbia, and let's love
and let's not give a damn about
the rumours of serious old men.
Suns can die and be reborn,
as for us, once our brief light dies
we must sleep an eternal night.
Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred,
later another thousand, for second time a hundred,
then until another thousand, then a hundred…
then, when we have made many thousands
we'll mix them up, so that we don't know
or so that no evil man could envy us
when he finds out that there are so many kisses.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 

Catulo fue un poeta romano del siglo I a.C. 

La traducción española está adaptada de aquí.

Vivamos y amemos, Lesbia mía,
y los cotilleos de viejos severos

al cuerno, todos, al cuerno.

Los soles puedes morir y regresar,

pero una vez se consume el candil de nuestra vida

hemos de dormir la noche más larga, vaya que sí.

Venga, dame mil besos, luego cien,

luego mil de nuevo, cien más de propina,

luego, después de darnos tropecientos,

liaremos la cuenta hasta marearnos,

no sea que algún idiota nos eche mal de ojo

conociendo la cuenta exacta de los besos.

Today is Blogday, because 31-08 is written more or less like BLOg. Whoever had the idea said that the best way to celebrate it is to link to five small or new blogs that you wouldn't normally read. I'm cheating and I'm stealing some poetry recommendations, posted in the relevant language:

Bondbloke is a collaborator of your friendly local Crafty Green Poet,

just like the lovely Anna Piutti ,

And a river poet that I think I'll read in the future. Looks clever.

Count your Sheep is not a blog but a cartoon, but since I love it and it posts daily, I recommend it.

No sé si este blog está abandonado, pero merece la pena ver los archivos: una Colección de Besos.

I have just made a puzzling discovery: sign language poetry. To understand the concept, you have to know first that sign languages, the languages of deaf people, are exactly as complex as oral languages. They are not "translations" of oral languages, although they do have signs that represent the letters. They are not a system of spelling with your fingers because then it would take forever to express a message. Instead, each sign can express complete meanings, and the grammar rules are complex. There are more movements that just the hand: for example, one of the things that you have to do to ask a question in American Sign Language is raising your eyebrows. I have seen a movie in which a very angry deaf man "shouted" by making his signs very big and very fast. 

Now. I have found out that there is sign language poetry. It uses the same artistic devices that oral languages do. The phonic ones, like rhyme and rhythm, and of course the semantic ones, like metaphor. But they have devices of their own, like fusing several sign (words) in one in order to make an expressive connection. In the best online essay I have found, an example was made with the fusion of FLAG and DEATH. Clever. And maybe evidence that it is Art: untranslatable. 

Go ahead and do a youtube search of sign language poetry. There isn't a lot that non-signing people can understand, and what we understand with intuition is boring and basic, but still, it is worth a watch.

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Acabo de hacer un descubrimiento sorprendente: poesía sorda. Para entender esta idea, hay que saber que los lenguages de signos, los que usan los sordos, son tan complejos como los orales. No son "traducciones" de las lenguas orales, ni una especie de deletreo, porque eso haría que en decir cualquier cosa se tardara mucho tiempo. En vez de eso, cada signo puede expresar una idea entera, o varias, y las reglas gramaticales son complejas. Por ejemplo, en Lengua de Signos Americana, una de las cosas que hay que hacer para preguntar es fruncir el ceño, levantar las cejas. Vi en una película que un sordo enfadado "gritaba" haciendo los signos grandes y rápidos. 

Vale. Ahora resulta que me entero de que existe poesía en lengua de signos. Es normal: todos los idiomas tienen formas de poesía, y de juego. La poesía de signos usa los mismos recursos estilísticos que la que usa palabras, incluyendo recursos de ritmo y rima, y semánticos como la metáfora, e incluso otros que no tienen equivalente sonoro como fundir varios signos en uno solo. 

Recomiendo hace una búsqueda en youtube de "sign language poetry", o "deaf poetry", y mirar a ver qué sale. En realidad, lo poco que se entiende a base de intuición es bastante pobre, pero merece la pena hacer el intento aunque sólo sea por curiosidad.

As I was saying, classics don't need to be complex . Good poetry can be very simple. This is a Celtic prayer that I discovered set to music, and it's for everyone who needs it, although I'm thinking especially of everyone on the East coast of the Mediterranean, regardless of their nationality and religion. 

Deep peace of the running wave to you.
Deep peace of the flowing air to you.
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.
Deep peace of the shining stars to you.
Deep peace of the infinite peace to you.

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Como iba diciendo, los clásicos no tienen por qué ser complejos y los buenos poemas pueden ser simples. Esta es una oración celta que solo conozco en una versión cantada, y se la dedicaría a todo el que la necesite, aunque hoy estoy pensando especialmente en la gente en Oriente Medio, independientemente de su nacionalidad, su religión, y de cuántos muertos lleven en sus conciencias. 

Para ti la paz profunda de la ola que corre.
Para ti la paz profunda del aire que vuela.
Para ti la paz profunda de la tierra callada.
Para ti la paz profunda de las estrellas que brillan.
Para ti la paz profunda de la paz infinita.

This weekend I have been an ingredient in a cocktail of sun, chlorine, sweat (loads of it), barbecue sauce, geekiness and fun, lovingly blended by Maruja, Fitopaldi , and a bunch of people mostly called Rafa. These are the lyrics of a song that was played more than once, a classic of Spanish 80's techno/rock. Maybe it sounds too simple, too straighforward, but that's exactly the way classic pop lyrics should be. Right, Rafa?

People point at me
with their fingers
talk behind my back
and I don't give a damn.

I just don't care
if I'm different from them
I belong to no one,
owned by no one.

I know they criticise me
I believe they hate me
So much they envy me
Mi life is their pain.

Why is it so?
It's not my fault
My life is their insult

My destiny is whatever
I  decide, whatever
I choose, for me.
Who cares what I do?
Who cares what I say?
I am what I am,
that's how I'll stay, I'll never change. 

Maybe it's my fault
for breaking the norms
but it's too late
I'm not going to change now.

I'll stand to my principles
firmly in my beliefs.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 

Este fin de semana he sido parte de un cóctel de sol, cloro, sudor (a montones), salsa barbacoa, frikismo y diversión, mezclados amorosamente por Maruja, Fitopaldi, y un montón más de gente,  casi todos llamados Rafa. Os dejo un cachito de una canción que sonó muchas veces, para mí un clásico del rock de los 80. Sí, ya sé que es una canción muy simple, pero los clásicos del pop deben ser sencillos. ¿A que sí, Rafa?

I have said before that in languages other than Japanese, syllable count is not a matter of great importance. I have to add a correction, because I was wrong. Syllable count is not a matter of crucial importance in Japanese either.

I have been reading an anthology of haiku by Shiki, of of the greatest Japanese masters of the form, in a bilingual edition. And after I had read a few poems, I realised that unless the editor was making really big mistakes, Shiki was breaking his own rules. Here you have a couple of examples: 

Senzan no momoyi
Jitosuyi no
Nagare kana.

6-5-5. *gasp*  This means:

Hundreds of hills
Thousands of crimson maples
and a single stream.

Let's pick another one:

Monzen no
suguni saka nari
Fuyu kodachi

3-7-5. Meaning:

Steep climb
Leafless trees
in front of the house.

Isn't this puzzling? My knowledge of Japanese is next to zero, so I don't know if the translator or I are making a mistake. But I love the idea of a Shiki who didn't always care about syllable count.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Ya he dicho antes alguna vez que me parece que en los idiomas que no son japonés, un haiku no tiene porqué tener 5-7-5 sílabas. Tengo que decir que me he equivocado. En japonés, tampoco es asunto de vida o muerte que el haiku tenga 17 sílabas. 

Me he leído últimamente una antología de haikus de Shiki, uno de los grandes maestros, en una edición bilingüe, y he descubierto que una de dos: o Shiki se saltaba la cuentasilábica de vez en cuando, o el editor ha metido la pata. Os doy dos ejemplos:

Senzan no momoyi
Jitosuyi no
Nagare kana.

6-5-5. Que significa: 

Cientos de colinas
miles de arces carmín
Y un solo arroyo.

Monzen no
suguni saka nari
Fuyu kodachi

3-7-5. Y significa:

Cuesta empinada
Árboles sin hojas
delante de la casa.

¿no es sorprendente? Mi japonés es nulo, así que no sé si estoy equivocándome al contar sílabas o qué, pero me encanta la idea de un Shiki al que no le importara tanto la cuenta silábica.

The news today said that the 45th husband or partner has killed the 45th woman victim so far this year in Spain. This means an average of one murder every 4.6 days. Instead of posting a poem or rant about the murderers, as I have done other times, here you have a death haiku from the master of death haikus: Masaoka Shiki. In honour of the victims, peace be with them wherever they are. 

The last autumn
I will eat  persimmons.
Foreboding.

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Hoy han dicho las noticias que el marido o pareja número 45 ha asesinado a la esposa o pareja número 45 en lo que va de año. Esto supone una media de un asesinato cada 4.6 días. En lugar de poner aquí algo sobre los asesinos como he hecho otras veces, aquí tenéis un haiku de muerte del maestro de los haikus de muere: Masaoka Shiki. En honor a las víctimas, que en paz estén donde quiera que hayan ido. 

El último otoño
en que comeré caquis.
Presentimiento.  

I once mentioned here that my second-hand Bukowski's Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit was missing a page. Someone sent me the poem, so here it is. I like it because I think it is about lack of communication, and also a very philosophical matter put in very Bukowskian terms: what's more important and urgent, an emotional (spiritual, mental) problem, or a material one?  

I am dying of sadness and alcohol
he said to me over the bottle
on a soft Thursday afternoon
in an old hotel room by the train depot.

I have, he went on, betrayed myself with
belief, delude myself with love
tricked myself with sex.

the bottle is damned faithful, he said,
the bottle will not lie.

meat is cut as roses are cut
men die as dogs die
love dies as dogs die,
he said.

listen, Ronny, I said,
lend me 5 dollars.

love needs too much help, he said.
hate takes care of itself.

just 5 dollars, Ronny.

Hate contains truth. beauty is a facade.

I'll pay you back in a week.

stick with the thorn
stick with the bottle
stick with the voices of old men in hotel rooms.

I aint's had a decent meal, Ronny, for a couple of days.

stick with the laughter and horror of death.
keep the butterfat out.
get lean, get ready.

Something in my gut, Ronny, I'll be able
to face it.

To die along and ready and unsurprised,
that's the trick.

Ronny, listen--

that majestic weeping you hear
will not be for
us.

I suppose not, Ronny.

The lies of centuries, the lies of love,
the lies of Socrates and Blake and Christ
will be your bedmates and tombstones
in a death that will never end.

Ronny, my poems came back from the
New York Quarterly.

That is why they weep,
without knowing.

Is that what all that noise is, I said,
my god shit.

