Traducciones al inglés

Foundry of pain

National Literary Award of Peru

VI

Because today more than Leonardo

exists Mona Lisa

because the Sunflowers of Van Gogh do not wither,

because after so many years

at this very moment

bombs are falling in Guernica.

This is what Plato feared of us

in his Republic.

XI

The salt with which I was baptized that day

remained planted for life

in the trails of blood and tears,

in the channels and dry wells of my flesh,

when it has transpired

in the dark and deep caves of my spirit, if it was absorbed,

it has remained as such forever

in the scattered dust of my body

or in the ashes of my bones,

such as oblivion, beyond my memory,

without any hope.

XVIII

With my own patience

that always turns to senescence

my trembling hand,

just planted a seed of tamarind

in a wasteland

that I know will give some red fruits

to the hungry and thirsty

embracing them under its shadow

and for those that might arrive

with the usual tiredness of a journey

the red tamarind will also be there

providing them with the relaxation

that its trunk always gives.

Here,

where I never had rest

and was not even able

to quench my hunger or thirst,

in times

where the crops were ours to handpick

but always belonged to others.

That is why now I plant

a red tamarind

that later others like us

even if they only plant

will also deliver its fruits

in a dawn that is looming

after our red sunset.

But I have also written

a few words in its cortex:

any time you take its pulp

or drink its juice

sow afterwards

plant also one of its seeds.

XIX

I could say today

that I am a tree

or I am here as a stone,

but then I would be giving up

being able to talk to you

just in the name of someone like you.

Because this is like the lyrebird

that with its song

imitates the noise of a chainsaw

cutting down the forest,

or the sound of a blacksmith’s anvil

with its iron blows

and the panting of the peasant

always weeding by himself a field

blinded under the hot sun,

but it is simply the voice of a bird,

except that it is oneself who assumes it

among all those, who imitate me,

whether being a domestic parrot

wild crows

or even a single jay

just mimicking a blackbird.

XXIX

However, I could have had a car

(as I have now)

or have been a bus driver,

but I studied philosophy

and journalism,

later with the trade I learned

to be somewhat a psychologist

or sociologist,

but not enough to face life as such.

I have also written books

and published some articles

in newspapers or magazines.

Today I regret deeply

that I am not driving a taxicab,

they come and go quietly as they please,

they leave or pick up whomever they want

stop where and when they desire,

without having to drink

the full glass of hemlock I am being offered.

Republic of Barbarians

donkeys on asses backs

I

Perhaps I should ask for more calm

for enough patience

or maybe it is all a dream

like an endless nightmare

or just like a catastrophe

that ends up being

no longer a broken dream

nor sleepless nightmare

but then pure vigil before the harsh reality.

II

But how many times

Alice views in a mirror

the wonders that make

of her country a beautiful world,

that is also how I

see my country

in that same mirror

that I contemplate everyday

but at least there

you can always see the opposite

on both sides.

III

Who forbids me

to speak to the clouds by myself and in silence?

Or to the emptiness behind that sky?

Who urges me to be in the sheepfold?

Who to follow the herd of sheep

up to the fold where

we are imprisoned?

And here, what does it matter

that there, camels go through the eye of a needle?

Or, to the poor

that here on earth the rich

being dead

do not go to heaven,

if here they fly alive,

meanwhile the rest of us drag

without even a roof

nor a ground to drop dead on?

IV

Who forbids me

to speak to the clouds by myself and in silence?

Or to the emptiness behind that sky?

Who urges me to be in the sheepfold?

Who to follow the herd of sheep

up to the fold where

we are imprisoned?

And here, what does it matter

that there, camels go through the eye of a needle?

Or, to the poor

that here on earth the rich

being dead

do not go to heaven,

if here they fly alive,

meanwhile the rest of us drag

without even a roof

nor a ground to drop dead on?

dark camber

1

You are here now.

In front of a pamphlet.

The one of life

against death.

The one who calls for peace

in the midst of war.

The one that nevertheless also knows

that both sides are at fault.

While it is true

that every guilt is different in them,

innocence never shows itself indifferent,

it never shelters anyone.

After the flames that then embraced

the still living body of Michael Servetus

like that eventually

millions of men have also burned.

Over some logs, before flamethrowers, under napalm.

Definitely we are

before an angry pamphlet.

Meanwhile men

of every forsaken god,

like children of a satanic wrath

only show the smiling face of their masks.

Oh, flames of martyrdom

in the bonfires of the inquisition.

Equal to the sacrifice

as an offering to the gods for rain.

Oh, political leaders, warlords, militants

who hand over their children

in front of their mothers

in front of a Calvary.

And oh, priests of the temples converting

Golgotha into an oracle.

And the place of the skull in salvation.

2

I am at the table

reading a newspaper

while having breakfast.

I read that the Dominican Republic

is being invaded.

I change newspapers.

The United States

bombs Hanoi.

Then I looked at a magazine.

There are pictures of Grenada

from when it was invaded.

I turn on a transistor.

The invader is devastating Iraq.

I turn on the television.

You can see the moment

when General Collins demonstrates

the effectiveness of his missiles

in black and white.

The blood can only be guessed

in darker gray tones.

But someone is calling me

on the phone.

I am sorry, I am going to see who it is.

3

Now

I am sitting

reading another newspaper.

I brings the news

that all the countries

that are members of NATO

have sanctioned the invader of Ukraine.

I must leave you,

someone is ringing the doorbell.