Sherlock Holmes stories are fun. Arthur Conan Doyle made him the most misogynistic beast in Literature and here you have, with all my irony, a selection of quotes of the detective talking about gender:
A man always finds it hard to realise that he may have finally lost a womans love, however badly he may have treated her. (The Musgrave Ritual)
Women are naturally secretive, and they like to do their own secreting (A Scandal in Bohemia).
When a woman thinks that her house is on fire, her instinct is at once to rush to the thing she values most A married woman grabs at her baby; an unmarried one reaches for her jewel-box. (A Scandal in Bohemia)
Someone (I don't know who, and excuse the laziness) has deided that August 31st is Blog Day; If you type 3108 it looks vaguely like BlOg, I guess that's why. The initiative includes doing a blog entry on five new, small blogs, preferably out of our usual range of interests. I've done a quick search for blogs to which all the above applied; it's hard, because I wanted them to be good, interesting blogs, and there are far too many "private journal/rant" badly written blogs out there.
These are my picks.
Poetry on Demand is a very new site. I don't know if it will become a blog with regular entries or if the owner just thought that filling in blanks in blogspot.com was easier than building a traditional website. The blogger writes good poetry (rhymes and everything) and she has very reasonable prices for poetry for special occasions.
Clip Tip reviews music videoclips, and links you to sites where you can watch or download them.
I will go on with links in Spanish:
El País de Lancre está dedicado a la narrativa de su autora. No es nuevo (lleva escribiendo año y medio) y como no tiene contador no sé si tiene poco tráfico. No me gusta que escriba en beige-sobre-negro, pero los enlaces son puramente prácticos (no son los treinta blogs de sus amigas), y me gusta cómo escribe.
Laberinto Posmoderno parece uno de esos blogs que aunque sean "personales" y no "temáticos", están dedicados a que el autor proteste, un poco como el de Carboanión (aunque carboanion habla de muchas cosas). Está bien redactado, que para lo que hay ya es mucho, y no tiene demasiados colorines.
No puedo resistir la tentación de recordar que tengo un bebé blog, Sólo Cuando Bailo, que es, que yo sepa, el único blog en español sobre danza del vientre (o danza oriental), y la única web de cualquier clase en español informativa y no comercial sobre el tema.
So: poetry, music, fiction, rants, dance. I hope you enjoy the selection!
When I was maybe eighteen or so, I saw a documentary called When Im 21. It showed a handful of homeless Glaswegian teens telling why they were homeless, how was their life before, and what they would like to do either for their 21st birthday, or with their adult life. I knew that homeless children existed, but it was something I associated with the Third World and with much bigger towns. I had more surprises; most of the children were out in the streets because their parents had split up, and the parent with whom they had stayed had taken a new partner that didnt get on with the kid, so the children either ran away or were thrown out (Spain is no paradise, but we still keep such tight concept of family that Ive never heard of such a situation here). I also remember the documentary because the teenagers did their own voiceover and it was my first contact with any variety of English other than Standard British English or Standard American.
This is just an introduction to a poem by Langston Hughes.
Beggar Boy
What is there within this beggar lad That I can neither hear nor feel nor see, that I can neither know nor understand And still calls to me?
Is not he but a shadow in the sun A bit of clay, brown, ugly, given life? And yet he plays upon his flute a wild free tune As if Fate had not bled him with her knife!
¿Qué tiene este niño mendigo Que ni lo oigo, ni lo toco, ni lo veo, que ni lo conozco ni lo entiendo y aún así me llama?
¿Es que no es él más que una sombra al sol - un cachito de arcilla, marrón, feo, dotado de vida? Y aún así toca en su flauta una canción salvaje y libre, ¡como si el Destino no lo hubiera desangrado con su cuchillo!
The news today say that Andalucian people (that is the region that takes up the southern third of Spain) broke last year all records of family acceptance of organ donations. (link in Spanish) Only 14% of families say no to donations. The poem of the day, by e.e. cummings should be taken with lots of love a a bit of humour and it is dedicated to those families.
