Roberto Sosa is Honduras’ most famous living poet. See Los Pobres, up today at Moving Poems, for another of his poems I’ve translated (as well as for an explanation of why I’m so upset by yesterday’s coup in Honduras).
__________
LAS SALES ENIGMATICAS
Roberto Sosa
Los Generales compran, interpretan y reparten
la palabra y el silencio.
Son rígidos y firmes
como las negras alturas pavorosas. Sus mansiones
ocupan
dos terceras partes de sangre y una de soledad,
y desde allí, sin hacer movimientos, gobiernan
los hilos
anudados a sensibilísimos mastines
con dentaduras de oro y humana apariencia, y combinan,
nadie lo ignora, las sales enigmáticas
de la orden superior, mientras se hinchan
sus inaudibles anillos poderosos.
Los Generales son dueños y señores
de códigos, vidas y haciendas, y miembros respetados
de la Santa Iglesia Católica, Apostólica y Romana.
__________
HIDDEN CHARMS
tr. by Dave Bonta
The Generals purchase, interpret and allocate
words and silences.
They are as rigid and unyielding
as fearsome black crags. Their mansions
take up
two parts blood and one part solitude,
whence, without moving a muscle, they pull
the strings
tied to highly trained mastiffs
with gold teeth and a human likeness, and they combine —
as everyone knows — hidden charms
of the highest order, while their powerful
noiseless rings swell up.
The Generals are lords and masters
of the law, of lives and estates, and they’re members
in good standing of the Holy Catholic Church, Roman and Apostolic.
__________
Here’s another Honduran poem expanding on the “mastiffs” theme, from Oscar Acosta’s 1957 volume Poesía Menor.
__________
LOS PERROS
Oscar Acosta
Miran desde su lengua el silencio del amor.
Se quedan quietos en los rincones, huelen
el cariño en las ropas, en las lámparas, en la voz.
Caminan suaves sobre las alfombras verdes.
Los ojos son vivos y hablan por sí solos.
Cómo ausentarlos entonces al silencio,
cómo echarlos de las calles, cómo sepultarlos
si se levantan de los jardines floridos,
cómo envenenarlos por una disposición sanitaria
si sus amos cordiales están también rabiosos.
__________
DOGS
tr. by Dave Bonta
See how the silence of love drips from their tongues.
They keep quiet in corners, catching the scent
of affection on clothing, on lamps, in the voice.
They walk softly over green carpets. Their eyes
are so animated they speak all by themselves.
How then to silence them? How to kick them
off the streets? How to bury them when
they keep rising from flowerbeds?
How to poison and safely dispose of them
if their loving masters have also gone rabid?
__________
I’ll be sharing translations of Honduran poetry here all this week.
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[...] blogging Honduran !poetry: "Dogs and Generals," http://www.vianegativa.us/2009/06/dogs-and-generals/ [...]
Oh my, powerful stuff when adding the personal! I didn’t know about your connection, how sad.
Yes. And as it happens, Mark and Luz’s daughter Eva is here for the summer with her grandparents. She spent last summer and fall in Honduras, attending school and perfecting her Spanish, and her other grandparents are there. Another good friend of mine has worked extensively with Honduran campesinos. So suffice it to say we’re all watching the situation with great concern.
(o)
I wish you’d left one of those on the “O” post. :)
Thanks for the Honduran poems! They are awesome. I know quite a bit about US and British poetry, but not much about Honduran poems. My fiance is Honduran and I’m looking for a Honduran poem to read in our wedding. Any good ideas?
Glad you liked these. Roberto Sosa has some love poems in Máscara Suelta, translated by Jo Anne Englebert in The Common Grief (Curbstone Press, 1994). I’m thinking in particular of the poem that closes the book, “El más antiguo de los nombres de fuego” — “The Most Ancient of the Names of Fire.” That might work very well. Here is the Spanish: