My Friends - Carlos Aragón

(in semi-syncopated flow)
.
Where are they? Where are they?
Where are my old friends?
Those from our little school
and those from the university…

A Question of Life - Daniel Flores y Ascencio

Death
ambushes at every corner
and at times
brute sentiment
and rage 
distend my heart 
like a stretch sock. 

Antonio machado - Roberto Armijo

I saw
a sprig of violets
they sprouted tears

What solitude you have - Carmen González Huguet

What solitude you have if you are asleep.

What dreadful silence in the night.

I peer into the mysterious abyss

Where there is no light, or name, or sound.

To my generation - Roberto Armijo

To Roque, to Argueta, to Cea, to Quijada Urias

In what station hotel

will our shadows touch the lips of the abyss

and stretched but on the iron bed

the flames of hell fall

in waves on our bodies

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

Childhood Stories (extract) - José María Cuéllar

I was born in 1942 if for some reason my mother

has not lost her memory.

And I dreamt that I was a tree - Claribel Alegría

And I dreamt that I was a tree

and all my branches – leafy –

were belovéd of the birds

From the Bridge - Claribel Alegría

I have freed myself at last

it has been hard to break free

near the end of the bridge

I pause

the water flows below

Letter to Time - Claribel Alegría

Dear Sir:
I am writing this letter on my birthday.
I received your present. I don’t like it.

Ballads North and South, No. 1 - Claudia Lars

For many years I couldn’t choose
the land of my song.
Two lands, throbbing within,
were mystery and gift.

The Republic of Power - Alfonso Hernández

Every year the dictator makes a speech to the multitudes
from his pragmatic throne – Peace Love Justice –
(as if history were an expedient of his base passions).

Day-to-day - Carmen González Huguet

“Yet we want to return to the place we love.

And if God lets us live, we’ll return to eat

corn-on-the-cob fresh from the field,

if we are given the chance…”

Salvadoran refugee, April 1986

And of course,

despite the bloodshed,

life went on

tying its laces.

He sat down in his chair - Mercedes Durand

He sat down in his chair
after watching
thirty thousand peasants die.

The Procession - Claribel Alegría

There is a still silence
thinking me
another flayed silence
walking inside me

The Great Despair - Roque Dalton

   My country you do not exist
you’re my silhouette badly drawn that’s all
a word that fooled the enemy

The Return - Claribel Alegría

How will the return be?
My parents won’t be there
I won’t climb the volcano
with them
to gather orchids.