Old Surrealist Ballad - José Lezama Lima

When the rivulet swells with lashing

snaketails and the piano with its backside turned

displays its shoes shining like the night

when it sinks, a sagging armchair whose old wicker

strands are still a plaything for the boy with a big head

Taking shelter from a slice of violin melon

the dancers bump their heads and perspire sawdust

and midnight is as bored

as a chessboard leaned against a blackboard

I had no plan to go, but my keychain was missing

the enormous lock the dog that always follows me

until it goes off licking the back of its leg

The violin like an arm covered with frogs

began releasing drops of evaporated honey

The chief’s canoe crossed the crystal lake

at the stroke of two in the morning

and those who woke up danced with those who were sleeping

The woman we waited for is here and I hid

like a hypocrite behind a child’s box of pencils

which lent me their yellow fingers

and scraps of the accordion like a grapefruit packed in syrup

I used to save tears like bread crumbs

to throw into the pool of sissified alligators

When the doughnut began to puff

the patent leather definitely squealed

and the chiefs canoe was filled with crystal shards.

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José Lezama Lima (1910–1976) Cuba

Translated from the Spanish by Roberto Tejada.

Source: Bomb Magazine No. 86, 1 Jan 2004