Selected Poems of Juan Gelman
translated by Hardie St. Martin

CCLXI:  These poems

these poems this batch of papers this
handful of fragments still trying to breathe
these soft rough words i’ve put together
will be the end of me
sometimes they’re worse than actions or closer to the truth
time passing doesn’t polish or improve them
it shows up the cracks in their flaking walls
their ceiling is caving in and it’s raining

and they can give me neither shelter nor defense
i actually avoid them like cities cursed in ancient times
destroyed by plagues and disasters
by magnificent foreign kings

worse than pain are these
ruins i’ve built while living and letting live
moving between two waters
between this world and its beauty

and i’m not complaining for in
writing poems i sought neither gold nor glory
neither happiness nor unhappiness
neither home nor forgiveness

Selected Poems of Juan Gelman
translated by Hardie St. Martin

Another May

when you went past my window may
with autumn on your back
and flashed signals with the light
of the last leaves

what was your message may?
why were you sad or in your sadness gentle?
i never found out but there was always
one man alone in the street among autumn’s golds

well i was the boy
at the window may
shielding my eyes
when you went past

and come to think of it
i must have been the man

Selected Poems of Juan Gelman
translated by Hardie St. Martin

Friends

jiri wolker attila joszef me
probably never three more perfect friends
jiri would talk about prague
and the blind stoker’s eyes still fixed on us
joszef would sing to Flora and the Revolution
and there were no trains for suicides then
or hospital beds to die in

what do you think of it? jiri joszef me
all three knocking around going through countries and women
and drinking wine and writing brilliant poems
the world was wide and all ours we had nothing
and everything ahead of us like youth
and so this was turning out as we had always planned
in a barricade
jiri joszef and me whistling to the end
they were giving up their bones their tremendous nevers

juri died in a hospital
joszef hurled himself under a train
oh god we were so beautiful
whistling to the end

Selected Poems of Juan Gelman
translated by Hardie St. Martin

The End

A man has died and they’re teaspooning up his blood,
dear john, you’re dead at last.
Those pieces of you soaked in tenderness
were of no use to you.

How could you possibly get out
through a little hole
without someone to put a finger there
to keep you back?

He must have swallowed all the rage in the world
before dying
and afterwards he was so sad so very sad there
leaning on his bones.

They lowered you down, brother,
the ground trembles above you.
Let’s watch and see where his hands
pushed by his immortal rage send up shoots.