^^^^^^^^^^

Conté una vez que me había comprado un libro de Bukowski,  de segunda mano, y no me di cuenta hasta que llegué a mi casa de que le faltaba una página, y que en el índice, alguien había escrito a lápiz "se lo di a Steve Daniels la víspera de irse a Bulgaria en el Ritz. Agosto 1995. El poema es imposible de encontrar por google (bueno, hasta ahora) y finalmente alguien que tenía el libro entero me lo mandó por email. Me gusta porque creo que trata sobre la incomunicación. Y además, ¿qué problemas son más graves, los espirituales o los materiales? 

Me muero de tristeza y alcohol,
Me dijo agarrado a la botella
En una suave tarde de jueves
En una vieja habitación de hotel
Junto al cementerio de trenes.

Me he, siguió, traicionado a mí mismo con
Creencias, me he engañado con amor,
Me he estafado con sexo.

La botella es sincera de cojones, dijo,
La botella no miente.

Se corta carne como el que corta rosas
Los hombres mueren igual que los perros
El amor muere como un perro,
Dijo.

Oye, Ronny, dije yo,
préstame cinco dólares.

El amor necesita demasiada ayuda, dijo.
El odio se las apaña solo.

Sólo cinco dólares, Ronny.

El odio contiene la verdad. La belleza es una fachada.

Te los devuelvo en una semana.

Hazle caso a la espina.
Hazle caso a la botella.
Hazles caso a las voces de viejos en habitaciones de hotel.

No he comido nada en dos días, Ronny.

Quédate con la risa y el horror a la muerte.
No comas grasas.
Adelgaza, prepárate.

Con que coma algo, Ronny, podré
enfrentarme a esto.

Morir estando preparado, que no te coja de sorpresa,
Ahí está el truco.

Ronny, escucha...

Ese llanto majestuoso que oyes
No es por
Nosotros.

Supongo que no, Ronny.

Las mentiras de siglos, las mentiras de amor,
Las mentiras de Sócrates y Blake y Cristo
Serán tus compañeras de cama y lápidas
En una muerte sin final.

Ronny, me han devuelto los poemas
Que mandé al New York Quarterly.

Por eso lloran,
Sin saberlo.

Por eso hay tanto ruido, dije,
Dios mío, mierda.

Raven says that watching me suffer is great fun. I know he means well and wants the best for me. But sometimes we don't want just to "stop suffering": we want to feel nothing at all. Just like Ruben Darío here; I hate most of his poetry, exclusively because of his themes (pretty nice-sounding nonsense: he was a cultural equivalent of Aestheticism), but I have always liked his way with words. And this poem.

Fatality.  

Blessed be the tree, hardly sensitive,
and more so the hard stone, which doesn’t feel at all,
as there’s no greater pain that the pain of living
and no greater sorrow than consciouness.

To be, and not to know, and be aimless,
and the fear of having been and future terror...
And the certain dread of dying tomorrow
and to suffer for life and for shadow and for

What we don’t know and hardly guess at,
and the flesh that gropes with fresh tendrils
and the grave that awaits with funereal flowers
and not to know where we are going
Or where we come from!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Raven dice que verme sufrir es muy divertido. Sé que tiene las mejores intenciones y que quiere lo mejor para mí. Pero a veces, lo que queremos no es dejar de sufrir, sino no sentir nada en absoluto, como nuestro amigo Ruben Darío aquí. Odio casi toda la poesía de Darío, por sus temas más que otra cosa, aunque siempre he admirado su uso tan hábil de las palabras. Y este poema. 

 Lo Fatal.

Dichoso el árbol, que es apenas sensitivo,
y más la piedra dura porque ésa ya no siente,
pues no hay dolor más grande que el dolor de ser vivo
ni mayor pesadumbre que la vida consciente.

Ser, y no saber nada, y ser sin rumbo cierto,
y el temor de haber sido y un futuro terror...
¡Y el espanto seguro de estar mañana muerto,
y sufrir por la vida y por la sombra y por

lo que no conocemos y apenas sospechamos,
y la carne que tienta con sus frescos racimos,
y la tumba que aguarda con sus fúnebres ramos
y no saber adónde vamos,

ni de dónde venimos!...

As I have said before, I adore e. e. cummings. He's probably the poet I've quoted more often in this blog. He's good at death, at description, at love, and here, he's good at being erotic. Seriously, have you ever seen a description go so much to the point at at the same time manage to be original?

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite a new thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh . . . . And eyes big Love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you quite so new

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

me gusta mi cuerpo cuando está con tu
cuerpo. Qué cosa más nueva.
Músculos mejores y nervios más.
me gusta tu cuerpo. me gusta lo que hace,
me gustan sus cómos. me gusta sentir la columna
de tu cuerpo y sus huesos, y el temblor
-firme-suavidad y que voy a
una vez y otra vez y otra vez
besar, me gusta besarte aquí y allá,
me gusta, acariciando suavemente el,
impresionante vello de tu piel eléctrica,
y eso-qué-es sale de entre
carne que se separa . . . . Y ojos enormes migas de amor,

y me gusta quizá la sensación

debajo de mí tú qué nueva.

A case of you

Just before our love got lost you said
I am as constant as a northern star
And I said, constant in the darkness
Wheres that at?
If you want me Ill be in the bar

On the back of a cartoon coaster
In the blue tv screen light
I drew a map of canada
Oh canada
And your face sketched on it twice

Oh you are in my blood like holy wine
Oh and you taste so bitter but you taste so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you
I could drink a case of you darling
And I would still be on my feet
Oh Id still be on my feet

Oh I am a lonely painter
I live in a box of paints
Im frightened by the devil
And Im drawn to those ones that aint afraid
I remember that time that you told me, you said
Love is touching souls
Surely you touched mine
Cause part of you pours out of me
In these lines from time to time

Oh you are in my blood like holy wine
And you taste so bitter but you taste so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you
I could drink a case of you darling
Still Id be on my feet
And still be on my feet

I met a woman
She had a mouth like yours
She knew your life
She knew your devils and your deeds
And she said
Color go to him, stay with him if you can
Oh but be prepared to bleed
Oh but you are in my blood youre my holy wine
Oh and you taste so bitter, bitter and so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you darling
Still Id be on my feet
Id still be on my feet

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 

No he podido resistir la tentación de incorporar un par de cambios, unos para que suene algo más natural y otros porque me ha dado la gana.  

Una caja entera de ti.

Justo antes de que nuestro amor se perdiera, me dijiste: "soy constante, como la Estrella Polar". y yo dije: "Pues vaya, eres constante sólo en la oscuridad. Si quieres algo, estoy en el bar". En la parte de atrás de un pisapapeles de cartón, bajo la luz azul de la tele, dibujé un mapa de Escocia. Ay, Escocia. Y encima dibujé tu cara dos veces. Ay, si es que te llevo en la sangre, como vino consagrado, y eres tan amargo, pero ay qué dulce eres. Me podría beber una caja entera de botellas llenas de ti y seguiría en pie.

Soy una bailarina solitaria, vivo en el ordenador que guarda mis mp3, me asusta el diablo y me atrae la gente que no tiene miedo. Me acuerdo de aquella vez que me dijiste: "el amor son almas que se tocan", y vaya si tocaste la mía, porque parte de ti sale de mí en estas líneas que escribo de vez en cuando.

Conocí a una mujer que tenía una boca igualita que la tuya. Conocía tu vida, tus desastres y tus hazañas, y me dijo: "Ve a por él y quédate con él si es que puedes, pero tendrás que estar dispuesta a sangrar". Pero si es que te llevo en la sangre, como vino consagrado, y eres tan amargo, pero ay qué dulce eres. Me podría beber una caja entera de botellas llenas de ti y seguiría en pie.

This photo was taken by Yannis Kontos, and it's one of this year's World Press Photo winners. This boy and his father are in Sierra Leone.

They say an image is worth a thousand words, but most pictures in the World Press photo site need a caption to be understood, or at least to stand out among so many photos with many similar images.

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Esta foto la tomó Yannis Kontos y es ona de las ganadoras del World Press Photo de este año. El niño y su padre están en Sierra Leona.

Se dice que una imagen vale más que mil palabras, pero casi todas las fotos de esa página web necesitan un pie de página para entenderlas, o al menos para llamar la atención entre tantas fotos parecidas.

James Joyce's Ulysses happens all in one day. Many people know that. The day is June 16th, 1904, because that was the day that Joyce and Nora Barnacle had their first date, or second, it depends on who tells you the story. It was the day they decided to get married. That's a love letter: a whole novel dedicated to that love declaration.

This is the end of Ulysses. The stream of consciousness of the protagonist's wife, Molly Bloom. It is hard to decide whether the man she talks about was an old boyfriend of hers, long before she got married, or her husband. I painted all this in a T-shirt, spiralling aorund me, and I'm definitely going to wear it today. 

... and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and the pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Ulises de James Joyce sucede todo en un día. Mucha gente sabe eso. El día es el 16 de Junio de 1904, porque ese fue el día que el autor y Nora Barnacle quedaron por primera vez, o por segunda, depende de quién te lo cuente. Fue el día en que decidieron casarse. Vaya carta de amor, y lo demás es tontería. 

Este es el final del libro. Son los pensamientos de la mujer del protagonista, Molly Bloom. Es difícil saber si el hombre del que habla aquí es un ex-novio suyo, de mucho antes de que se casara,o su marido. PInté estas líneas en una camiseta que pienso ponerme hoy.

...y las puestas de sol gloriosas y las higueras en los jardines de la Alameda sí y todas las callejuelas curiosas y las casas rosas y azules y amarillas y los jardinesconrosales y el jazmín y geranios y cactus y Gibraltar de joven cuando yo era una Flor de la montaña sí cuando me puse una rosa en el pelo como hacían las chicas andaluzas o me pongo una roja sí y cómo me besó al pie de la muralla mora y pensé bueno lo mismo da él que cualquier otro y entonces le pedí con los ojos que me lo pidiera otra vez sí y entonces me lo pidió si quería sí decir sí mi flor de la montaña y primero lo abracé sí y lo acerqué a mí para que udiera sentir mis pechos todo perfume sí y su corazón iba como loco y sí dije sí lo haré Sí. 

I couldn't sleep much last night because I was afraid of the storm. The sky is still grey. We badly needed the rain in this corner of the world, and I hope it keeps raining.

I can't take this song off my mind. The original is in Spanish, by Javier Ruibal. I don't think it sounds sexy at all when it's written down, but the song is very, very sexy.

Summer storm,  that's what they call you,
my friends, my fears and my women.
And I tell them
that I'll still with you come next winter,
I'll stay with you, my love,
I'll stay with you. 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Anoche con la tormenta no pude dormir. El cielo aún está gris oscuro, y ojalá llueva más, que falta nos hace.

No puedo quitarme de la cabeza esta canción de Javier Ruibal. Escrita no suena igual de bien, para nada (normal: las bulerías no están pensadas para ser escritas). Es una canción muy sexy, como casi todas las suyas. 

Tormenta de verano, dicen que eres, dicen que eres,
Mis amigos, mis miedos y mis mujeres.
Y yo les digo
que el invierno que viene
yo estaré contigo,
yo estaré contigo, prima,
yo estaré contigo.

