by Roque Dalton (El Salvador)
translated by Margaret Randall

When the season of large ants arrives
we know dust and water have taken vows
horses dream through the day’s early hours
like huge insects fallen on a sponge
what sort of fervent combat do we yearn for?
corn will return to its beginnings
tripping over our bodies
the horizon is a scaffolding for trophies
for displaying them in a lineage of dynamited hills
does your anger speak to the rain?
hope is made of moss, or it’s not hope

by Roque Dalton (El Salvador)
translated by Margaret Randall

That uniform in Christ’s house
stalks me sure as death.

Oh, proof
of drunken confidence!

Oh, powerful mockery
on serious faces!

(But no one repents anymore. We are
the history of the first
and last humans.
Pity is also useful
when it comes to dying:
it is my country’s finest trademark.)

And if we’re not the desperate ones
it’s because of that thing called imagination,
but oh, how wise we are!

(Because in this way of thinking
the thief ’s ecstasy proliferates.

Then we’ll stab him in the back with a knife.)

Fayad Jamis (Cuba)
translated by Kathleen Weaver

Lament of the Young Soldier Jean-Pierre Lepetit in the Mountains of Algeria
for Felix Pita Rodriguez

In my left shirt pocket
I keep my girlfriend’s picture
and a box of candies from my mother
On my shoulder is a terrible rifle
heavier each day
because with it I’m not defending my country
but killing those who want to have a country
I don’t know if I’ll ever get back to my tiled house
Some of us return to our villages sporting medals
Others in the same refrigerated truck
that brings meat and other provisions to the front

Perhaps I’ll shoot down fourteen stars from the sky
like fourteen bleeding pigeons
assassins of tenderness
of the trees of the sky
They haven’t brought me here to love
but to blast the word death
from a rifle barrel
In each of my ears they’ve stuffed
the tiny figure of a general
so I won’t hear the wild shouts
of those who fight beyond the trees
who sometimes hit the ground like tigers.

Rains efface my footprints
but not the red mark of my crime
Victorious or not
with medals or carted home on ice
there will always be
that tiny speck of blood–stained dirt.

by Fayad Jamis (Cuba)
translated by Kathleen Weaver

Philosophy of the Optimist
for Jaime August Shelley

The optimist sat down at the table, looked around
and helped himself to a little of the little he found.
The others pointed out there was too much of nothing
(in fact there was a little bit of a lot).
But he ate his portion without comment,
opened his newspaper, inhaled his coffee
and finished dining in peace. Musing: I have the right
to eat in good humor the little bit of plenty
I earn while abundance is drawing near. Still
they went on and on about all they didn’t have
did not, did not, did not have. None of this, none of that.
But the optimist rose in silence
and thought again of those years
when tears were his only nourishment. When nobody
was there to say: “There’s no soup,” or “no meat” or
“Take this scrap of hard bread for the dog of your hunger.”
Yet he spoke not a word in protest. And now
he was satisfied with his frugal supper.
The optimist
went out to the street and set off walking and whistling
The electric lights reminded him of the future.