in which we abuse google translate:
Cleaned up a Google translation of Rafael Perez Estrada's Rostul Visarii from Romanian. Funny, though, I'm sure he's Spanish. I wonder how close I got to the original.
The Purpose of Dreaming:
Rafael Perez Estrada
I saw a very beautiful man, covering his body with a panther fur coat. The coat buttons (I noticed right away) were panthers' eyes. And when it seemed it could not be any more wonderful, I said to my accomplice: how could you ignore his tie! I discovered a river descending from the shirt collar to the waist, and in that river, a crocodile, bright as a wet emerald. The needle was a tie.
***
The physicist, fond of metaphysics, and, moreover, enlightened, told me confidentially: there are two kinds of gravity: one, the stone of destiny to which the body falls victim, and the other is the bird, which, when it realizes the weight of the body, quickens its flight. He concluded: the stone simply dies.
***
He lived for rain. He knew the colors, the bite, and the thrill of rain. He was on the prowl, watching the clouds coming in, and hating sunshine. He collected in jars a few samples of water from the times it would rain. This product of the sky, which he considered sacred and miraculous, was waiting. Soft dreams, let the memory of the drought occupy the niches left behind by love. Sometimes, in his nostalgia, he would join the rain's lament, and he would announce the summer dawn, deluded into believing that dew is only timid rain.
***
To die - he told the child - is to remain unchanging in front of the unchanging landscape.
***
Words between us had risen to heights so high, we had to kiss.
***
Someone, in slamming the door, caught the angel's wing. There was the sound of a glass endlessly breaking on the floor. The rest was merely solitude and grief. Then the darkness began to leave.
***
I think, therefore I exist;
and he replied, objectively:
Objects exist,
therefore they think.
And because of the words' tone,
I threw down the jug used
until then as an excuse:
And they suffer - I said -
in silence.
***
Heralding the bearer of old age are mirrors: No, I want to say, I want death to take me by surprise.
***
There were no excuses: simply, I love peace, said the man who then fell silent for the rest of his life.
***
When I got home, I saw a tiger walking slow and luminous through the room, among the Bohemian crystal and Ming porcelain. There's a tiger, the butler was quick to inform me. Do not look at it, it's only a metaphor, and his eyes that provoke false emotions are poetic metaphors!
***
The intrusive child asked: where does the rain begin and where does the sea end? The young philosopher, grouchy, responded with another question: what begins vertically and ends horizontally?
***
I met her at the beach and we sat face to face for a while within a small pergola made of transparent, carbonated beverages. We sat chatting, and at one point, I was afraid the dictionary had been exhausted. But now a dictionary can tell you each and every time we have talked and wished to talk, and with the finest and happiest words. She began to become obscure, without my realizing it. But even the great mystery was a spot, moving on the dominant and linear horizon. I thought to offer a bright metaphor, and was close to doing so when I noticed the youthful tenderness of her blue skin, the stars and the constellations sparkled in a new manner and, by taking her hand, I chose to make myself an accomplice of silence.
[More of Estrada's work, translated by someone much better than I.]
The Purpose of Dreaming:
Rafael Perez Estrada
I saw a very beautiful man, covering his body with a panther fur coat. The coat buttons (I noticed right away) were panthers' eyes. And when it seemed it could not be any more wonderful, I said to my accomplice: how could you ignore his tie! I discovered a river descending from the shirt collar to the waist, and in that river, a crocodile, bright as a wet emerald. The needle was a tie.
***
The physicist, fond of metaphysics, and, moreover, enlightened, told me confidentially: there are two kinds of gravity: one, the stone of destiny to which the body falls victim, and the other is the bird, which, when it realizes the weight of the body, quickens its flight. He concluded: the stone simply dies.
***
He lived for rain. He knew the colors, the bite, and the thrill of rain. He was on the prowl, watching the clouds coming in, and hating sunshine. He collected in jars a few samples of water from the times it would rain. This product of the sky, which he considered sacred and miraculous, was waiting. Soft dreams, let the memory of the drought occupy the niches left behind by love. Sometimes, in his nostalgia, he would join the rain's lament, and he would announce the summer dawn, deluded into believing that dew is only timid rain.
***
To die - he told the child - is to remain unchanging in front of the unchanging landscape.
***
Words between us had risen to heights so high, we had to kiss.
***
Someone, in slamming the door, caught the angel's wing. There was the sound of a glass endlessly breaking on the floor. The rest was merely solitude and grief. Then the darkness began to leave.
***
I think, therefore I exist;
and he replied, objectively:
Objects exist,
therefore they think.
And because of the words' tone,
I threw down the jug used
until then as an excuse:
And they suffer - I said -
in silence.
***
Heralding the bearer of old age are mirrors: No, I want to say, I want death to take me by surprise.
***
There were no excuses: simply, I love peace, said the man who then fell silent for the rest of his life.
***
When I got home, I saw a tiger walking slow and luminous through the room, among the Bohemian crystal and Ming porcelain. There's a tiger, the butler was quick to inform me. Do not look at it, it's only a metaphor, and his eyes that provoke false emotions are poetic metaphors!
***
The intrusive child asked: where does the rain begin and where does the sea end? The young philosopher, grouchy, responded with another question: what begins vertically and ends horizontally?
***
I met her at the beach and we sat face to face for a while within a small pergola made of transparent, carbonated beverages. We sat chatting, and at one point, I was afraid the dictionary had been exhausted. But now a dictionary can tell you each and every time we have talked and wished to talk, and with the finest and happiest words. She began to become obscure, without my realizing it. But even the great mystery was a spot, moving on the dominant and linear horizon. I thought to offer a bright metaphor, and was close to doing so when I noticed the youthful tenderness of her blue skin, the stars and the constellations sparkled in a new manner and, by taking her hand, I chose to make myself an accomplice of silence.
[More of Estrada's work, translated by someone much better than I.]