Empire of Dreams.

by Giannina Braschi.

Translator's Note.

The only way to know precisely what an author means is to become the author. The translator becomes the author the way an actor becomes the character. Memorizing the lines in Spanish and reciting the words as if they were my own, I traded in my voice for the dramatic voices of the lyric "I" whose adventures and emotional states vary from book to book in Empire of Dreams. Swapping names, ages, nationalities, and genders, Giannina Braschi's characters are a cast of actors playing the roles of other characters. As a translator, I tried out for every part.

In Book of Clowns and Buffoons, I played the fortune-teller who predicted the past, the magician who torched his audience, the drunkard who cried in a room full of bottles, and the little lead soldier who marched against the smoke of the city. In Pastoral; or, The Inquisition of Memories, I was Shepherd Giannina, who led a revolution in New York City. It was chaos. Cows and sheep were grazing the sidewalks as shepherds took over St. Patrick's Cathedral and the Empire State Building. I nearly lost my voice screaming through a loudspeaker, "Now we do whatever we please. Whatever we please. Whatever we d.a.m.n well please!" The roles grew more complex as I made my way through The Intimate Diary of Solitude. There I played the writer Giannina Braschi, who played the writer Mariquita Samper, who played the writer Berta Singerman and an array of other characters. With red-dyed hair, surgically implanted freckles, and a gold tooth, I especially enjoyed the role of the fairy drag queen. But the most gratifying moment was when I shot the Narrator of the Latin American Boom, who kept rewriting my diary. He was such a nuisance. Always telling me what to think, what to do, what to write! Once he was out of the way, my thoughts flowed freely onto the pages. By the end of Empire of Dreams, I had lived so many lives that I no longer felt I was a character. I was all of them and, therefore, the author herself. I fancied myself annoyed that Giannina Braschi had translated Empire of Dreams into Spanish before I had the opportunity to write it in English. I thought of all my transformations. Were they in vain? I became the actor who became the character who became the author. Now what was I to become? The translator. And how was I to do it? With the respect that great literature deserves: faithfully.

Translating as close to the literal edge as the flow of the prose allowed, whenever possible I used word-for-word replacements, which rolled into rhythms of their own, inciting brilliant images and luscious sounds. More often than not, however, the poems demanded thought-to-thought correspondences, as the Spanish is proverbial and idiomatic. Because each poem builds on another, as does each book, word choice depended on a context larger than individual poems (especially when translating recurring images and phrases). As for the transliteration of Giannina's non-words, it was simply a matter of ear. For instance, the wheel of fortune in Song of Nothingness was "chis-cha.s.sing" when it should have been "click-clacking."

Likewise, horns were "cras-cra.s.sing" when they should have been "bee-bopping," while dogs were "buff-buffing," and they should have been "wuff-wuffing." Witnessing my symbiotic relationship to her text, Giannina invited me to edit the Spanish ma.n.u.scripts, which she believed she had "overcorrected." We collaborated. She reviewed drafts of the translation to encourage "musicality and intensity," and I reviewed drafts of the originals to rid the poems of self-censuring. Together we reinstated lines and poems and rearranged the sequence of the Spanish edition. We widened the circ.u.mference of inclusion in this translation. It contains poems that have not been published elsewhere. For the most part, our collaboration was harmonious; that is not to say that there was no contention over interpretation. Sometimes an egg is an egg is an egg. Other times, an egg is a ball is a day. I could not always distinguish one egg from another. She, of course, always could. At a poetry reading years ago, we read a selection from Poems of the World which included a mutual favorite beginning with the line "Eggs are months and days too..." I had always enjoyed its affirmation of plurality, its false logic, and its musicality. The eggs were so clearly a female symbol of creation that the slang connotation of huevos (t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es/b.a.l.l.s) did not occur to me. When Giannina read her "Huevos," the audience broke into laughter and applause in the middle of the reading. A woman next to me shook her head in disapproval, muttering, "!Que sucio!" (s.m.u.t!) If I were not so curious, I would have skipped the poem to save myself some embarra.s.sment. Instead, I read with all the confidence I could feign. Afterwards, the woman who had muttered, "!Que sucio!" thanked me, saying, "Yours was sweeter." Failure confirmed. Humiliated, I blamed Giannina: "Why did you let me lay eggs when they were supposed to be b.a.l.l.s? You should have told me huevos means 'b.a.l.l.s.'" Annoyed, she replied, "Do you mean that your 'eggs' doesn't mean my 'b.a.l.l.s'?" Then, in the heat of the moment, she taught me a few more slang expressions. Poner un huevo literally means "to lay an egg." Figuratively it means "to make a mistake." Rendering an idiom literally is just as fatal an egg as taking one too many liberties. I believe I have acted responsibly with my translator's and poetic licenses, which have allowed me to save what must always be saved across language boundaries, sometimes at the expense of abandoning slang and puns: the spirit of the poetry, its rhythm and run. Not only does a translation have to sound like the original, it must be an original. That I learned from Jose Vazquez-Amaral, who introduced me to this work.

I met Amaral in the autumn of 1985 when he was professor emeritus at Rutgers University and I was an undergraduate student. He was from the Spanish Department, and I was from the English Department. Aside from the New Brunswick campus, our common ground was a love for modernism. Amaral had introduced Ezra Pound to the Spanish-speaking world with his translations, Cantares completos (I-CXX) and El arte de la poesia. I visited the retired man of letters expecting to spend the afternoon hearing stories about Pound and Joyce. What I heard was this: "I've struck another world treasure." Amaral said this as he handed me several spiral notebooks and a stack of pages torn from yellow legal pads. "After twenty-two years of [translating] The Cantos, I thought I had fulfilled my aspirations. Then I read this." He pointed to those yellow pages. The handwriting was like none I had ever seen. "So angular, so determined. Hieroglyphics," I thought. "Pound and Eliot brought us the twentieth century. This poet carries us into the twenty-first century," Amaral told me. "Who is he?" I asked. He smiled. "Giannina. Giannina Braschi." Amaral had drafted an English version of Empire of Dreams and asked me to join him in revising it. He was confident that some poems "took off and soared in draft one," while the rest were grounded, "flapping, frustrated." There were plenty of obstacles to overcome. As the original was a work in progress, nearly half of his drafts did not correspond to the final ma.n.u.script. Most of what did correspond were inspiring sketches of his ideas to come. In 1986, when his health was failing, he bestowed upon me Giannina's yellow pages and his spiral notebooks. "Take over," he told me. "Let Giannina scream, and kick, and punch, and cry. Let her laugh. She is always laughing. And know that she thinks. She is always thinking."

