FEDERICO GARCÍA LORCA
New York (Office and Denunciation)
To Fernando Vela
Beneath the multiplications
is a drop of duck’s blood.
Beneath the divisions
is a drop of sailor’s blood.
Beneath the additions, a river of tender blood,
a wending river that sings
past the suburban bedrooms;
it is silver or concrete or wind
in the false dawn of New York.
Mountains exist, I know.
And eyeglasses for wisdom,
I know. But I have not come to see the sky.
I have come to see murky blood,
blood that carries the machines to the cataracts
and the spirit to the cobra’s tongue.
In New York, every day,
four million ducks,
five million pigs,
two thousand pigeons, are killed to please the dying,
one million cows,
one million lambs
two million roosters
leave the sky in tatters.
Better to sob, as you sharpen the blade
or to murder dogs on raving hunts,
than to resist in early morning
those interminable convoys of milk,
those interminable convoys of blood,
those convoys of roses handcuffed
by the perfume sellers.
The ducks and pigeons
the pigs and lambs
lay their drops of blood
under the multiplications,
the horrific shrieks of cows wrung dry,
fill the valley with pain
where the Hudson becomes drunk with oil.
I denounce all
who ignore the other half,
the irredeemable half,
who raise their mountains of cement
where the hearts
of small forgotten animals beat
and where all of us will fall
in the final feast of power drills.
I spit in your faces.
The other half are listening
devouring, singing, making off in their purity
like the children of superintendants
carrying tiny brittle sticks
to hollows where insect
antennae are rusting away.
This isn’t hell, it’s the street.
This isn’t death, it’s the fruit stand.
There is a world of broken rivers and distances out of reach
in the small paw of a cat, shattered by a motorcar,
and I hear the earthworm’s song
in the hearts of countless young girls.
Rust, ferment, trembling earth.
You yourself are earth, swimming in office numbers.
What do I do? Rearrange the landscape?
Rearrange loves that will soon just be photographs,
that will soon just be pieces of wood and swigs of blood?
No, no; I denounce–
I denounce the connivance
of these deserted offices
that will not broadcast the suffering,
that stamp out the forest’s plans
and I offer myself as a meal for cows wrung dry
when their cries fill the valley
where the Hudson becomes drunk with oil.
– Translated from the Spanish by Shawkat M. Toorawa
Source: The City that Never Sleeps: Poems of New York, selected and edited by Shawkat M. Toorawa (SUNY Press, 2014), forthcoming. FEDERICO GARCÍA LORCA: “New York (Office and Denunciation)” by Federico García Lorca, copyright © Federico García Lorca. Translation by Shawkat M. Toorawa, copyright © 2013 by Shawkat M. Toorawa and Herederos de Federico García Lorca. Used by permission.
New York (Office and Denunciation)
To Fernando Vela
Beneath the multiplications
is a drop of duck’s blood.
Beneath the divisions
is a drop of sailor’s blood.
Beneath the additions, a river of tender blood,
a wending river that sings
past the suburban bedrooms;
it is silver or concrete or wind
in the false dawn of New York.
Mountains exist, I know.
And eyeglasses for wisdom,
I know. But I have not come to see the sky.
I have come to see murky blood,
blood that carries the machines to the cataracts
and the spirit to the cobra’s tongue.
In New York, every day,
four million ducks,
five million pigs,
two thousand pigeons, are killed to please the dying,
one million cows,
one million lambs
two million roosters
leave the sky in tatters.
Better to sob, as you sharpen the blade
or to murder dogs on raving hunts,
than to resist in early morning
those interminable convoys of milk,
those interminable convoys of blood,
those convoys of roses handcuffed
by the perfume sellers.
The ducks and pigeons
the pigs and lambs
lay their drops of blood
under the multiplications,
the horrific shrieks of cows wrung dry,
fill the valley with pain
where the Hudson becomes drunk with oil.
I denounce all
who ignore the other half,
the irredeemable half,
who raise their mountains of cement
where the hearts
of small forgotten animals beat
and where all of us will fall
in the final feast of power drills.
I spit in your faces.
The other half are listening
devouring, singing, making off in their purity
like the children of superintendants
carrying tiny brittle sticks
to hollows where insect
antennae are rusting away.
This isn’t hell, it’s the street.
This isn’t death, it’s the fruit stand.
There is a world of broken rivers and distances out of reach
in the small paw of a cat, shattered by a motorcar,
and I hear the earthworm’s song
in the hearts of countless young girls.
Rust, ferment, trembling earth.
You yourself are earth, swimming in office numbers.
What do I do? Rearrange the landscape?
Rearrange loves that will soon just be photographs,
that will soon just be pieces of wood and swigs of blood?
No, no; I denounce–
I denounce the connivance
of these deserted offices
that will not broadcast the suffering,
that stamp out the forest’s plans
and I offer myself as a meal for cows wrung dry
when their cries fill the valley
where the Hudson becomes drunk with oil.
– Translated from the Spanish by Shawkat M. Toorawa
Source: The City that Never Sleeps: Poems of New York, selected and edited by Shawkat M. Toorawa (SUNY Press, 2014), forthcoming. FEDERICO GARCÍA LORCA: “New York (Office and Denunciation)” by Federico García Lorca, copyright © Federico García Lorca. Translation by Shawkat M. Toorawa, copyright © 2013 by Shawkat M. Toorawa and Herederos de Federico García Lorca. Used by permission.