Bloody

                                                                              Traducción: Billy B. Thompson

The innocuous screeching of the brakes

didn’t help.

The collision of a truck with a motorcycle left its tracks

on the asphalt.

The bike sleeps rolled up on the concrete.  Where

is the boy?  The murmurs from the people seem

like prayer as they look for him.  They can’t see him.

A carriage with a baby in it is crossing at the next

corner, over a flawless, velvet rug, with red and

brown arabesques.

 Entrevista y traducción al inglés de seis poemas de su libro Navajas sobre la mesa”  Traducción y entrevista: Billy B. Thompson En: Essays in homage to John Esten Keller,  Editorial Juan de la Cuesta Hispanic Monographs, EE.UU, 2012,  pp. 283-291.   

Cremation

                                                                                Traducción: Billy B. Thompson

The bare cigarette-burns remain as unspeakable marks

on the palm of my hand.

Between the index and middle fingers you can hold a tree alit.

The ashes,  those orange worms, await while dying

on the table the voiceless silence of breathing,

exploding into hostile piranhas.

To refresh innocently and burning painfully

madness, such a provocative caress.

Two hours waiting, three cups of coffee, tweny perfectly

round vials of medicine. 

 Entrevista y traducción al inglés de seis poemas de su libro Navajas sobre la mesa”  Traducción y entrevista: Billy B. Thompson En: Essays in homage to John Esten Keller,  Editorial Juan de la Cuesta Hispanic Monographs, EE.UU, 2012,  pp. 283-291.

  

And With No Appealling

  Traducción: Billy B. Thompson

To Chantal Sébire*

Hanging at the edge of the bed, her dream that never came to be,

now live on.

For the last time you shall have folded up the blanket that your

mother gave you, for the last time you shall watered your plants

and felt the coldness of obedience, the bitter taste of the

pills, the impotence of radiation is the road to blindness.

In the mirror you no longer can see yourself in that tormented

monster.  Can anyone comprehend the incur-

able taste of blood.  The weight of your face is

an exploded apple that boils in the open air.  Of course,

the days of your life cannot be destroyed.  What a lot of fear

can they engender!

There can be no peace of mind,  the trial courts write one abomination after another,

judicial judgments with no sense of hope are smiles

torn asunder and swallow up the silence and close off

the doors with fear.

You wait quiet and insignifcantly for the mutilated No.  Therefore,

this afternoon, and with no appealling, you shall double the dosage for euthanasia,

the breathing will become more shallow, you shall place her slowly

on the table, alone, untouched, the pain shall end.

Nota Bene

            On 19 March 2008, Chantal Sébire was found dead at home.  This professor suffered from a rare, incurable, deforming, and painful cancer; it left her an invalid.  Two days before her death, a French court forbade her appeal for ethanasia.  Her case reopened in France the debate over the right to die with dignity and the rights of patients with incurable diseases.

 Entrevista y traducción al inglés de seis poemas de su libro Navajas sobre la mesa”  Traducción y entrevista: Billy B. Thompson En: Essays in homage to John Esten Keller,  Editorial Juan de la Cuesta Hispanic Monographs, EE.UU, 2012,  pp. 283-291.

Silence

  Traducción: Billy B. Thompson

The smiles of the suicides hang in the bathroom mirrors.

Hanging on hooks like a bunch of peaches, their last mien

hold the blackness of their despair.  All cherishing cut

away; yellow slices that disappear at the bottom of a

plate.

A fear of the silence of loneliness shouts in vain, saddened

from within.  Can that bitterness be measured?

Unblemished, a final silence takes over the bathroom.

 Entrevista y traducción al inglés de seis poemas de su libro Navajas sobre la mesa”  Traducción y entrevista: Billy B. Thompson En: Essays in homage to John Esten Keller,  Editorial Juan de la Cuesta Hispanic Monographs, EE.UU, 2012,  pp. 283-291.

Outside the Body

 Traducción: Billy B. Thompson

In the gap of the body, the smallest of heads

appears.

The body contracts, a woven quiet nest, rips

open.

Covered in filth he emerges, one side of his mouth hangs

tenderly to the right.

Never did I make ready a crib, there was no need.

Entrevista y traducción al inglés de seis poemas de su libro Navajas sobre la mesa”  Traducción y entrevista: Billy B. Thompson En: Essays in homage to John Esten Keller,  Editorial Juan de la Cuesta Hispanic Monographs, EE.UU, 2012,  pp. 283-291.

Switchblades on the Table

Traducción: Billy B. Thompson 

Let’s put two switchblades on the table.

Look at them and don’t let their sparkle get into

your eyes, they’d think they can show us their right

to wound us, to take part in how to slash us at the

moment of our enjoyment.

Each one of us with two capsules in our hearts, ready to take

them guardedly, one at breakfast and the other before

going to be on Sunday, they order our appalling routine

of walking around like ghosts.

Two switchblades made out  of earth, with the fragrance of pollen, a

frightening loveliness trying to get away from our body.

Entrevista y traducción al inglés de seis poemas de su libro Navajas sobre la mesa”  Traducción y entrevista: Billy B. Thompson En: Essays in homage to John Esten Keller,  Editorial Juan de la Cuesta Hispanic Monographs, EE.UU, 2012,  pp. 283-291.

MESSER AUF DEM TISCH

                                                                                    Traducción: Wolfgang Ratz. 

Legen wir zwei Messer auf den Tisch.

Sieh sie an und lasse ihr Blitzen nicht in deine Augen

dringen. Sie meinten sonst, sie dürfen uns zeigen, wie sie uns

verwunden, oder sie mischen sich ein, um uns in unserer Lust

zu verletzen.

Jedes trägt zwei Pillen im Herzen, zur sorgsamen Einnahme

mit dem Frühstück und bevor wir Sonntags zu Bett gehen; sie

erbauen die furchtbare, selbstlose Gewohnheit, zu gehen, als

wären wir Visionen.

Zwei Messer, aus Erde gemacht, duftend nach Blütenstaub,

die erschrockene Schönheit, die aus dem Körper zu

entkommen versucht.

Publicado en: La barca de papel. Viena. Nov. 2010