by walls easily crossed but full of fake doors;
money drawn for light spending on friends or love
......our arguments
about the inexhaustible don't even graze it
just when it's time to start talking again, and take
a different road to get to the same place.
We have to get used to knowing how
to live from day to day, each one on his own,
as in the best of all possible worlds.
Our dreams prove it: we're cut off.
We can feel for each other,
and that's more than enough: that's all, and it's hard
to bring our stories closer together
trimming off from the excess we are,
yo get our minds off the impossible and on the things
.......we have in common,
and not to insist, not to insist too much:
to be a good storyteller who plays his role
between clown and preacher.
- by Enrique Lihn
from The Dark Room and Other Poems; New Directions Books, 1963
Y bien, eso era todo. Véase Ud. de viejo
entre otros viejos de su edad, sentado
profundamente en una plaza pública.
Agita Ud. los pies, le tiembla un ojo,
lo evitan las palomas que comen a sus pies
el pan que Ud. les da para atraérselas.
Nadie lo reconoce, ni Ud. mismo
se reconoce cuando ve su sombra.
Lo hace llorar la música que nada le recuerda.
Vive de sus olvidos
en el abismo de una vieja casa.
¿Por qué pues no morir tranquilamente?
¿A qué viene todo esto?
Basta, cierre los ojos;
no se agite, tranquilo, basta, basta.
Basta, basta, tranquilo, aquí tiene la muerte.