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🦋 Mutilaciones

This is my translation of Pelele's poem "Mutilaciones," which touched me so strongly when I read it last week.

"Turning Knob"
by Erik Wayne Patterson

Hacking it Apart

by Eduardo Valverde

The cripple in the morning
is the flight, the flight to nowhere,
is the light, the graveyard's light
that's shining, shining in my windows,
it's the bus, the line of buses
stinking sweetly on the roadway,
it's the cat up on the rooftop
where it's watching over the bells.

Half-blindness in the morning
is the frigid bite of dawn,
and forgetfulness's knockers
have no prince, have just a frog,
with the freezing rain foreseen
inside the blossom of my eyes,
inside the corpses of my
promised lands, still warm.

Half-lameness in the morning
is the spirit of the road,
and I've got my eyes wide open,
got my shrunken spirit's cough;

the sun, the half-lit sun, oh
how it's burning in their motors,
it's the end of every heartbreak,
they're in mourning for their games.

The birds get off scot-free,
my reading glasses going blind,
with whole decades slowly
dawning on this Monday.

posted evening of Monday, June 13th, 2011
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HI Jeremy, my name is Eduardo.

I am glad that you like this poem, and so pleased with your english version of it. I particularly loved this verse: "and forgetfulness's knockers", much better than "las tetas del olvido".

Now I remember you. You are Pablo Antonio Cuadras´s "Fan" jajaja. When I got to see your blog it came to my head at once.

Thank you very much,

Eduardo

posted evening of June 14th, 2011 by Pelele

Hi Eduardo, Thanks, I'm glad you like it -- I was not sure whether to call you by your name or pseudonym, some bloggers prefer to keep everything under pseudonym. I will edit the post to add your "by" line.

posted evening of June 14th, 2011 by Jeremy

Jajaja, I did not mean that. My father he once told me: friends most be called always by their names, that was it.

I see you like latin american literature,
I recommend you Roberto Bolaño, he´s got 2 great novels: "Los detectives salvajes" and "2666"

Have you ever been in Costa Rica? If you get to come with your family, you got a place to stay

posted morning of June 17th, 2011 by Pelele

Oh, good point -- it's nice to meet you, Eduardo! I loved "The Savage Detectives", also loved the short stories I've read from Putas asesinas and poetry from The Romantic Dogs. I haven't read 2666 yet, or any of his shorter novels.

Thanks for the invitation! Hopefully we will take you up on it sometime...

Speaking of Chilean literature, have you read the novels of Hernán Rivera Letelier? I have spent the last year or so in love with the two novels of his that I've read, "Santa María de las flores negras" and "El arte de la resurrección".

posted evening of June 17th, 2011 by Jeremy

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