I have recently written about the difficulties and dangers of rhyme. This lovely little poem by Seamus Heaney, who is wonderful, but rarely lovely and not at all little, amazes me because it manages to make easy rhymes (-ing, "me" and "be") and still sound natural. I don't know why, but I think this message couldn't work unrhymed.

Scaffolding.

Masons, when they start upon a building,
Are careful to test out the scaffolding:

Make sure that planks won’t slip at busy points,
Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints

And yet all this comes down when the job’s done,
showing off walls of sure and solid stone.

So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be
old bridges breaking between you and me,

Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall,
Confident that we have built our wall.

^^^^^^^^^^

Acabo de soltar una de mis diatribas sobre los peligros y defectos de la rima. Aquí tenéis otro poema rimado, esta cosita pequeña y tierna de Seamus Heany, un fabuloso poeta que casi nunca es tierno ni poquita cosa. Se las apaña para hacer las rimas más facilonas y aún así sonar natural. No sé por qué, pero creo que el mensaje de este poema no podría funcionar si no rimara.

Andamios.

En una obra, los albañiles al principio
miman los andamios del futuro edificio.

Clavan y fijan tornillos y barras,
aprietan y montan las tuercas y amarras.

No importa que al final quitemos todo eso,
queremos ver los muros de ladrillo y yeso.

Por eso, mi vida, si a veces sientes
que rompo las cuerdas que hacia mí tiendes

No te asustes. Cae el andamio, solamente.
Para que tranquila, cruces el puente.

I can't help remembering something that Raven said once in his blog, but he said it in Spanish so I have to summaise for you; basically, that we're spoiled little brats, that we love to prented being victims, especially in public, and that what we called depression is actually deadly boredom. Maybe it is so.

Some days, some poets would rather not leave the house. Actually they'd rather not leave their beds. Some days a poet feels she finds fault in the light and the air. Those days a poet can either struggle against the flood (don't give in without a fight, in the wise words of Pink Floyd) or wallow in the feeling. Whatever the poet's wishes are, some things must be done even though the poet would like to stay at home and weep for no particular reason. After facing the real world for a few hours, the poet goes home and finds comfort in some other poet's metaphors for the same feeling. Please excuse the lousy translation.

Will this ray within me ever stop
plaguing my heart with desperate beasts
and with raving iron forges
in which the freshest metal could wither?

Will this stubborn stalactite ever stop
cultivating its hard tangles
towards my crying, screaming heart?

This ray, neverending, never tired,
takes from me its origin
takes in me its furor.

This stubborn stone born from me
on me releases the insistence
of its destroying, rainy rays.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

No puedo evitar recordar una cosa que dijo Raven en su blog hace poco: estamos todos malcriados, nos encanta hacernos las víctimas, sobre todo en público, y lo que llamamos depresión es en verdad aburrimiento. Puede que tuviera razón.

Algunos días, algunos poetas quisieran no tener que salir de casa. De hecho, quisieran no salir de la cama. Algunos días, algunos poetas podrían sacarle defectos al aire y la luz. Esos días se puede elegir entre luchar contra la corriente (no te rindas sin haber luchado, decían las sabias palabras de Pink Floyd), o bucear en ese sentimiento. Da igual lo que quiera el poeta en cuestión, hay cosas que uno tiene que ir y hacerlas aunque más quisiéramos echarnos a llorar sin ningún motivo. Después de enfrentarnos al mundo real algunas horas, la poetisa se ha ganado el derecho a volver a casa y ponerse cómoda en la compañía de las metáforas que otro hizo sobre el mismo tema.

¿No cesará este rayo que me habita
el corazón de exasperadas fieras
y de fraguas coléricas y herreras
donde el metal más fresco se marchita?

¿No cesará esta terca estalactita
de cultivar sus duras cabelleras
como espadas y rígidas hogueras
hacia mi corazón que muge y grita?

Este rayo ni cesa ni se agota:
de mí mismo tomó su procedencia
y ejercita en mí mismo sus furores.

Esta obstinada piedra de mí brota
y sobre mí dirige la insistencia
de sus lluviosos rayos destructores.

I'm sorry if it sounds like a cliché, but I have to say it. The Universe makes poetry that no words can surpass. See, today I have learnt what dark matter is. 

The 22% of the Universe mass is composed of matter that pretends not to be there. It is not detectable in any way. What we do detect is that it has gravity because it attracts barionic matter, also known to non-cosmologists as "stuff". "Real solid stuff" makes a a mere 1 to 4 per cent of the Universe's mass. The remaining 73% is dark energy, which is a concept that you can understand if you read the article in wikipedia but that I can't summarise. 

Wow. Think about it. Matter that doesn't give out any radiations or energy but which is able to attract other matter (in other words, to affect it). It's lyrical. 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Lo siento si esto suena demasiado topicazo, pero tengo que decirlo. El Universo compone poesía que las palabras no pueden superar. Hoy he aprendido lo que es la materia oscura gracias a este blog.

El 22% por ciento del universo está compuesto de materia que parece que no está ahí. No se puede detectar de ninguna forma. Lo que sí se puede detectar es que tiene gravedad porque atrae a la masa bariónica, más conocida como "cosas" por los que no somos cosmólogos. Las cosas sólidas y normales (tú, yo, Alpha Centauri) apenas es entre un 1 y un 4 por ciento de la masa total del universo. El 73% que queda es energía oscura, un concepto que es más fácil de entender que si no os habéis quedado dormidos todavía, os recomiendo el artículo de la wikipedia. 

Qué barbaridad, la materia oscura. Materia que no emite energía pero es capaz de atraer a otras materias (en otras palabras, de afectarla). Es lírico. 

The whole point of hip-hop is rhyme for its own sake. The risks of this are the rape of syntax and the abandonment of content. I like Spanish hip-hop when it's good and I hate it when it's mediocre or simply bad. For example, rhymes involving grammatical endings, or swearwords. This little bit below is the ending of a song from the latest album from my favourite rapper. "Mentiras", "Lies", is that rare thing: a Spanish hip-hop song which holds the same topic from beginning to end without ever adding a line exclusively for the sake of rhyme.

I don't have any change on me,
buy this for me and I'll pay you back next time,
I swear it's a second, I'll check email and log out,
It's going to take just a moment,
I promise this time it's true,
we'll talk things over tomorrow and sort things out,
lies in every colour and shape,
specialists,
artists,
we're taken in, we repeat them and we know,
we're trapped,
and even when we know we never will, we say "I'll call you one of these days ".

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 

Sinceridad brutal, y encima, rimada.  

Toda la razón de ser del rap es la rima por amor a sí misma. El risgo de esto es descuartizar la sintaxis y exterminar el contenido. Me gusta el rap en español cuando es bueno y no lo soporto cuando me parece mediocre o simplemente malo. por ejemplo, cuando las canciones no son acerca de ningún tema sino puro encademiento de rima sin sentido, o cuando se riman participios. Este cachito de aquí es el final de una canción del último CD de mi rapero favorito. "Mentiras" es ese raro hallazgo del rap español: una canción que sí habla sobre un tema, y además de principio al fin sin que sobre ni una sola línea metida sólo para meter rimas. En general el disco entero es formalmente tan perfecto como este fragmentito, pero me ha llamado especialmente la atención.

No llevo suelto encima, anda págame tú esto,
te lo juro sólo veo si tengo correo y me desconecto,
un rato más y nos vamos,
te prometo que esta vez es verdad,
mañana quedamos pa hablar y lo dejamos,
mentiras de to los colores,
especialistas,
artistas,
algunos las llaman faroles,
caemos, repetimos, y lo sabemos,
estamos presos,
y aunque sepamos que no, decimos: "ya nos llamamos si eso."

No, not really. It's probably not the best one. It doesn't scan: instead of 5-7-5 it's 10-7, or rather, 11-7 (even 12-7 if we consider that apparition has four syllables). Yes, it's a two-line haiku. It cheats because you absolutely need the title to understand what the poem is about, and haikus are not supposed to have a title. But it is one of the earliest, if not the earliest one, and it was the lighthouse that guided me safely when I first started writing poetry. My first haikus were either 10-7 or 5-5-7 rather than the correct, Japanese 5-7-5 because Ezra Pound made me think that he knew better than a few centuries of Japanese tradition.

By the way, is it just me or is Gary Oldman his secret son? Don't they look identical?

In a Station of the Metro.

The apparition of those faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

El mejor haiku de la lengua inglesa? Bueno, no del todo, posiblemente no. Para empezar la cuenta silábica es incorrecta: en lugar de 5-7-5 es 10-7, o más bien 12-7. Un haiku de dos versos. Además hace trampa porque el título es necesario para entender el poema y se supone que un haiku no necesita título. Pero es uno de los primeros, si no el primer haiku en lengua inglesa, y fue el faro que me llevó a buen puerto cuando empecé a componer. Mis primeros haikus eran 10-7 o 5-5-7 en lugar de la forma correcta japonesa 5-7-5 porque Ezra Pound me convenció de que él sabía lo que se estaba haciendo mejor que unos cuantos siglos de tradición japonesa. A su estilo me sonaba mejor.

Por cierto, ¿Gary Oldman es su hijo secreto, o es casualidad que se le pareca tanto?

En una estación de Metro.

La aparición de esos rostros en la multitud;
pétalos en negra rama húmeda.

I adore this song. It's probably because I'm not a big fan of blues as music but I do like it as a poetic form; on the other hand, I love soul music. And thematically, this feels like Blues but, oh, it sounds a lot like soul. In Spain, it has been spolied by overuse in commercials. The whole song rotates around the line "I've had nothing to live for", which I find very difficult to translate literally. 

Sittin' in the mornin' sun
I'll be sittin' when the evenin' come
Watching the ships roll in
And then I watch 'em roll away again, yeah

'm sittin' on the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away
Ooo, I'm just sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wastin' time

I left my home in Georgia
Headed for the 'Frisco bay
'Cause I've had nothing to live for
And look like nothin's gonna come my way

So I'm just gonna sit on the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away
Ooo, I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wastin' time

Look like nothing's gonna change
Everything still remains the same
I can't do what ten people tell me to do
So I guess I'll remain the same, yes
Sittin' here resting my bones
And this loneliness won't leave me alone
It's two thousand miles I roamed
Just to make this dock my home

Now, I'm just gonna sit at the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away
Oooo-wee, sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wastin' time.

Sentado en el muelle de la bahía.

Sentado por la mañana,
seguiré aquí sentado cuando anochezca.
Viendo entrar a los barcos
y viendo cómo salen otra vez.

Estoy sentado en el muelle de la Bahía,
viendo cómo baja la marea.
Sentado en el muelle de la Bahía
perdiendo el tiempo.

Dejé mi hogar en Georgia
por la Bahía de San Francisco,
porque no tenía nada por lo que vivir
y me parece que a mí no me pasa nunca nada.

Parece que nada cambie
Todo sigue igual
No puedo hacer lo que me digan diez personas diferentes
así que creo que voy a seguir igual, sí.

Sentado aquí descansando
y esta soledad no va a dejarme tranquilo
He viajado tres mil kilómetros
para venirme a vivir a este muelle.