I. a.s.sault on Time.

And take upon's the mystery of things, As if we were G.o.d's spies.

-Shakespeare, King Lear, act 5, scene 3.

Behind the word is silence. Behind what sounds is the door. There is a back and a fold hiding in everything. And what was approaching fell and stopped far away in proximity. An expression falls asleep and rises. And what was over there returns. It's a way to put the world back in its place. And something comes back when it should remain remembering.

But if I ring the bell, water jumps and a river falls out of the water again. And the body rises and shakes. And the rock wakes and says I sing. And a hand turns into a kerchief. And twilight and wind are companions. And this twilight appears amid lightning. Outside there is a bird and a branch and a tree and that lightning. Above all, there is noon without form. And suddenly everything acquires movement. Two travelers meet and their shoes dance. And breeze and morning clash. And the seagull runs and the rabbit flies. And runs and runs, and the current ran. Behind what runs is life. Behind that silence is the door.

h.e.l.lo. Since you came back late I forgot that I'd written you a line, but I remembered that the line from the book had picked up a paper you sent me so that I'd jot down a memory for the book. You've forgotten the commas again. No, I haven't. They forgot to end memory with a period. I remembered memory when I could no longer write to her. But then I was afraid to insist. She hasn't come back yet. If she doesn't come back, I'll have to erase page five. Memory was on the guest list. But I forgot her telephone number. Then I walked to eighth avenue of page three and suddenly met forgetfulness. I crossed the avenue on page ten and saw the horizon of page three and erased the night. Now I'm on the day of page five. Forgetfulness dropped by unannounced. I wasn't expecting to find you on the way. I thought you would stop by on page thirty. But you're early. I'm sitting to the left of this book. We talk.

A letter comes and visits me. Puts its legs up in the living room. Wanders about speechless. Suddenly it explodes and another shape appears. Welcome! It flees swiftly, and I see two, three, four, five, seven, five hundred letters. Suddenly I hear the word river and water runs in another river's s.p.a.ce. I repeat river two, three, four, five, seven, five hundred times, and cold imprisons twilight. Then this letter's twin slope trembles. There is no return without reaching bottom. The letter is born of life. That's where its limit began. I discover the world underneath.

Letters are not letters because they dream. Something barely traces them, like a hand. These letters are not signs of another sign. The letter's rhythmic beat, when counting syllables, is life spelling its memories. And we stop at letters, hiding in the darkness of their syllables. And we say, I've lived five years in this letter. Here I forged a first syllable and a last silence. I forged enigmas and secrets too. From my letter, the way was born. And from my letter, the beginning and the current of other letters attached their syllables to the name. And I tell myself: each letter is an old memory and a silence.

No lagoon is darker or clearer or fuller of mountains or planes than the first letter of your name. I said that I was made entirely of letters, and I used to say that the horizon would turn clouds into other signs, revealing other letters. But I didn't say that behind all those letters the horizon cuts the edge of my hand.

Everything I'm searching for is underwater. There are no flat surfaces there. I'm not searching for the oblique or what glows at night. By day I escape all insinuation, all effect and consequence. I love water, but I run away when it brings an ambiguous current. I know something about what flows, what comes, and what sometimes touches. That's when water, turned into rock, sings. And when it reaches the mouth of the river, it knows that point is called calm. No stories or tales are told there.

I must admit that everything I see today is cloudy and round as a crystal ball. Now I feel the current advancing from never and changing into the always of your port. Port hoping to become more of a port when it plunges into my water. As if it had no other outlet than to sail through the water. And, of course, everything is a welcoming farewell.

Sit down. Think and look at me. Not at me, I'm not the one who wants to see you sitting down. Look at the truth. I don't want to see the sea. Calm down. Give me your hand. That's the way the sea calms down. Sleep. Now feel how the waves calm down. And tomorrow the landscape will change. Rock, water, sea. What's the use of sitting down? Quit hinting that the gaze will close again. Rid your body of the past. Breathe. You're sailing again, and you're only thirty. Understand me. It's not youth. I'm leaving. You want to go. But we stay.

Behind the word is silence, and behind that silence is forgetfulness. I didn't understand the silence or that letter which thought that line, because I couldn't remember the forgotten. And there, far away, the horizon. I fell silent. Silence fell and the work spoke. They spoke. I stretched out my hand. "Why didn't you tell me I had to begin anew? Behind what sounds is the door." And I grew sober. I raised my hand and pointed to another silence and another line. "Behind the word is silence." I lowered my hand. And then there were doors, silences, forgetfulness, letters, lines.

I'm speaking. Speak to me. I hear you. I'm in a hurry. I need for us to make love. In a looser way. Open your arms. If you see me correct a verb, write me an accent and make me shut up. I don't want to interrupt your quiet time. But give me a call or drop me a line. I have to ask accents their permission. Someone took my accent, wrote a comma, and left. Left me alone. Tell your word I can't inhabit it today. It will have to be tomorrow. Listen. You have to obey the meaning of the phrase. "And what does it mean to speak?" I said to you. And I grew sober again. And you said, "Now you laugh," without telling me you had to close your eyes when you slept. And you said, "Now sleep." And when you called me again, I closed the door halfway. "Open up," you said. And I shut it with a period.

