The Award

That man
(since we must call him something)
without children, wife or friends,
nor loving mother nor grandmother--
one day the Heavens graced him
with a powerful enemy.
Since then he's never been alone.
It's rumored he has secret dreams
and already has acquired a friend or two.

Poem by Reinaldo Arenas

Translated by Jaime Manrique
Published in The World Magazine

When They Informed Him

When they informed him he was being watched,
that at night when he went out
someone with an extra key searched his room
looked in the medicine cabinet
and in the suspicious manuscripts;
when they informed him that dozens of policemen
were assigned to his case,
that they had bribed his closest relatives,
that his intimate friends
hid their commas and scribblings
in their private parts,
he wasn't scared,
just barely irritated
which he instantly corrected.
He thought: They are not going
to get me to think I am that important.

Poem by Reinaldo Arenas

Translated by Jaime Manrique
Published in The World Magazine

The Will to Live Manifests Itself

They're feeding on me:
I feel them crawl all over me, pulling out my nails.
I hear them gnawing my scrotum.
They cover me with sand,
dancing, dancing on the mound
of sand and stone covering me.
They roll over me and insult me
ranting out loud a deranged judgment against me.
They've buried me.
They've flattened the ground,
dancing on top of me.
They've left, leaving me for dead and buried.
Now I can relax.

Poem by Reinaldo Arenas
El Morro Prison, 1975

Translated by Jaime Manrique
Published in The World Magazine

Voices

We came by air
We came by sea
We arrived tied to a car's seat,
arrived clutching the wheel of a plane
We left dodging sharks and coastguards
We left drilling a hole in the air,
left holding onto a comet's tail
We arrived swimming, vomiting our guts out
our lungs collapsed
our bones scorched, dehydrated.
The others are lost on the floor of the sea
and condemn our escape
secretely, desperately hoping to follow in our steps.

Poem by Reinaldo Arenas

Translated by Jaime Manrique
Published in The World Magazine

Final Moon

What is this feeling of looking for you
certain I won't find you?
What is this timeless dread that makes
me evoke you despite my fear?
My longing will not be quelled
(to quell it would be more torment)
so I'll never stop gazing at you.

Moon, once more I find myself
pondering the dangerous roads open to me.
The past is everything that's been lost;
if I survive the present
(despite my wounds)
I shall ask for nothing in the future--
a man who's lived in hell
that’s all he can hope for.
You are a strange lover, moon,
I admire your face
(I own it)
you and I are a river
we cross a tundra,
endless, circular, infinite
where I howl your name.

Poem by Reinaldo Arenas
New York, December 1985

Translated by Jaime Manrique
Published in The World Magazine