Me voy a quedar en el muelle de la Bahía
a ver bajar la marea
Sentado en el muelle de la Bahía
perdiendo el tiempo.

I have heard Zifra and others talk about "the long tail", meaning "the thousands of blogs very few people read", and of ways to allow very small bloggers find more readers. I'm one of those very small bloggers, on a double basis: there's the oriental dance blog, and there's this one, although the dance one is about three times bigger than this one (in links and in traffic). It's only natural: the only blog about belly dance in the Spanish-speaking world should have more readers than yet another "artistic musings" one, in English. Even so, I still think the subtitle in this blog is still valid. The blogosphere, la blogocosa, does need haikus as much as it needs rants on Bill Gates. This would be a sad and grey place if everyone spoke about the same things. We need as many highly specialised blogs as we can find. And if they're arty, so much the better. 

From now on I'm going to try to link to other blogs more often. Preferably small and arty. Under the "other people's poetry" category, of course, which I have always taken to mean "other people's art". After all, poetry comes from a work that means "to make". 

Yesterday I discovered an artist who, as far as I know, doesn't have a blog, but she should. Lyr uses Flickr as a gallery for her gorgeous photos. Start from the self-portrait gallery, and if you leave a comment, say hello from Nia. 

Phew, talk about a sense of loss. Today is the birthday of one of the heroes of my adolescence, Bono, the U2 singer. The thing is, I had a very late adolescence. U2 appeared when I was three years-old. They started to be very good when I was about ten. I would have loved them had someone introduced them to me, but since my musical tastes were dictated by my father and TV, and none of them was a U2 fan, I didn't even knew they existed. What with one thing and another, I survived for 17 years or so without U2. I became obsessed with them in the way only people in their early teens should be allowed to, and somewhere between me overcoming my crush on three of the band members, and Bono losing his voice (some time near his 40th birthday he woke up sounding as if he had a cold and it hasn't improved ever since), and the band losing track of why there were good in the first place, it's not that I don't like them any more, but that I don't like anything they've done in ten years. I do listen to the old songs. 

Probably the most significant thing I can say is that as I take a look to an online discography, I can't find a song, that I really feel like posting here as if it was poetry. Most of them don't work when read, they suffer from the "brilliant-line-lost-in-mediocre-song" syndrome, and all the best lines are overused. As I read I find the lyrics of a song I didn't like very much, back then. Now that I read the lyrics they seem to be spoken by one of those very cruel lovers that get tired of you but don't say so, leaving you waiting for a reassurance or a break-up that never come. Enjoy.  

Haven't seen you in quite a while
I was down the hall, just passing time.
Last time we met it was a low-lit room
We were as close together as a bride and groom.
We ate the food, we drank the wine
Everybody having a good time except you.
You were talking about the end of the world.

I took the money, I spiked your drink
You miss too much these days if you stop to think.
You led me on with those innocent eyes
And you know I love the element of surprise.
In the garden I was playing the tart
I kissed your lips and broke your heart.
You, you were acting like it was the end of the world.

In my dream, I was drowning my sorrows
But my sorrows they'd learned to swim
Surrounding me, going down on me
Spilling over the brim
Waves of regret and waves of joy.
I reached out for the one I tried to destroy.
You, you said you'd wait till the end of the world.

Uruguayan poet Mario Benedetti occasionally includes aphorisms among the poems in his books. Since he coms from a country that suffered a coup d’état and subsequent miliary dictatorship, quite a few of his works are on torture. I remember reading this as a teenager:

Un torturador no se redime suicidándose. Pero algo es algo.

A torturer cannot redeem himself through suicide. But it’s a beginning.

I remember that little epigram, if you can call it such, every time the news say that another bastard has killed himself, or tried to, after killing a woman that used to love him. 28 dead women in Spain so far in 2006. That’s an average of one every four days and twelve hours. Half the aggressors attempted suicide. Four have succeeded, one of them last night. I’m sorry I can’t direct you to a link. Blind rage is a lot faster than Google.

One of the saddest characteristics of modern literature is that we are always in search of novelty and trends, turning books into a commodity very similar to fashion. I don't refer just to best-sellers: books are allowed a very brief time on bookshop's shelves, especially in big chain stores.

I'm happy to see that one huge chain store is doing something about it. Waterstones is adapting its best-of, the-house-recommends, three-for-two method to the interests of readers and publishing houses, because they have selected 30 little-know, relatively old books to highlight their back catalogue. The selection was done by asking the company's sellers, and therefore it is unavoidably biased towards books originally in English. Here it is:

1 Revenge Of The Lawn by Richard Brautigan
2 What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver
3 Death and The Penguin by Andrey Kurkov
4 The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies
5 The Dark Is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper
6 Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry by BS Johnson
7 Hunger by Knut Hamsun
8 Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut
9 Dry Bones by Richard Beard
10 Mirror Lake by Thomas Christopher Greene
11 Blackbird House by Alice Hoffman
12 Journey By Moonlight by Antal Szerb
13 Too Loud A Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal
14 Trip To The Stars by Nicholas Christopher
15 Daughter Of The Forest by Juliet Marillier
16 Perdido Street Station by China Mieville
17 Woman On The Edge Of Time by Marge Piercy
18 Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
19 The Pursuit Of Alice Thrift by Elinor Lipman
20 Drama City by George Pelecanos
21 Wooden Sea by Jonathan Carroll
22 The Stone Carvers by Jane Urquhart
23 Empire Falls by Richard Russo
24 Ridley Walker by Russell Hoban
25 Radetzky March by Joseph Roth
26 Double by José Saramago
27 Don't Look Back by Karin Fossum
28 Mists Of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
29 Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

I don't know if these books are good (I have only read one of them), and I don't much like the best-of method. But in my experience, people will buy anything that's recommended in big enough and bright enough lettering, and anything done to publicise books is a good thing.  

I can’t believe I haven’t written anything about John Donne since I started to blog from this location. A friend of mine has recently discovered him and that's an excuse as good as any other to post this translation.

Like some Spanish writers of Post-Renaissance literature, Donne wrote both love poetry and religious poetry. I prefer his love poetry, although there is a sonnet (ah, the religious sonnet, what a wonderful oxymoron) that compares his heart to a walled city and God to the army that has a siege on it, and faith with the ram that breaks the city walls. Have you seen The Return of the King, the third movie of the Lord of the Rings trilogy? Can you see the leap of imagination needed to imagine that the love of God is like the Orcs and their catapults trying to conquer the city… for the city’s own good? His love poetry can share that same intensity.

John Donne is not well known in Spain; it’s unavoidable, perhaps. His violent metaphors are hard to understand in English, so translation is nightmarish at times. I cannot do John Donne justice, mostly because I have no ability to rhyme, so I’ve made an adaptation into free verse. No rhyme at all is better than bad rhyme. I have picked this poem because it is sentimental, and the same time restrained, so it appeals to me a lot (surprise, surprise). You can read it in English here.

El Funeral.
Vienes a amortajarme. No rompas,
no cuestiones
la pulsera de pelo que corona mi mano.
No toques el misterio,
el signo,
no lo toques.
Es mi alma, un alma externa,
para sustituir la que se ha ido.
Ahora controla mi cuerpo.
Ahora ya tiene un imperio.
Ahora me salvará.

Mi mente ya no existe,
los músculos no han muerto.
Los pelos será nervios
entrelazadamente
pues no en vano crecían en mejor cabeza.
Y me recompondrán.
Eso, si ella no buscaba
dejarme aún más claro su no,
mi dolor encadenado,
los grilletes de pelo de mi amor prisionero.

Qué importa su intención.
Qué más da ella. Enterradlo.
Si me hizo mártir de amor,
cualquiera que lo vea se hará hereje,
idólatra de estas reliquias.
Y si me dio la humildad
para darle el mérito de todo lo que hice,
tendré el coraje.
Nunca la poseí. Algo suyo poseerá mi tumba.

Maruja has left this in the comments. Just this once, I'm speechless. Let her words (and my translation) speak for themselves.

Había una vez una preciosidad. Sus ricitos morenos guardaban un secreto: cada mechón de su pelo conocía una palabra, y por tanto, su abundante cabellera era toda un diccionario. Ello hacia que fuera dicharachera, y que los demás, lejos de reconocer el poder del verbo, se sintieran abrumados con sus disertaciones. A muchos les daba miedo, y era por ello criticada, pero si alguien se paraba a escuchar despacito quedaba encandilado.

El gran poder de sus pociones con las palabras residia en la creación de maravillosas mezclas, que ella mezclaba de forma pausada, tranquila, poco a poco, ...nunca antes el sudor había sido una joya, pero ella conseguía aunarlos, mecerlos y elevarlos a la categoría de poema:
Ninguna joya más hermosa que el sudor.

Es única en el mundo, un pequeño objeto precioso, eterna luchadora, con una visión tan particular del mundo, y está aún por descubrir por sus seres más cercanos.

Posiblemente una cabellera tan excepcional no deja ver una sonrisa tan dulce, posiblemente no entienden el moldeado de sus rizos, y porque se entrelazan generando figuras únicas y ambiguas, o quizás, sienten vergüenza de no saber expresar los golpes de la vida con notas musicales, y han de usar el verbo. Ninguna música más hermosa que el impacto.

Once upon a time there was a beauty. Her little dark curls kept a secret: each ringlet knew a word, and because of this, her abundant hair was quite a dictionary. That made her talkative, and others, far from recognising the power of the Word, were overwhelmed by her speeches. Many were scared of her, and criticised her for this reason, but if anyone ever stopped to listen, they were enthralled.

The great power of her word potions was in the creation of wonderful mixtures, that she stirred slowly, gently, little by little... never had sweat been a jewel before, but she could put them together, cradle them and lift them to the categpry of poem:
no jewels like beads of sweat.

She's unique, a little, beautiful object, eternal fighter, with such a special worldview, still undiscovered by those closest to her.

It is very likely that such exceptional hair doesn't let others notice the sweetest smile, they probably don't understand the shape of her curls, because they entwine creating ambiguous, unique patterns, or maybe, they are ashamed because they cannot express life's troubles with musical notation, and must use words.
No music like a body against a mat.

I'm doing an experiment. I'm reading all the antologies and compilations of poetry by young, modern Spanish poets. Most of them are from the South. I have spoken very often (here , and here, and here) of my opinion of the current trends in local poetry. I often sound as if I have something against the poets themselves; I don't. I do have something against unoriginality, pretentiousness, and poems that are ugly and/or gratuituously hard to understand. So, I'm reading all the accumulated books and booklets that I have had lying around for years. I've had to read 30 poems by 25 writers to find someone that I think worth sharing (Scroll down for the translation). This is from Pablo García Casado, a widely published poet. All I will say against it is that I don't like his omission of punctuation signs: there was one e. e. cummings, the one and only, and I don't see a need to resurrect the irritating cummings-like tendency to forget about punctuation. In any case, what a poem. What a slap on the face. What a control of words. I do love a bit of cruelty once in a while.