The day jumped today. I'm upside down, it said to me, and I answered, help me take the ceiling down and put it in the street. Then bring the ladder over here and lay it on the floor. If this is how the world is, I said to myself, so be it. But then the phone rang, the alarm rang, the clocks all rang, and everything escaped. Even my shirt wanted to breathe. Open me, it said, and I obeyed. It's already been two days of surprises. Yesterday I wanted to break away and I escaped. My hand was placed elsewhere. Your rebellion, you explained, is that you pick up the pieces. Yes, everything should stay in its place.

But we have to go, we have to run. We should go back to what you warned me about. But what goes around comes around. It came round and flew. It came back in asleep and then sat down. What was asleep was shaped like a hand. Suddenly it ran to the opposite corner and escaped. Are there hands? I asked. There must have been hands if we were caught up in h.e.l.los and goodbyes. Goodbye. Pleased to meet you. But the hand came back. And everything escaped.

The day is not okay. It's like saying that I touch the table and find it in the same place where I couldn't find it on the day that was okay. And today is a nice day for a walk, but I'll stay here. And it's okay for the windows to be open so the wind comes in. And for the table to come out with me for a stroll because it wanted to learn to walk. I doubt it'll find its way back because when we left the street wasn't in the same place, and I think the day was annoyed with me because I told it that nothing had changed.

The day told me that the wind had returned to my house. And had to leave because a man who wanted to build a new day came looking for it. But when the wind came back to see me, it dressed up as a new day so no one would come back to find it. And the wind took off again when the phone rang. The wind didn't know how to tell the day that things were no longer in their place. And the day told me that when the wind returned to my house the ladder no longer had rungs. And I was waiting for someone to tell me why there were no stairs. But the wind disguised itself as a doorman and told me he didn't know the house was mine. So, I told the day, things are no longer in their place. And the day told me the house was mine, like the world.

The wind and I would have to take off and fly. Behind the closets and under the furniture no one says my name. Yes, I know I'm in a world of invisible sounds. I know its origin. I go toward it and hide. The wind and I would have to take off and fly. My hand says it no longer feels the air.

And among countless roads and old shoes, among countless objects and questions, the hand acts as an interpreter and the air keeps blowing and the door keeps unlocking and the wind goes back to its place as the door closes. Yes, everything has its place and everything counts when objects empty at the door. But I feel there is something weightless that runs. It's something that rises and never reveals itself and has to hide in some other corner. And that something now raises the same questions. And the wind finds itself back at a point-right where silences fly and objects jump back into the painting. By then you can't tell one object from another-it's as if they weren't the same objects: watch, mirror, image, wind. But my hand knows the fall, and there's no other question than the same objects striking the frame and the chair. And the air stays still and everything is in its place.

Sure, it's true. Questions don't change the truth. But they give it motion. They focus my truth from another angle. And you said: we're cleaning up the truth. We must clarify certain things.

You don't tell the truth and your jacket eventually comes back made of another material, and your shoes say sure! and run back to you telling my truth. Even if it's raining now, your truth may be that it's not raining inside like it's raining outside. Though silent you may be saying what I'm thinking when you weren't talking. Don't pay attention to me and keep saying come when you said go. Then don't expect me to listen when you say come. You'll come with your words get out and the door will open. I hear those words and the door opens halfway. Then you'll come and I'll know how to say: get out.

I always knew that a bit farther or closer but never in the exact spot a heart beats at the bottom of a painting and we are the breaking gla.s.s. I don't reach as far inside as I told you and I see you reflected in a sliding mirror and you open your eyes forgetting that you look at me and I am forgetfulness. But there was a time when to the left of the heart and at the end of the road to the heart and in the river and the street of the heart and within the walls of the heart you slipped and railed and spilled and always came back different through the heart, moving the heart and plunging into that heart. And you went so deep inside me that I asked you to take me in the dark and in the light-and inside that heart and your pulse and your nerve. Now there is no need to break the heart's gla.s.s because it was submerged, full.

You tell me to say things as they are and I say them as they were and you say I changed them and I say I'm not changing them because that's the way they are. It all depends on how they get up. But it's not that-things get up when I make them. I insist, I'm not planning anything. They get up without a clock, and like sound they fall. And that's the way they are because that's the way they were born. They are happy when I get angry. They sit down when you get up. They fall asleep when I'm awake. But don't wake them when I'm up or call them when I'm asleep. And understand me. It's not a command. Understand them, not me who commands you. It's the mandate of things. I'm not forcing you to obey them. They are in charge. And the table's place takes the chair's place, and the chair has a body's place. And goodbye because you get everywhere with distance. Not because my goodbye, which doesn't obey you either, is against goodbyes. And yes, because I took my goodbye from you and I'm hoping you'll hold it against your own goodbye. Goodbye and goodbye.

I arrive at your house transformed into art, framed behind my memories. The lintel's color is the guardian of my dream, you the painting. The frame of your house crosses the bottom of the painting. I cross the horizon and sit down to look at it. I arrive home transformed into art, framed behind your memories.

I learn more in those seven days than I already know. And if that day draws near, I wish to know Mondays and Thursdays. When that Thursday fades away, I ask for Sat.u.r.day. The slowness of that Sat.u.r.day makes me wish for Monday. And this Monday I find that Friday begins by thinking about you, and this Friday I learn that I draw away from you again on Monday, and every Monday with you brings the same hours as Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Sat.u.r.days. And I'll never return to that Sunday that drew me so near to your distance.

