J'allais à l'arrière d'une camionnette
On parcourait la rue du bord de mer
À côté des chantiers naval
Aux alentours de l'école d'ingénieurs
On avait presque vingt ans
Et mes consignes revolutionnaires
Criées à tue-tête par-dessus bord
N'arrivaient pas à troubler 
Le bruit de fond du service de nuit
Sur la coque des monstres
Tout au plus une mouette 
Qui somnolait sur le lampadaire
Dérangée par les élèves en fête
Se déplaçait une dizaine de mètres

Youth itineraries

I was in the back of an old van 
While we were driving by the sea
Next to the shipyards
Around the engineering school
We were almost twenty
And my revolutionary slogan
Loudly shouted overboard
Couldn't disturb
The background noise of the night shift
On the hull of the monsters
At most a seagull
Dozing on the lamppost
Disturbed by students celebrating
Moved about ten meters

Para Angel, sempre aí, no nacemento ou na caída dos imperios

o lévedo soña a outro ritmo 
maiormente vive 
na sombra da nevera
satisfai as suas necesidades
coa fariña que lle boto
imaxino os seus soños fríos 
agardándome cando me ausento
máis dunha semana
comeza unha apnea para a que 
está deseñado
sofre pero non coma min
cando asexo a aparición dun raio de luz
que non chega
e segue a miña mente
na cama e coas persianas 
baixadas

The yeast dream

yeast dreams to another rhythm
most of the time it lives
in the shadow of the refrigerator
satisfying its needs
with the flour with which I feed it
I imagine its cold dreams
waiting for me when I'm away
for more than a week
begins an apnea for which
it is designed
it suffers but not like me
when I stalk the arrival of a light´s beam
that doesn't come
so my mind continues 
on bed and with the blinds
down

Sería a pobreza 
a falta de recursos fixera
deixar as tumbas estreitas
sen a lousa pesada
que termara do descanso
dos vivos
que mantivera os membros 
finados do clan
alá embaixo

Asi que desenterráranse e
con eles as poderosas leis
do clan volveran
a atrancar as portas da casa
por dentro
a moverse polas trabes
enchendo os cuartos
de renxeduras

Ocupando as zonas de descanso
fan tremer o sofá
vibrar os resortes do leito
impoñendo o silencio
ralentizando o zume
á procura da inmobilidade
levándo con eles
a vida

Clan presence

It must have been poverty
the lack of resources had 
made it possible to leave 
the narrow graves 
without the heavy slab on them
to take care of the rest
of the living
to keep dead clan members
down there


So they dug themselves up 
and with them the powerful laws 
of the clan returned.
to lock the doors of the house
from inside
to move across the beams
filling the rooms 
with creaks


Occupying resting areas
making the sofa shake
and the springs of the bed vibrate
imposing silence
slowing down the sap
in search of immobility
taking life  
with them

Hoxe, alá no meu país, no meu micro-país acurralado entre Portugal e España, celébrase o día das letras galegas como cada dezasete de maio dende hai sesenta anos.

Neste tempo, na cidade á beira da que me criei a proporción de falantes baixou á metade, xa non chega nin ao vinte porcento tras corenta e dous anos de cooficialidade co castelán.

Florecen as letras mas os números van á nosa contra.

Feliz día das letras

Cold percentages

Today, there in my country, in my micro-country cornered between Portugal and Spain, the day of Galician letters is celebrated like every seventeenth of May for sixty years.

During this time, in the city next to which I grew up, the proportion of speakers dropped by half, it no longer even reaches twenty percent after forty-two years of co-officiality with Spanish.

The letters flourish but the numbers go against us.

Happy day of Galician letters

Para conseguir sacar ao ar
um poema colorido 
que poida distinguirse
da prosa monocroma
baixo laboriosamente 
á mina de versos 
acubilhada no mais fundo
da minha alma cumprida
e alí na escuridão escarvo
horas sem trégua
até arrincar das paredes duras
media estrofa retorta
catro linhas sem rima

Por vezes topo uma veta
lírica francesa ou castelhana
outras o filón está tan perto
do português 
que por forza se lhe apega 
a grafia

Sempre me sorprenden as persoas
que levam a poesia na pel
e aflora sem aparente esforço
por isso a miúdo me pregunto 
que querera dizer isso de ser 
Poeta

Mining

In order to bring to the air
a colorful poem
that can distinguish
of monochrome prose
I laboriously descend
to the mine of verses
Deep in the depths
Of my immense soul
And there in the darkness I dig
hours without break
Until I pull out of the hard walls
a half twisted stanza
four lines without rhyme

Sometimes I find a vein
French or Castilian lyric
other the seam is so close
to Portuguese 
that the spelling is 
inevitably 
attached to it

People who carry poetry on their skin
always amaze me 
they bring it without such an apparent effort
that's why I often wonder
what does it mean to be
a Poet

