Selected Poems of Juan Gelman
 translated by Hardie St. Martin

The Thief

In the night, so dark and quiet,
shying away from everything human or animal,
secretly, without a sound, he steals
fire from words and words from fire
for himself, for everyone, for the love he’ll never know.
The cold ashes punish his hands.

Selected Poems of Juan Gelman
 translated by Hardie St. Martin

The Art of Poetry

Of all trades, I’ve chosen one that  isn’t mine.

Like a hard taskmaster
it makes me work day and night,
in pain, in love,
out in the rain, in dark times,
when tenderness or the soul opens its arms,
when illness weighs down my hands.

The grief of others, tears,
handkerchiefs raised in greeting,
promises in the middle of autumn or fire,
kisses of reunion or goodbye,
everything makes me work with words, with blood.
I’ve never been the owner of my ashes, my poems,
obscure faces write them like firing bullets at death.

Selected Poems of Juan Gelman
 translated by Hardie St. Martin

Strike At The Construction Site

Neither the strong  noon wine
they’d drink out in the wind.
Nor the ladder, the sun, the air.
Silence stands on the scaffolding.

The men looked at one another patiently
from the heart straight to the bone.
They touched death further down.
0And they made up their minds.

Maybe María’ll cry over these things
and she’ll do it secretly.
She’ll have to dry her cheeks with the night.
Her man won’t know it, one less worry for him.

The man will stare at his quiet hands,
he’ll either say I have or I don’t have.

He’ll grow from his balls on up,
made pure once again.

Pure now that there’s wine in his brother,
small pieces of bread in Pedro’s eyes.
And on the strength of this
the child in his heart comes back again.

And on the strength of this
the silence on the scaffolding
takes its hat off to him.

Selected Poems of Juan Gelman
 translated by Hardie St. Martin

I Sit Here Like an Invalid

I sit here like an invalid in the desert of my desire for you

I’ve grown used to sipping the night slowly, knowing
you’re in it somewhere filling it with dreams.

The night wind whips the stars flickering in my hands,
broken-hearted widows of your hair, still unreconciled.

The birds you planted in my heart are stirring and
sometimes with a knife’s cold blade
I’d offer them the freedom they demand to go back to you.

And yet I can’t.  You’re so much a part of me, so much alive in me
that if I died, my death would kill you.