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)i am never without it(anywhere i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling) i fear no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true) and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
Llevo tu corazón conmigo (lo llevo en mi corazón) nunca estoy sin él (a donde yo vaya, vas tú, mi amor; y lo que sea que yo haga sólo es gracias a ti, cariño)
Miedo al destino no tengo (porque tú eres mi destino, dulzura) no necesito el mundo (porque eres hermosa, mi mundo, mi fiel) y es que tú eres lo que siempre ha significado la luna y lo que siempre canta el sol eres tú.
Este es el secreto más profundo que nadie conoce (esta es la raíz de la raíz y el brote del brote y el cielo del cielo de un árbol llamado vida; que crece más alto de lo que el alma pueda esperar o la mente esconder) y esta es la maravilla que mantiene las estrellas separadas Llevo tu corazón conmigo (lo llevo en mi corazón)
Yesterday I told my friend Lino about the existence of Queer Studies and Gender Studies departments in American Universities. He was culture-shocked, which is unsurprising. Not to repeat myself more than necessary, my opinion on the existence of Queer Studies is on a very difficult balance between two dilemmas:
=>One: The difference between studying someone because they are excellent (and they also happen to be queer), or to study someone because they are queer (who the hell cares if Mary Dorcey is a lesbian? her poems are unoriginal and mediocre).
=> Two: Giving too much importance to the reflection that an artist's sexual orientation has on their work (Michelangelo was inspired by the gods, period), or ignoring it when it's actually relevant.
In any case, dedicated to Lino, here is a photo from Robert Mapplethorpe and an extract from Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson. The translation, as usual, is mine.
THE SKIN IS COMPOSED OF TWO MAIN PARTS: THE DERMIS AND THE EPIDERMIS.
Odd to think that the piece of you that I know best is already dead. The cells on the surface of your skin are thin and flat without blood vessels or nerve endings. Dead cells, thickest on the palm of your hands and the soles of your feet. Your sepulchral body, offered to me in the past tense, protects your soft centre from the intrusions of the outside world. I am one such intrusion, stroking you with necrophiliac obsession, loving the shell laid out before me.
LA PIEL SE COMPONE DE DOS PARTES PRINCIPALES: LA DERMIS Y LA EPIDERMIS.
Qué raro es que la parte de ti que mejor conozco ya esté muerta. Las células en la superficie de la piel son finas y planas, y no tienen vasos sanguíneos ni terminaciones nerviosas. Células muertas, en una capa más gruesa en la palma de las manos y en la planta de los pies. Tu cuerpo sepulcral, que me ofreces en pretérito, protege tu centro blando de las invasiones del mundo exterior. Yo soy una de esas invasiones, acariciándote con obsesión necrofílica, amando la concha que se extiende ante mí.
"List ten songs that you are currently digging...it doesn't matter what genre they are from, whether they have words, or even if they're no good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying right now. Post these instructions, the artists, and the ten songs in your blog. Then tag five other people to see what they're listening to."
I´ve been listening to three types of music lately: driving music, African music, and bellydancing music. So there we go:
Shukran Bamba - Youssou N'Dour. Mupepe - Zap Mama When you're gone -The Cranberries. Yes, it´s embarrasing. But I need to sing along when I drive, right? Nil Si i Gra - Capercaillie. Drive - R.E.M. I experiment, I go to Africa and China and anywhere in between, I learn new things but R.E.M. and Automatic For The People are home, and I like to come back home after exploring. Nar- Hakim. Hip-drops forever! The Wild Goose - Kate Rusby. I need to write a short story based on its lyrics. Oran Marseille- Khaled. How it Got There -Martyn Bennet.
I have reorganised my library to set apart the poetry. I have about thirty books of poetry that are only mine (meaning that they dont belong, even nominally, to other members of the family). They are a mixture of the bought-for-class, gifts, and my own choices, but the collection seems coherent as a carefully curated museum exhibition; a curious time traveller from the 31th Century could see my collection and have a have a very good idea of what sort of poetry mattered a millennia before.
