The Wages of the Profane — (Paris, Geneva, Mexico, New York, 1984-1992)
Selected Poems of Juan Gelman
translated by Hardie St. Martin
Courage
to José Angel Valente
Word that is extinguished when we breathe or name its impossibles, bones that burned to give it shade, palate that ended in spittle; what had been body now burns out to let the horizon take form. A verse works its way into poetry and, around the world, the slimy dawn is a forest of blood. Or are those the footsteps of terrified Death? There are no more cities of refuge, Cedes, Arama, Asor have sweating brows, their swallows fled to the trees of the sun. Now everything is birth.
The Judgment
Selected Poems of Juan Gelman
translated by Hardie St. Martin
The Judgment
that grace time saw growing on your brow /
time will reap / and will not give it back /
and the high throne you believed so high and eternally yours /
time will lower it into the grave /
and the pain you tied me down with in your hour of victory /
time will sever with its axe and its knife /
time lowers down / time raises up /
from his no-man’s land the exile will depart
joseph tsarfati
Com/Positions — (Paris, 1984-1985)
Selected Poems of Juan Gelman
translated by Hardie St. Martin
The Prisoner
gazelle / you’re far away /
yet you’re closer to my bones than even i am /
the world may think i’m a free man
yet each word from you is my mistress /
and though i may walk upright in everyone’s eyes
i am the prisoner of my loneliness for you /
without father or mother / without water or bread /
i walk naked in the sun of your absence /
joseph tsarfati
XVI
Selected Poems of Juan Gelman
translated by Hardie St. Martin
XVI
What really hurts me is our defeat.
Exiles are tenants of solitude. They may correct their memory, betray, disbelieve, conciliate, die or come out on top. In this last case, they looked at their face as if it were theirs: it was filled with traitors, disbelievers, conciliators, the dead and also those compañeros who died with faith and burn in the night and repeat their anmes and won’t let you sleep.
To make you see the distances no one lets you sleep.
You rattle your bones, you.
So be it.