(no subject)
Verbal Countries
by Ernesto Priego
I don't write poesía en español
because I have stopped believing in origins.
I try, instead, to look for futures I obviously don't have.
Verb tenses not yet invented, dreams deferred for too long,
Infinitives as usual not completed and not yet began,
A glass of whiskey over a red bilingual dictionary.
Even if love were not what I wanted
I would still write en inglés
because that's the colour of the ink within my skin
and the language and shape of these tattoos.
Look at me: you can tell it's not my tongue.
My language has abandoned me forever,
I am not who I am or who you think I am.
I write in something else to make you think you are not here.
In brief, we are always somewhere else, never here, always looking away.
And even if love were not what I wanted
I would still dream in these forever-foreign words,
por siempre extrañas, por siempre otras
words that embarrass me a little in their otherness.
I know I sound funny. I know this sounds weird.
It's a different accent. Picture me drunk, if you will,
or just a little bit dizzy. I stumble upon words like little stones en los frijoles.
Bite these words.
You may still remember me mañana, mas no hoy,
porque el hoy no llega aún.
I could not write these lines in my own language because there is no such thing
as anything to own.
We have been deprived from that privilege.
Despojados de la lengua propia, we dream in other verbal countries.
Este soy yo, in any language.
by Ernesto Priego
I don't write poesía en español
because I have stopped believing in origins.
I try, instead, to look for futures I obviously don't have.
Verb tenses not yet invented, dreams deferred for too long,
Infinitives as usual not completed and not yet began,
A glass of whiskey over a red bilingual dictionary.
Even if love were not what I wanted
I would still write en inglés
because that's the colour of the ink within my skin
and the language and shape of these tattoos.
Look at me: you can tell it's not my tongue.
My language has abandoned me forever,
I am not who I am or who you think I am.
I write in something else to make you think you are not here.
In brief, we are always somewhere else, never here, always looking away.
And even if love were not what I wanted
I would still dream in these forever-foreign words,
por siempre extrañas, por siempre otras
words that embarrass me a little in their otherness.
I know I sound funny. I know this sounds weird.
It's a different accent. Picture me drunk, if you will,
or just a little bit dizzy. I stumble upon words like little stones en los frijoles.
Bite these words.
You may still remember me mañana, mas no hoy,
porque el hoy no llega aún.
I could not write these lines in my own language because there is no such thing
as anything to own.
We have been deprived from that privilege.
Despojados de la lengua propia, we dream in other verbal countries.
Este soy yo, in any language.