THE SAINT ANN'S REVIEW

SICK OF ABSENCE / Mal de ausencia
Luis Alberto de Cuenca
translated by Gustavo Pérez Firmat

Since you left, time has slowed in Madrid.
I’ve just finished watching a movie that ended
a century ago. You don’t know how reluctantly
the world turns without you, my love.

Friends tell me to get hold of myself,
that so much melancholy rots the heart,
that your absence isn’t worth all this worry,
that I’m acting like a character in a dime novel.

But you packed my peace in your suitcase,
and the phone lines, and the street where I live,
and then you sent a troop of environmentalists
to my house to loot my sorry, polluted soul.

 Even worse, I can’t stop dreaming about giants
and you, naked, kissing their hands;
about gods on horseback ravaging Europe
and keeping you captive until I’m dead.

***

MAL DE AUSENCIA 

Desde que tú te fuiste, no sabes qué despacio 
pasa el tiempo en Madrid. He visto una película 
que ha terminado apenas hace un siglo. No sabes 
que lento corre el mundo sin ti, novia lejana.  

Mis amigos me dicen que vuelva a ser el mismo, 
que pudre el corazón tanta melancolía,  que tu
ausencia no vale tanta ansiedad inútil, 
que parezco un ejemplo de subliteratura.  

Pero tú te has llevado mi paz en tu maleta,  los
hilos del teléfono, la calle en la que vivo.  Tu
has man dado a mi casa tropas ecologistas  a
saquear mi alma contaminada y criste.  

Y, para colmo, sigo sofñando con gigantes  y
contigo, desnuda, besándoles las manos.  Con
dioses a caballo que destruyen Europa  y cautiva
te guardan hasta que yo esté muerto. 

A prolific and multifaceted writer and scholar, de Cuenca possesses one of Spain’s most distinctive poetic voices. His poems, elegant and spiritual yet devious, explore the expressive resources of the conversational register by making use of a variety of materials: classical antiquity, comic books, cartoons, Hollywood movies, slang, urban culture. Perhaps more than any of his contemporaries, he has been a major influence on younger Spanish poets. In 2015 he received the National Poetry Prize for his book, Cuaderno de vacaciones. From 1996 to 2000 he was the Director of Spain’s national library.

Gustavo Pérez Firmat has published several books of poetry in Spanish and English, among them Sin lengua, deslenguado and Bilingual Blues. His books of cultural criticism include Life on the Hyphen and Tongue Ties. He teaches at Columbia University, where he is the David Feinson Professor in the Humanities.

***

A statement from Kenseth Armstead, whose art appears on this page: Boulevard of African Monarchs connected Harlem, a hub of African excellence in America, to Tiebele, Burkina Faso, royal court of the Kassena people. The work reproduces house paintings by women artists, a tradition in Tiebele that predates the triangular transatlantic slave trade. The sculpture transforms marks into freestanding shapes that BREATHE. Boulevard of African Monarchs was dedicated in loving memory to Emmett Till, Tanisha Anderson, Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and many thousands more who have been lynched in America. Boulevard of African Monarchs was the first sculpture in the Sankofa_ project. Each site-specific work is inspired by “:Sankofa,” a word in the Twi language that means “go back and get it.” The works celebrate Africans and their diaspora, proclaiming Black Lives Matter in three dimensions. Sankofa…honors, in monumental form, Black Beauty, free in the public square.