1

Seorita Vodka

Have mercy on men. They know not what they do.

My misery days began the night I held a pistol in my hands. You couldn't imagine
this by looking at me; not by talking to me either. Nobody can open up the heart of a
person that doesn't exist. I am a woman who built her life in between a feeble tower of
muddy heartbreak and desire. Cloudy, obsessive hearts find clarity in the drizzle; sleet
mixed with ice cold vodka, pain, betrayal, bullets. Russian roulette was my favorite game;
also gambling, racing cars to vertigo; I write it again: Russian roulette was my favorite
game, betting against myself too, but it's been so long that if I recall it, it's blurry, if I recall
it, it hurts; if I recall it, it lies, because that's no longer who I am, right now I would load six
bullets and Russian roulette would stop being my favorite game. Yes... that was my burden
all through my life; I don't see why it should be any different now that I have to endure it in
my present and future stage as a walking corpse. I pull the trigger, I can feel the throbbing
on the temple, I can feel those words that remain there, I can feel that everything remains
there: the hurting grew bigger. Today, bullets bloom inside memory's murky gardens. A
bullet is an opportunity. Heart attack, that's what the report said, just like my father: heart
attack over the let-downs, over loneliness. It's not about what you keep, it's about all we
lose. You ripped my skin away from you. I carry with me that inedible pain of seeing you
standing on the avenue in the middle of the night. You didn't lock the door, you didn't show
any intentions of stopping me, either. That cab distanced us forever.
 2

Friendly misanthrope, I wrote in that newspaper ad: friendly misanthrope with big
hips looks for well-paid, simple job, assholes, pranksters and charlatans refrain. Many
responded to my ad, only one met my demands: Come in your working clothes at six in the
afternoon to Eje Central and Repblica del Salvador Street. I arrive on time; my date
identified me from my lovely high heels, then we walked to the workplace. Second-hand
titty bar, only two clients, that was my fist day, the rest, honey, we're gonna start
remembering bit by bit, no hurries. Vodka's cheap in this cantina, my glass is almost
empty, it's raining outside. I think of desire, I've wanted men with computers worth more
than I've made my whole life; they've wanted me too: trouble begins. I think about Judas,
adored by a rich woman, lying on a spa in the Mayan Riviera. A friend told me Who the
fuck goes to the Mayan Riviera? Only this dude and Elton John, get the fuck out, by the
way fucking Elton just gave a concert yesterday, I looked at him, baffled. He doesn't know
him, he says that because he doesn't know him. Deep down, papirriqui despises money,
he's a very sensitive man, even though he wears Prada glasses derived from the
exploitation of millions of asian children. Last day of work at the titty bar I felt the need to
purify myself. I went into a church holding my whoreshoes in one hand, I wouldn't want to
offend J.C. by wearing them. I wanted to pray, but I couldn't remember any of the prayers
mother Sandra xeroxed for us back in my school days. Inadvertently, one of my whore-
heels wounded my other calf, pain reanimated me, it woke me from the slumber of feeling
lost. I glided the spike heel to my thigh, upwards, to my ass, digging it in. Gliding and
digging. A red line, two red lines, three bloody red lines from calf to ass. Poor me, sunk in
absolute unhappiness, not content with torturing the saints looking down on me with
woeful faces, I was doomed to torture myself. J.C., I swear I'll pay for everything, for
everything I've done: every window I broke to sneak away at night when I was sixteen,
smite me here, now!, send my chilling body to Garibaldi with Pey and the tapanco friends',
but don't punish me this way, don't let me bleed to death in front of these fucking asshole
saints that look like they've got the blue balls. C'mon, J.C., why do you even allow saints
into your church? Don't forget, they all gave their lives for you in caves, they were
murdered by roman hands, a real christian doesn't believe in saints. Save me, get me
outta here. Don't think that because one of the bums from the park who crashes here took
off your head I'm buying your 'I'm not listening' bullshit. You know why I come to this
church? Because nobody else comes here, la Plaza de la Conchita is so beautiful!, its' tiny
church, its' bums, its' dawns, its' evenings, its' nights are my favorite, I like to sit on the
benches to watch la Paloma smoke, such a pretty girl. How sad, soon they'll be restoring
the public works in the city, they should restore their dinosaur institution, leave the true
artists of this city alone!, like Paloma, she accomplishes on a pole what no ballerina from
the National Dance Company ever could, amen. I take my flask out of my purse: lemon tea
and vodka, my stomach burns, it's doing the twist. I'm hungry. Two days without food. I
think of the hot sandwiches Cindy would leave outside my room, in that filthy pension on
MacArthur Park. Yesterday I was so hungry I kept opening my bedroom door over and
over waiting for that sandwich to show up, then I begged J.C. for one, it never came. J.C.,
go fuck yourself! if you can't make a single sandwich appear, you can't make a thousand
loaves of bread appear or make the blind see.
Un hombre no patea perros heridos
Poemas/ libro

