Lovely was the afternoon among car dealers,
lovely the afternoon and the sun of parking lots among starry flags.
I loved her mind at war and loved her heart at war.
I loved her mediocrity.
Hermosa era la tarde, cuando entre los dealers de carros,
hermosa la tarde y el sol de los parkings entre banderas de estrellas.
Yo amaba su mente en guerra y amaba su corazón en guerra.
Amé, su mediocridad.
The curve of the malecón on the steering wheel, my hand on the steering wheel.
The star-spangled brand, the idea of a North.
The past makes the present resistant to truth.
Fear has the power of imagination, what fear needs is an image.
Politicians and illusionists pull cards out of their sleeves, one after another,
rabbits out of hats.
Freedom and solitude go together.
The hand is better at killing than the mind.
The way power steers truth and steers lies.
The way they steer your life.
From a place in the present, you choose the past.
You accept the tyranny of circumstance.
La curva del malecón en el volante, mi mano en el volante.
The star-spangled brand, la idea de un norte.
El pasado hace que el presente se resista a la verdad.
El miedo tiene poder de imaginar, al miedo le hace falta, la imagen.
Los políticos y los magos sacan cartas de las mangas, una tras otra,
conejos de los sombreros.
La libertad y la soledad van juntas.
La mano mata mejor que la mente.
La manera en que el poder maneja la verdad y maneja la mentira.
La manera en que manejan tu vida.
Desde el presente, eliges el pasado.
Aceptas la prepotencia de las circunstancias.
Your mind is inside the world, the world inside your mind. But also outside.
The sun crossing the curtains. Aluminum foil. You affect me as oxygen affects crackers left sitting out.
I affect you, as oxygen affects crackers left sitting out.
Tu mente está dentro del mundo, el mundo está adentro de la mente. Pero también afuera.
El sol atravesando las cortinas. El papel de plata. Me haces lo que el oxígeno a las galletas.
Te hago, lo que el oxígeno a las galletas.
I walked with inward-moving sorrow. In line at the embassy, reading a magazine, I read that in Latin kore means girl, pupil. A point, a disturbance that gets bigger with the dark. The girl in my eyes. Love in the altered mind.
****
I watched clouds like surfers watch waves. A point, a disturbance. Water at the edge that boils or freezes, gas. Contracting in the light. Expanding in the dark.
****
Near the Saint Francis of Assis plaza, I saw that the convent wall was a wall of coral, or at least thousands of corals were encrusted on it. I remembered that photo in your living room. You as a girl, in the bell tower, looking to the future. You affect me as oxygen affects crackers left sitting out; I affect you, as oxygen affects crackers left sitting out.
Caminaba con un dolor que se movía adentro. En una cola de embajada leyendo una revista leí que en latín, Kore, quiere decir niña, pupila. Un punto, una perturbación que se agranda con lo oscuro. La niña de mis ojos. El amor en la mente alterada.
****
Miraba las nubes como los surfeadores las olas. Un punto, una perturbación. Un agua al extremo que hierve o se congela, gas. Contraer en la luz. Expandir en lo oscuro.
****
Cerca de la plaza de Asís, vi que la pared del convento era una pared de corales, o al menos tenía miles incrustados. Recordé aquella foto que tenías en la sala. Tú de niña, en el campanario, mirando al frente. Me haces lo que el oxígeno a las galletas, te hago, lo que el oxígeno a las galletas.
After it ended, I went back to walk down Obispo.
I was crying.
I tossed coins into a collection box for Fernando Pessoa.
When I did that, he moved.
It was someone else, but he was playing Pessoa.
I asked him if he was Pessoa. But he didn’t speak.
A flock of tourists from the Norwegian Sky were following a guide with a banner.
I followed him too. As I walked, I remembered that Bukowski poem:
She didn’t know who the fuck she was how was she going to know about Dostoyevsky, or something like that.
The poem was talking about a librarian from whom he requested books, and he wanted her to recognize his good taste: Li Po, Dostoyevsky, that sort of thing.
The funny part is that for a moment, inside my sorrow, I thought the statue was really Pessoa.
Are you Fernando Pessoa?
She didn’t know who the fuck she was how was she going to know shit about Dostoyevsky.
Después del fin volví a caminar por Obispo.
Iba llorando.
Eché dinero en una alcancía a Fernando Pessoa.
Cuando lo hice, se movió.
Era otro, pero hacía de él.
Le pregunté si era Pessoa. Pero no habló.
Una bandada de turistas del Norwegian Sky seguían a un guía con pancarta.
Yo también lo seguí, mientras caminaba recordé aquel poema de Bukowski:
Ella no sabía quién pinga era ella como iba a saber quién era Dostoievski; o algo por el estilo.
El poema hablaba de una bibliotecaria a la que le pedía libros y él quería que ella se diera cuenta de su buen gusto; Li Po, Dostoievski, ese tipo de cosas.
Lo gracioso es que, por un instante, en medio del dolor, pensé que la estatua era Pessoa.
Tú eres Fernando Pessoa?
Ella no sabía quién pinga era ella como cojones iba a saber quién era Dostoievski.
—
Marcelo Morales is the author of The World as Presence / El mundo como ser, a bilingual poetry edition from University of Alabama Press (2016). His previous books of prose poetry include El círculo mágico, El mundo como objeto, and Cinema and Materia, among others. His novel La espiral appeared in 2006. Other translations from The Star-Spangled Brand appear or are forthcoming in Lana Turner, Mantis, Poesía en acción (Action Books), and Two Lines. A pandemic-era poem appears in Seedings 7.
Kristin Dykstra is principal translator of The Winter Garden Photograph by Reina María Rodríguez (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2019), winner of the 2020 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. In June 2020 she was featured in Words Without Borders’ Translator Relay, and her 2015 A-Z commentary series on translation, “Intermedium,” was published in Jacket2. Her new poems appear in Seedings, The Hopper, La Noria, and Lana Turner. Previously, University of Alabama Press published four of Dykstra’s book-length translations of Cuban poetry, including The World as Presence by Marcelo Morales (longlisted for the National Translation Award).