I have a preference for complete works in a single volume (one third of my books are like that). Its easy to see things are divided in three clear groups: English classics with a preference for Shakespeare and Romanticism (the Muses spent too much talent inspiring Keats, and then Spanish Romanticism was stuck with the awful, lousy, embarrassing Bécquer: its NOT fair). Modernism and free verse in any language (Spanish anthologies, Pedro Salinas, Adrienne Rich, Langston Hughes, Sylvia Plath, e. e. cummings, Edwin Morgan, Alan Spence, T. S. Eliot, Bukowski). Haikus and other Japanese or Chinese poetry (Issa, Shiki, Zhang Kejiu, Li Po, Alan Spence, Sei Shonagon, anthologies without end)
I dont particularly enjoy that my poetic vocabulary and artistic loves are so far away from my own culture. Sometimes I wish I could express myself fully in one language and one mode, instead of groping my way in the darkness of two different languages. But that would mean to choose Spanish only, and Spanish has very little excellent free verse so it is not enough for inspiration. And as I have said before, unrhymed poetry in Spanish that is not free verse is extremely rare. Unrhymed, non-free verse being my favourite metric pattern, I will have to keep finding my way in two languages and borrowing stanzas from any other that catches my attention.
When I´m away from home for a long period, I miss terribly my copy of Alan Spence's Seasons of the heart, a collection of haikus that goes through the seasons of the year. The weather and the constant references to the beach and the sea make me think it was composed in Aberdeen. Maybe that is why it has very few summer poems, and not a single one of them is dedicated to really warm weather. It is never hot in Aberdeen.
Looking carefully through the volume, I´ve selected two summery poems. Enjoy.
summer evening - through the open window, an old song.
A sweet peach but the last bite is bitter. Noche de verano - por la ventana abierta, una vieja canción.
Un melocotón dulce pero el último mordisco es amargo.
This is my favourite poem or song about long-distance relationships.
While you are away, my heart comes undone Slowly unravels in a ball of yarn Devil collects it, with a grin Our love in a ball of yarn Hell never return it, So when you come back, Well have to make new love.
Cuando te vas, Mi corazón se deshace. Se desenrolla, Hecho un ovillo. El Diablo lo coge con una sonrisa Nuestro amor, hecho un ovillo. No me lo va a devolver, Así que cuando vuelvas, Vamos a tener que hacer más amor.
Im not a big fan of Lorca; I just like the occasional poem, or even individual lines by him. I love one that says,
Caballito frío, ¡qué perfume de flor de cuchillo! Cold little horse, What a fragrance of knife flowers!
The horse is cold because it is dead and the fragrance of knife flowers is blood. And the poem is about highwaymen that have assaulted a traveller in the night.
Surrealism in a poem is like sex in Hollywood movies. I dont have anything against it, as long as it really adds something good to the whole instead of just being there because it is expected.
Anyway, a little bit more Lorca. My town associated with suffocating heat. I hope I dont go to the Hell of Translators for this (where bad translators have to work on Finnegans Wake for all eternity).
Adelina de paseo
La mar no tiene naranjas Ni Sevilla tiene amor Morena, ¡qué luz de fuego! Préstame tu quitasol.
Me pondrá la cara verde Zumo de lima y limón Tus palabras, pececillos, Nadarán alrededor.
La mar no tiene naranjas. ¡Ay!, amor. ¡Ni Sevilla tiene amor!
Adelina takes a walk
There are no oranges at sea, There is no love in Seville. My brunette, what fiery light. Lend me your parasol.
It will make my cheeks green (juice of limes and lemons) Your words little fishes will swim all around us.
There are no oranges at sea. Ay, love. And no love in Seville!
Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground have much better songs than Sunday Morning, but Im in the mood for drug music. This little one here is weird because it sounds like a Beach Boys ballad, all soft and sweet, but the lyrics are about the paranoia and depression that people get as the effects of some drugs wear off.
