Harangue of One Who Never Went to War, and: Song of a Savage Country, and: Messages From the Wreck

20 the minnesota review Juan Manuel Roca Harangue of One Who Never Went to War I never saw at the rails of a bridge the sweet woman with Assyrian eyes passing the thread through a needle as if she were going to mend a river. I never saw women waiting alone in little villages for the war to cease as if it were another season. I never went to war. I don't need to, because when I was a child I always asked how to go to war, and a beautiful nurse running in the long halls, a nurse running like an albatross, screamed a bird's cry without looking at me: You are already on it, boy, you are in. I have never been to the country of the hangars, I have neverbeen a flag waver, hussar, peasant from somewhere onthe steppe. I never traveled over the globe through thorny countries populated with troops and beer. I haven't written like Ungaretti love letters in the trenches. I haven't seen the sun of death burning in Japan, nor have I seen men with long necks slicing the earth in a game of cards. I never went to war. I don't need to see the soldiers washing white flags and then listen to them speak about peace beside the legions of statues. Translated by Juan Carlos Galeano and Kenneth Watson Roca 21 Song of a Savage Country Every day as if I were going down from a ship That has dreams as its oars, I go to the same place of savage jargon. When the wind opens winter's swinging doors, I can see the lightening drawing Its ladder in the blackboard of the sky, Or I listen to the shipwreck of water in the ditches. Ah! A narcotic sun walking on the plain Where women like shadows of themselves Place in the portable hell of a little stove An herbal tea with herbs looking like a mane. Every night, in the streets of thorny Neighborhoods, I approach mouths Singing the songs of pistols, A bullet inaugurates a fountain of red roses. The night, thief of children, bites a savage country, And I venture my voice In this land of gods and good-byes. Translated by Juan Carlos Galeano and Kenneth Watson 22 the minnesota review Messages From the Wreck In the little room where I live like Jonah in the womb of a whale, I think: perhaps poems are only messages sent from a shipwreck, bottles with poorly written cries which perhaps are going to silent seas, to the beaches of forgetfulness. But here I am sending one bottle after another, and a last one inhabited by my fears. In the little room where I live like Jonah in the womb of a whale, there are only a few bottles left. Translated by Juan Carlos Galeano and Kenneth Watson ...