There's no such thing as more or less. Hours are in excess. I'm constantly walking and counting as I go: one, two. Three hours have pa.s.sed. If I multiply them, days run too. Then I make a circle and break it. The sea breaks, and those four and these two broke. You couldn't, we couldn't. The hand will close that circle when you come. What hand? Don't look at me. I'd like to tear the number from the waves. Look at me. I have five fingers, and the waves are five. What does this five know of that seven or ten! Don't you know if I open my fingers I count fifty and say, five, five? My fingers can't open, they close. They run through the waves and always return to the sea. And they come, they come back without knowing their secret. They take what they bring. They bring the sea and take the embrace. Count the fingers on my hands. Ten fingers add up to twenty embraces. And day falls and so does that embrace. Don't open love if the embrace is closed. Open the wind and close your hand. Keep away from my kingdom. The wind wanted to say the opposite. But the air took off with that hand.

What's the use of memory, says the alarm. You have to love. You have to love when the heart is alarmed. And that alarm is the keeper of fire. And water can't quench the fire loved with alarm. So who cares if the firemen arrive. Water turns into more flames. And then the bell rings. You won't come, I said to myself, you didn't show up with the bell. And suddenly that alarm is on fire. And you come in, slowly, and not even the bell knows the surprise.

Ask. I don't ask for much. I only ask you for two numbers, two people, two accounts, two ways, two mirrors, two words, two gazes, two digits that always add up to four on a mirror, that always add up to eight and answer us, count. There's only two of us, you and I together. Ask. I don't ask for much. But for what little I ask the mirror repeats only two are left: you and me.

It's impossible to be everywhere. You always said that. The impossible is possible in our framework. But you break the frame of another impossible: me. And I break the frame of another p.r.o.noun: you. And even if that frame be made of you and me-an impossible, a lip, some gates, a bar. Within the possible there is no impossible that won't pierce the me and the you: the frame. And you and I have reached the bottom.

I was wrong, it's true, I made a mistake. But it's great to be wrong. Excuse me, lady, I don't mean to bother you, but I like to watch you walk. Excuse me, sir, I didn't mean to interrupt, but I'd like to say: goodnight. Now I can breathe. And I'd like you to tell me why I can't walk if I'm here, or why I couldn't talk if I were over there. But I like being called when I'm absent and always answer: here I am. And we like to remember the road I did not tread. That means: I like to walk when I stay right here. And when we go for a walk I'll say to myself, the day is different when it stays home. But I don't like the one who keeps saying: come back when you say I back off. I didn't love the one who told me: back off, but then you told me to come closer.

I know a night that always came close, and it came so close that it opened my doors. On entering I saw that it carried memories in the deepest part. Quiet on the threshold, the noise of another distant night sounded. That one could slip in because it was hot and the door was open. Even the wind snuck through the legs of that nearby night.

For a while that night and I were walking along deserted streets with no stores. Night grew weary because it knew that I never reached the end of the street. Sometimes it would look at me as if it remembered the way of another distant night. Once more the wind snuck through my legs. We got lost in the city of the wind. But another nearby night was opening in the middle of a crowd.

For now, a pair of dark gla.s.ses warns me that night has no windshield. Happiness is solitary. I know an elephant is listening to me and a raven is repeating my words from an oblique angle. Meanwhile, I divest myself of all my whims. The elephant is afraid. The raven said so when we returned from another dream.

Then a hat said that it can't resist the wind because it's awake. A window opened its pane at the end of the day, and a drop of dew insisted that spring was on its way. But spring replays the same song. Not a cherry stirs behind it. Nostalgia is a fruit with the pain of distance in its pit.

There's something so dark about night. I shut my eyes tight and dream in clarity when I look at it. Night is not that dark. It's not the blackness. It's something as obscure as fire. And it lifts me. When they open their eyes, night and fire know one another. But they're not the same. And now I get up and look at you. There's no darkness and no fire. And silence must be dark. And day will bring different fires.

Hold the arrow's circle, you used to say to me, like a hand that only has five fingers. I got it, I answered. The arrow crossing the horizon is drinking the dream of the G.o.ds. Don't confuse the terms, you used to say to me. The hand that only has five fingers robbed me of the enigma.

I already told you I'm not rushing, I'm waiting. I know I'm not rushing because I'm not thinking about night when I'm walking. I'm walking as if the day were eternal. That's how it is. If it weren't so there would be less roads. But you can't tell what is less when you're waiting for a night that never comes. There you have it, you say, just what you were expecting. No, that's not it, I say. I say what I was thinking when I was walking. Now I can't go back. Getting there is not the same as having waited. It's not the same as night, but it has the same slow pace as exhaustion. The door loses its support. It lost the way of hope just like me. I told you I can't return when the road has four letters: STOP.

From two slow roads, two fast stops, I take the wind. The body belongs to me, I take the day. I'll never stop, the road will stop, we'll take a quick look from two slow roads. When I plunge into thought, I walk at the foot of the wind. If I have penetrated something, it's only to be alone with all I see. To avoid looking at it, I think of another foot. I don't want to see day, or night, or that hat. To avoid resting, I run. Like the plane that flies and the car that stops now. A door closes and night rises. Streets are crowding solitude.

Nonetheless, solitude doesn't span our hands or move like waves. Each wave brings a different rhythm, each morning is new. The breeze doesn't move like a window, doesn't think body, and doesn't feel alone. But my solitude would like to say day and says far away and says now and thinks tomorrow inside. It knows there will no dialogue tomorrow because there will be no memory and its windows will be shut. But if I said fire, there would be no other truth than water and a forest would continue correcting the words. My water wouldn't know how to repeat what fire said. My hand, then, would span a dialogue, yours throws back the question, and the monologue hides its word. And, nonetheless, my silence raises the question and the man doesn't answer. A sign questions me and the word opens. There is no sh.o.r.e.

