Language: Spanish
Poet: Jaime Francisco Matorras
Translator: René Milet Hernández
Region: Argentina
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under the lead of clouds
Three poems by Jaime Francisco Matorras, translated from Spanish by René Milet Hernández
Jaime Francisco Matorras was born in Salta, Argentina in 1979. He graduated as a Psychologist at the University of Buenos Aires in 2002. He has been writing poetry and short stories for the past twenty years. His first poetry book, Arboledas migrantes, was published in 2022 by Halley Ediciones.
René Milet Hernández was born in Chile, studied literature and philosophy in Montreal and the University of Sussex in England, and currently works with The Clubhouse Network, a Boston-based organization that supports worldwide creative learning spaces for youth. He has translated a wide variety of works from Spanish and French.
Sueño en sepia
En una costanera antigua
y abandonada
conversábamos.
Te habías olvidado
quién eras.
Yo arreglaba una balanza
para desconocidos viajeros
que esperaban un barco que
sabía,
nunca llegaría.
Dream in Sepia
On an ancient
and abandoned boardwalk
we talked.
You had forgotten
who you were.
I was fixing a pair of scales
for traveling strangers
who waited for a ship
that I knew
would never come.
Encierro
Evita los cierres sonoros
que abren ventanas
durante el otoño.
Evita ese ruido de sierras
que descose mentes
en la biblioteca.
No abras más nada
cierra la puerta
pero no con cierres;
con clavos, con goma.
Comienza ahora
antes que llegue.
Ya no queda tiempo
para buscar nada
ni pilas, ni relojes, ni radios.
Estarás perdido como en un sueño
bajo el plomo de las nubes
sobre el hielo que huele.
Comienza por tu encierro.
Evita creerte real.
Yaces encerrado,
ya llegó.
Confinement
Stay away from the clattering locks
that unlatch the windows
in autumn.
Stay away from that buzzing of saws
that unstitches minds
in the library.
Don’t open anything anymore.
Shut the door
not with locks
but with nails and with glue.
Start now
before it gets here.
There’s no time
to look for anything
not batteries, clocks or radios.
You’ll be lost as in a dream
under the lead of clouds
over the ice and its smell.
Start from your confinement.
Avoid believing you are real.
You lie there enclosed,
it’s already here.
Viejo árbol
Junto a las hojas
caídas del árbol,
su sombra.
Ríe la niña
escondida tras su rostro
de mujer dolida.
Tenía razón Vallejo,
hay dolores tan profundos
como el odio de Dios.
(Ante lo insignificante
de los ojos cerrados
crece el enojo.)
En el viejo árbol
como una hoja
se arma el delirio.
Old Tree
Next to the leaves
fallen from the tree,
its shadow.
The girl laughs
hidden behind her mask
of woman hurt.
Vallejo was right:
some hurts are as deep
as the wrath of God.
(in the face of the indifference
of eyes closed
the fury grows)
In the old tree
like a leaf
delirium forms.
These poems were published in their original language in Jaime Francisco Matorras’ poetry collection, Arboledas Migrantes (Halley Ediciones, 2022).