Sunday morning, praise the dawning Its just a restless feeling by my side Early dawning, Sunday morning Its just the wasted years so close behind Watch out, the worlds behind you Theres always someone around you who will call, Its nothing at all! Sunday morning, and Im falling I have a feeling I dont want to know Early dawning, Sunday morning Its just the streets you crossed not so long ago. Watch out, the world behind you Theres always someone around you who will call, Its nothing at all!
Please don´t let the following line scare you. Keep on reading.
riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.
That was the opening of Finnegans Wake, James Joyce's last work. It is normally called a novel, but I don't think it is one. This experimental book takes the English language and a few dozen others, twists and bends them to create somthing in which every word has layers and more layers of meaning. For example that first word: "riverrun", is evidently composed of "river" and "run". It is no exactly "the river runs", the S is missing. But besides, you have riv(ERR)un. Err means both to wander and to make a mistake. So, you have four words and infinite possibilities of interpretation in a single word.
This week I have attended a performance of section II.1, called "Children's Games", "Night games", or "The Mime of Mick, Nick and the Maggies", which is the title that the actor Adam Harvey chose. All I knew before I went to watch it was that it wouldn't be a reading or a recitation but a performance. So I decided to attend. I have read little bits and pieces of Finnegan's Wake, but not a lot. Having read this entry so far you nearly know as much as I do about it.
So, there I was at the theatre and a man in loose clothes with a stocking on his head storms in and starts to talk in the style characteristic of Finnegans Wake in a way that suggests a playbill. Something close-to-but-not-quite English, meaning maybe "Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to our show, this is the cast". But he was all the cast! I can only compare it to a one-man performance of a "normal" play. So imagine a man doing all the appropriate voice and gesture changes for the complete cast of Hamlet. Now imagine that you are watching that, in a language that you don't understand, but that is close to one you know. If you are Spanish, think Portuguese, maybe. That was just about my level of comprehension of what was going on on the stage: a one-man performance of a play that uses a vaguely familiar plot in a vaguely familiar language.
It is hard to explain how something so difficult to understand was so appealing. I guess it is all in the acting. Adam Harvey, the actor, is very expressive and has a great control of body language and movement. Audiences of his three Finnegans Wake pieces are always in awe of his ability to memorise such long pieces of text; he is already tired of explaining that there is nothing special about his memory and that any actor should be able to do that sort of thing. He has been working on making sense of the book for very long, so it is not in any way an empty exercise in memorising something meaningless.
Any one who has had the patience to sit through a whole performance of Harvey's then praises him to the skies. I think that the problem with performing Finnegans Wake is that no one would dare criticise Harvey's interpretation under risk of seeming petty. For example, we can argue to what extent we think Hamlet's mother is guilty, that's an open topic, but since Finnegans Wake is such a hard work no one who knows and likes it tries to argue about Harvey's take on it. As I said, I'm not qualified to give an opinion on it in that sense.
So, what next? I think that lots of people should watch this strange performance, that I found at times very funny and amusing (Harvey thinks it is very confrontational and terrible and not light and amusing at all). Children have enjoyed small fragments of it and it looks like something that avant-garde theatrical audiences would love. The way Adam moves onstage wouldn't need many words to be expressive, anyway.
Now that I have had time to digest it, and that the performance had a discussion afterwards and I think I know more about reading, and acting, and music, and dance, and Literature, I would love to see "The Mime of Mick, Nick and the Maggies" again. Since I'm going back to Spain soon, I don't see that happening in the near future, but who knows? Maybe when Adam Harvey is rich and famous I can boast that I knew him now. Heh.
So. 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 tellsyou the story) and decided to get married. That's a love letter y lo demás es tontería.
This is the end of Ulysses. The strema of consciousness of the protagonist's wife, Molly Bloom. It is hard to decide whether the man was an old boyfriend of hers, long before she got married, or her husband.
... 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.
I thought I had posted this a long time ago but it's not on the files. Did it get lost, floating on the blogosphere? Who knows. Here it is anyway. I'm not sure it's not a repeat.