FALDA

como un tornado que pasara lentamente
la vida esparció los objetos por las cuatro
esquinas de este mapa objetos

de escaso valor souvenirs bolígrafos gastados
transistores sin pilas y prendas prendas como esa falda

tirada por el suelo
recuerdo el día que la compraste ¿qué es esto? no
no voy a ponérmela es demasiado corta cien mil veces

en cócteles en verbenas en domingos estúpidos en casa
bailando para ti sólo para ti cien mil veces me la puse
sin bragas sin nada debajo como tú me pedías y ahora ves

tirada por el suelo
se la pone luisa para jugar con las amigas

si vieras cómo ha crecido en pocos meses

SKIRT

like a tornado passing by slowly
life threw around the objects to the four
corners of this map objects

of little value mementoes empty pens
radios without batteries and clothes clothes like that skirt

lying on the floor
i remember the day you bought it what's that? no
i'm not going to wear it it's too short a hundred thousand times

at cocktails at parties on stupid sundays at home
dancing for you only for you a hundred thousand times i wore it
without underwear nothing underneath as you asked me and now see

lying on the floor
luisa wears it to play with her friends

you should she how much she's grown on the last few months 

I first heard, rather than read, this poem. It's slam, a genre that tends to be political and takes place halfway between rap and plain old poetry recitation. I found the message very strong, with this ruthlessly bleak mixture of actual political protest and satire of creative trends. Read aloud for best effect.

However it begins, it's gotta be loud
and then it's gotta get a little bit louder.
Because this is how you write a political poem
and how you deliver it with power.
Mix current events with platitudes of empowerment.
Wrap it up in rhyme or rhyme it up in rap until it sounds true.
Glare until it sinks in.
Because somewhere in Florida, votes are still being counted.
I said somewhere in Florida, votes are still being counted!
See, that's the Hook, and you gotta' have a Hook.
More than the look, it's the hook that is the most important part.
The hook has to hit and the hook's gotta fit.
Hook's gotta hit hard in the heart.
Because somewhere in Florida, votes are still being counted.
And Dick Cheney is peeing all over himself in spasmodic delight.
Make fun of politicians, it's easy, especially with Republicans
like Rudy Giuliani, Colin Powell, and . . . Al Gore.

Create fatuous juxtapositions of personalities and political philosophies
as if communism were the opposite of democracy,
as if we needed Darth Vader, not Ralph Nader.
Peep this: When I say "Call," you all say, "Response."
Call! Response! Call! Response! Call!
Amazing Grace, how sweet the—
Stop in the middle of a song that everyone knows and loves.
This will give your poem a sense of urgency.
Because there is always a sense of urgency in a political poem.
There is no time to waste!
Corruption doesn't have a curfew,
greed doesn't care what color you are
and the New York City Police Department
is filled with people who wear guns on their hips
and carry metal badges pinned over their hearts.
Injustice isn't injustice it's just in us as we are just in ice.
That's the only alienation of this alien nation
in which you either fight for freedom
or else you are free and dumb!

And even as I say this somewhere in Florida, votes are still being counted.
And it makes me wanna beat box!
Because I have seen the disintegration of gentrification
and can speak with great articulation
about cosmic constellations, and atomic radiation.
I've seen D. W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation
but preferred 101 Dalmations.
Like a cross examination, I will give you the explanation
of why SlamNation is the ultimate manifestation
of poetic masturbation and egotistical ejaculation.
And maybe they are still counting votes somewhere in Florida,
but by the time you get to the end of the poem it won't matter anymore.
Because all you have to do is close your eyes,
lower your voice, and end by saying:
the same line three times,
the same line three times,
the same line, three times.

Da igual cómo empiece, tiene que hablar muy alto
Y entonces tiene que ser un poco más alto
Porque así es como se escribe un poema político,
Y así es como lo recitas con energía.
Mezcla noticias de actualidad con topicazos sobre tomar el poder.
Envuélvelo en rimas, o rapéalo, hasta que parezca cierto.
Mira al público fijamente hasta que absorban la idea.
Porque en algún lugar de Florida, aún están contando votos.
¿¡e dicho que en algún lugar de Florida aún están contando votos!
¿Ves? Ese es el gancho, porque necesitas uno.
Más que tus pintas, lo más importante es el gancho.
El gancho tiene que ser un golpe fuerte, tiene que encajar
Tiene que dar fuerte en el corazón.
Porque en algún lugar de Florida, aún están contando votos.
Y Dick Cheney se está meando, con felicidad espasmódica.
Búrlate de los políticos, es fácil, sobre todo de Republicanos
como Rudy Giuliani, Colin Powell, o. . . Al Gore.
Crea yuxtaposiciones fatuas de personalidades y filosofías políticas,
Como si el comunismo fuera lo contrario de la democracia,
Como si necesitáramos a Darth Vader, no a Ralph Nader.
Atención: Cuando yo diga “Llamada”,
Vosotros decís “Respuesta”.
¡Llamada! ¡Respuesta! ¡Llamada! ¡Respuesta!
Ay Pena penita pena –
Párate en mitad de una canción que todo el mundo conozca,
Esto le dará a tu poema una sensación de urgencia.
Porque siempre hay sensación de urgencia en un poema político,
¡porque no hay tiempo que perder!
La corrupción no tiene toque de queda,
A la avaricia le da igual de qué raza seas
Y la policía de Nueva Cork
está llena de gente que lleva pistolas en la cadera
y llevan placas de metal sobre el corazón.
La injusticia no es injusticia, es in-justicia, es estulticia,
Esa es la única alineación en esta nación
En la que si no luchas por la libertad
Es que eres libre y tonto!
Y mientras hablo, en algún lugar de Florida todavía están contando votos.
Y me hace querer dar golpes!
Porque he visto la desintegración de la reintegración
Y puedo hablar con gran articulación
De las constelaciones cósmicas y las radiaciones atómicas.
He visto El Nacimiento de Una Nación
Pero me gusta más Nace una Canción
Como en un careo, te daré la explicación
De porqué SlamNation es la manifestación
De la masturbación poética y la soberbia eyaculación
Y puede que sigan contando votos en algún lugar de Florida,
Pero para cuando acabes este poema dará igual.
Porque sólo tienes que cerrar los ojos,
Bajar la voz, y acabar diciendo
El mismo verso tres veces,
El mismo verso tres veces,
El mismo verso, tres veces.

Another poem about wanting to fly, after Pink Floyd's "Nobody Home".  Edwin Morgan is a Scottish poet that I know too little of.

I am only half out of this rock of scales.
What good is armour when you want to fly?
My tail is like a stony pedestal
and not a rudder. If I sit back on it
I sniff winds, clouds, rains, fogs where
I'd be, where I'd be flying, be flying high.
Dinosaurs are spicks and
all I see when I look back
is tardy turdy bonehead swamps
whose scruples are dumb tons.
Damnable plates and plaques
can't even keep out ticks.
They think when they make the ground thunder
as they lumber for a horn-lock or a rut
that someone is afraid, that everyone is afraid,
but no one is afraid. The lords of creation
are in my mate's next egg's next egg's next egg,
stegosaur. It's feathers I need, more feathers
for the life to come. And these iron teeth
I want away, and a smooth beak
to cut the air. And these claws
on my wings, what use are they
except to drag me down, do you imagine
I am ever going to crawl again?
When I first left that crag
and flapped low and heavy over the ravine
I saw past present and future
like a dying tyrannosaur
and skimmed it with a hiss.
I will teach my sons and daughters to live
on mist and fire and fly to the stars.

Estoy a medio salir de esta roca escamosa.
¿para qué sirve una armadura, si quieres volar?
Mi cola es como un pedestal de piedra,
En vez de un timón. Si me siento sobre ella
Huelo vientos, nubes, lluvias, nieblas donde
Yo podría, podría volar, volar alto.
Los dinosaurios son imbéciles y
Lo único que veo cuando miro alrededor
Son torpes idiotas en ciénagas
Que miden todo por toneladas.
Malditas placas y escamas
Que no pueden ni aislar de los mosquitos.
Creen que cuando hacen atronar el suelo
Al abalanzarse para pelearse o copular
Que alguien tiene miedo, que todos tienen miedo, P
ero nadie tiene miedo. Los señores de la creación
Están en el siguiente huevo del siguiente huevo del siguiente huevo de mi compañero,
El estegosaurio. Yo lo que quiero son plumas, más plumas,
Para la vida que nos queda. Y estos dientes de hierro
Ojalá los perdiera, y tuviera un pico liso
Que cortara el aire. Y estas garras
En las alas, ¿para qué sirven
Aparte de estorbo, es que te piensas
Que voy a volver a reptar en mi vida?
La primera vez que dejé el risco
Y sobrevolé el valle, pesadamente
Vi el pasado, el presente y el futuro
Como un tiranosaurio moribundo
Y pasé de largo con un siseo.
Voy a enseñar a mis hijos e hijas a vivir
De la niebla y el fuego, y volar a las estrellas.

I have known Raven for a month or so; every time we’ve met I’ve had a lot of fun, and I think I owe him too many drinks (more drinks than times we’ve met? maybe). The other day we were talking about the persistence of the Gothic subculture from the early 80s all the way to the present. I found it absurd that a taste for black clothes, some rock bands, and old horror movies would translate into a personality aimed at a display of melancholy. I was, of course, wrong, because I was forgetting my own adolescence.

I was 16 to 22 years-old in the years in which trip-hop and Radiohead were the best commercial-and-at-the-same-time-alternative music to come out of the British Isles. Portishead. Tricky. Massive Attack. Björk’s first two albums. Music to be depressed to. I listened to Portishead’s Dummy every day for a year. I discovered Radiohead a little bit later, but it struck me just as intensely. OK Computer, an album that starts with a song about a traffic accident and ends with a song about stress, was my soundtrack of the first half of the year 2000. I wasn’t always sad when I listened to those bands, but the artists lived on an image of chronic despair. You don’t expect anything else from someone who sings "please, could you stay a while to share my grief? " and sounds as if she is just about to start weeping.

None of those bands would exist without the 70’s and early 80’s work of (among others) Pink Floyd, a band that I loved as a baby, and rediscovered few years ago. This is one of my favourite, wallow-in-self-pity songs from The Wall; it probably only makes sense with music.

I got a little black book with my poems in.
Got a bag, got a toothbrush and a comb.
When I’m a good dog they sometimes throw me a bone.
I got elastic bands keeping my shoes on.
Got those swollen hands blues.
Got thirteen channels of shit on the TV to choose from.

I got electric light,
And I got second sight.
Got amazing powers of observation.
And that is how I know,
When I try to get through,
On the telephone to you,
There’ll be nobody home.

I got the obligatory Hendrix perm,
And the inevitable pinhole burns,
All down the front of my favorite satin shirt.
I got nicotine stains on my fingers.
I got a silver spoon on a chain.
Got a grand piano to prop up my mortal remains.
I’ve got wild, staring eyes.
And I got a strong urge to fly,
But I got nowhere to fly to ...fly to... fly to... fly to.

Ooooo Babe,
When I pick up the phone,
There’s still nobody home.
 

