"I EVOKE"

I evoke the songs that followed long rows of caravans

To the conquest of a blank space and anew

I ponder the intensity of each word.

I walk day and night through an invented landscape

Whilst I think of the wasted hours thrown into the paper bin

And all the other hours where they took body and soul

Beings with whom I played at forging credible fictions.

I evoke and lick my wounds like an old cat which,

Haughty and splendid, refuses to accept defeat.

With feline claws I evoke and write with spirit of revenge.

****

Translated by Joan-Carles Martí i Casanova

CHRONICLES FROM HELL

Joy in the country where fallacy rules

causes a weird blindness among their citizens.

While the sparks from the fireworks

are falling, thinking goes away,

secular preachers

quit writing rational sermons

as they now proclaim from their mass media thrones

the playback of the dominant speech

provided by the agencies in power.

In this orgy of superficiality

people’s smiles and laughs

are the apathetic gestures

of a cowardly community who allowed

thieves to keep their booty in the presidential house.

You write for the meditative silent of the days

when hope will be returned to us.

You write a chronicle of a nonsense Mardi Gras celebrated in Hell.

Autor: Manel Alonso. Translation: Miriam S. Moreiras

EUROPE

EUROPE, PENINSULA MUTIPLYING ITSELF IN PENINSULAS,

labyrinth of paths and crossroads

your seas  made of freckle archipelagos,

your fields of markets, but, also,

the gloomy remains of ancient abatoirs.

Europe, watchful  geography and enduring cradle,

fondling a diversity of tribes,

languages and cultures.

Europe, be mindful,
don’t let yourself be raped by  the strength of shadows
wanting to drag you to the cavern.
Europe, forget woeful, cainite, past tenses,
drown your flesh in the joyful
waters of freedom and tolerance,
open you arms to the children of all nations
and take care that the flood
does not carry away your millenial roots.

Autor: Manel Alonso. Translation: Joan-Carles Martí i Casanova

EUROPA, PENÍNSULA QUE ET MULTIPLIQUES EN PENÍNSULES
laberint de camins i cruïlles
pigallats els teus mars d'arxipèlags,
els teus camps de mercats, però, també,
de les restes infaustes de vells escorxadors.
Europa, geografia amatent i bressol sofert
que agomboles diversitat de tribus,
de llengües i de cultures.
Europa, estigues atenta,
no et deixes raptar per la força de les ombres
que et volen arrossegar a la caverna.
Europa oblidat de prèterits malaurats, caïnites,
nega la teua carn amb les joioses
aigües de la llibertat i de la tolerància,
obri els teus braços als fills de totes les nacions
i tingues cura que la riuada
no s'emporte les teues arrels mil·lenàries.

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Poema inclòs al llibre Correspondència de guerra i a l'antologia Quadern dels torsimanys/Cuaderno de los trujimanes dels quals és autor Manel Alonso i Català. Traducció a l'anglès de Joan Carles Martí i Casanova.

WOMAN

Woman, the gallant and affable gentleman you love
and the dragon of sinuous and tortured thought you fear
is a two-headed monster capable of the most tender caresses,
a generator of sudden and cruel violence.

Woman, your home is a cavern with a mortgage,
a gloomy and bitter hovel of eclipsed moons
where you are tied to a chain of invisible links,
hard to drag, impossible to break.

Woman, love and hatred, fear and disillusionment
fornicate filling your head with maddened butterflies,
while the dregs of love which have gone sour fill
along with the puddles of resentment the ground you tread.

Woman, paradise is the dreamt and unattainable escape,
purgatory the dwelling where you chew your sorrow,
limbo the damp furrow where the jewel rusts,
hell the bruise inflicted on your epidermis.

Poem book Correspondència de guerra (2009)

Traslation ANA STUTTER GARCIA

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Versió francesa http://manelalonso.blogspot.com/2010/12/femme.html

Versió en espanyol http://manelalonso.blogspot.com/2010/05/cuaderno-de-los-trujimanes-quadern-dels.html

Versió italiana http://manelalonso.blogspot.com/2010/12/donna.html
Versió gallega http://manelalonso.blogspot.com/2010/12/muller.html

Versió portuguesa http://manelalonso.blogspot.com/2011/01/mulher.html