Una traducción de Silvia Senese para los angloparlantes o para aquellos que también gustan leer en inglés
KID
PUT THE SMALL T-SHIRT ON
If
you go to read poetry, Kid
put
the small t-shirt on.
Poetry
is cold, Kid.
I
know they say it warms the soul
but
what a soul Kid at the bus stop
this
winter five o’ clock in the morning.
Put
the small t-shirt on Kid.
And
the gloves?
You
take care of the lines that cut
you
take care Kid of those pigeons
of
the moon
of
the wind
of
the west wind Kid that bleeds to death over the
houses
like a scarlet tide.
Kid:
Didn’ t you think about the scarf?
They
’re soon going to blow ice to the neck
to
whet the little word
to
wring it as if it were your nape.
You
know how those guys are Kid.
They
shake hands with you, they applaud you and then
they
send you back with an empty stomach.
And
you didn’ t eat me anything before leaving.
There
I left you the potatoes and peas stew.
If at least you took your deceased father’s anorak
If at least you took your deceased father’s anorak
or
the overcoat. But you leave without giving me a kiss
Kid.
How
many times I’ ve told you have to put on the right road
Study
law, get a girlfriend who at least
won’t
be drunk on Sundays.
But
Kid, you stroll with those who live of nothing
spinning
the letters.
Where
did you see the gleam of the infinite cosmos?
Since
when the fire is a prepubescent blaze?
Tell
me Kid, don’t go yet.
You
should have put the shoes with the rubber sole on
Let’s
see if so much magnetization, if such a voltage electrocutes you.
But
Kid: Didn’t you see I’m alone?
That
momma needs you more than the whole dictionary?
That
noone at the academy or at the SADE is going to cover you
up at night?
We
can play Buraco, finish the strudel
watch
sábados continuados beside the small rock crystal heater.
For
what the double meaning
the
metaphor
the
synecdoche
the
metonymy, Kid
if
you return to me with a cold?
For
what the paradox, Kid, the free verse
The
alliteration, the ellipsis.
For
what serves the otherness
or
the mistery of death?
If
everything is so simple as when you leave naked
because
you live a worn out reality.
That
is what they call poetry?
Come here, Kid
That
momma is going to make you a soup with Manón cookies in the tea with
milk.
Don’t
be a fool
world
should be small
world
is not conquered by enlarging it with sense
nor
folding, or sticking it
not
even trying to break it.
The
world is, watch this Kid I’m saying,
the
world is like the small drawer in your wardrobe.
Like
this, square, at the end of a bedroom
in
your own house, with everything you need.
Come
here Kid, here is your small new t-shirt.
Look
at it how nice.
I
bought it to Don Samuel in two payments
Put it on Kid.
I
don’t want you to be cold.
Notes
The
academy: Academy of Letters
The
SADE: Argentine Writer’s Society
Buraco:
A rummy-type card game for four players in fixed partnerships in which the aim
is to lay down in groups of cards of equal rank and suit sequences, there being
a bonus for combinations of seven cards or more.
Sábados
continuados: A 1964 TV programme conducted by a well-known journalist named Antonio
Carrizo.
Manón:
Sweet cookies sold since 1960 by one top selling brand of cookies and crackers
in Argentine.