I'd have to wear a different heart, a new joy, a new outcome. Mystery could be a.s.saulted without breaking its tide, I mean, without feeling anything. The stone would petrify, and even sad shyness would become daring, if it knew that a memory was watching it. Ignore this eye and that door. I don't want you to feel it or see me. The movement of the tide is different when you look at it. The eye of the window loses its transparency if the wind shuts it. Solitude has no enigma when it stays alone. But when your heart is a party, solitude becomes crowded with memories. Ignore this eye and that door. I don't want you to feel it or see me.

When I look at the road I always find the window, and then I stop looking at it so that it will join me. And I forget. Then I suspect that nothing is there. Later I discover the floor. And they stick together. Later on they meet the eye of the sea. To join horizons, it's enough to recognize them. Face to face without the interference of distance. So you won't know what you saw and remember something else. The road must always divide its ups and downs. They are always two-someone has told me that water closes the circle of three. For me at least, it's always two. Afterward, the world disappears.

I was coming back through the outcome when I found the entrance. I didn't want to go back to the same street, so I went another way. Maybe I felt the curve is shorter when it doesn't tell the entrance that it will come with the outcome. I don't know, I asked the street for the unlisted address. It didn't feel abandoned. I knew it when it folded its hand. But soon it put its finger on the return and insisted that the very first was the long way that mentioned the beginning without realizing it. What's the use of being in the fifth dimension? I told the first of all not to mention it to the last. I promised to keep distant. I would have remembered the promise of that address. I would have sent it another way. I would have made it promise me another beginning. The prompt answer was slowing down. What's the use of knowing the first or ignoring the next-to-last, if the next-to-last didn't remember that the outcome would take place later? If it were any less sincere, I don't know. It doesn't matter and it's not going to matter, the others told me. You still don't know the way? I can only send you to another one. But I don't know, I really don't know. Ask the sidewalks, that's what they're for, let them go with you. The car would probably fight it. But, at least, the sidewalk put up a fence and divided the paths.

Now that the paths diverge, I'd like to measure the distance. It's not the distance of the foot when it meets the hand, nor the silence of the head or the death of the heart. How many friends are there? How many can count on the measure of silence? If they encounter death in the middle of the night, they greet her. That's all. And enough. Repeat it. They greet her. I count them among the others, brothers. Don't leave me here. I don't want to meet the dividing line because I divided the paths and the hand went with the leg. Where is it? they asked. Where did it go? It hasn't left. It's sitting with the foot. And now the leg is nonexistent. The noise of the hand is nonexistent. How do you think it can walk without the hand? Here is reality. The hand touches distance. Touches it, nothing more. That's all. And enough.

II. Profane Comedy.

Dedication and Warning.

This book is dedicated to the entire cast of Profane Comedy. To the actors who play the roles of drunkards and buffoons. It is also dedicated to all the people I do not mention but who helped me with the setting of the stage and the costumes of the actors. I must thank all of you for having listened to my poems. This book was written to be sung and to be read in public and to be heard by large audiences. And to be proclaimed at festivals and gala concerts. With elegant dresses. And makeup. And actors. And extras. And comedies. It was written for carnivals and orgies. It was written for well-being and joy. And it was written for the company. It was written for the world and for life and for crowds and ma.s.ses. It was written for elitists and thinkers and philosophers. It is the book of exclamations and interjections. And it is the book of Bacchus and Faustus. And of the poet-child. And of the poet-actor. And of the poet-philosopher. All these poets and the poems never written by philosophers are in the pages of this book. And children's stories are here. And the prima donna is here. And the singer. And here is Giannina, dressed like a clown, giving the right cues to all the actors of Profane Comedy. They are all nervous and will soon begin to sing their complaints and their laments. Soon the alarm will sound. Soon Profane Comedy will begin. Soon fortune-tellers and buffoons will speak. Soon Pastoral will arrive. And soon Profane Comedy will end.

1. Book of Clowns and Buffoons.

...et la Reine, la Sorciere qui allume sa braise dans le pot de terre, ne voudra jamais nous raconter ce que'elle sait, et que nous ignorons.

-Rimbaud, Illuminations.

You'll open the door to poetry because poetry doesn't know what it's looking for and asks for the shade of light and asks for the river and the sea and eats cherries off the tree. Poetry spy and watchman of trees and mountains, and thief of the secret and of the mysteries pent in gla.s.s, and drunkenness of night mourning for the widowhood of day. Poetry of the telegram and poetry of the telephone. Poetry of the letter in the mailbox. Poetry of the envelope and the melon eaten by love's wound. Poetry between the peach and the airplane's letter. Poetry between you and me. Poetry between he already came and left and disappeared, between the fruit and the seed bearing the message from the lover who won't come back.

Poetry of a shark with two whales and a scarecrow. Poetry of a crab and a turtle. Poetry of an elevator and two cars. Poetry of a giant and a dwarf. Poetry of the clown and the drunkard. Poetry of the star and the wall. Poetry of the summer and the mountain. Poetry of the flying rabbit and the dancing shoe. And poetry of the pain of joy and poetry of the joy of pain. Poetry of the bat and the witch. Poetry of the torn shoe and the barefoot stockings and the horizon that looks for you when you're approaching the mountain. And poetry of the hill you descend when you're expecting the call. And poetry of the number lost in the magician's hat. And poetry of the parakeet's feather and poetry of the parrot and the parasol. And poetry of the shadow and the witness. And poetry of the accident and the surprise. And poetry of the love that never arrives because it escapes with the magician's hat. And the word poetry, and the sound poetry, and the shadow poetry become two real numbers, two real clowns, two jumbo jets, two cheers that no one hears because shattered in the air they cease being air and shattered against the wind they cease being wind. And poetry without mountain and without hill. And poetry without absence and without emptiness. And poetry of the night and the witness in shadow, in dust, in nothing.

