Chile 1-0 Switzerland

Armando Uribe (1933-; trans. Julie Flanagan)



This one and That one and the Other have families
that are happy and solid, children, grandchildren
even great-grandchildren, who are blonde and study hard,
and verygoodkids, they are good and Christian people
but meanwhile your own children, God of God are
suffering from psoriasis and psychologically
unstable, so why oh God of all the gods of clay
do your children suffer and have tongues of clay?
Your children are your children and seem step-children.
But their children, their grandchildren, their generations
are not like ours this bunch of degenerate
and untouchable fathers and mothers of beggars
yet these your children, God of gods, are still
your children and they recognise you and they do
just what you told them they should do, while they
make the signs, make the sign of the cross, gulp down
hosts like they are dying of hunger (though they are full)
and your priests absolve them, assent and eat with them
oysters and whatever debilities they have,
and they give a blessing to their menstrual women
so that they will bear children and they do bear them,
yet there are hardly any of us, or they die
of natural causes or commit suicide.
Is there a reason why? There is no reason why.
You are the God it occurs to you to be.


Leo Tuor (1959- ; trans. Mike Evans)



Proust of Albertina

Giacumbert Nau would idolise Albertina.
Her scent was the dark yellow scent of
saffron, her leg was oh so long when
wrapped around his body, her tongue
in his ear was like the murmurs of the Valley.
(The metal of his earring would tingle on
her tongue.) Every inch of her body, her white skin,
had the bitter taste of the salt of the earth. The fluids
from her body had the colour of the rust as they bathed his,
and she would sprawl over the soiled sheet, her skin
all covered in sticky, itchy yellow straw.
But Albertina did not feel the straw, she
only felt what she wanted to, and drank deep breaths
of the odour of bodies dripping in sweat, jaded and
softened after many an exertion

in the sump of love,
in the racing torrent.

The wind howled around the crags. Morning broke,
and one after one the animals awoke and prepared to move on,

they were trembling,
like the aspen,
like the cobweb,

only then to dwindle, diminish, decline.

Albertina’s favourite linen was white linen.