(poem of the day) excerpt from Charenton by Chus Pato [translated from the Galician by Erín Moure]

excerpt from Charenton

Chus Pato [translated from the Galician by Erín Moure] –more poems*

and now the panopticon is a ruin

but never mind for i can imagine the landscape however i want
if a desert, it’ll be a tell
if rich with vegetation, wisteria will grow over the buildings
if in Antarctica, it’ll be a phantasmagoria of ice

some folks (working women, crazies, schoolchildren, poets) still live there, they don’t realize no one guards them

for in times of plenitude, systems of domination don’t pay attention any more to populations, it’s not their job to feed them

it has to do with what you were saying, that “capital is illiterate”

i have to get out:

exit biology, remain in my body

* * *   * * *   * * *

but also: das kapital, no more than a grain of sand in the tempest of the species

*Charenton was a lunatic asylum, founded in 1645 by the Frères de la Charité in Charenton-Saint-Maurice, now Saint-Maurice, Val-de-Marne, France. Wikipedia

(poem of the day) At the Catafalque of King Philip II in Seville by Cervantes

Best known for Don Quixote.

At the Catafalque of King Philip II in Seville

Miguel de Cervantes

I swear to God such grandeur frightens me.
I’d pay good money to describe it well;
for whom would this great structure, all this wealth,
not hold in wonder with its awesome spell?

By Christ alive, each part of it is worth
more than a million; isn’t it a shame
that it won’t last a century — Great Seville! —
triumphant Rome in zeal and noble fame.

I’ll bet the very soul of this here corpse
just to enjoy this spot today has quit
that heaven where he endlessly resides.

A braggart overheard these words and said:
“Oh, Mr. soldier, what you say is true.
And anyone who says it’s not, he lies.”

And then, quite suddenly,
he checked his sword with care, pulled down his hat,
he looked away, moved on, and that was that.

About Cervantes (Photo credit: Wikipedia)