Poetry is this screaming madwoman. Everything seems poetry. Madmen gaze high. Everything seems madness. Madmen fear no moon, fear no fire. Burns of flesh are poetry. Madmen's wounds are poetry. The witch's crime was poetry. Magic knew how to find its poetry. The star wasn't poetry before the madwoman discovered it. Discovery of fire in the star. Discovery of water with sand. Neither poetry nor prose. Salt is for fish, salt is for death, the poem is not among the dead. Remember, but don't write it. Love her duendes and act as her Lazarus, but don't wake her. Sleepwalker among cats, thief among dogs, man among women, woman among men, blasphemous toward religion, fed up with poverty. Tear out poetry's voice. Don't let her find you, hide. Disregard her, ignore her, forsake her. Don't touch her wounds, she'll scorn you. Back away. Scorn the poem. Develop without her. Give her the necessary distance. Let her feel conceited. Then insult her for not having written with power. Deride her dreams, slap her eyes. Kneel down and ask her forgiveness. Take the poem from her belly. Sleep beside her, but don't avert your eyes. Listen to what she tells you in dreams. Acknowledge her when you see her spell the names of h.e.l.l. Descend with her into h.e.l.l, climb her streets, burn within her history. There are no names, no history. The volcano erupts and rushes toward the poem. I can't do anything but bash her against a rock. I can't do anything but embrace her. I can't do anything but insult her dreams, and she can't do anything but open the poem for me, just a crack, a crack in silence, without watch-men or maidens, with a fowl and an owl to keep distant, to keep silent, to show up barefoot. And she couldn't do anything but crash against the rocks, and the wind couldn't do anything but blow her locks, and time couldn't do anything but eternalize her moment. And poetry is nowhere in the castle. She disappears through the trapdoor, escapes with the fire that burns her and dissolves in water.

I have been a fortune-teller. Ages ago, I told the fortune of buffoons and madmen. You remember. I had a small voice like a grain of sand and enormous hands. Madmen walked over my hands. I told them the truth. I could never lie to them. And now I am sorry. Ages ago, a drunkard filled with dreams asked me to dance. I used my cards to tell his fortune when his drinks became blows. My banging on the door killed the sea. Memories finished us. Madmen and buffoons count the grains of sand and have never destroyed night's dreams. They draw up the night and rise filled with middays. Magicians were and always will be my companions. Without guessing their tricks I started fire in their throats. But none explode. Maybe one. And with the fish another chimera rises.

The circus had a white elephant and a red turtle. All my enemies are drunkards and friends of my body. Only they open the doors of my eyes and suck, suck ten kilos of love and gulp, gulp fourteen kilos of chimeras. Stars forewarn me of ten years and predict twenty more. And the owl sits on my smaller arm. And the madman intimidates it. And drunkards ask for shade. Too many cards about too many chimeras. Take the bottle and raise it. Let us toast in the name of tricks. Then the magician emerged from another side of me, lifted his shadow, and destroyed the drunkard. Hot and cold conversations create words in color from all angles of my body. Shadow arches frame this scene. Drunkards will fill their bottles with other stories that buffoons are planning around the border of this painting. There's only a black chimera left drinking the liquor of stars. And a fortune-teller sitting on the stairs.

It was true and it was a lie, too. That's why I got drunk, said the buffoon sitting on the stairs. The fortune-teller suddenly arose and told the buffoon, the stars divined it, it was written in the cards. King of spades and buffoon do not mix, added the madman leaning against the door. Everyone except me, said the madman, is looking at the future of the sea. But the sea is a king without a sword. That's why he is sitting on the stairs next to the buffoon. Here are the cards, said the fortune-teller. Here is the king without a sword, with his wicked card. Here died the drunkard with his bottle. Here is the screaming madman, with his wells full of water, searching an empty orbit.

I am the magician. Back away! Here is the trick. You see it from a distance because you can't see it up close. Come closer. You look for it in my hands and the trick escapes between my legs. Don't look at my legs. The trick isn't on the stairs. The trick is that flying bird. The spectators stood up hoping to see the flight and see the magician on the stairs. Suddenly ten firemen arrive with their big slickers and hoses. Back away! Back away! Come closer! Come closer! The trick was that flying bird, and the spectators stood up and asked: What's going on? No one answered them. Then they saw that the bird had already left. And they asked again: What returns? Then there was a fire and the magician vanished. When the lights blacked out, then, and only then, the bird with a fallen wing came forward to the edge of the stage and cried out: Victory! Victory! I have burned the spectators.

We'll play another theatrical scene. It consists of one act, divided into three parts. We: leading actor. You: stage director. I'm the audience. Open curtain: four chairs and a ladder lost in the dark. The ladder, the ladder, says the director. The chair, the chair, breaks in the leading actor. The curtain falls. The lights go out. The curtain rises again. One can be in the front of this theater listening and laughing: I am, we are, all laughing. And the curtain falls on this play. And the desert, I'm thirsty, I forgot the words. Please don't tear silence from me. Let me escape quietly. The lights have stopped looking at me. I feel like setting myself on fire. Firemen of the night, get me out of here. Cut, cut, said the director. Let's wind it up.

Adventurous and silent actor, filling himself with mouths and faces, with an absent-minded look, open hands, double-dealing anger, lies and shams in just one secret, intrigue of a handkerchief, with fewer dreams, checking his hat for the trick with the scarecrow and the mirror. And parting with everything that cuts, cutting his orange in halves, lifting his head, doubling his fracas, looking for his return and hiding from the world, emerging and exposing his whole body, cut between hand and foot, cut between night and morning, with a closed fist and a grain of mustard, filling himself with stars, cutting corners, with his hands on night, and his mouth in sorrow, in the station of the port, in the house of the world, in the tree of the hand, in the fist of the sand.