Tengo un librito negro con mis poemas,
Y una bolsa, un cepillo de dientes y un peine,
Cuando soy un perrito bueno me tiran un hueso.
Tengo gomas elásticas para sujetar los zapatos,
Tengo el blues de la mano hinchada,
Tengo 13 canales de mierda para elegir en la tele.

Tengo luz eléctrica,
Y tengo poderes paranormales,
Tengo unas dotes de observación impresionantes.
Y por eso sé
Que cuando intente llamarte
No lo cogerá nadie.

Tengo la imprescindible permanente a lo Hendrix,
Y las inevitables quemaduras que fumar
Deja por toda la pechera de mi mejor camisa de raso.
Tengo manchas de nicotina en los dedos.
Tengo una cuchara de plata colgando de una cadena.
Tengo un piano de cola para apoyarme en él.
Tengo la mirada perdida y salvaje.
Tengo unas inmensas ganas de volar,
Pero ningún sitio a donde ir.

Ay, mi vida,
Cuando coja el teléfono
No va a cogerlo nadie.

I can find no explanation to why Joni Mitchell isn’t more famous; maybe she was as famous as she deserved in other countries, not Spain. ON the topic of art made by women, a teacher of mine once taught me that the problem is not that art by males is considered superior, but that it is considered universal. A man’s experience is a universal experience; a woman’s experience is most definitely female. Whatever the case, I think this lyrics by Joni Mitchell tell the other half of the story just as well as her two male equivalents, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. It actually feels like hypothetical female bits of dialogue, if Leonard Cohen’s songs had such a thing (and if you change the love to desire). I’ve edited out a bit that doesn’t translate well.

Again and again the same situation
For so many years
Tethered to a ringing telephone
In a room full ot mirrors
A pretty girl in your bathroom
Checking out her sex appeal
I asked myself when you said you loved me
Do you think this can be real?

You’ve had lots of lovely women
Now you turn your gaze to me
Weighing the beauty and the imperfection
To see if I’m worthy
Like the church
Like a cop
Like a mother
You want me to be truthful
Sometimes you turn it on me like a weapon though
And I need your approval

Still I sent up my prayer
Wondering who was there to hear
I said send me somebody
Who’s strong, and somewhat sincere
With the millions of the lost and lonely ones
I called out to be released
Caught in my struggle for higher achievements
And my search for love
That don’t seem to cease

Otra vez lo mismo,
Tantos años
Atada a un teléfono, que suena
En una habitación llena de espejos.
Una chica guapa en tu cuarto de baño
Juzgando su atractivo.
Me pregunté si cuando me dijiste que me querías
Pensabas que era verdad.

Has estado con montones de mujeres maravillosas
Ahora te has fijado en mí
Calibrando la belleza y la imperfección
Para ver si soy digna
Como la iglesia
Como un policía
Como una madre
Quieres que sea sincera
Aunque a veces haces que se vuelva contra mí, como un arma
Y necesito tu aprobación

Da igual, sigo rezando
y me pregunto si me oye alguien
Y pido “mándame a alguien fuerte, y relativamente sincero”
Igual que los miles de solitarios
Pedí la liberación
Atrapada entre la lucha por la superación
Y la búsqueda de un amor
Que no parece que acabe.

Sappho is problematic. Very problematic. It's one of those artists whose legend is sadly bigger than their work, for all the wrong reasons, like heroin addict big-mouthed rock stars. The first problem with Sappho is that what we keep of her is little and fragmentary. The second problem is that she was a woman who composed love poetry dedicated to both men and women. Lesbian critics want to make her a lesbian; feminist critics who want to make Sappho universal say that she composed sincere erotic poems to her husband and that the poems to her girlfriends were strictly platonic. I don't care either way. All I know is this: Sappho was a woman who composed poems about the beauty of women and men, about happy weddings, and about her baby daughter. And she was so good at it that the men of her country, a few centuries after her death, thought she was a goddess. I still haven't figured out if I like her work or not, but I like the fact that she existed.

Some an army of horsemen, some an army on foot
and some say a fleet of ships is the loveliest sight
on this dark earth; but I say it is
whatever you desire:

and it it possible to make this perfectly clear to all;
for the woman who far surpassed all others in her beauty,
Helen, left her husband
-- the best of all men --

behind and sailed far away to Troy; she did not spare
a single thought for her child nor for her dear parents
but [the goddess of love] led her astray
[to desire...]

[...which] reminds me now of Anactoria
although far away...
--Translated by Josephine Balmer

This anonymous Irish song may be more properly attributed to a colective of women than yesterday's choice, which was a bit of a joke. I know versions sung by Marianne Faithful, The Corrs, Sinéad O'Connor, Kate Rusby, and Lizzie Higgings. Each version changes the title; to me it's either Wish I Was or Love is Teasing. Each version is different, extracting here or expanding there. This is my own version; I haven't changed much, I'm just taking the bits I like from everyone else's.

I wish I was, I wish in vain,
I wish I was a maid again
But a maid again I can never be
Until oak was to grow up an ivy tree.

For love is teasin’, and love is pleasin’,
And love is a treasure when first it’s new
But as love grows older, then love grows colder,
And it fades away like the morning dew.

There is an alehouse on yonder town
Where my love goes and there sits down,
He takes a strange girl on his knee
Well now, don’t you think that vexes me?

There is a blackbird on yonder tree,
Some say it’s blind and it cannot see.
I wish it was the same with me,
And then of love I would be free.

I wish, I wish, I wish in vain
I wish I was a maid again
But a maid again I'll never be
Until oak was grown up an ivy tree.

I'll introduce you to a revolutionary idea: let's assume that anonymous works of art were created by women. I mean, why not? what says that they couldn't be?

I'm not completely familiar with the Old Testament, but so far this is my favourite Psalm. I cannot judge to what extent it is good poetry or just a prayer I love for personal reason. In any case, this is an extract from Psalm 118, that I have naughtily edited to conform both to a modern English standard (it is a revision of the King James version) and to diminish gender bias (because "do not put your trust in man" nowadays sounds like "do not put your trust in males", which is weird).

O give thanks to Her, for She is good: because Her mercy lasts for ever.
Let Israel now say, that Her mercy lasts for ever.
LLet them now that fear God say, that Her mercy lasts for ever.
I called upon my God in distress: my God answered me, and set me in a large place.
She on my side; I will not fear: what can anyone do to me?
She takes the side of those that help me.
[It is] better to trust in Her than to put confidence in anyone.
My God is my strength, and dance, song, and She's become my salvation.
The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tabernacles of the righteous: the right hand of our God is strong
The right hand of our God is exalted.
I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of our God.
My God has punished me sore: but She has not given me over to death.
Open to me the gates of righteousness: I will go into them, [and] I will praise my God.
This gate of God, into which the righteous shall enter.
I will praise thee: for thou hast heard me, and has become my salvation.
The stone which the builders refused is become the headstone of the corner.
This is our God's doing; it is marvellous in our eyes.

My longest, most complete haiku anthology includes haiku by men and by women. I don't really find any thematic or formal difference between what each gender wrote.

Chigetsu-ni:

Todas las flores
están en su esplendor
y yo envejezco.

All the flowers
are in full bloom.
I'm getting old.

Sono-Jo

Siento en el pelo
la caricia del niño
a mis espaldas.

I feel on my hair
the caress of the child
behind me.

Chine-Jo

 Por estos bosques
tan profundos no cruza
ni un pajarillo

Not even one bird
is flying through
such a deep forest.

If you thought yesterday's poem was to sickly sweet, my apologies. Here you have something small by Dorothy Parker. You need to be familiar with this (scroll down to poem 3) to understand it.

From a letter from Lesbia 

...So praise the gods, Catullus is away!
And let me tend you this advice, my dear:
Take any lover that you will, or may,
Except a poet. All of them are queer.

It's just the same -a quarrel or a kiss
is but a  tune to play upon his pipe.
He's always hymning that or wailing this;
myself, I much prefer the business type.

That thing he wrote, the time the sparrow died, -
(Oh most unpleasant, gloomy, tedious words!)
I called sweet, and made believe I cried:
The stupid fool! I've alwayd hated birds.

De una carta de Lesbia 

¡Alabados sean los dioses, Cátulo se fue!
 Y déjame darte un consejo, querida:
Ten los amante que quieras o puedas,
menos poetas. Son bichos raros.

Siempre es igual -una pelea, un beso
no es más que  una canción para la flauta.
Siempre está cantando tal o cual cosa;
yo siempre prefiero hombres de negocios.

Aquello que escribió, cuando se murió el gorrión
(¡qué cosa más horrible y aburrida!)
Dije que era tierno, y que me hizo llorar:
¡Qué hombre imbécil! Odio los pájaros.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote a colection of poems to her husband and she was so shy about declaring her love so openly that she thinly disguised them as a translation that she called "Sonnets from the Portuguese". The collection as a whole is unusual becuase it is mostly written from happiness. Sadness is a lot more photogenic, and unrequited love is so much easier to write from.

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
'I love her for her smile---her look---her way
Of speaking gently,---for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day'---
For these things in themselves, Belovèd, may
Be changed, or change for thee,---and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,---
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.

Si vas a amarme, que sea por no más
que el amor mismo. Y no digas
"la amo por su sonrisa ---su mirada--- su forma
de hablar suave, por un detalle del pensamiento
que encaja bien en el mío, y que me dio
un sentimiento dulce, en tal día"
Porque estas cosas solas, Amor Mío, pueden
cambiar, hasta por ti, y el amor, así creado,
igual se destruiría. Ni me ames por
sentir pena, cuando secas mis mejillas ---
¡Puede olvidar el llanto, quien viva
contigo mucho tiempo, y así perder tu amor!
Ámame por amor mismo, para así
amar siempre, toda la eternidad.

"cartoons drawn on the back of business cards" by Hugh MacLeod 

I have said before that all poets are thieves and liars. That includes me. What I had not said so often or so loudly is that, as Hugh very rightly points out, some poets more or less secretly write in order to get laid. I'm not saying if that includes me.

Hugh has started drawing digitally, saving him the trouble of scanning his handmade drawings and therefore making him post more new cartoons. I hadn't been so excited about something artistic in months.
 

Tomorrow I'll be going to Glasgow for a few days. It's my third trip to Glasgow in three years; the last time was almost two years ago and I have never let so much time pass between a visit to Scotland and the following one. I can't wait. It's so strange to miss so much a place that never was home.

Three haiku by Alan Spence, from the book Clear Light.

The rain has stopped
but it's still falling
under the trees.

The sun plunges
into the ocean.
The ocean overflows.

The oystercatcher's cry -
cold loneliness, the far north.

There were some people with a strong interest in culture/art/poetry yesterday at the bloggers meet I attended. I couldn't help giving quite harsh opinions about Neosurrealism and related matters, and someone (who will forgive me because I don't have his blog's address on me, so the link will have to wait) told me that a friend fo his ridicules the current fashion for adopting foreign styles and modes, especially the haiku. This person thinks the traditional forms of Spanish poetry are rich enough and worth exploring. But how can I adapt back into Spanish? I haven't been exposed to enough brilliant Spanish verse that made me want to imitate it.

