Colombus' Caravelles Alfredo Veirav

La mquina del mundo (1976)

Deja las letras y deja la ciudad

Juan L. Ortiz
The poets from the provinces and the emerald treasures the black slaves
bathed in gold and the perverse-smelling orchids of the tropics we live
waiting for the caravelles to arrive from Buenos Aires to discover us.
In the meantime we pay our taxes religiously
tend to the plants in the garden and make sure we have error-free copies
of
our poems
for when they finally discover us we will have to rid ourselves quickly of all
our papers
invent some magnificent past and in a safeguard utterly beyond reproach
start getting used to smiling midst divas and prize-fighters.
When they discover us when they come for us here in the provinces
for us: poetry's own protegs the swift finger of fortune
the third-rate poet's monologue you've got to be ready
(And no bitterness my friends no bitterness at all: we too
were once fashionable in the villages).