I want to be rid of this corpse that murders my soul. I have other things to say. Get away from me. Leave me alone. I request another name, another clown. Too many buffoons, too many dead dwarves. I want a giant. Get out of my body. Don't take the corpse from me, let it walk away. Swing with the trapeze, glide. Make me a shoe or nail the sole into me. Become a sock and wear me. I have a nickel for the dance and the comedy. You see, that's just what I was telling you. I have no comedies. Kill me if you want. But do for me the black, the white, the void. Absence, as though it were the death of absence. As though absence could drop dead, dead. Of course, the corpse is a stick that walks. Of course, the stick gives you a blow on the head. Of course, you should never play with death.

With both lined up four abreast, she read me the cards. Poor drunkard of the tale. Two fortune-tellers dead. And a room full of bottles. The clown is drunk. And the cards of death wait on him. His snout is blue, and he looks like a bear. And the rag doll of death-you can't love him like this-with the clown flinging him by the arm-madness. Because he is drunk and has no river or breakdown. Because they cork him in, unable to love him. Because stars no longer love him.

I'm sitting on this page, between one line and another, between a buffoon and another clown, between two syllables, and I jump up, and touch the page with the tip of my finger, and throw it into the basket. And I look at it, and become a basket, and repent. And I start to cough, and throw the ball, and pick it up. And I kiss the sky, lifting my arm to fall to the floor, torn, and to rise and cry out. And I'm restless. I need to throw the ball away, so I can lose the page, and then I can laugh or cry. Whatever happens, nothing matters. Because I sleep, dream, awaken, weep, kiss your left cheek, and walk slow, walk fast, where are you, I call you and hide and find you and knock you to the ground, we undress and backtrack, it's the safest way, the star is waking, and the moon is crying to the earth that constantly watches her. Because the sun won't come out, there is no noon, and the orange is locked in its rind, and the snail tucks into its sh.e.l.l, and the world stays inside its house. And we look at one another, sad, mad, and we don't know what to say. Later Mom will come to wake us. Brother, quiet, quiet. The earth yawns because it isn't sleepy.

Giving me your hand, you pick it up to frame it. Darting into the street, you're run over by an oncoming car. Throwing myself into the basket, I turn into an ashtray and touch the cigarette. Collapsing into the tomb, I sleep, sleep. Opening the closets, I say enough, enough. Closing them, I'm left sad, sad in a closet. Opening the sadness of the closet, I lift four and I'm left with two. Even and uneven, brother, they'll always be brothers. Widowers from the orphanage, the uneven, squared. The sled is triangular. The uneven say so. Heavens and stars repeat it. The worm and the snail and the tree shout it. The uneven is crying. Stars console him. Nights wake him. The piano destroys him: duende and mermaid, gnome and deer. Four, uneven: paired. I dive into the slide. And I grow and awaken. Five years, ten even, twelve tied. Three brothers.

I touch everything, to add it up, and subtract ten, four more. Five loners and ten kings, two swords. The fortune-teller and her wicked deck. Heavens and stars play solitaire. I know it, I'll know how to say it. I'll flip the cards, check them, and close my hands. Two swords cross the hand of the fortune-teller. And cards don't lie. Widower, I will be, you will be, four stars and two cats fighting in every street, a worm. And a crystal ball, rolling luck, hitting the ball, ten blows, two falls. At night, in the streets of death, between the sun and the fortune-teller, ten cards, two lies. I understand, a blackened eye is worthless, and the stars pa.s.s and return regardless.

In all corners and squares and circles, just one heart, prophecy of five hearts and a loner on the road, and a drunkard without a bottle, sober from madness, solemn and hidden. Widower of two stars and a road. Three corners opening the drunkard's eyes, stars and chimeras, and rivers of sadness. No one is laughing. The drunkard keeps him company, and the bottle heals his wounds. There is a square corner on the road of two. Looking for you in four, company, I am two. Corner of the third, I am another, less ten. I understand your fall, but I am five, not ten. Understand the hill, they are twenty, never two. I understand, a blackened eye is worthless, and the same stars pa.s.s and return regardless.

A mob of witches and killers. You look like an idiot, the hat doesn't have ears, the street doesn't have legs, buildings don't walk, obscurities don't talk. Idiot, you have a tongue, speak. You idiot, I was on the verge of speaking. I fell deaf-said the killer. Birds don't sit, dogs don't kneel, bats don't shrug. Idiot, shoulders are shrugged. You idiot, I hope the witches destroy the fire. Killers have blocked my aqueducts. I speak for the killers, cops never ask anything. I raise the possibility of the question. You idiot, not even wolves howl. Ask Little Red Riding Hood, it was a flood of machine guns and rifles, she told me so. I thought they'd kill me. You idiot, not the killers, the cops. And I turned my back on them.

Treason, treason, treason. Death, death, death. Ecstatic bewitching throat, fire is blind, blind, blind. Vanish chimney. Smoke-filled eyes. Fire. Crime-covered hands. Duel of the G.o.dfather and the pirate. The sword, the dungeon. I see a beacon of black b.u.t.terflies. The crime has vampire eyes. Ca.s.sandra conducts the orchestra. Joan, the mad witch, groans. Someone round has committed a crime. Someone perpendicular to the base of the triangle has emptied the stream. The prodigious crime has destroyed the stores. Omen! Omen! the witch cried out. Ecstasy, ecstasy, the comic tragedy. The earth quakes, the news, the omen, the prodigious crime. Dwarves of the prodigy, rabbits of the syringe nurse, ambulance of the dancing trapeze artist, fire of turtles, flash of pain, fencing duel, caveman, fireman, gas mask, bomb, pliers of the crab.

Hysteria, I have a dead son in the belly of the city. My mourning is the edge of the world. I have both navels empty in the center. My mother abandoned me. I'm raising the belly of the city. I gather pigs, the breeding ground of mourning. There is no belly, pedestrian, there is no belly, transitory wind. I scream at the top of my lungs, my lever is the parachute of life. I hear you, fertile belly. I examine your limbs, electric organism, ventriloquist. Marionette woman, sleight of hand creature, the wolf married grief, and Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother fled crying out to the murderers. You b.i.t.c.h, cold hysteria. Neither the policeman nor his motorcycle stop you. But I stop you. Halt, cold hysteria! Halt!

