Traducción de Urayóan Noel
PROMESA (HR 4900)
Song to ward off venture capitalists.
The tinto shipped
from our ancestors in Galicia
flirts unabashedly with giggling hens
on the veranda. Tio Frank
is praying to his pipe, the smoke
cradles his bajo sexto
as he croons, conjuring the flota
that dislocated us from the last
century. Junior rocks the ricochet
like a sorcerer of Brownian
motion. He is a garrison perched
across the ping pong table
like an eight limbed
colossus. In the kitchen, cards
are slapped like sinvergüenzas
round after round in an endless
game of Texas Hold ‘Em that holds
the cousins hostage. The winner
is never the sucker
with the ace, the winner
is he who talks shit with Fidel’s
fuerza bruta, an eight hour
fusillade of slick digs and relentless
boasts. Beside them abuelita
plays Zatoichi with the lechon
asado, ropa vieja is swallowed
by vagrant cangrejo
and bored nieces running
on fumes from chasing
the dog around the chicken coops.
This party was supposed to evanesce
long before sun up, but the coquito
is still spilling, the tias
still stalking the counter-
rhythms of the timbale like Bolivar
across the Andes. The road
at the end of the driveway is shrapnel,
the privatized water too steep
for our pockets, but we got tariffs
on this tanned euphoria
so no vulture
funds can raid and strip
the assets from our
digames, our ‘chachos, our
oyes, our claros, our
‘manos, our oites, our carajos,
our negritos, our vayas,
our banditos,
our pa que tu lo sepas!
PROMESA (HR 4900)
Canto para protegerse de los capitalistas de riesgo.
El tinto que enviaron
nuestros ancestros en Galicia
coquetea descarado con gallinas que se ríen nerviosas
en el balcón. Tío Frank
le está orando a su pipa, el humo
arropa a su bajo sexto
mientras canturrea, conjurando a la flota
que nos dislocó del siglo
pasado. Junior le mete al rebote
como un mago del movimiento
browniano. Él es un centinela velando
la mesa de ping-pong
como un coloso con
ocho brazos. En la cocina, las barajas
son golpeadas como sinvergüenzas
ronda tras ronda en un eterno
juego de Texas Hold ‘Em que mantiene
a los primos secuestrados. El ganador
nunca es el pendejo
con el as, el ganador
es el que habla mierda con la fuerza bruta
de Fidel, ocho horas
descargando indirectas mañosas y alardes
sin fin. A su lado abuelita
hace de Zatoichi con el lechón
asado, la ropa vieja se la tragan
cangrejos vagabundos
y sobrinas aburridas corriendo hasta morir
de cansancio de tanto perseguir
al perro por los gallineros.
Se supone que esta fiesta se disipara
mucho antes del amanecer, pero el coquito
sigue fluyendo, las tías
siguen acechando los contra-
ritmos del timbal como Bolívar
cruzando los Andes. La carretera
al final de la entrada es metralla,
el agua privatizada demasiado cara
para nuestros bolsillos, pero le hemos puesto tarifas
a esta euforia bronceada
para que ningún fondo
buitre nos ataque y nos arranque
los valores de nuestros
dígames, nuestros ‘chachos, nuestros
oyes, nuestros claros, nuestros
‘manos, nuestros oítes, nuestros carajos,
nuestros negritos, nuestros vayas,
nuestros benditos,
nuestros pa’ que tú lo sepas!
Vincent Toro is the author of Stereo.Island.Mosaic., which won the Sawtooth Poetry Prize and The Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award. He has an MFA in poetry from Rutgers University and is a contributing editor for Kweli Literary Journal. He is recipient of a Poet’s House Emerging Poets Fellowship, a NYFA Fellowship in Poetry, and the Metlife Nuestras Voces Playwriting Award. A two time Pushcart Prize nominee and a finalist for the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize, the Alice James Book Award, the Andres Montoya Poetry Prize, and the Cecile De Jongh Literary Prize, Vincent’s poems have been published in The Buenos Aires Review, Codex, Duende, The Acentos Review, The Caribbean Writer, Rattle, The Cortland Review, Vinyl, Saul Williams’ CHORUS, and Best American Experimental Writing 2015. Vincent was an artist in residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida and at Can Serrat in Spain. He is a Macondo Foundation writer and a board member for GlobalWrites, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting literacy through technology. Vincent teaches at Bronx Community College, is Writing Liaison at Cooper Union’s Saturday Program, and is a poet in the schools for The Dreamyard Project and the Dodge Poetry Foundation.
Originally from San Juan, Puerto Rico, Urayoán Noel lives in the Bronx, teaches at NYU, and is a 2016-2017 Howard Foundation fellow in literary studies, as well as the author, most recently, of Buzzing Hemisphere/Rumor Hemisférico (Arizona) and In Visible Movement: Nuyorican Poetry from the Sixties to Slam (Iowa). Learn more at urayoannoel.com, urayoannoel.bandcamp.com, and wokitokiteki.com, a bilingual, improvisational poetry vlog.