I cant remember who asked me why I dont stick to one language and whether I plan on using Spanish in the blog only, once I go back to Spain. Before I started blogging, I thought I had three choices. I could have a Spanish blog, an English one, or one in each language. Spanish might get me readers more quickly, English would get me more potential readers. I have chosen neither option. I want a bilingual blog in which everyone feels slightly out of place. Only a little bit. A blog where Spaniards that know me in the real world (hola, os echo de menos) make an effort to remember their High School English. Something that makes whoever reads me from an English-speaking country be frustrated at my habit of linking to Spanish websites, and the Spanish poetry, and the occasional Spanish word or phrase. A few readers (Sus, un petó) already used to swim in the middle of two or three languages, should feel at home. And that is exactly the way its going to be.
And this is what Gloria Anzaldúa thinks of being in the middle. Naturally, you wont expect me to translate this one.
To live in the borderlands means you are neither hispana india negra española ni gabacha, eres mestiza, mulata, half-breed caught in the crossfire between camps while carrying all five races on your back not knowing which side to turn to, run from;
To live in the Borderlands means knowing that the india in you, betrayed for 500 years, is no longer speaking to you, that mexicanas call you rajetas, that denying the Anglo inside you is as bad as having denied the Indian or Black;
Cuando vives en la frontera people walk through you, wind steals your voice, you're a burra, buey, scapegoat, forerunner of a new race, half and half - both woman and man, neither- a new gender;
To live in the Borderlands means to put chile in the borscht, eat whole wheat tortillas, speak Tex-Mex with a Brooklyn accent; be stopped by la migra at the border check points;
Living in the Borderlands means you fight hard to resist the gold elixir beckoning from the bottle, the pull of the gun barrel, the rope crushing the hollow of your throat;
In the Borderlands you are the battleground where enemies are kin to each other; you are at home, a stranger, the border disputes have been settled the volley of shots have shattered the truce you are wounded, lost in action dead, fighting back;
To live in the Borderlands means the mill with the razor white teeth wants to shred off your olive-red skin, crush out the kernel, your heart pound you pinch you roll you out smelling like white bread but dead;
To survive in the Borderlands you must live sin fronteras, be a crossroads.
Almost two years ago, I was living in Glasgow, Scotland, and feeling very much at home there. I kept postponing doing a one-day trip to Edinburgh, until I saw that John Irving was going to the Edinburgh Book Fair just a couple of weeks before my intended return to Spain. I thought hed be signing books. So I went to Edinburgh to meet John Irving after having half-heartedly avoided the place for months.
John Irving wasnt going to sign books. He was going to do a reading of extracts of his books, and the tickets were sold out. I had gone to Edinburgh for nothing. I might as well do the tourist thing and take a look at the books to sale.
And in the poetry section there was a book called GLASGOW ZEN. Genius. I leave Glasgow very reluctantly and I find a book that translates classic Japanese haiku into Glaswegian Scots.
Jist this, Jist this, And still
Its a world of dew, Only that, a world of dew, And even so
Sólo un mundo de rocío, Sólo somos rocío, Y sin embargo....
I dont dare translating it into any Southern Spanish dialect, although it would be easy for someone with a better ear to do so. This is a haiku that a master whose name I cant remember (Issa?) wrote after the death of his only son. The first is Alan Spences version and the other two are my paraphrases of the original. World of dew is a common Buddhist metaphor about the brevity of things.
Oh, and I didnt go to Edinburgh for nothing. A museum had the best temporary exhibition of Monet paintings ever done, gathering paintings from dozen of collections. Good things turn up when you least expect it, specially in Scotland.
I prefer modern poetry not to rhyme because I think that the search for interesting rhymes is too much of a strain on content. But sometimes, only sometimes, rhymed poetry is good even when the rhymes are not hard and clever. Seamus Heaney, a writer with an excellent control of rhythm, manages to rhyme me and be , and still make me want to be him when I grow up. For the time being, I think I will just translate him. Which is appropriate, because his best work is his translation of Beowulf.
