The Bourgeoisie by Roque Dalton

http://socialiststories.org/content/bourgeoisie-roque-dalton

Present Tense - Ernst Auer

Present does not exist
it was the point where past and future overlapped.

Say now
now became before.

and how to remember the person who wrote it.

Fridays – Ernst Auer

When Fridays are now reserved for her, I could only mention to others in silence, that I might be faithful to her face. Yet, I fucked up the face I am supposed to trace on wood. And fat boy laughed at me for talking to my reflection. The rest left the table, and it took me four days to write about the half an hour between two strangers: questions, answers, pauses, and long silence. I just can’t record it as a conversation. The silence broken by what you saw in the sky, but I couldn’t see the patch of seven colours - a patch, not an arc or bow like the origin of your surname. I didn’t tell you I am colour blind, why the flowers are painted grey, how your air steward boyfriend could hurt you, and how I contrast the colours to the patch of rainbow he left on your face.

Because of this Modest Style By Ramón López Velarde

Because of this Modest Style

Translated By Michael Schmidt

September 14, 1915

It's how she spreads, without a sound, her scent
of orange blossom on the dark of me,
it is the way she shrouds in mourning black
her mother-of-pearl and ivory, the way
she wears the lace ruff at her throat, and how
she turns her face, quite voiceless, self-possessed,
because she takes the language straight to heart,
is thrifty with the words she speaks.

It's how
she is so reticent yet welcoming
when she comes out to face my panegyrics,
the way she says my name
mocking and mimicking, makes gentle fun,
yet she's aware that my unspoken drama
is really of the heart, though a little silly;
it's how, when night is deep and at its darkest,
we linger after dinner, vaguely talking
and her laughing smile grows fainter and then falls
gently on the tablecloth; it's the teasing way
she won't give me her arm and then allows
deep feeling to come with us when we walk out,
promenading on the hot colonial boulevard. . .

Because of this, your sighing, modest style
of love, I worship you, my faithful star
who like to cloud yourself about in mourning,
generous, hidden blossom; kindly
mellowness who have presided over
my thirty years with the self-denying singleness
a vase has, whose half-blown roses wreathe with scent
the headboard of a convalescent man;
cautious nurse, shy
serving maid, dear friend who trembles
with the trembling of a child when you revise
the reading that we share; apprehensive, always timid
guest at the feast I give; my ally,
humble dove that coos when it is morning
in a minor key, a key that's wholly yours.

May you be blessed, modest, magnificent;
you have possessed the highest summit of my heart,
you who are at once the artist
of lowly and most lofty things, who bear in your hands
my life as if it was your work of art!

O star and orange blossom, may you dwindle
gently rocked in an unwedded peace,
and may you fade out like a morning star
which the lightening greenness of a meadow darkens
or like a flower that finds transfiguration
on the blue west, as it might on a simple bed.

[ ] - Theodor Storm

You bit your lips till they were sore and bleeding,
You wanted this, I know it well, because my lips once covered them.
You let your fair hair be bleached by burning sun and rain:
You wanted it because my hand had once caressed it.
You stand all day over the stove in the heat and smoke.
You delicate hands are all raw.
You want it thus, I know it well, because my eyes once lingered on them.

IN FACT I WAS PREPARING MYSELF

For delivering two speeches for a lack of one
Like a good disciple of Macedonio Fernandez

April 22 - Chien Swee-Teng

Please remember
you are not the reincarnation of Lenin from the future.
Lenin is the reincarnation of you from the past.
But all in all nothing materialist at all in this statement,
spiritual, metaphysical reincarnation shit.