Kingsland

a J. Cash, man in black.

Encend un cigarro

Ped un bourbon

Un honky tonk colorido y triste

Bourbon Street Blues and Boggie Bar

Bandolero, bandido, forajido

Secuestro

Jimmie Rodgers Snow salv tu vida

John Ray Cash salv la ma

Visto de negro

Soy desgraciada

Y as como todos pagan su condena por los crmenes que cometen

Pago la ma vistiendo de negro.

Nocturna perra que todo lo destroza

Lleg una noche al Eje Central

Acuchillada, con el lomo quemado.

Una botella de vodka me acompaaba

[Desdentada]

Rabiosa y tambalendose lleg

Era como un bidn de gasolina

Una promesa asombrosa

Clavos oxidados y torcidos sobre las viejas noches

Arranc furiosamente mi carne sin necesidad de colmillos

Desde esa noche nunca me solt.

Un hombre no patea perros heridos

Eso es lo que se aprende de un viejo perro tirado y que no va a

[levantarse jams:

Un hombre no patea perros heridos.

Una mujer s, una a la que todo le parece insignificante

Esa que hace un gesto de desprecio ante cualquier cosa

Esa que hace sonar los tacones cuando est molesta

Esa que te dice que hubiera preferido casarse con: Jaimito

Esa...esa s patea perros heridos

Y no sabe que les hace un favor

Un perro herido sabe lamer sus heridas

Buscar la obscuridad

Reconfortarse y olvidarse de las perras malnacidas.

A man never kicks a wounded dog

That is what you learn from an old dog lying on the floor and who will
[never get up:

A man does not kick wounded dogs.

A woman doesa woman who thinks everything is insignificant

The kind who makes a gesture of contempt for anything

The kind who clicks her heels when she is annoyed

The kind who tells you shed rather have married: Jaimito.

That kind: she kicks wounded dogs

And doesnt know she is doing them a favor.

A wounded dog knows how to lick its wounds

look for darkness

soothe himself and forget those fucking bitches.

Mi vida en 8 lneas (y no de cocana).

Es tan simple

El rock se lo debo a los negros

El vodka a los monjes rusos

La vida a mis viejos

A dios no le debo nada

Al diablo le debo la risa

Doy gracias a la vida, que an no me ha dado nada.

My life in 8 lines (not of cocaine).

[Traduccin de Susana Iglesias]

Its so simple:

I owe rock to the Blacks

Vodka to the Russian monks

Life to my folks

To god I owe nothing

To the devil I owe laughter

I thank life, which has given me nothing yet.

Mucha suerte, vodka tnic

No creo en la suerte

Revelo mi corazn en juegos de azar

No creo en la suerte

Ni en objetos de la suerte

Me gustan los carruseles

Creo que la vida es parecida:

Gira y gira

Igual que el tambor del revlver

Siempre hay que poner slo una bala.

Estrellarme

Estrellarme entre fierros retorcidos en un Cadillac rosa 68 oyendo a

[Morrissey, con una botella estrellada de vodka o gin al lado

Estrellarme en la obscuridad como ltimo sueo

Estrellarme como Dean a toda velocidad

Estrellarme como Lady Di escapando de un paparazzi

Estrellarme como una botella en la cabeza de un pendejo

Estrellarme en el cielo como un cohete

Estrellarme camino a la luna... contigo, por supuesto

Estrellarme en una avioneta como Valens y Buddy H

Estrellarme contra todo

Menos contra la puta realidad.