27
AÑOS
Es una cosa seria
tener veintisiete años
en realidad es una
de las cosas más serias
en derredor se mueren los amigos
de la infancia ahogada
y empieza a dudar uno
de su inmortalidad.
27 YEARS
It is a serious thing
to be twenty-seven years old
in fact it is one of
the most serious things around
to experience the death of friends
and childhood drowning
one begins to doubt
his own immortality.
EL DESCANSO DEL GUERRERO
Los muertos están
cada día más indóciles.
Antes era fácil
con ellos:
les dábamos un cuello duro una flor
loábamos sus nombres en una larga lista:
que los recintos de la patria
que las sombras notables
que el mármol monstruoso.
El cadáver
firmaba en pos de la memoria
iba de nuevo a filas
y marchaba al compás de nuestra vieja música.
Pero qué va
los muertos son otros desde entonces.
Hoy se ponen irónicos
preguntan.
Me parece que caen
en la cuenta
de ser cada vez más la mayoría!
THE FALLING OF THE FREEDOM FIGHTERS
The dead are more unmanageable every day.
Before it was easy with them:
we gave flowers to the uptight ones
we gave the relatives the names on one long list:
to these we gave national borders
to those we gave remarkable peace
that one we gave a monstrous marble tomb
Then we saluted the memory of the corpses
and went to their cemetery rows
marching to the compass of old music.
But where the dead go
is different now.
Today they ask
ironic questions.
And it seems to me that they fall more and more
on account of being
more and more
the majority.
DIA
DE LA PATRIA
Hoy fue el día
de la patria: desperté a medio podrir, sobre el suelo húmedo
e hiriente como la boca de un coyote muerto, entre los gases embriagadores
de los himnos.
15 de septiembre.
THE NATIONAL DAY
Today was the day of the mother country: I woke up with the means
to rot, on humid and hostile ground
like the mouth of a dead coyote, between the intoxicating gases
of hymns.
15 of september
SOBRE
DOLORES DE CABEZA
Es bello ser comunista,
aunque cause muchos dolores de cabeza.
Y es que el dolor
de cabeza de los comunistas
se supone histórico, es decir
que no cede ante las tabletas analgésicas
sino sólo ante la realización del Paraíso en
la tierra.
Así es la cosa.
Bajo el capitalismo
nos duele la cabeza
y nos arrancan la cabeza.
En la lucha por la Revolución la cabeza es una bomba de retardo.
En la construcción socialista planificamos el dolor de cabeza
lo cual no lo hace escasear, sino todo lo contrario.
El comunismo será,
entre otras cosas,
Una aspirina del tamaño del sol.
HEADACHES
It is beautiful to be Communist,
although it causes many headaches.
You see the headache of Communism
is supposed to be historical, that is to say
it does not yield to analgesic tablets
but only through the accomplishment of Earth Paradise.
Tell you what, it is the bomb!
Under Capitalism when our heads hurt
they just take our heads.
In the Revolutionary Struggle, the head is a retardation bomb.
In Socialist Construction we plan our headaches
which does not make them scarce, quite the opposite
Communism will be, among other things,
an aspirin as large as the sun
DECIRES
«El marxismo-leninismo
es una piedra
para romperle la cabeza al imperialismo
y a la burguesía.»
«No. El marxismo-leninismo
es la goma elástica
con que se arroja esa piedra.»
«No, no. El
marxismo-leninismo es la idea
que mueve el brazo
que a su vez acciona la goma elástica
de la honda que arroja esa piedra.»
«El marxismo-leninismo
es la espada
para cortar las manos del imperialismo.»
«Qué
va! El marxismo-leninismo es la teoría
de hacerle la manicure al imperialismo
mientras se busca la oportunidad de amarrarle las manos.»
¿Qué
voy a hacer si me he pasado la vida
leyendo el marxismo-leninismo
y al crecer olvidé
que tengo los bolsillos llenos de piedras
y una honda en el bolsillo de atrás
y que muy bien me podría conseguir una espada
y que no soportaría estar cinco minutos
en un Salón de Belleza?
THINGS THEY SAY
"marxismo-leninismo
is a rock
to break the head of imperialism
and the bourgeoisie."
"No.
marxismo-leninismo is the sling
with which that stone is thrown."
"No,
no. marxismo-leninismo is the idea
that moves the arm that drives the elastic band
of the sling that throws the stone."
"marxismo-leninismo
is the sword to cut the hands of imperialism."
"What?
marxismo-leninismo is the theory
of doing manicures on the hands
of imperialism while looking for an opportunity to manacle them."
What I am going to do if I go through life
reading about marxismo-leninismo
and then when i'm grown
I have forgotten that I have pockets full of stones
and a sling in my back pocket
and that it could very well result
in a sword being stuck in my gut
and that it wouldn't support anyone
for five minutes in a beauty parlor?
REVISIONISMO
No siempre.
Porque,
por ejemplo,
en Macao,
el opio
es el opio del pueblo.
REVISIONISM
Not always.
Because,
for example,
in Macao,
opium
is the opium of the people.
DESPUÉS
DE LA BOMBA ATÓMICA
Polvo serán,
mas, polvo enamorado?
AFTER THE ATOM BOMB
Will be dust, but, will it be loved dust?
MIEDO
A Julio Cortázar
Un ángel solitario
en la punta del alfiler
oye que alguien orina.
FEAR
For Julio Cortazar
A single angel on the head of a pin
hears that certain someone ringing
LA
CABEZA CONTRA EL MURO
(Conclusión filosófico-moral.)
La materia es dura,
la materia es indestructible:
por lo tanto
la materia es incomprensiva,
la materia
es cruel.
HEAD AGAINST THE WALL
(Philosophical-Moral Conclusion)
Matter is hard,
matter is indestructible:
therefore matter
is uncomprending,
matter is cruel.
Roque
Dalton (1935-1975) was a Salvadoran poet and son of one of the Dalton
boys of Kansas, a notorious American outlaw family, who escaped
to El Salvador and became a wealthy plantation owner. A brilliant
student, he was rejected by his peers in elite society as an illegitmate
child of a Yanqui and a "peasant" for his agricultural
associations. Dalton became a Communist and organized peasant resistance
to the Salvadoran government. He twice escaped death in legendary
fashion - arrested and sentenced to death in 1961, the Salvadoran
government was overthrown the night of his planned execution; again
in 1965, he was arrested while in exile in Mexico and sentenced
to death - but on the night before his scheduled execution, an earthquake
destroyed the walls of the prison and he escaped again. Ironically,
Dalton was finally killed by his own people in 1975, during a power
struggle among revolutionary groups.
Published
widely while in exile in Cuba and in Mexico, these poems by Dalton
are from Taberna y otros Lugares (Taverns and other Places), written
and published in 1969 during his time as a correspondent in Prague.
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