My mother thinks the word scaffolding, in English, is funny, so this is for her.
Scaffolding. Masons, when they start upon a building, Are careful to test out the scaffolding:
Make sure that planks wont slip at busy points, Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints
And yet all this comes down when the jobs 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.
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.
Since it is my father's birthday (feliz cumpleaños, Opá) I'm going to post something he likes.
There isnt a word to call the genre in which people like Frank Sinatra, his contemporaries and his imitators sing. The closest Ive ever seen is the Standard. Frank Sinatra sang standards. Well, OK, its an insipid label, but still. With a bit of a leap and a stretch of the imagination, the Spanish-speaking world has two equivalents Im familiar with: the bolero and the Copla.
The Copla first. Coplas are more or less flamenco-ish to untrained ears (female singers traditionally wear flamenco dresses) but they cannot be danced. Most lyrics are love stories, most of them are sad and most of them are gendered: its not just that you can make an adjustment to Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered and change the he to she. No, its that oh, yes, consider yourself well paid for your kisses applies to a man talking to a woman, and you have a son and you havent even given him a name applies to a woman talking to a man. When somebody wants to sing the other genders songs, they change the You into I and viceversa: when a woman sings Maria de la O, she is Maria, and when a man sings it, hes a sort of sympathetic narrator of her life. It is a terrible mistake and no one should ever mess about with the other sexs lyrics (me defending gender differentiation, what next!?)
Boleros might be danced if arranged for that purpose (like Cole Porter or Gershwin can be). Just like coplas sound flamenco-ish, boleros can have a subtle Latin music flavour. Both coplas and boleros have gone in and out of fashion. They made a timid comeback about fifteen years ago, and then some singers played a bit with them, experimented, changed their arrangements. Probably the best album of experimental copla ever is Bebo Valdés and Diego el Cigalas Lágrimas Negras: Cuban piano adorning coplas, boleros, and other beauties like the Brazilian Eu sei que vou te amar.
The most underused copla is Torre de Arena (which is a womans song). Think of the best lyric for a standard ever, My Way or What a Wonderful Love or Someone to Watch Over Me and imagine no one had ever sung it well! Bad voices or bad production or bad musicians or all three! I hope I dont go to the Hell of Translators (where you have to translate Finnegans Wake for all eternity) for this, but here you have Torre de Arenas lyrics. And it is of course dedicated to my father and my granny (although I dont think shes much of a blog reader).
Como un lamento del alma mía son mis suspiros, válgame Dios, fieles testigos de la agonía que va quemando mi corazón. No hay, en la noche de mi desventura, ni una estrellita que venga a alumbrar esta senda de eterna amargura que, triste y oscura, no sé dónde va. Esta senda de eterna amargura que, triste y oscura, no sé donde va.
Torre de arena que mi cariño supo labrar. Torre de arena donde mi vida quise encerrar. Noche sin luna, río sin agua, flor sin olor, Todo es mentira, todo es quimera, todo es delirio de mi dolor.
Como una flor que deshoja el viento se va muriendo mi corazón, y, poco a poco, mi sufrimiento se va llevando todo mi amor.
Como una fuente callada y sin vida. Como el barquito que pierde el timón. Como flor del rosal desprendida está dolorida mi pobre ilusión. Como flor del rosal desprendida está dolorida mi pobre ilusión.
Torre de arena que mi cariño supo labrar (etc)
Like laments from my soul my sighs, woe is me!, are witnesses of the agony that burns my heart.
There isnt a single little star in the night of my misfortune to lit up the road of eternal bitterness, so dark and sad I dont know where it leads
Sand tower that I learnt to build with love. Sand tower, Where I buried myself alive. Moonless night, waterless river, scentless flower, Its all a lie, Its all false, Its all delirium born out of pain.
Like a flower the wind breaks my heart dies, and slowly my suffering takes away my love.