I'm a lucky guy 
son un tío con sorte 
será porque sendo neno 
no día dun exame importante 
mamá coidaba de que saira de casa 
co pe dereito por diante 
e por suposto sempre 
funcionaba o mecanismo de salvación
que ficou incorporado no sangue meu

Houbo un tempo onde vivín de noite 
botellas de ron os marcos do meu biotopo
escribía os soños en billetes de lotería 
e desfeitos nunha poeira desorientadora
caducaban

Pero sempre fun un tipo con sorte
mesmo cando nas cidades me perdía
e acababa nos vertedoiros
aprendía como a luz agacha as sombras
qué fortuna poder aprender
era un mozo con sorte

Incluso se un día aparecese
un gurú ou mesías dicindo “don’t worry,
pronto acabarán os teus desvelos”
eu responderia que “off course
mesmo as estrelas senhoras do brilho
parece que seguen lucindo
e hai tempo que xa están mornas”

Xa sei que son un tío con sorte

I’m a lucky guy

I'm a lucky guy
it could be because when I was a child
on the day of an important exam
Mom made sure I left the house
with the right foot in front
and of course always
the rescue mechanism worked
so it was incorporated into my blood

There was a time where I lived at night
bottles of rum the frames of my biotope
I used to write my dreams on lottery tickets
those that decomposed into a disorienting dust
they expired

But I've always been a lucky guy
even when in the cities I got lost
and ended up in landfills
I learned how light hides shadows
what a fortune to be able to learn
I was a lucky guy

Even if one day it appeared
a guru or messiah saying "don't worry,
your troubles will soon be over"
I would answer "off course
even the stars, ladies of the shine
it seems they are still shining
and it's been a while since they stopped being hot"

I know I'm a lucky guy

salgo al supermercado del barrio, cojo algo de fruta y pescado, a siete de mayo los castaños de indias ya han echado todas las hojas para la coronación

corren las palabras como flechas y yo intento pararlas al vuelo, plastificar unas, meter otras en conserva, almacenar algunas en la despensa con el fin de tener ingredientes suficientes para la comunicación, lleno la casa de ellas, están por todas partes en botes de cristal con etiquetas:

• palabras que ya casi sé
• palabras olvidadas
• palabritas raras
• manojo de palabras que confundo

pasan como flechas y la hay que incluso se me clavan, palabras que luego no son esa palabra, palabras que pronuncio y nadie entiende, palabras, miles de palabras con las que me acuesto y al final de la noche aparecen muertas entre las sábanas

palabras que no logran 

hacerme sentir en casa

Words

I go out to the neighborhood supermarket, I get some fruit and fish, on May 7th the horse chestnuts have already shed all their leaves for the coronation

words run like arrows and I try to stop them on their fly, laminate some, put others in preserves, store some in the pantry in order to have enough ingredients for communication, I fill the house with them, they are everywhere in glass jars with tags:

• words I almost know
• forgotten words
• weird little words
• bunch of words that I confuse

they pass like arrows and some even stick to me, words that are not that word, words that I pronounce and nobody understands, words, thousands of words that I bring to bed with me and at the end of the night they appear dead between the sheets

words that fail

to make me feel at home

Vient la douleur
Ma douleur à moi qui a été si longtemps
À mes trousses lorsque frénétique 
Je fuyais vers la chaleur
D'autres corps

Vient la douleur 
Qui comme un chien de berger
A su me guider vers 
L'enclos où il n'y a plus
De peau où m'agripper

Naked

Comes the pain
My own pain that's been so long
Following me when frantic
I fled towards the heat
of other bodies

Comes the pain
That like a sheepdog
Knew how to guide me
To the enclosure where 
There is no more skin 
For me to cling to

Les belles tulipes de la Hollande 
Dans leurs champs surpeuplés
Jalousent la beauté solitaire
De cette jacinthe sauvage
Locataire du bord de la route

On the roadside

The beautiful tulips of Holland
In their crowded fields
Are jealous of the lonely beauty
On this English bluebell
Roadside tenant

na primavera do sétimo ano
a cicatriz branca no antebrazo moreno
deixada pola coitela do afialapis
deliñaba un tímido corazón 
símbolo do amor que abrollaba
todopoderoso

cun trazo de bolígrafo unía
as liñas da miña man esquerda
completando o M da sua inicial

a derradeira vez que a vin
tiñamos trece anos
era o final do mes de xuño
e o verán nos agardaba
para afastarnos por sempre

First love

in the spring of the seventh year
the white scar on the dark-skinned forearm
left by the pencil sharpener's knife
outlined a timid heart
symbol of the love that blossomed
almighty

with a pen stroke I joined
the lines of my left hand
completing the M of her initial

the last time I saw her
we were thirteen 
it was the end of June
and summer was waiting for us
to keep us apart forever