I think one of the first things I ever read that made me seriously want to write poetry (about six months before I actually did) was some fragements of Middleton's play The Changeling. Middleton was a contemporary of Shakespeare and  this play tells a story or two of seduction. De Flores, the villain speaking in these two fragments, is by far Middleton's best character. Because, after reading such brilliant, strong, rich, merciless, rhythmic poetry, do you have any doubt that De Flores will do exactly what he wants with Beatrice?

I, I She had rather wear my pelt tann’d in a pair of dancing pumps,
than I should thrust my fingers into her sockets here;
I know she hates me, yet cannot choose but love her;
no matter, if but to vex her, I’ll haunt her still;
though I get nothing else, I’ll have my will.

II,I Wrangling has prov’d the mistress of good pastime;
as children cry themselves asleep, I ha’seen
Women have chid themselves abed to men.

I, I Más quisiera ella usar mi piel para forrar sus zapatitos,
que dejarme meter los dedos en su guante;
sé que me odia, y no hay nada que hacer, la quiero.
Da igual. La perseguiré, por fastidiarla,
la tenga o no, pues ese es mi capricho.

II, I Las peleas son las criadas del mejor pasatiempo;
igual que los niños que se duermen llorando,
he visto mujeres que refunfuñan camino de la cama.

I like this poem because it is short and to the point. It says more than complete treatises on art.

The poet is a poem twenty four hours a day,
The poet is an alchemist who knows
how to turn the lead of everyday life into gold.
His poems speak for themselves.

Jotie T’Hooft.

Edited  to add: I didn't realise it was Valentines Day as I posted this. Consider it a love letter to each poet that shapes my time and my poetic language.

This one, a French one, is my favourite caricature of the ones that have caused trouble in Denmark lately (the original ones weren’t that good). It’s not from the original ones, but a French reaction to the protests against the Danish initiative.

You’ll hear two things: one, the protests are taking place because the caricatures are seen as an insult; two, the reason of the protest is that Muslims feel offended that non-Muslims are not obeying the Muslim law of not representing Mahomet. Both are lies. The cartoons were originally published in October and the reason why they are an issue now is because the were published as a challenge. A writer couldn’t find an illustrator for his book and a newspaper wondered out loud, "is it because illustrators are scared? we dare them to submit their cartoons of Mahomet". Some Muslims were offended by the open bravery.

The French cartoon is entirely made up of the sentence "I should not make make a Mohamet cartoon"

Juliet Wilson’ s work is an excellent example of how incredibly difficult it is to write political poetry, by which I mean poetry about "issues", not just about whether you vote this or that party. It is very easy, if you want to take poetry beyond the personal, to become boring or preachy: having a worthy cause to defend has nothing to do with an ability for creating interesting language. Personally, I stay self-consciously away from political poetry because I think I’d suck at it. Prose satire, maybe. But I don’t think I can put the thoughts of my prose satire in verse. Alexander Pope managed to rhyme sarcasm well enough and there’s no point at me copycatting.

Anyway, back to Juliet. In her case, political means environmental. I’ve read about fifty of her poems and there’s always an air of melancholy, of a forest very slowly losing the battle against asfalt, and the cries of seagulls in a landfill, but never losing rhythm and original images. Even so, the poem by her that I read again and again and that I feel like translating is not political at all. It has the best of lyrical poetry:so well-written I don’t care if it is autobiographical. It must be because it is so intense. It can’t be because no one can analyse their own feelings so painfully.

Making of a Muse

There was urgency, then,
in my love for you.
Sudden in the sunlight,
your beauty and laughter,
tight-reined passion
followed me, ghostlike,
everywhere.

I sensed your feelings, recognised
love that could not speak,
to dare being too brave
in such strange circumstance.

I loved you well enough to know
my silence kept you safe;
knew there was no easy way
to tell you how I felt.

Now continents and years away,
your likeness sits here in my soul,
a symbol, cipher, set in stone
for e to bring to mind
when I find a word or line
on which to hang another poem
of unrequited love.

La Creación de una Musa

Había ansia, entonces,
en mi amor por ti.
Súbita e iluminada,
tu belleza, tu risa,
pasión refrenada
me seguía fantasmal
a todas partes.

Intuía tus emociones, reconocía
un amor con miedo a hablar,
a atreverse a ser valiente
en circunstancias extrañas.

Te quería y sabía que mi silencio
era tu seguridad,
sabía que no había palabras fáciles
para decir cómo me sentía.

Ahora, tras años y continentes,
Tu imagen se sienta en mi alma,
un símbolo, un código, grabado en piedra
para que lo recuerde
cuando encuentro una palabra o una frase
en los que colgar otro poema
de amor no correspondido.

Jose Angel has been as kind as to leave me this haiku in the comments. He doesn't mention an author so I assume it is his. The translation into Spanish is, as usual, mine. It reminds me a lot of Leonard Cohen's Chelsea Hotel

At long last we made love-
Somehow it seems like a fake memory, but
There was a lovely tune on your radio.

Por fin  hicimos el amor-
Parece que fuese un recuerdo inventado, pero
sonaba una canción preciosa en tu radio.

I like to study the process of language birth and death. Languages die when people don’t use them anymore to talk to their babies; only children learning a language keep it alive.

There are three main reasons why languages can disappear: One, if Culture A which speaks Language A kills or enslaves all native speakers of Language B. Two, if Culture A invades Land B and people in Land B need to use Language A to deal with their new bosses, with their new government, etc. Three, when people in Land B think that by learning Language A they will prosper and have more opportunities in life because people in Land A are richer or more numerous than them. In all three cases, the B People first become bilingual for a few generations, and then their children prefer one language to the other until Language B dies. The professor who taught me this process said once that when there is only one person who speaks a language, there is actually two: there is the last speaker, and God, when the last speaker prays. Coming from a country with several different minority languages, and after having lived with hardly any chances to use my native language for a whole year, I think I understand how it feels to think in a language that no one else understands!

Anyway, that was a bit of an oblique introduction to Yehuda Amichai. He composed in Hebrew and my translation into English isn’t credited. I’m just going to put together a few bits and pieces that I like from a very long poem by him.

Tombstones crumble, they say words tumble, words fade away,
The tongues that spoke them turn to dust,
Languages die as people do,
Some languages rise again,
Gods change up in heaven, gods get replaced,
Prayers are here to stay.
*
I declare with perfect faith
That prayer preceded God.
Prayer created God,
God created human beings,
Human beings create prayers
That create the God that creates human beings.
*
After Auschwitz, no theology:
The numbers on the forearms
Of the inmates of extermination
Are the telephone numbers of God,
Numbers that do not answer
And are now disconnected, one by one.

Las lápidas se parten, dicen que los planetas mueren, las palabras se olvidan,
Las lenguas que las dijeron vuelven al polvo,
Los idiomas se mueren, igual que la gente,
Algunos idiomas resucitan,
Los dioses cambian, allá en el cielo, los dioses se sustituyen,
Las oraciones llegan y se quedan.
*
Declaro con fe perfecta
Que rezar fue antes que Dios.
Rezar creó a Dios,
Dios creó a los seres humanos,
Los seres humanos crearon la oración
Que creó al dios que crea seres humanos.
*
Después de Auschwitz, no hay teología.
Los números en los antebrazos
de los presos del exterminio
son los números de teléfono de Dios,
Números que nadie contesta
Y que ahora se desconectan, de uno en uno.

Because at this time of the year we all have New Year resolutions, here you have a little beauty by Noah Grossman, who published a few poems in Cornell University’s literary magazines. This one is taken from a 2004 issue of Rainy Day, the undergrads-only literary magazine. One of the things I love about it is that I can’t figure out if it is being defeatist or sarcastic. It is also extraordinarily hard to translate.

TO DO
lower standards
split infinitives
forget manners
be more submissive

skip my vegetables
read in the dark
say never
call my ex and apologize
for being reasonable.

^^^^^

Ya que en esta época del año todo el mundo hace buenos propósitos, aquí tenéis una pequeña belleza de Noah Grossman, que ha publicado unos cuantos poemas  en las revistas literarias de la Universidad de Cornell; así fue como lo conocí. Éste lo he sacado de Rainy Day, la revista que sólo publica a estudiantes de licenciatura. Una de las cosas que más me gustan de este poema es que no se sabe si es derrotista o sarcástico. También es extraordinariamente difícil de traducir.  

POR HACER
Bajar expectativas
Hablar malamente
Perder las formas
Ser más cortado

Dejar la verdura
Leer a oscuras
Decir "nunca jamás"
llamar a mi ex y disculparme
por ser razonable.

The first time I read this Mario Benedetti poem I was 18 or maybe 19, and I was very surprised to see a poem dedicated to someone who was specifically 28 years old. It is not a symbolic age for anything, as far as I know. At that point in my life, 28 sounded like a young age, but still, very far away from me. But of course, all birthdays (hopefully) come, and now I am 28, like the intriguing protagonist of this lovely poem.

COMO SIEMPRE 

Aunque hoy cumplas
trescientos treinta y seis meses
la matusalénica edad no se te nota cuando
en el instante en que vencen los crueles
entrás a averiguar la alegría del mundo
y mucho menos todavía se te nota
cuando volás gaviotamente sobre las fobias
o desarbolás los nudosos rencores

buena edad para cambiar estatutos y horóscopos
para que tu manantial mane amor sin miseria
para que te enfrentes al espejo que exige
y pienses que estás linda
y estés linda

casi no vale la pena desearte júbilos
y lealtades
ya que te van a rodear como ángeles o veleros

es obvio y comprensible
que las manzanas y los jazmines y
los cuidadores de autos y los ciclistas
y las hijas de los villeros
y los cachorros extraviados
y los bichitos de san antonio
y las cajas de fósforo
te consideren una de los suyos

de modo que desearte un feliz cumpleaños
podría ser tan injusto con tus felices
cumpledías

acordate de esta ley de tu vida

si hace algún tiempo fuiste desgraciada
eso también ayuda a que hoy se afirme
tu bienaventuranza

de todos modos para vos no es novedad
que el mundo
y yo
te queremos de veras

pero yo siempre un poquito más que el mundo.

AS USUAL

Even though today you are
three hundred and thirty months old
this venerable age is unnoticeable when
the instant cruel ones win
you go and discover the happiness of the world
and it is even less noticeable when
you fly seagully over phobias
or undo knotty grudges.

Good age to change laws and horoscopes
for your fountains to flow love without measure
for you to face the demanding mirror
and think you’re pretty
and be pretty.

It’s hardly worth it to wish you joys
and loyalties
because they are going to surround you like angels or ships

It is obvious and understandable
that apples and jasmine
and car-minders, and cyclers
and the daughter of farmers
and stray puppies
and ladybugs
and the boxes of matches
consider you one of them.

so to wish you a happy birthday
could be so unfair to your happy
everydays

Remember this law of your life

If you ever were miserable
that also helps to affirm 
your bliss

Anyway it’s not new to you that the world
and I
really love you

but I always love you a little bit more than the world.

