SECTION ELEVEN
POETRY
PAGE ONE
sm
COLUMN FORTY-FIVE, MAY 1, 1999
(Copyright © 1999 Al Aronowitz)
(Photo Courtesy Myles Aronowitz )
TRANSLATIONS 1
Esteban Moore (Buenos Aires, 1952) Has published La noche en llamas (1982), Providencia terrenal (1983), con Bogey en Casablanca (1987), Poemas 1982-87 (1988) and Tiempos que van (1994).
His last published work is Viajes por America desierta (Ediciones Unesco, Paris/Graffiti, Montevideo, 1996) a selection of poems by Lawrence Ferlinghetti translated into Spanish. He has also translated poems by Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, R. Carver, Charles Bukowski, Wallace Stevens, Craig Czury and Seamus Heaney.]
chronicle
in chile sarmiento's whole body's ablaze
while he decides what's good on either side
in santa ana do livramento with his guitar josé hernandez
entertains the sad gauchos gathered to drink
some lines come to him he can't quite figure out
beneath the sun in misiones quiroga pens a letter
begs martinez estrada to join him in his solitude
lugones at his ease like a tiger
observing the delta's tranquil waters
resolves he'll compose his final poem
and... in buenos aires borges begins his blindness
in a public library perusing the desolate shelves
(Translation Dave Oliphant) ##
* * *
Homage to memory
we were...
a happy trooper in a childhood spent in the countryside
a soldier awaiting in silence the last attack
a fighter pilot in defence of english skies
a spy hidden in the darkened movie house
a lone explorer defeated by desert sands
a daring sailor at the boundless tips of capes
all this we were....
and too, the blind poet smiling
before the smallnes
of the writing
that we are...
(Translation Dave Oliphant) ##
* * *
Prayer
(For A.G.)
Oh father
you gave us the light
earth's burning sun
the reptilian jaws of night
theatening skies
acid rain
toxic waste
bodies full of corrupt cells
evil-smelling sewers
the plague of chemical clouds
decaying sphincters
air chained to smoke
skin covered with boils
the landscape floating in city mist
Oh father
and desire with its metal teeth
greed and its visions of the universe
and these bloody tastebuds absorbing
the virus from your mouth
Oh father
you gave us the celebration of your name
Why? Tell me
does an apple in the mouth of a naked woman
justify the state of things?
Our father....
(Translation Steven White) ##
* * *
urban journeys
we who travel
every day in this city
in the packed metro
of the public transit system often compare the unavoidable routine
to the odyssey of tasty canned sardines
this is how
we move through this life on earth
imagining, perhaps
the real fate of the sardines
in their tranquil tin mansions
the sardines
those marvelous creatures from the depths
GOD'S brilliant objects
(Translation Steven White) ##
* * *
with bogie in casablanca
bogie silently drinks
the sour bourbon of oblivion
his eyes, lost in the african night
mask the deep scars lefover from love
from his table bogie observes
the piano player's bright ebony hands
cuddling emotionlessly
a dilapidated piano's keyboard
at the rear of the poorly illuminated
saloon with the background of an old guitar
the french girl, skinny and sad
holds the tepid 'maté' of longing
bogie looks at her through the dense smoke
and slowly comments
in the way only he is able to do
with an accent appropiate for a bum
who is used to hanging out by the 'abasto'
"boys... someday she will understand it...
Gardel has left us forever"
Maté: Argentina's national beverage.
Abasto: a neighbourhood in Buenos Aires.
(Translation Susan Luckstone Jaffer and Juan Amador) ##
* * *
in vitro
what to make
of that man who in life wants it all
including
the grace of god
of that woman whose desire is no longer
a hard stone
growing in each
one of her breasts
of the leaves that fly twisted and dragged
by head-strong winds
of that other one who one morning
in front of
the mirror
discovers
liverspots all over his body
&
what
of the ignored woman who under bridges
or under the circular domes of night
caresses with a surgical knife her veins
& remembers her entire crummy life
what
of simon the magician proposing a deal
to saint
peter
and saint paul
the sale of their healing
powers
what
of the damp shadows of venice
that still conceal
the outright fear of a man
named pietro aretino
& of those neutrons -those atoms
over palestine's own sky
what
of that artist's brush that traces volumes
from your naked body
& of the gentle defenseless citizen who
at
the landfill
checks out everything
sees pigs of an oversized herd
eating hospital waste
chewing bloody tampons
& of those who in this country of thick wine
of tender beef
read the sky
predicting
the precise time to sow their fields
to expand their herds
masters of reading the future
from their gut feelings and market reports
what
of the young and worn out
who still show the insolence of the ones who couldn't
make it
and the arrogance of those that live exploiting
other people's money
what
of the mounds of earth recently removed
in the cemetery
on which well-kept grass will grow
from previous well kept grass
what
of that radiant woman
who when sunday comes around
waits in the doorway smiling
the table filled
with home-cooked dishes
what
of the flashy qualities of that hand on the naked skin
stimulating with her fingers
back and forth
raising the sound of magnetized vowels
what
of that one who painfully waits in silence
seeks words of encouragement
promises
from the doctor
what of the furious unraveling of the elements
that are faraway
strange
eerie
dark music
what of ramakrishna
in the reddish penumbra
of a dressing room
dressed as a woman
having in mind krishna kindness
what of the homeless children
and mothers
those unknown
living on the streets
weeping with no one to hold them
what
of the tough cotton fiber
mechanically spun
that swells with luster
piercing the eye of the needle
what
of borges one sunday morning
with sun shining through rain
in buenos aires
who praises the magical quality
of the runic inscriptions
imagines the colours of the light
what to make
of the tireless breeze that carves-out
one by one
the faces of the people
whittling the bodies
those bodies
that time eats away with lucidity
what to make...
what to make
of the filament
of the electric bulb
when it goes out
leaving us in total darkness
afraid of not waking up
(Translation Craig Czury) ##
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