Juan Gelman / Confianzas

CONFIANZAS

by Juan Gelman

He sits down at the table and writes /
'with this poem you will not reach power' he says / 
'with these verses you will not make a Revolution' he says / 
'not even with thousands of verses could you make a Revolution' he says // 

what's more: those verses will not serve to make lumberjack laborers live better / 
eat better or to make himself eat or live better / 
nor will they serve to make a woman fall in love with him // 

he will not earn money with them / 
he will not get free movie tickets / 
he will not be given clothes for them / 
he will not get cigarettes or wine for them //

nor bedpans or scarves or boats /
not bulls or umbrellas will he get for them /
if it were up to them, the rain would soak him / 
he will not obtain pardon or grace for them // 

'with this poem you will not attain power' he says / 
'with these verses you will not make a Revolution' he says / 
'not even with thousands of verses could you make a Revolution' / 
he sits down at the table and writes".

Juan Gelman / Saint Theresa

SAINT THERESA

by Juan Gelman

Translated by Hardie St. Martin

and with many birds and their songs in the /
highest part of the mind or head / and rumblings
in it like the sea / or laments /
or winds or movements / suns

that clash / go out / then burn again / or powers
like thousands of animals that track
up the suburbs of the soul / suffering
terrible ordeals i mean / even so

the soul goes on whole in its quiet state /
or desire / or clear light untouched
by sorrow / scorn / misery /
suffering or ruin / so

what is this peace without vengeance / or memory
of a future heaven / or tenderness
coming down from your hands / spring water
where birds in the highest part of the mind

rally to drink / sing sweetly / or are silent
like light issuing from you / wing
flying softly above war and fatigue
like the flight of passion itself?

Juan Gelman / He was born on the edge of a disastrous day

HE WAS BORN 
ON THE EDGE OF A DISASTROUS DAY
 by Juan Gelman

Translated by Hardie St. Martin

he was born on the brink of a disastrous day
face to face with another just like it but
in the split or opening between the two
he had a kind of warm feeling so

he saw happiness
as a sudden break
in the heart of those identical
doomed barren painful times

when his life was snuffed out
his eyes were soft with subdued anger
or were falling like autumn leaves
in hard transparent sheets

that toured the world
and toured the heart
yet no one breathed a word
to sergeant MacIntire about this

Juan Gelman / Alone

Photo by José María Machado

ALONE

by Juan Gelman

Translated by Hardie St. Martin

you're alone / my country / without
the comrades you lock up and destroy / you hear
them slowly being emptied of the love
they have left / they loosen their grip

on their turn to die / dream they're being dreamed / quieted /
they'll never see other faces growing /
leaning out / continued / in this sun /
some day in the sun of justice

Juan Gelman / Gotan

GOTAN1 

by Juan Gelman

Translated by Hardie St. Martin

The woman was like the word never,
a special charm rose up from her neck,
a kind of forgetfulness where her eyes were safe,
the woman settled in my left side.

Watch out watch out I'd scream watch out
but she possessed me like love, like the night,
and the last signals I made that autumn
settled down quietly under the surf of her hands.

Sharp sounds exploded inside me,
rage, sadness, fell down in shreds,
the woman came down like a sweet rain
on my bones standing in the solitude.

She left me shivering like someone condemned
and I killed myself with a quick knife-thrust,
I'll spend all my death laid out with her name,
it will be the last thing to move my lips.

Juan Gelman / Women

Photo by Jenny Boot

Women

by Juan Gelman

Translated from Spanish by J.S. Tennant

to say that this woman was two women is saying nothing

she must have had some 12,397 women in her woman/

it was difficult to know who I was dealing with

in this nation of women/ for example:

we were lying in a bed of love/

she was a dawn of phosphorescent algae/

when I went to embrace her

she turned into singapore full of howling dogs/ I remember

when she appeared wrapped in agadir roses/

she seemed like a constellation come to earth/

seemed like if the southern cross had come to earth/

this woman shone like the moon with her clear voice/

like the sun had set in her voice/

on the roses were written all this woman’s names except one/

and when she turned around/ the nape of her neck was an economic plan/

showing thousands of figures and the balance of the dead in favour of the military dictatorship/

no one ever knew how far this woman was going to go/

i was a little disconcerted/ one night

i tapped her on the shoulder to see who i was with

and i saw a camel in her vacant eyes/ sometimes

this woman was my town’s municipal band/

she played lovely waltzes until the trombone started to get out of tune/

and the rest got out of tune with it/

this woman’s memory was out of tune/

you could love her to the point of delirium/

make her grow through days of trembling sex/

make her flap like a fledgling made of sheets/

the next day she’d wake up talking about malevich/

memory encircled her like an angry clock/

at three in the afternoon she remembered the mule

that on one night of her life kicked her infancy/

this woman was many things and she was a municipal band/

she was devoured by all the ghosts whom she could

feed with her thousands of women/

and she was an out of tune municipal band

disappearing through the shadows of the little plaza in my town/

i/ my friends/ on a night such as this when

our faces were drenched and when perhaps we were dying/

climbed up on the little camel that was waiting in her eyes/

and i departed the lukewarm shores of this woman/

silenced like a child beneath the greedy vultures

that eat everything i give them/ except the memory

of when she came together like a bouquet

of gentleness which she threw one afternoon/

 From

The poems of Julio Grecco

 in “Southwards“

J.S. Tennant is a writer and translator who works for a publishing house in London. He studied at Trinity College, Dublin, and Salamanca.