Hoxe lembro as intimidades compartidas
De cando nos aprendías a pescar
desde o peirao do porto da nosa cidade

Ou o día que nos levaches de maña cedo 
visitar a fascinante lonxa do peixe

A mañá que me acompañaches a bucear
e unha onda grande me arrastrou ao fondo
mentres me agardabas dende a area

E mostráchesme as cadeas
como corresponde a un bo pai
para que aprendera a desfacerme delas

Grazas papá por terme dado o mar
que como unha respiración se instalou 
coas suas mareas de vida en min
mesmo que me atope lonxe terra adentro

Este inmenso mar que me regalaches
que é case tan grande 
como o cariño no que me envolveches

Intimacies shared

Today I remember the intimacies shared
when you taught us how to fish
from the wharf of our city's port

Or the day you took us early in the morning
to visit the fascinating fish market

The morning you accompanied me 
when I went diving and a big wave 
dragged me to the bottom while you were 
waiting for me from the shore

And you showed me the chains
as befits a good father
so that I could learn to get rid of them

Thank you dad for giving me the sea
that like a breath settled
with its tides of life in me
even if I find myself far inland

This immense sea you gifted me
which is almost as big
as the affection you wrapped me in

Cada vez el muro más alto
Escasea la proteína en los platos
La codicia viste relojes dorados
Los rebaños de la escasez mastican 
Las raíces de un árbol de plástico

La bestia muestra en una sonrisa 
Sus limpios dientes de leche

La avaricia que calza zapato italiano 
Camina sobre las ruinas trituradas 
De nuestros avances sociales

La bestia babea ante las barrigas 
Inchadas de hidratos, mecidas
Por las pantallas omnipresentes

El monstruo tararea de nuevo 
Sus himnos de víscera y sangre

En la meseta por donde corre la vida
La injusticia erosionó un barranco  
Y el tiempo que no sabe pararse 
Corre de vuelta al pasado

The monster’s new teeth

Every time the wall is higher
Lack of protein in the dishes
Greed wears gold watches
The herds of scarcity chew
Plastic tree roots

The beast shows in a smile
His clean milk teeth

The avarice wearing Italian shoes
Walk on the crushed ruins
Of our social advances

The beast drools at bellies
Swollen with hydrates, rocked by
The ubiquitous screens

The monster hums again
His hymns of guts and blood

On the plateau where life runs
Injustice eroded a ravine
And the time not knowing how to stop
Runs back to the past

Estranamente sentín
Esa dor no peito
Nun día frío de marzo
Horas antes de ver
O wasap coa nova:
O cuco xa non ía voltar

O neno que foi servir
Na casa da plantación de tabaco
Fillo descalzo de zapateiro 
Botouse a camiñar pola vida
Fixo da palabra profesión
E sen ter deixado o país
Foi o máis cosmopolita
Falando só a nosa língua

Teceu unha rede de acollida
Para o adolescente que fun
Que aínda hoxe me protexe
Aprendeume que hai
Unha calor no ser humano
Que as reglas frías non
Son quen de apagar

Contra a presa da fábrica
á beira da que me criei
Estendeu a calma 
das cousas importantes
-Quencer os pes
Metendo herba seca 
nas botas de goma
-Prender a cociña cun carozo 
E unhas achas de bidueiro

Sei
Que el
Non se irá
Mentres viva
Eu, así escribo 
Só un poema de media
Bágoa, dor de diamante
Para o hospitalario
Labrego feirante
Manuel Cao
Muimenta
Adeus 
Avó

Between March and April

I felt strange
That chest pain
On a cold day in March
Hours before seeing
the news in whatsapp:
The cuckoo wasn´t return anymore

The boy who went to serve
In the tobacco plantation house
Barefoot son of a shoemaker
Set out to walk through life
Made the word his profession
And without having left the country
He was the most cosmopolitan
Speaking only our language