Like a dead silent fountain like a steerless boat like a fallen rose my poor hope is hurt. like a fallen rose my poor hope is hurt
I have said before that when I grow up, I want to be Alan Spence, right? Okay, my beloved Alan Spence takes quite a lot of inspiration from Edwin Morgan. I know very few of his poems; this is taken from a sequence. I stand in awe. No, actually, I'm green with envy at someone with such a strong control of rhyme. If you're reading this in Spanish, leave a comment if you want me to translate; I haven't done it as usual because I'm sure I'll kill the sonnet form, which is the whole point.
I
A mean wind wanders through the backcourt trash. Hackles on puddles rise, old mattresses puff briefly and subside. Play-fortresses of brick and bric-a-brac spill out some ash. Four storeys have no windows left to smash, but the fifth a chipped sill buttresses mother and daughter the last mistresses of that black block condemned to stand, not crash. Around them the cracks deepen, the rats crawl. The kettle whimpers on a crazy hob. Roses of mould grow from ceiling to wall. The man lies late since he has lost his job, smokes on one elbow, letting his coughs fall thinly into an air too poor to rob.
New York songs are easier to remember than New York poems. It doesnt matter, because this jewel by Leonard Cohen could be recited instead of sung and it wouldnt lose one speck of beauty. Its not a description of New York, but I like to know now where Clinton street is.
Famous Blue Raincoat.
It's four in the morning, the end of December I'm writing you now just to see if you're better New York is cold, but I like where I'm living There's music on Clinton Street all through the evening.
I hear that you're building your little house deep in the desert You're living for nothing now, I hope you're keeping some kind of record.
Yes, and Jane came by with a lock of your hair She said that you gave it to her That night that you planned to go clear Did you ever go clear?
Ah, the last time we saw you you looked so much older Your famous blue raincoat was torn at the shoulder You'd been to the station to meet every train And you came home without Lili Marlene
And you treated my woman to a flake of your life And when she came back she was nobody's wife.
Well I see you there with the rose in your teeth One more thin gypsy thief Well I see Jane's awake --
She sends her regards. And what can I tell you my brother, my killer What can I possibly say? I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you I'm glad you stood in my way.
If you ever come by here, for Jane or for me Your enemy is sleeping, and his woman is free.
Yes, and thanks, for the trouble you took from her eyes I thought it was there for good so I never tried.
And Jane came by with a lock of your hair She said that you gave it to her That night that you planned to go clear
-- Sincerely, L. Cohen
Son las cuatro de la mañana, finales de Diciembre te escribo para saber si estás mejor Hace frío en Nueva York, pero me gusta el sitio donde vivo Hay música en Clinton Street toda la noche.
Me han dicho que te estás haciendo una casita en el desierto, ¿tienes alguna razón para vivir? Ojalá lo tengas todo controlado. Jane vino con un mechón de tu pelo, Me dijo que se lo diste la noche que pensabas dejar las cosas claras. ¿Alguna vez las aclaraste?
Qué viejo parecías la última vez que te vimos, tu famosa gabardina azul estaba rota en un hombro, Habías estado en la estación viendo pasar los trenes, y volviste a casa solo, sin Lily Marlene. E invitaste a mi mujer a un pellizco de tu vida y cuando volvió, ya no era la mujer de nadie. Y te veo ahí con una rosa entre los dientes, otro gitano flaco y ladrón. Jane está despierta, te manda un saludo.
¿Qué te digo, mi hermano, mi asesino? ¿qué te puedo decir? Supongo que te echo de menos, supongo que te perdono. Me alegro de haberte conocido. si vuelves alguna vez, por Jane o por mí, Tu enemigo está dormido y su mujer es libre.
Gracias por la pena que le quitaste de la mirada, creí que se había quedado así para siempre, así que nunca intenté borrarla.
Jane vino con un mechón de pelo tuyo. Me dijo que se lo diste la noche que pensabas dejar las cosas claras.
Yesterday I told my friend Lino about the existence of Queer Studies and Gender Studies departments in American Universities. He was culture-shocked, which is unsurprising. Not to repeat myself more than necessary, my opinion on the existence of Queer Studies is on a very difficult balance between two dilemmas: