Robin Munby

Translated by Robin Munby

1. BODIES LOST IN MORGUES / CUERPOS PERDIDOS EN LAS MORGUES

   

   

   ENGSPA

   Only terror wakes up lovers

   Eduardo Lizalde

    

   Where are those bodies lost in morgues?

   And where the lukewarm love that made them?

    

   I awoke and you were crying

   Like a damp dressing the night wrapped itself around you

   like recently boiled surgical material

   the night hours wrapped you in their warm

   damp dressing pearled with dew and perhaps me

   too but the poem’s not about that

   it’s about:

   I awoke and you were crying

   and I told you remember my love we fell asleep watching Penny Dreadful

   this is probably just

   one of my dreams

           just some bullshit

   But I’m the one who’s always dreaming 

    

   Anyway, that doesn’t matter the thing is you were crying 

   what name are we going to give this lump and you were looking away

   what do you reckon Aurelian lump swelling nodule mammary 

    

   You fell asleep alone as always

   Sorry I can’t believe this has happened again you’re a moron don’t touch me it’s possible

   you didn’t say that but something

   more like

   Oh can you feel my heartbeat?

   I’d say yes because the truth is I can

   Oh can you feel my heartbeat?

   I’d say someone changed the names on our toe tags

   Oh can you feel my heartbeat?

   I’d say I understand your concern madam, but our hands and feet are bound

   And someone maybe a producer maybe the scriptwriter although I doubt it

   would then get ready to film that scene where the psychopath checks

   the firm restraints of his victim 

   and I would quickly assume the point

   of view of the maniac and you well you can imagine

    

    

   From Bodies Lost in Morgues (2018)

   Translated by Robin Munby

   Solo el terror despierta a los amantes.  

   EDUARDO LIZALDE 

    

   ¿Dónde están esos cuerpos perdidos en las morgues?  ¿Y dónde el tibio amor que los compuso?  

    

   Me desperté y llorabas  

   Como una gasa húmeda la noche te envolvía  

   tal material quirúrgico recién hervido  

   las horas de la noche te envolvían con su gasa húmeda  y caliente perlada de rocío y tal vez yo  

   también pero no va de eso el poema  

   sino:  

   me desperté y llorabas  

   y te dije recuerda amor que nos dormimos viendo Penny  Dreadful 

   lo más probable es que esto sea solo  

   un sueño de los míos 

   y una mierda  

   soy yo la que siempre sueña las cosas  

    

   Pero da igual el caso es que llorabas  

   qué nombre le pondremos a este bulto y evitabas mirar  qué te parece bulto Aureliano tumoración nódulo mamario  

    

   Te dormiste tú solo como siempre  

   Perdona no me creo que haya vuelto a pasar eres imbécil no  me toques es posible  

   que no dijeras esto sino algo  

   más parecido a  

   Oh can you feel my heartbeat?  

   Yo te contestaría sí pues la verdad es que puedo  Oh can you feel my heartbeat?  

   Yo te contestaría alguien cambió los nombres en las fichas  policiales  

   Oh can you feel my heartbeat?  

   Yo te contestaría entiendo su preocupación señora pero  estamos atados de pies y manos  

   Y alguien quizás un productor quizás el guionista aunque lo  dudo 

   montaría después aquella escena en que el maníaco revisa  las firmes ataduras de su víctima  

   y yo de pronto tomaría el punto  

   de vista del fanático y tú bueno ya imaginas  

    

    

   De Cuerpos perdidos en las morgues (2018) 

2. I WOKE UP AND YOU WERE CRYING / ME DESPERTÉ Y LLORABAS

   

   

   ENGSPA

                   but on this

   occasion maybe we didn’t say anything for a while 

   A hug that’s all (The camera zooms out / is that a penis?)

    

   I didn’t know you listened to Nick Cave I said to you at last

   I’ve never heard of Nick Cave you answered

   And then I paused

   I’ve never heard of Nick Caaaaaaave

    

   I woke up again

   I sat up quickly in bed Without switching

   the light on I managed to go down to the kitchen Then I picked up a glass

   I shook off the dream as best I could

    

   Wake up, I said.

           

   My love, my love, I’m afraid

           they've stolen our bodies. 

    

    

   From Bodies Lost in Morgues (2018)

   Translated by Robin Munby

   pero en esta  

   ocasión tal vez no dijimos nada por un rato  

   Un abrazo tan solo (El plano se va abriendo / ¿eso es un  pene?)  

    

   Desconocía que escucharas a Nick Cave te dije al fin  No sé quién es Nick Cave me contestaste  

   Y entonces me detuve  

   No sé quién es Nick Caaaaaave  

    

   Me desperté otra vez  

   Me incorporé muy rápido en la cama Sin prender  la luz logré bajar a la cocina Cogí un vaso  

   Me sacudí aquel sueño como pude  

    

   Despierta, dije. 

    

   Amor, amor me temo 

                                que han robado nuestros cuerpos.

    

    

   De Cuerpos perdidos en las morgues (2018) 

    

3. THE VALLADOLID DEBATE / JUNTA DE VALLADOLID

   

   

   ENGSPA

   But with the whip now paused in flight,

   the conquest of the world must stand still.

    

   Ensanguined streets of Valladolid, ensanguined gold birthed in the land of encomenderos, theology is a broken vessel or so they shout, just war is just in early summer or so they shout

   thirty very juridical propositions,

   something trembling at the start of things 

    

   and there will be no verdict in spite of it all.

    

   The cobblestones may tremble and the sorry cargo in the bellies of the boats and the international legal treaties and the black robes of the Dominicans,

   taut like the taut string of another bow,

   like the taut string, the world

   may only snap or shoot,

    

   and there will be no verdict in spite of it all:

   both will have to be declared winners.

    

   The wild swans will resume

   their whiplike flight in the poet’s mind

   and the smallpox and new epidemics of smallpox and typhus and flu and diphtheria

   will destroy field and forest of distant America

   and a child will be born bearing the name Garcilaso el Inca

   and someone will ask him if it was worth it,

   this halting and this pausing, 

   if it was worth seeing the world from afar

   with its simple beauty, with its deadlocked horror.

    

   Someone will say yes, that it was. 

    

   And I will be that man who kissed you on the forehead.

    

    

   From Bodies Lost in Morgues (2018)

   Translated by Robin Munby

   Mas detenido el látigo en su vuelo, 

   la conquista del mundo habrá de congelarse. 

   Sanguíneas calles de Valladolid, oro sanguíneo naciendo en  tierra de los encomenderos, la teología es una vasija  rota o eso gritan, la guerra justa es justa al  comienzo del verano o eso gritan, 

   treinta proposiciones muy jurídicas, 

   algo vibrando en el principio de las cosas 

   y pese a todo no habrá resolución posible. 

   Podrán vibrar los adoquines y las tristes mercancías en las  panzas de los barcos y los tratados de derecho  internacional y las túnicas negras de los dominicos,  tensos como la cuerda tensa de otro arco, 

   como la cuerda tensa, el mundo 

   solo podrá romperse o disparar, 

   y pese a todo no habrá resolución:

   ambos tendrán que ser declarados vencedores. 

   Retomarán los ánades salvajes 

   su vuelo como un látigo en la mente del poeta 

   y la viruela y nuevas epidemias de viruela y el tifus y la gripe  y la difteria 

   devastarán campos y bosques de la América lejana  y un niño nacerá que llevará por nombre Garcilaso el Inca 

   y alguien preguntará si mereció la pena, 

   este parar y este detenerse 

   si mereció la pena ver el mundo desde lejos 

   con su belleza simple, con su horror colapsado.  Alguien dirá que sí, que estuvo bien. 

   Y yo seré aquel hombre que te besó en la frente.