I don’t have the least idea of who this guy McGrath is. I bought a second-hand anthology of Scottish poetry just because it was Scottish, cheap, and it had a few Edwin Morgan poems. It has a card from the Finger Lakes Library System Central Library (that would be a quite big area in the north of New York State), showing that no one had ever borrowed the book; the card was stamped DISCARDED. Isn’t that a pity? There’s no way of saying whether anyone ever read the book, but still, never borrowed!

Tom McGrath, Night Songs. The small letters, including the “i”, are not typos.

I
to make poems
from bricks
cities
from words

either

a conversation
with a gutter
or a song
to sweep
the streets

i continue
to eat a lot
and sleep
too little

II
yes the madwoman screams
racialism
past my window

the drunk man shouts
that the bastard o'reilly
will tonight
be knifed

yes

the city sickens the heart

gutters do talk

contraceptives and rats

I should have read Mumford
or travelled more

III
the gutters of suburbia
say no more than whispers
behind curtains

the poetry of keyholes

IV
being in the city
i am a junkyard

V
i can continue
because
the night does

regardless

I don't read much poetry lately. Real life is getting in the way. So I take my volume of "25 Young Spanish Poets" (edited in 2003) and I open it at random until I find a very short poem. I don´t especifically look for a haiku but that's what I find. The author is called Carmen Jodra.

¿Por qué sonríes?
Porque hay sol en las hojas.
¿Por qué sonríes?

Why do you smile?
Because there's sun on the leaves.
Why do you smile?

No poetry today. Here you have a fairy tale. Warning: it is from the Bluebeard, child-eating giants, bloody variety of fairy tales.

Once upon a time there was a king who had three daughters, two bad, one (the youngest) good. One day, the King said to his daughters, “I’m old and tired. I have divided the kingdom in three parts and each one of you will have her portion. I will keep a thousand men as my court and I will spend four months a year with each one of you. But first, tell me: How much do you love me?”

The oldest said, “More than my life”.

The middle one said, “More than words can express”

And the youngest one said, “As much as it is right and proper”.

The king went into a rage at tis lack of exaggeration, and he banished his youngest daughter from his castle, which made her very sad, but she was so good and beautiful that the prince in the land at her father’s borders married her, even without any dowry. The King then divided his kingdom in half, between his two remaining daughters, and said he and his thousand men would spend half the year with each one.

The king had a counsellor who was fired after defending the good daughter; this man had two sons, one good from his wife, one bad from is lover. He decided that now that he had more spare time, he would dedicate it to his older, illegitimate son, and find a way of giving him part of his inheritance. But on seeing his castle and his luxuries, the Bad Son decided to take everything and take it soon. So, he faked a letter from the Good Son and the Counsellor was made to believe that his Good Son planned to kill him. And that was how the Good Son had to run away from his house, and pretend he was Poor Tom, a mad beggar.

As soon as the king went to live with his eldest daughter, she banned the thousand men from her castle. The King was furious, but nothing he said affected her. Finally, he said he would go and live with the middle daughter. But when he arrived, she told him to go back to the eldest until his appointed time, six months later. “My sister was right. You don’t need a thousand knights, not a hundred, not one, if you have my sister’s servants to take care of you. Go back to her and apologise”

“Apologise to my own daughter? I’d sooner die of cold in that storm”

“Suit yourself”, said the middle daughter.

The King went out in the rain and was found by Poor Tom, who gave him shelter in a hut. Meanwhile, the two bad sisters realised that the thousand knights might be a danger to them and decided the needed his father back to keep him controlled. They went to the counsellor’s castle, to see if he knew anything, and were received by the Bad Son. The two women immediately desired him. They told him their plans and he said that the counsellor was too loyal to the King, so they would probably need to torture him. The Bad Son went into another room while the daughters tied the old man to a chair. When he said he didn’t know where the King was, each one of the women pulled out one of his eyes. They kicked him out of his house and they told the Bad Son that he was the man of the castle now, although they would like to have him in their army in case there was a war. The Bad Son was delighted.

Poor Tom found his father the counsellor, now blind, who didn’t recognise his son’s voice and asked him to lead him to a cliff so that he could kill himself. The Good Son led his not towards a cliff, but towards the borders of the country. The Good Daughter had found out how her sisters were treating her father, and since her husband the foreign prince loved her so much, she easily convinced him to invade her country to avenge the old King. The first battle of the war was won by the daughters, who had both become lovers of the Bad Son. He made prisoners of both the King and his daughter. The King realised what a stupid fool he had been, and considered himself lucky to be alive and with the one person that had remained true to him, his youngest daughter. But the Bad Son ordered a spy to kill them both when they were in prison.

When the eldest daughter knew that her sister was her rival, she poisoned her. Poor Tom had stayed away from the battle, taking care of his father, but when he saw his half brother, he revealed his identity and challenged the Bad Son in a duel. The Good Son won, and killed his brother. On seeing that, the eldest sister killed himself by smashing her head against a rock. Grief and exhaustion were too much for the old counsellor, who died while his sons fought. The Spy tried to fake the Daughter’s suicide; the King just saw him escape the room, and did not have time to save her. He tried desperately to bring her back to life, not believing for one moment she was truly dead. Death by sorrow found him too, surprised, denying it, unprepared.

And only Poor Tom was left alive, sad castaway in the ruins of a destroyed nation.

************************************* 

This cheery story is the plot of King Lear (I have changed a few details), maybe my favourite Shakespearian tragedy.

Trainspotting the book has a lot less comedy elements than the movie, and it is very hard to read because most of it is not in English, but in Edinburgh Scots. If you have never heard Scots or at least the Edinburgh accent, I don’t think you can understand the book at all. The Spanish translation is absolutely brilliant: it is written in a version of slang that is contemporary enough to sound very true, but it doesn’t try to reproduce the sounds of the vernacular: the spelling is always the standard. That is the best way of avoiding to turn Edinburgh into any specific Spanish town.

I got the book in Spanish one Christmas. When I got to the final page I started all over again. When I finished it a second time, I reread a handful of the best sections. Then I lent it, and my friend did more or less the same. Then I lent it a second time and I lost it (that’s what happens when you lend books). That was about seven years ago. Ever since then, once in a while I went to a bookshop with materials in English and I opened Trainspotting at random, to see if I understood anything. Nae, ah couldnae. But after a few years, I did, and I didn’t even remember where the difficulties had been before: that’s simply because now, after having travelled four times to Scotland (two holidays, one study, one work), the version of English I hear in my head is Scottish English. Not slang, as in the book, but it is definitely Scottish.

So that you can see what I am talking about, here you have the beginning of the novel. The translation’s mine; the published one is really good, but as I’ve said, I don’t have it with me any more.

The sweat wis lashing oafay Sick Boy; he wis trembling. Ah wis jist sitting thair, focusing oan the telly, tryin no tae notice the cunt. He wis bringing me doon. Ah tried tae keep ma attention oan the Jean-Claude Van Damme video.

Le chorreaba el sudor a Sick Boy, y estaba temblando. Yo estaba sentado sin hacer nada, viendo la tele, intentando pasar del hijoputa. Me ponía malo. Procuré concentrarme en el vídeo de Jean-Claude Van Damme.

No, I don’t mean I dislike the way he writes. On the contrary, I like it very much. I hate William Gibson with corrosive envy. Something positive out of it is that corrosive envy is a motivation to write more poems.

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

El cielo sobre el puerto era del color de la televisión, encendida en un canal sin sintonizar.

This sentence is the beginning of his novel Neuromancer. The expressivity! The mood-setting! The conciseness! The imagination! I hope I like the rest of the novel half as much.

To the recent rumours news that the US are keeping secret prisons in Europe, where prisoners are held indefinitely and without charges, are are probably being tortured, in violation of international law and human decency, I can start by giving you something written by the Uruguayan poet Mario Benedetti.

Un torturador no se redime suicidándose. Pero algo es algo.

Tortures will not obtain redemption if they kill themselves. Something's better than nothing, though.

This is what T S Eliot has to say about rivers. The first two lines made me buy the whole book

I do not know much about rivers; but I think that the river
is a strong brown god –sullen, untamed and intractable,
Patient to some degree, at first recognised as a frontier;
Useful, untrustworthy, as a conveyor of commerce;
Then only a problem confronting the builder of bridges.

No sé mucho sobre ríos; pero creo que el río
es un dios fuerte, marrón -taciturno, indomable,
paciente hasta cierto punto, descubierto primero como frontera;
útil, traicionero, cuando facilita el comercio;
y después, sólo el problema al que se enfrenta el constructor de un puente.

 

, here you have Shakespeare's King Lear, Act 2 scene 4, raging to the winds. The last two lines, in case they are not clear, are asking for all women to die and all men to become sterile. Isn't Lear a lovely man.

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Smite flat the thick rotundity o' the world!
Crack nature's moulds, an germens spill at once,
That make ingrateful man!

Sopla, viento, desgarra! ¡Furia! ¡Sopla!
¡Cataratas, huracanes, derramad
hasta ahogar las torres: ahogad los gallos de las veletas!
Fuegos de azufre, que matan el pensamiento:
Mensajeros de truenos que parten en dos los robles,
¡Quemad mis blancos cabellos! Y tú, trueno estremecedor,
¡Aplasta, aplana la grosera rotundidad de este mundo!
¡Rompe los moldes de la naturaleza, destruye el germen
que crea a los hombres ingratos!

I don’t feel much of an impulse to write about death, the most inescapable of literary themes. I have two poems triggered by the death of Martyn Bennett , and one single little poem that looks as if it is about the death of the speaker, but it is a love declaration. Alan Spence and e. e. cummings seem to be obsessed with their own mortality; Spence has a novel all about it and cummings has lot of poems; both authors seem quite serene and calm about their respective ends. Cummings is no longer in this world, and I hope he is buried somewhere as beautiful as his poem wishes. Complete absence of rhyme in the translation; I wanted to keep the meaning so faithful that I didn’t even try the effect.

when god lets my body be

From each brave eye shall sprout a tree
fruit that dangles therefrom

the purpled world will dance upon
Between my lips which did sing

a rose shall beget the spring
that maidens whom passion wastes

will lay between their little breasts
My strong fingers beneath the snow

Into strenuous birds shall go
my love walking in the grass

their wings will touch with her face
and all the while shall my heart be

With the bulge and nuzzle of the sea

cuando dios deje mi cuerpo

De cada ojo valiente brotará un árbol
sobre la fruta que de él cuelgue

bailará el mundo apurpurado
Entre mis labios que cantaron

una rosa engendrará la primavera
que las doncellas que la pasión echa a perder

colocarán entre sus pechitos
Mis fuertes dedos bajo la nieve

entrarán en pájaros esforzados
mi amor caminando por la hierba

sus alas le tocarán la cara
y mientras tanto estará mi corazón

Con la subida y caricia del mar.

Etiquetas: Iago, Richard, III, Shakespeare

Etiquetas: celaya, political, poetry

Etiquetas: Muscio, feminism

Etiquetas: Queerness, Dorcey