He wove a host network
For the teenager I was
That still protects me today
He taught me there is
A warmth in the human being
That cold rules are 
Not able to extinguish

Against the haste of the factory
next to which I grew up
He spread  the calm
of important things
- To warm the feet
by putting hay
inside wellington boots
-To ignite the stove with a corn cob
and some birch branches

I know
That he
Won't go away
As long as I´ll live
And that's why I write
A poem of just half a tear
Pain as hard as diamand
For the most hospitable
Farmer, cattle seller
Beloved grandfather
Manuel Cao
Moimenta
Fare-
well

Cascas de mexillón
Esnaquízanse
Triscando baixo as botas
Peteiranas as galiñas
Á procura de calcio

Cascas de mexillón
Ao volver do olimpo
Ficaron a estrar a alma
Metáfora do meu ego
Ferido, escachado

Shells

Mussel shells
Shattered
Crunching under the boots 
The chickens peck them
In search of calcium

Mussel shells
When returning from Olympus
They were left to pave my soul
Metaphor of the ego
Wounded, broken

-a sebe-
mesmo que
non é seguro eu
creo que son faias 
os arbustos da sebe
- árbores prisioneiras
malia a tesoira de podar
mantéñenche con teimosía
un proceder independente
non só insisten no medre
fóra dese paralelepípedo
racionalmente prescrito
senon que en rebelión
néganse a deixar ir 
suas follas secas
agardan agres e
na primavera
transixen en
as tornar
verdes

The shrub hedge

-the hedge- even if it is not certain
I guess they're beech trees, the hedge
bushes -- just captive trees. despite 
the pruning shears they stubbornly maintain an independent behaviour
they don't just insist on growing
outside that parallelepiped
rationally prescribed but
in rebellion, they refuse 
to let go its dry leaves
they await bitterly 
and in the spring
compromise in
bring them back 
its green
colour

Nesta proba rutinaria hai un dez por cento / de posibilidades de detectar o cáncer

Non sei o nervioso que estou ata que / o tensiómetro me delata cun dezasete

O intérprete só traslada un senso vago / do que quero explicar á enfermeira

Fálolle das anemias da miña nai / impacientase dos meus rodeos

non sabe que inconsciente invoco / á familia afastada just for protection

A vía no brazo fai que como unha marea / suba o mareo ata que naufragan os meus pasos

Dende a padiola a sinatura na tablet / resulta un borrancho irrecoñecible

Tras un primeiro cheiro a tubo de goma / comeza a chegar o osíxeno ao nariz

Poñase de lado, encarte os xeonllos / sedacion na vía e pecho os…

…

ábroos e o monitor mostra as paredes / do fermoso intestino nas que abraiado encontro 

tras unha vida de desprezo / o amor perdido polo meu corpo

Bowels (thanks NHS!)

This routine test has a ten percent chance of detecting cancer

 I don’t know how nervous I am until the sphygmomanometer betrays me with a seventeen

The interpreter only conveys a vague sense of what I want to explain to the nurse

I tell her about my mother’s anemia, she gets impatient with my detours

she doesn’t know that Isubconsciously call upon distant family just for protection

The needle in my arm causes the dizziness to rise like a tide until until my steps shipwreck

The signature that I make while I am lying on the stretcher, is an unrecognizable doodle

After a first smell of rubber tube, oxygen begins to reach the nose

Lie on your side, bend your knees, sedation to the vein and I close my…

 …

I open them and the screen shows the inner walls of a gorgeous bowels where I am amazed to find

after a life of contempt, the love lost for my body

No meu feble sangue diluído
corren as xuntanzas do clan
arredor dun lume de bidueiro
sacrificio de luz para a pervivencia
afora a escuridade e a tempestade
dunha noite hostil, antimateria 
con minguadas condicións 
para a vida humana
aquela familia como illa acolledora
nun océano de terribles monstros

afora o lobo avisando da sua fame
adentro a calor da leña ardendo
malos tempos para a hemoglobina

Blood

In my weak diluted blood
circulate the clan meetings 
around a birch fire
sacrifice of light for survival
outside, darkness and storm
of a hostile night, antimatter
with hard conditions for human life
that family as a welcoming island
in an ocean of terrible monsters

outside the wolf warning of his hunger
inside the heat of the wood burning
bad times for hemoglobin

ratiño mollado
o colchón fede a medo
agarda quieto que pasen lentas as horas
que a calor do corpo evapore o pis frío
e cando ven a mañá 
a chamar coa sua corneta
o ratiño cobre de terra a noite
e o medo que deixou 
no fedor do colchón seco
a culpa e a vergonza 
lava a cara con auga fría
e sae ergueito ao camiño 
a pisar a terra que pode con todo
o ratiño aprende as ciencias no cole
e a arte do enterramento nas noite húmidas

Wet little mouse

wet little mouse
the mattress stinks of fear
wait quietly for the hours to pass slowly
let the body heat evaporate the cold pee
and when the morning comes
calling with his horn
the little mouse covers the night with dirt
and the fear he left behind
in the stench of the dry mattress
guilt and shame
wash his face with cold water
and goes straight to the dirt road
to step on the earth that bears everything
the little mouse learns science at school
and the art of burial in wet nights

Lorsque la bille du stylo
s'appuie sur la page du cahier
toute la poésie qui flottait dans l'eau 
comme une mince couche de graisse
reçoit une goutte de lave vaisselle
et au lieu d'écrire des vers 
c'est des manuels d'instruction
des mots prisonniers de l'excel
des raports truffés des "donc"
moi même je deviens ver
locataire des terres moites
le cri de l'aigle ricochant dans la vallée
faible mémoire d'un poète
sans griffes, ni armée
qui reprenne son chant érodé

Prose mood

When the ball of the pen
leans on notebook page
all the poetry that floated in the water
like a thin layer of fat
receives a drop of washing up liquid
and instead of writing verses
they are instruction manuals
words trapped in excel
reports full of "therefore"
I myself become a worm
tenant of moist lands
the scream of the eagle ricocheting in the valley
faint memory of a poet
without claws or army
which resumes its eroded song

O sábado pola mañá
como un banco de rinchas
á procura de alimento
pola M60 dirixímonos cara ao norte 
encollendo e estirando
ao paso por Stockport

no asento do acompañante vai
a cabeza decapitada 
do cabalo de Roberts
construíndo o substrato
no que alimentar as raíces

e como no poema el comeza a falar
e si entendo o sinsentido 
aproveitando a música de gaita
que sae pola radio do coche
repíteme os cantos da infancia

“Fuches tu, fuches tu 
fuches tu quen cagou no palleiro
Fuches tu, fuches tu 
que aínda levas as pallas no cu”

dun país esvaecido
o mar rompe contra Zamora
baña as costas de Trás-os-Montes
e das aldeas de Tinéu

Mentres os acordes da gaita 
e as palabras do cabalo
se mezclan na miña cabeza
escorrega unha lágrima discreta
poderoso lazo cos expatriados
de calquera cabo da terra.

Shoal

On Saturday morning
like a shoal of mackerels
in search of food
We headed north on the M60
shrinking and stretching
when passing through Stockport

in the passenger seat goes
the decapitated head
of Roberts' horse
building the substrate 
to feed the roots

and as in the poem, it speaks to me
but not the original nonsense
taking advantage of bagpipe music
coming out of the car radio
it repeats to me the songs of childhood
"It was you, it was you
it was you who pooped in the haystack
it was you, it was you
because you still carry straws in your bum"

of a faded country
the sea breaks against Zamora
bathes the shores of Trás-os-Montes
and the villages of Tinéu

While the bagpipe chords
and the words of the horse
both mix in my head
a discreet tear slips
powerful bond with expats
from any corner of the earth.