Venice masks

Sunday, 3 April 2022

Looking for Trouble - Roque Dalton

The night of my first political cell meeting it rained
my way of dripping was celebrated by four
or five characters straight out of a Goya painting
everyone in the room looked slightly bored
maybe of the persecution and even of the torture they dreamed of daily.

Founders of confederations and strikers had
a certain huskiness and said that I had
to choose a pseudonym
that I had to pay five bucks a month
that we agreed to meet every Wednesday
and how was I going with my studies
and that today we were going to read a Lenin pamphlet
and that we didn’t need to say comrade all the time.

It had stopped raining when we finished
mum told me off for getting home late.

Roque Dalton [Roque Antonio Dalton García] (1935 - 1975) El Salvador
Translated by Luis Gonzalez Serrano
Source: Global Rights May 2017


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