The anger that breaks the soul down into bodies,
the body down into different organs,
and the organ into reverberating octaves of thought;
the anger of the poor
owns one deep fire against two craters.
translated by Robert Bly
Cesar Vallejo
from No. XVI from Trilce by Cesar Vallejo
I have faith that I am,
and that I’ve been less.
Hey! A good start!
translated by Clayton Eshleman
from No. LII from Trilce by Cesar Vallejo
Or you’ll want to accompany old age
to unplug the tap of dusk,
so that all the water slipping away by night
surges during the day.
translated by Clayton Eshleman
from poem XXXIII in Trilce by Cesar Vallejo
It will not be what is yet to come, but
that which came and already left,
but that which came and already left.
translated by Clayton Eshleman
from Our Bread by Cesar Vallejo
And in this frigid hour, when the earth
smells of human dust and is so sad,
I want to knock on every door
and beg forgiveness of I don’t know whom,
and bake bits of fresh bread for him,
here, in the oven of my heart. . .
translated by Rebecca Seiferle
Masses by Cesar Vallejo
. . .When the battle was over,
and the fighter was dead, a man came toward him
and said to him: “Do not die; I love you so!”
But the corpse, it was sad! went on dying.
. . .And two came near, and told him again and again:
“Do not leave us! Courage! Return to life!”
But the corpse, it was sad! went on dying.
. . .Twenty arrived, a hundred, a thousand, five hundred thousand,
shouting: “So much love, and it can do nothing against death!”
But the corpse, it was sad! went on dying.
. . .Millions of persons stood around him,
all speaking the same thing: “Stay here, brother!”
But the corpse, it was sad! went on dying.
. . .Then all the men of the earth
stood around him; the corpse looked at them sadly, deeply moved;
he sat up slowly,
put his arms around the first man; started to walk. . .
translated by Robert Bly
Black Stone Lying On A White Stone by Cesar Vallejo
I will die in Paris, on a rainy day,
on some day I can already remember.
I will die in Paris–and I don’t step aside–
perhaps on a Thursday, as today is Thursday, in autumn.
It will be a Thursday, because today, Thursday, setting down
these lines, I have put my upper arm bones on
wrong, and never so much as today have I found myself
with all the road ahead of me, alone.
Cesar Vallejo is dead. Everyone beat him,
although he never does anything to them;
they beat him hard with a stick and hard also
with a rope. These are the witnesses:
the Thursdays, and the bones of my arms,
the solitude, and the rain, and the roads . . .
translated by Robert Bly & John Knoepfle
Leonard Durso 