Germany 0-1 Spain

Silke Scheuermann (1973- ; trans. Michael Hofmann)



The Tattoo Artist

Everything etched into the skin
Edged in in black
Even the sun abruptly risen
on the shoulder blade
is rimmed in black

None of the customers
knows how long he
spent looking for
superior black ink
Sometimes he found himself
very much alone with his craziness and his menagerie

The shop was open
but no one went in
They missed
the big-eyed sea-snake
rippling over a sinew

the troll making up
to the shinbone
the little crucified Christ
All the swallows eagles initials
The tattoo artist’s conversation

while showing off his designs
See he says Enjoy the lustre
I’m a weakling
someone who stamps a soul
onto the likes of you
But what is life if not
transmutations of hurt
years spent leafing through blueprints
and then a different finger
chooses the best one of all: Death

Bernardo Atxaga (1951- ; trans. Amaia Gabantxo)



Partial Chronicle of the 70s

It was a time when everyday life spilled
cockroaches over people non-stop,
and everyone cried in their rooms
in sniffs or wails - both styles were good.
It was a time when people were afraid and screamed
if in the night a bell or a shot woke them -
and it was on the third-floor flat, or a mistake.

It was a time when we, the young people,
read pornography by the white
tiles of public lavatories, where
we, sometimes, had nosebleeds.
It was a time when winter came close,
and promised deaths, not all of them natural -
when deep in the heart everyone
hoped for a call, or a letter, and I did too.

And it was indeed winter, and geese flew
in the sky in a "w" formation,
and it was cold and rainy, and there was a strike
in the midst of an Asian flu epidemic.
And a bar owner, I remember, cited business
reasons when forbidding homosexuals from entering;
tramps reinforced their cardboard homes -
and squirrels, I remember, left the forest and
held up a supermarket screaming, Hands up,
Where's the safe with all the walnuts?

And then carriages full of silence arrived
to fight street by street, home by home,
against Nouns, against Adverbs,
and I was there, it was terrible, oh my God.
And the clinics gave out anti-everything pills,
the banks handed out multicolored leaflets
that read: Pray, but from work don't stray;
and one evening, at last, she called
from very far away, and her words reminded
me of love, and tasted slightly of honey -
It was a time when everyday life spilled
cockroaches over people non-stop,
and everyone cried in their rooms
in sniffs or wails - both styles were good.