Poetry
Two Poems

Two Poems

Jorge Humberto Chávez

 English translation by José Ramón Ruisánchez &  Tamara R. Williams

ANOTHER CHRONICLE

On October 6th of his year Armando El Choco mentioned at a party that they were

looking for him

and they found him a month later that morning he was warming up his car’s engine to

drive his daughters to school

in 1967 we’d go to the Rio Grande to wash the barrio cars first Chato’s [Flatface] then

Bogar’s [Bogart] and finally Huarache Veloz [Flyin Flilflop]

in 1990 policemen used to go to the Rio Grande to fish from the banks for young girls

waiting to cross over to El Paso

in the year 2010 the Grande almost no longer a river a migra and Sergio Adrián age

13 he fought with a stone in his hand and the agent with a revolver

that same year in a store in Salvácar the clerk refused to pay the ransom and got shot

in the head

and 17 of his neighbors were hunted down one by one while celebrating the touch-

football game they had won

oh young sons of Cadmus I know you’d rather be anywhere else but you are here

today old Ovid sang

and you woman taken out of your house and then threatened that they’d kill your

husband if you didn’t go on your last car-ride

I’d tell you to come with me and cry at the Rio Grande but you must know that there

is no longer a river nor tears

 

2 GRINGOS RONDAN LA CASA DE MI INFANCIA

                                           For  Balta, Irma, Paquín, Fer, Mike, Carmen and Concha

 

1. Neil Armstrong

Observaba desde la acera el polvorón de la luna. Había oído a una mujer en el patio de la finca: decía que al pisar Armstrong la luna ésta se desharía por el peso de su pie. Yo no creía, pero por si acaso seguía la crónica en el televisor y cuando el astronauta estaba a punto de saltar de la escalerilla traspuse la puerta a esperar cómo desde el cielo nos caería una lluvia de finos y delgados escombros.

 

2. Charles Manson

 

Dormía yo en la litera inferior. Sabía que muy cerca de mi casa, mil millas al oeste, a sólo trece horas en auto, en Los Ángeles, Charles Manson también estaba en su litera de la prisión, despierto, pensando en la fuga y en refugiarse en Ciudad Juárez. Mañana por la noche estará aquí, pensaba. Veía su pelo largo y revuelto, sus ojos ruines, su risa desafiante. Podía dormirme, pero lo hacía con el corazón estrangulado por la mano del hombre que al día siguiente vendría por mí.

 

 


Posted: May 27, 2014 at 12:16 am

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