4. FATAL DESTÍNEZ’S DATE DIDN’T GO TO PLAN / LA CITA DE FATAL DESTÍNEZ NO SALIÓ COMO ESPERABA

   

   

   ENGSPA

   My love, this is not

           a postcard poem.

    

   I can now confirm:

   I have been to neither Marrakesh, nor Venice

   nor have I been to jail.

    

   It isn’t a metapoem either;

   I’m not thinking about that pig

   castrated by language and its forms.

    

   If anything, this is but a monolith.

   Or something a little more modest, a rough stone

    

   (by the way, my love, who are you)

    

   floating, perhaps, in a mass

   of extremely dense water.

    

           Like my life.

    

   Oh, shit

    

    

   From Bodies Lost in Morgues (2018)

   Translated by Robin Munby

5. THE SICK THINKERS / LOS PENSADORES ENFERMOS

   

   

   ENGSPA

   Precious oaths from which I expect the joy
   of baring, laughing and kissing, her fair body
   and of watching it in the lamplight.

   ARNAUT DANIEL

    

   The order was clear: spit out the truth and then set yourself on fire,

   but Arturo didn’t see our blue flames.

   Returning by plane, before the steely twilight of Avilés, how much alike, how close even… And yet, will she

   remember those evenings that dissolved

   against the canal-strewn Dublin night, or will she not even remember the cause of death.

   That’s what you were wondering back then, and today I can assure you

   that the two of you will never think the same thing and you’ll certainly never be able to prove it,

   she will remember the love though she tries not to and the guilt though she hates the Catholic church and the evenings when you watched cooking competitions filled with the horror of slowly sinking ships,

   while you will have lived another subtly 

   different story, one about bodies lost in public morgues

   and a dead man who holds the mystery of a golden bullet in his fist,

   and you will coincide, perhaps, in a single phrase

   (then the depths or the void),

   but you will be pulled apart

   by the love and the bodies and a boat sailing silently between the swans of the old canal,

   a dark shape and the mental proximity of the murderer

   and that night when you asked her who committed the crime

   and she looked at you like you were the only one

   playing, as if you knew the three cards (murder weapon, location and character)

   from the start, she asked 

   what crime are you talking about

   –a silence between the two of you, palpable, like a mass of water–

   and you may be pulled apart by the simulacrum of sexuality in the form of an imperishable backside holding all the cava in the world upon its cheeks

   and the two of you will want to know which of these two stories is true

   and neither of you will dare to mention it on your long 

   walks, on your long trips to the coast,

   and you will end up hurling yourselves

   into love, into the desert and the mirror, 

   into those endless evenings of reality TV, touching the gloom and the cracking up,

   you will end up hurling yourselves into the fire of truth

   which is the only fire that exists

   like two detectives who could never find

   the blurred body of the psychopath,

   or perhaps like two onlookers gazing at and feigning

   different moons.

    

    

   From Bodies Lost in Morgues (2018)

   Translated by Robin Munby

6. THE MASK ENQUIRES / LA MÁZCARA ENTRUGA

   

   

   ENGSPA

   Who am I Examining these limits

   between mask and human Clinging

   like a dark limpet

   to the face of my face in the worst

   of cases in the best of cases

   Descending like a spirit in the rain

   and splitting the water in two with each drop

   to see if someone stitched crosses

   inside of me

   or to put this another way

   into my border

    

   Who am I to say

   you mustn’t speak you mustn’t cough when wearing me

   To whisper

   you must act in (at least) two ways 

   as yourself and as another

   or to put this another way

   like you and like me

   You must move differently

   bending your knees and leaning forward slightly you must do

   everything backwards

   with your left hand

   with your right mind

    

   We are new to this world

   You and I

   We are new

   We scare easily

   We surprise even more so 

   We glance around in astonishment

   You know me Remember this verb has two meanings and they are opposites

    

   If you treat me right I can be your guide

   If you treat me very well I’ll help you

   bear the burden I myself entail

    

   Who am I I am unreal

   and disproportionate

   It’s true What form do I take (if I have a form)

   Some masks are made

   to utter violence

   To look aggressive

    

   Who am I

    

   If you make a mistake, I can and will punish you

   If you make a mistake I will

   cut your face

   and maybe worse.

    

    

   From Pábilun (unpublished)

   Translated by Robin Munby

7. FIRST SONG OF THE MASK / PRIMER CANTAR DE LA MÁZCARA

   

   

   ENGSPA

   The false spring falls and settles settles and falls and the hawthorn

   bears flowers 

   of ice ai ai ai

   Like a beautiful, barren queen settles and falls

   like the song of a friend entwined

   the hawthorn ai ai ai

               o meu amado ai ai ai 

   the little tree flowers beyond time

   settles and falls

   bears its flowers 

   of time

   ai ai ai

   settles and falls

    

   The field littered with white

   however

   has verses almost wide as furrows

   settles and falls

   Black figures bearing cowbells

   and clad in skins 

   of poor dead animals ai ai ai

   wolf cub, fox and chamois

   settles and falls

   they’re dragging a plough through the snow

   settles and falls!

    

   Are they young folks masquerading ai ai ai?

   Does pregnant death settle and fall?

   Uterus as tomb? The hawthorn flowering in winter’s depths ai ai ai?

   The time that doesn’t pass, that settles and falls?

    

   That’s the wood from which this mask was made,

       

   my lad.

    

    

   From Pábilun (unpublished)

   Translated by Robin Munby

8. XOTA OF THE MASK / XOTA DE LA MÁZCARA

   

   

   ENGSPA

   Pan. Ana wants a pan, wants a pan,

   pan. Ana wants a pan, wants a pan,

   pan. Ana wants a pan, wants a pan,

   pan, pan, pan, pan,

   pan, pan, pan, pan.

    

   As the geometric beats peter out,

   the Guirria appears amid the rocky hillsides.

   A posse of lads on horseback come following single file,

   they ask for gifts, letting out cries and rattling off tunes on empty bottles of anís.

   The Guirria jumps, wool cascading spume-like from his lips.

    

   In the background, the mountains are blanketed 

   in snow, reflecting the winter sun,

   and the image glistens in the memory

   like a photograph burnt by the light.

    

   The Guirria doesn’t miss a trick, he casts his eye over all the girls he wants;

   he bashes his stick about and the ashes he throws land in laughter.

   When he reaches the house we’re in

   he sits down on a stool

   and tears off his mask like a scab,

   drinks a shot of an unknowable liquor. 

    

   He’s sweaty and has the air of a man

   you wouldn’t think was single.

   That is: he seems 

               thoughtful and friendly enough.

    

   After a bit of a chat with the

   household, his thoughts turn to better times, when it was hard work

   reaching those cowardly cheeks,

   when the women didn’t want to kiss him

   and their cheer soon turned to

   terror and those nameless

   girls, just like the nymphs of mighty Pan,

   would lock themselves inside their houses

   so he couldn’t get them, and he would smash down walls

   and bridges and roads

   and flowers and branches

   to have his way with them.

   There is not a happiness of structure,

   wrote Barthes,

   but every structure is habitable.

    

   The Guirria growls. He puts on

   his mask and gets up from his stool the way a hill

   gets up from a riverbank.

   He gives the lady of the house a lacklustre kiss

   and the kids a weird wiggle of his limbs.

    

   When his shivering retinue 

   has massed around him once more,

   he turns back towards the village.

   Now he’s enshrouded in the thudbeats of the song,

   just like the holly and the blackberry bushes

   that encroach year after year upon the road.

    

   Pan. Ana wants a pan, wants a pan,

   pan. Ana wants a pan, wants a pan,

   pan. Ana wants a pan, wants a pan,

   pan, pan, pan, pan,

   pan, pan, pan, pan.

    

    

   From Pábilun (unpublished)

   Translated by Robin Munby