Triunfo Arciniegas / Distance

Triunfo Arciniegas

DISTANCE 

Translated from Spanish by Steve Dolph
LEJANÍA

 

In a molding room

The old man

Lays out the deck
And through the smoke
Points to your figure
Next to a man
Who is not me

 
Steve Dolph edits Calque. He is currently translating a short story collection by Arciniegas, The Unicorn Garden and Other Places for Lonely Men. http://calquezine.blogspot.com/2007/09/triunfo-arciniegas-distance.html

Triunfo Arciniegas / Grandfather

El señor del sombrero
Medellín, 2011
Photography by Triunfo Arciniegas

Triunfo Arciniegas

GRANDFATHER

Translated from Spanish by C.D. Hernández
EL ABUELO

In his old age

he washed his eyes

with rose petal water.

Took naps

under the shade of a tree

and he would tell us stories

about horses lost in the fog

of deer trembling in water

of a house that burned all night.

"Time passes

like a ball of fire "

he once said.

The shadow of

his hat on his face

the ember of snuff,

the palm of his hand on my shoulder.

With a dry blow on the neck

he would send rabbits

to another world.

Garlic fasting

and a chair in the patio,

the secrets of my old man.

For my birthday

he opened the trunk,

his world,

he chose something

and judging by the way he held it

I understood that it was something he loved

a colorful top

which I still I have.

Triunfo Arciniegas / Ceremonies

CEREMONIES

By Triunfo Arciniegas

Translated by Anabel Torres

There’s my mother

Weaving with threads of light

The blood of her nights.

Triunfo Arciniegas / Biography



El beso de la suerte
Photography by Marco Chamorro

  biography

By Triunfo Arciniegas

Translated by Anabel Torres

 

With his top as a pencil

A little boy scribbles on the dust

The history of his life.