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Breaking Heads - Two Rompecabezas From Nicanor Parra


 


PUZZLE by Nicanor Parra

 

I give no one the right.

I love a piece of rag.

I shift tombs back and forth.

 

I shift tombs back and forth.

I give no one the right.

I'm a ridiculous sort

In the light of the sun,

The plague of soda fountains

Dying of rage.

 

I am a hopeless case,

My own hairs accuse me

On the bargain altar

The machines give no pardons.

 

I laugh from behind a chair,

my face fills with flies.

 

I am the one who can’t say what he means

Talking in long rows of what.

 

I stutter,

With my foot touches a sort of foetus.

 

What are these stomachs for?

Who made up this mess?

 

It's best thing is not to let on.

Thinking one thing I think something else.


(Translated by W.S. Merwin)


Rompecabezas

 

No doy a nadie el derecho.

Adoro un trozo de trapo.

Traslado tumbas de lugar.

 

Traslado tumbas de lugar.

No doy a nadie el derecho.

Yo soy un tipo ridículo

A los rayos del sol,

Azote de las fuentes de soda

Yo me muero de rabia.

 

Yo no tengo remedio,

Mis propios pelos me acusan

En un altar de ocasión

Las máquinas no perdonan.

 

Me río detrás de una silla,

mi cara se llena de moscas.

 

Yo soy quien se expresa mal

Expresa en vistas de qué.

 

Yo tartamudeo,

Con el pie toco una especie de feto.

 

¿Para qué son estos estómagos?

¿Quién hizo esta mescolanza?

 

Lo mejor es hacer el indio.

Yo digo una cosa por otra.


Notes:

The poet works the metaphor - in the end, it's better to say one thing for another

Agonizing puzzles of aging, the passage of time and love, the inevitable confrontation with death and the bewildering realization that one becomes conscious of beauty and youth and potentiality only when one is losing them

Mescolanza – confusion, disorder – also blended whisky


PIANO SOLO by Nicanor Parra

 

Since man's life is nothing but a bit of action at a distance,

A bit of foam shining inside a glass;

Since trees are nothing but moving trees;

Nothing but chairs and tables in perpetual motion;

Since we ourselves are nothing but beings

(As the godhead itself is nothing but God);

Now that we do not speak solely to be heard

But so that others may speak

And the echo precede the voice that produces it;

Since we do not even have the consolation of a chaos

In the garden that yawns and fills with air,

A puzzle that we must solve before our death

So that we may nonchalantly resuscitate later on

When we have led woman to excess;

Since there is also a heaven in hell,

Permit me to propose a few things

 

I wish to make a noise with my feet

I want my soul to find its proper body.

 

- Translation by William Carlos Williams

 

Piano Solo

 

Ya que la vida del hombre no es sino una acción a distancia,

Un poco de espuma que brilla en el interior de un vaso;

Ya que los árboles no son sino muebles que se agitan:

No son sino sillas y mesas en movimiento perpetuo;

Ya que nosotros mismos no somos más que seres

(Como el dios mismo no es otra cosa que dios)

Ya que no hablamos para ser escuchados

Sino que para que los demás hablen

Y el eco es anterior a las voces que lo producen,

Ya que ni siquiera tenemos el consuelo de un caos

En el jardín que bosteza y que se llena de aire,

Un rompecabezas que es preciso resolver antes de morir

Para poder resucitar después tranquilamente

Cuando se ha usado en exceso de la mujer;

Ya que también existe un cielo en el infierno,

Dejad que yo también haga algunas cosas:

 

Yo quiero hacer un ruido con los pies

Y quiero que mi alma encuentre su cuerpo.

 

- Both poems from Poemas y Antipoemas 1938-1953 by Nicanor Parra


Notes:


Piano - carefully, softly


Action, flotsam ('espuma'), utility (wood to furniture - perpetual transformation)


The urgency of solving the puzzle ('rompecabezas') of life and death - 


Concluding couplet - I want to make some noise, with my feet, so my soul can find (locate) it's body


Discovery through sound, the first sense for the poet


Movement, desire in action, 'yo quiero ...'


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