Manuel Vilas translation at ITERANT

My translations of three Manuel Vilas poems are now out in the ITERANT #14, Illiterate Moon.

Soon to be online too, I think, but order the print edition here:
https://iterant.org/product/iterant-issue-14/

 

let's go

Originally appeared at COLDNOON in February 2018. That site is now defunct, alas.
[Update: it's back up! Here is the original link]

let's go

let's go to Café Schilling and read a newspaper

like our parents used to do

where you can get a café con leche and I'll get a green tea

and we'll listen to the bloopy music

watching the tourists

and becoming annoyed by loud arrogant spanish men

but we'll both want to make out with the camarera

with her tattoos and converse high-tops and black tights and attitude

and we'll discuss whether the people camping out in la Plaça de Catalunya

are effectively protesting government austerity measures

and the IMF

and Spain's membership in the European Union

which itself seems set up to benefit France and Germany

though at the same time offering an economic challenge

to the Evil Empire of our own United States

or we could discuss whether the narcotraficantes basically

own Guatamala and Mexico like it appears

and what would happen if Americans stopped doing cocaine

or if Egypt will indeed become a democracy

or will the new boss be the same as the old boss

with the help of the American government or not

and basically we can discuss how guilty we feel

for being from America

and how helpless we feel

about affecting any change in US foreign policy

because with the deregulation of banks and corporate donations

more and more of our politicians do what Big Money says

but fuck it

finish your croissant

let's go to la playa

and let me slather sunscreen all over you

Open All The Boxes: The Barcelona Poetry Festival

My essay "Open All The Boxes: The Barcelona Poetry Festival" now up at COLD NOON: International Journal of Travel Writing.

Flamenco Dancer—poem

This appeared in the print journal ICONOCLAST, back in Fall of 2013.

 

Flamenco Dancer

She stands as the guitarists start to play

walking across the stage while staring out

at dark and smoke ignoring the ole’s

and guapa’s from the crowd: she knows their shouts

don’t matter

                        and that you don’t either friend

because flamenco is about disdain

the only proper answer to the end

of love

            to venting anger

                                          and to pain

dancing not for you / lifting up the skirt

of her tight black dress / not to show her legs

to you (because she wouldn’t care if you

kissed them) / but just to have them free to hurt

the man (any man) who made her beg

slamming high heels on wood

                                                 like she would you