I asked azurea20 if I could post an English reading of her poem “Cuerpo” on EthicalDative, and she said yes. Below is the original Spanish text of her lyric published on her website, La Bancarrota del Circo, followed by my rendition, which I hope does no violence to the original. My thanks to azurea20 for her kind permission.

CUERPO
Cuerpo,
arsenal de miedos,
al sur del alma.
Mudanza de un mundo
disperso en su
propia extrañeza.
Borrador de alfabetos,
naufragio
que la espesura traga
sin atragantarse.
Cuerpo,
¿dónde fuiste
a buscar tu lugar?
Y – qué – dirá
ese – dios,
cansado – de – ser – dios.
Y tú,
cansado de ser cuerpo.

BODY
Body,
arsenal of fears
south of the soul.
Mutation of a world
scattered in its
own estrangement.
Eraser of alphabets,
shipwreck which
the breakers gargle
without gagging.
Body,
where did you go
looking for your place?
And what will that
tired-of-being-god
god say.
And you,
tired of being body.

Note
Azurea20’s poem says this:
shipwreck which
the thickness swallows [traga]
without choking [atragantarse]
I made a perilous decision: To substitute an obvious water analog for “thickness” in order to approximate the alliterative play of “tragar” with “atragantarse” adroitly exploited in the Spanish. I’ve violated a standing oath not to take liberties in translating which smack of showboating. To be honest, my solution makes me uneasy. Can wreckage wallowing off a rocky coastline survive scrutiny as the sea “gargling” wrack? Were I to do a revision, I would as soon stay faithful to the strong model of the original. Sackcloth poised for donning.

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