NINE POEMS BY ROQUE DALTON

Translated by Johnny Dracut

27 AÑOS Es una cosa seria tener veintisiete años en realidad es una de las cosas más serias en derredor se mueren los amigos de la infancia ahogada y empieza a dudar uno de su inmortalidad. 27 YEARS It is a serious thing to be twenty-seven years old in fact it is one of the most serious things around to experience the death of friends and childhood drowning one begins to doubt his own immortality. EL DESCANSO DEL GUERRERO Los muertos están cada día más indóciles. Antes era fácil con ellos: les dábamos un cuello duro una flor loábamos sus nombres en una larga lista: que los recintos de la patria que las sombras notables que el mármol monstruoso. El cadáver firmaba en pos de la memoria iba de nuevo a filas y marchaba al compás de nuestra vieja música. Pero qué va los muertos son otros desde entonces. Hoy se ponen irónicos preguntan. Me parece que caen en la cuenta de ser cada vez más la mayoría! THE FALLING OF THE FREEDOM FIGHTERS The dead are more unmanageable every day. Before it was easy with them: we gave flowers to the uptight ones we gave the relatives the names on one long list: to these we gave national borders to those we gave remarkable peace that one we gave a monstrous marble tomb Then we saluted the memory of the corpses and went to their cemetery rows marching to the compass of old music. But where the dead go is different now. Today they ask ironic questions. And it seems to me that they fall more and more on account of being more and more the majority. DIA DE LA PATRIA Hoy fue el día de la patria: desperté a medio podrir, sobre el suelo húmedo e hiriente como la boca de un coyote muerto, entre los gases embriagadores de los himnos. 15 de septiembre. THE NATIONAL DAY Today was the day of the mother country: I woke up with the means to rot, on humid and hostile ground like the mouth of a dead coyote, between the intoxicating gases of hymns. 15 of september SOBRE DOLORES DE CABEZA Es bello ser comunista, aunque cause muchos dolores de cabeza. Y es que el dolor de cabeza de los comunistas se supone histórico, es decir que no cede ante las tabletas analgésicas sino sólo ante la realización del Paraíso en la tierra. Así es la cosa. Bajo el capitalismo nos duele la cabeza y nos arrancan la cabeza. En la lucha por la Revolución la cabeza es una bomba de retardo. En la construcción socialista planificamos el dolor de cabeza lo cual no lo hace escasear, sino todo lo contrario. El comunismo será, entre otras cosas, Una aspirina del tamaño del sol. HEADACHES It is beautiful to be Communist, although it causes many headaches. You see the headache of Communism is supposed to be historical, that is to say it does not yield to analgesic tablets but only through the accomplishment of Earth Paradise. Tell you what, it is the bomb! Under Capitalism when our heads hurt they just take our heads. In the Revolutionary Struggle, the head is a retardation bomb. In Socialist Construction we plan our headaches which does not make them scarce, quite the opposite Communism will be, among other things, an aspirin as large as the sun DECIRES «El marxismo-leninismo es una piedra para romperle la cabeza al imperialismo y a la burguesía.» «No. El marxismo-leninismo es la goma elástica con que se arroja esa piedra.» «No, no. El marxismo-leninismo es la idea que mueve el brazo que a su vez acciona la goma elástica de la honda que arroja esa piedra.» «El marxismo-leninismo es la espada para cortar las manos del imperialismo.» «Qué va! El marxismo-leninismo es la teoría de hacerle la manicure al imperialismo mientras se busca la oportunidad de amarrarle las manos.» ¿Qué voy a hacer si me he pasado la vida leyendo el marxismo-leninismo y al crecer olvidé que tengo los bolsillos llenos de piedras y una honda en el bolsillo de atrás y que muy bien me podría conseguir una espada y que no soportaría estar cinco minutos en un Salón de Belleza? THINGS THEY SAY "marxismo-leninismo is a rock to break the head of imperialism and the bourgeoisie." "No. marxismo-leninismo is the sling with which that stone is thrown." "No, no. marxismo-leninismo is the idea that moves the arm that drives the elastic band of the sling that throws the stone." "marxismo-leninismo is the sword to cut the hands of imperialism." "What? marxismo-leninismo is the theory of doing manicures on the hands of imperialism while looking for an opportunity to manacle them." What I am going to do if I go through life reading about marxismo-leninismo and then when i'm grown I have forgotten that I have pockets full of stones and a sling in my back pocket and that it could very well result in a sword being stuck in my gut and that it wouldn't support anyone for five minutes in a beauty parlor? REVISIONISMO No siempre. Porque, por ejemplo, en Macao, el opio es el opio del pueblo. REVISIONISM Not always. Because, for example, in Macao, opium is the opium of the people. DESPUÉS DE LA BOMBA ATÓMICA Polvo serán, mas, polvo enamorado? AFTER THE ATOM BOMB Will be dust, but, will it be loved dust? MIEDO A Julio Cortázar Un ángel solitario en la punta del alfiler oye que alguien orina. FEAR For Julio Cortazar A single angel on the head of a pin hears that certain someone ringing LA CABEZA CONTRA EL MURO (Conclusión filosófico-moral.) La materia es dura, la materia es indestructible: por lo tanto la materia es incomprensiva, la materia es cruel. HEAD AGAINST THE WALL (Philosophical-Moral Conclusion) Matter is hard, matter is indestructible: therefore matter is uncomprending, matter is cruel. Roque Dalton (1935-1975) was a Salvadoran poet and son of one of the Dalton boys of Kansas, a notorious American outlaw family, who escaped to El Salvador and became a wealthy plantation owner. A brilliant student, he was rejected by his peers in elite society as an illegitmate child of a Yanqui and a "peasant" for his agricultural associations. Dalton became a Communist and organized peasant resistance to the Salvadoran government. He twice escaped death in legendary fashion - arrested and sentenced to death in 1961, the Salvadoran government was overthrown the night of his planned execution; again in 1965, he was arrested while in exile in Mexico and sentenced to death - but on the night before his scheduled execution, an earthquake destroyed the walls of the prison and he escaped again. Ironically, Dalton was finally killed by his own people in 1975, during a power struggle among revolutionary groups. Published widely while in exile in Cuba and in Mexico, these poems by Dalton are from Taberna y otros Lugares (Taverns and other Places), written and published in 1969 during his time as a correspondent in Prague.

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