Paradise

No glamor here
No French bars for writers
just rotisseries with pig heads
second-hand shoes
boxes of nails, hammers,
wires, and saws
wars waged among butchers
neighbors and meagre barbeques.

This is neither paradise nor whatever comes before.

Instruction Manual

I listen to music
and am a rebel
though I am too old
to be a rebel
none
of those who are here
are of the age

I am the meanest poem in the room

I have lived in empty houses
with the roof broken in two
no money
for eating
or washing your clothes
to ask for a job
part-time
with a seller in centro
or in a supermarket
without friends
who you call on the phone
and say:

“I’m a wreck”

my day
is reduced to bleeding
in a mirror
mouth down
while the months pass
like a manual
for first aid
the signs of torture betrayed
on my face
like the mildew
in my clothes

Pieces of Mercury 

A rented room in Valparaíso
a bed
a table and two chairs
I have John Milton
on the toilet bowl
I am drinking what remains of the afternoon
I have written things while drunk
that seem pretty good
I wait for my friend from Cerro Barón
who will gather me slowly
like pieces of mercury
and will take me to eat something
in a restaurant with a Wurlitzer
because I want to hear
that Bob Dylan song
for what remains of my life

Translated by Gwendolyn Harper