Retornado ao país atopo 
as copas das árbores que moldean 
os lombos dos montes

Bosques mestos onde 
agachados seguro tras os troncos 
centenarios moran os poetas 

O seu hábitat é esta espesura
e aínda que ando á procura 
do cocho onde repousan 

Só topo indícios
restos da sua presenza 
nas paredes manchadas de versos

Cubrindoo todo un laio un canto
xorde nas polas dos rumorosos alcolitos
tono idóneo para a exploración 
íntima das chairas da soidade

Land of forests

Returned to the country I find
the tops of the trees moulding
the backs of the mountains

Thick forests where
very likely crouched behind 
centenarians trunks the poets live

Their habitat is this thicket
and even though I'm looking 
for the lair where they rest

I only find clues
remains of their presence
on the walls stained with verses

Covering it all, a complaint, a song
arises in the branches 
of the whispering eucalyptus trees
ideal tone for the intimate exploration 
of the plains of solitude

Entre os restos de pintura esconchada
e os anacos da louza escachada
atopamos por fin a espiña 
que nos atravesara todos estes meses

os portazos e os berros afástanse
pesadelos febrís minguantes
só denso o bochorno se queda
e a mirada cambiada dos veciños 

No cimeterio onde soterramos 
os sete mil nomes da culpa 
prégolle ao universo 
ou a quen tiver as competencias
que as feridas non sexan fondas
e que cando o sangue comece a callar 
a fin da guerra nos tope abrazados

Latin love

Among the remains of chipped paint
and the pieces of broken crockery
we finally found the thorn
that had pricked us all these months

the slamming doors and the screams go away
waning feverish nightmares
only the dense embarrassment remains
and the changed gaze of the neighbours

In the cemetery where we buried
the seven thousand names of guilt
I pray to the universe
or to whoever having the powers
for our wounds to be superficial
and, when the blood begins to curdle, 
for the war's end to finds us embraced

Memórias de uma pedra
de quando eu fui pedra
e os átomos seguravam-se pela mão 
criando uma cadeia indestrutível
como a minha própria essência

Mesmo sendo puro mineral
tinha fraquezas, gostava
da carícia húmida da água
a me envolver a me fazer brilhar 
a superfície com a luz do sol

Era pedra por fora e por dentro
íntegra na dureza nada saía 
nem entrava - um ser perfeito
sem deformações nem fendas
mas sem competências de voo

Só a doce água era capaz
de me dar forma
com a sua eterna paciência 

Memoirs of a stone

Memoirs of a stone
when I was stone
and the atoms held each other by the hand
creating an indestructible chain
like my very essence

Even though I was pure mineral
I had weaknesses, I liked
the wet caress of water
which wrapped me making shine
my surface with sunlight

I was stone outside and inside
intact in hardness nothing came out
nor entered - a perfect being
no deformations or cracks
but no flying skills

 Only sweet water was capable
 to shape me
 with its eternal patience

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