Selected Poems by Juan Gelman |
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by Juan Gelman
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From Selected Poems by Juan Gelman translated by Hardie St. Martin
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GOTAN
GOTAN1
The woman was like the word never, a special charm rose up from her neck, a kind of forgetfulness where her eyes were safe, the woman settled in my left side.
Watch out watch out I'd scream watch out but she possessed me like love, like the night, and the last signals I made that autumn settled down quietly under the surf of her hands.
Sharp sounds exploded inside me, rage, sadness, fell down in shreds, the woman came down like a sweet rain on my bones standing in the solitude.
She left me shivering like someone condemned and I killed myself with a quick knife-thrust, I'll spend all my death laid out with her name, it will be the last thing to move my lips. HE WAS BORN ON THE EDGE OF A DISASTROUS DAY
he was born on the brink of a disastrous day face to face with another just like it but in the split or opening between the two he had a kind of warm feeling so
he saw happiness as a sudden break in the heart of those identical doomed barren painful times
when his life was snuffed out his eyes were soft with subdued anger or were falling like autumn leaves in hard transparent sheets
that toured the world and toured the heart yet no one breathed a word to sergeant MacIntire about this ALONE
you're alone / my country / without the comrades you lock up and destroy / you hear them slowly being emptied of the love they have left / they loosen their grip
on their turn to die / dream they're being dreamed / quieted / they'll never see other faces growing / leaning out / continued / in this sun / some day in the sun of justice SAINT THERESA
and with many birds and their songs in the / highest part of the mind or head / and rumblings in it like the sea / or laments / or winds or movements / suns
that clash / go out / then burn again / or powers like thousands of animals that track up the suburbs of the soul / suffering terrible ordeals i mean / even so
the soul goes on whole in its quiet state / or desire / or clear light untouched by sorrow / scorn / misery / suffering or ruin / so
what is this peace without vengeance / or memory of a future heaven / or tenderness coming down from your hands / spring water where birds in the highest part of the mind
rally to drink / sing sweetly / or are silent like light issuing from you / wing flying softly above war and fatigue like the flight of passion itself?
1. This word represents "tango" spelled backwards.
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