Laughter, laughter, laughter, I'm happy, I dance, because you're crazy, unsettled, I'm lost in a world. You said world, I understand, I see world. h.e.l.l. I don't feel you. I've stopped thinking. I felt cold. And I went wild, dancing in a cardboard tumbler. I wiped it out, erased the line, animal, only you remain. It was twelve. I'll be back in five minutes. No, please, let me sleep. Ocean, I need to find out. Returning eye, go away. I am asleep. Approaching eye. Back off. Please, I need to sleep. Anesthesia, I keep lizard hours, but please, I don't have a centaur's tail. I'm not a dragon or a giraffe. I'm finished. I need some sleep. Lifeless, no, I'm not that old, but tell, tell the lizard, I love. And even if the tail is fire. Prove it with kisses. C'mon, I dare you. Coward. I try to erase the line twice. The giraffe's line or laughter's? No, the centaur's line with a dragon's tail. I mean, the giraffe. Unsettled. The dead man rises. Poor thing! Let him sleep. I am asleep. Not me, not me. Please, corpse, leave me alone, I beg you: let me sleep.

I vanished, I almost became wind, phantoms are not white. Recognize them, I told you. Learn to vanish. Don't fly so high. Keep sleeping on the stairs next to the drunkard. What are you talking about? Don't you understand me anymore? What are you asking me? It's been two days, speak to me. I'm listening. And we're not two elevators, let's face it, we don't have b.u.t.tons or buildings anymore, we don't even have seas or deserts. The streets have spoken to me four times. The fifth time, I'll shut them up. Traffic, the red light says walk, the green, stop. Traffic is submissive, solitary. Policemen are firemen, ambulances are the ambivalence of danger! Danger! Hysteria told you to halt! And halt! arrested me. Life is coffee made from rainwater. The house's hat is not a chimney. Steam, evaporate. I subtract three months from March to December. The addition of two zeros, see you later, see you later. The door up in flames, and the garbage asking for the corpse. The world chatting with the dialogue. And life at the railroad station emitting smoke, unsettled, the months of the world's train and the gates of the northern hemisphere.

Happiness is the quiet hand, don't you see it flying, happiness is crazy, I see it near the couch, sitting, rising, flying, leaf falling to the ground, and floating up again, I see it floating near the river, fishing for turtles. Happiness. The killer's hand, the Sunday turtledove, as Papa had a canary and Miguelito had a parrot. And I loved Bracho. And I played turtles with Juan. Edmee! Edmee! Juan hit me with the racquet. Bracho, we're near the tennis court. They look at us, we hit the b.a.l.l.s, they send them back, the racquet got angry at me. Can you believe it, the world, no, not the world. Pilo, come with me, follow me. Mama, it's been a while since we played tennis. But there are two huge racquets that hit me, two huge shotguns, two billiard b.a.l.l.s, in the world's court, horror, playing with us, playing with me.

It wasn't fire, and you said it well, no it wasn't fire. Someone started to call me. Come, he said. And I went. What do you need? he asked. I need some sleep. The clocks woke me. No, it wasn't the cold. No, it wasn't the game. I still have the clown's pants. I still have my pockets full of sand. I still open my arms and embrace you. No, it wasn't the game. I still don't have hatreds in the sand. I don't have knives in my pants. I have stars. Listen to me. My huge stars drawn in the port, the ships of my welcoming. My innocent farewells. The world won't leave me in peace. But the stars, the ships, the caramels, the soap bubbles, the centaur. No, it wasn't the game. I've looked through elevators, prison bars, handcuffs. And the world looks forever like a star to me. Its huge dungeon and its huge jail imprison me on the seash.o.r.e. There is no exit, there is no outlet from the sky, only an echo screaming: I'm still living in the stars, I'm still sleeping in the stars, still. What do you need? he asked me. I need to sleep in the stars.

Mathematical equation, you said, the multiplication of bread and fish. A centaur's eye wanted to go through the mouse's needle. A really big man wanted to be a dwarf. But failed. Then the world marched onward. Wire boots, how could it be? Mathematical equation. The world declined twice. Life played a poor hand. Stood up furious. And moved far away from the city. Mathematical equation, they shouted, the multiplication of bread isn't going anywhere. I'm marching somewhere, said the soldier. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! An elephant's eye wanted to go through an elevator. The doormen stopped it. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! The world's bicycle, where is it? Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! I don't have your underwear. It's not my fault if you can't find it, said life. And the world started laughing. Mathematical equation, you said, nothing is marching forward. The little dwarves didn't know what was marching, neither did I, I have to admit. The world is marching nowhere. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

My tanks were filled with gasoline and wars. I was a lead soldier. I marched against the smoke of the city. There were difficult moments and there were, h.e.l.lo! How are you? They were all worth the same. I had two pennies. I could enter the city. But they closed the doors on me. I closed my soul on them. They didn't know what had happened. Did my soul pa.s.s by here? Body, I said to you, how are you? I have been a lead soldier. The voice that said it was not what it said. I almost swear by the road. But the segment, the march loaded with clay, eyes of asphalt, hands of lime, legs of drill, navels of cement, resounded, resounded, resounded-the anvils of the hammer against the beams of the body-drilling, drilling, drilling me. Marching in time, the wall and the latch, the heart, my soul, the precipice of the trucks. And everything was black, black, black, white-like the asphalt. And the world closed its doors-anvils and hammers against the sleeping men-the doors of the heart, cities everywhere and little lead soldiers.

2. Poems of the World; or, The Book of Wisdom.

Fool: Nuncle, give me an egg, and I'll give thee two crowns.

Lear: What two crowns shall they be?