Skip to content
LALT-Iso-Black
  • menu
  • English
  • Español
Issue 3
Uncategorized

Five Poems

  • by Eduardo Langagne
Print Friendly, PDF & Email
  • July, 2017

The Craft

I have a table.
I can write I have a table.
I have a chair.
I can write I have a chair.
Moreover:
I have ink and paper.
I can write with the ink and on the paper.

But poetry tells me
it isn’t in the things I already have.
Poetry tells me
it’s in the things I’m missing.

 

Slipping Words

The word snake slips across my page.

It’s a word, not a snake.

If I write cobra, serpent, 
an image slithers toward the reader,
the feeling slides.

If I write viper, 
or add a rattle, 
it’s not a rattlesnake that crawls across the page;
it’s my writing slipping through the silence.

The rattle shakes,
the danger nears,
the viper draws closer:
I fear it might afflict me with its poison;
I fear those fangs could halt my breath.

But if I turn the page, the danger’s gone.

 

Testimony

to Paola

Even if I knew
the world
would explode tonight,
I would kiss you today
and say
“See you tomorrow.”

 

The Others in the Photo

she feared the love she had for me
was greater than the love i had for her
and chose to stop giving love to the love she had for me

today she has someone to give the love she had for me
the love she didn’t want to give me when she had
my love that was greater than the love she had for me

 

Johnny Weissmuller

The white miller
crossed Lake Michigan
in icy winter
with nothing more than the strength of his arms
and the force of his rhythmic kick.

As a boy he was drenched
in the bold water of his fantasies,
dreaming in Holland
that he’d been swallowed by the sea.

We know the ocean bore him on its back
and dropped him on the American continent
without him knowing, yet,
that he would come to occupy a sacred place in the jungle.

He wasn’t yet the Tarzan with his yodels and his simian walk
who would later swim through life.

The young swimmer
had come from Rotterdam
on a ship of the same name.

Each wife would cross the pool beside him,
each pool a different depth:
Johnny slowly learned to live accompanied
and lasted longer underwater
every time.

Many years later, in Acapulco,
sick and senile,
Johnny gazed out at his pool, at home,
and longed to go in one last time.

Jane’s reflection shimmered on the water, naked;
old Tarzan held his breath.
Why can’t a man in his eighth decade of existence
float in the waters of the end?

If we are born in liquid, we ought to die in that same water.

Tarzan stares intently at the pool.

Why don’t we all allow
Johnny Weissmuller, white miller,
to slip into his pool at home,
which glimmers like a kindly lake,
and drift down to the bottom toward his well-earned peace?

 

Translated by Robin Myers

  • Eduardo Langagne

Eduardo Langagne (Mexico City, 1952) is a poet and translator. He serves as the General Director of the Fundación para las Letras Mexicanas. Among his recent publications are a translation of Resurrección, the first novel by Machado de Assis (Biblioteca del Estudiante, Universidad Veracruzana) and Verdad posible (FCE), which was awarded the Premio de poesía José Lezama Lima by the Casa de las Américas in 2016. In 2016, he released the CD Tiempo ganado (Voz Viva, UNAM).

  • Robin Myers

Robin Myers is a Mexico City-based translator and poet. Recent book-length translations include The Science of Departures by Adalber Salas Hernández (Kenning Editions), Another Life by Daniel Lipara (Eulalia Books), and The Animal Days by Keila Vall de la Ville (Katakana Editores); forthcoming work includes Copy by Dolores Dorantes (Wave Books), The Dream of Every Cell by Maricela Guerrero (Cardboard House Press) and Tonight: The Great Earthquake by Leonardo Teja (PANK Books). She writes a monthly column on translation for Palette Poetry.

PrevPrevious“A Gorilla Answers” by Brenda Lozano
NextThree Poems by Camila Charry NoriegaNext
RELATED POSTS

After the Azotea

By Elena Lahr-Vivaz

I first met award-winning Cuban poet Reina María Rodríguez in 2003, during a month-long trip to Havana. I remember climbing the stairs that led to her rooftop home, known…

Three Poems

By Minerva Margarita Villarreal

Animal Waiting Room (or 29 portraits of a generic afternoon)

By Alex Sens

Footer Logo

University of Oklahoma
780 Van Vleet Oval
Kaufman Hall, Room 105
Norman, OK 73019-4037

  • Accessibility
  • Sustainability
  • HIPAA
  • OU Job Search
  • Policies
  • Legal Notices
  • Copyright
  • Resources & Offices
Updated 06/27/2024 12:00:00
Facebook-f X-twitter Instagram Envelope
Latin American Literature Today Logo big width
MAGAZINE

Current Issue

Book Reviews

Back Issues

Author Index

Translator Index

PUBLISH IN LALT

Publication Guidelines

Guidelines for Translators

LALT AND WLT

Get Involved

Student Opportunities

GET TO KNOW US

About LALT

LALT Team

Mission

Editorial Board

LALT BLOG
OUR DONORS
Subscribe
  • email
LALT Logo SVG white letters mustard background

Subscriptions

Subscribe to our mailing list.