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  • Xenia

    * I 1 Dear little insect —they called you Mosca, I don’t know why— this evening as I was reading Deutero-Isaiah in the near-dark you reappeared beside me; but you didn’t have glasses, you couldn’t see me, and I couldn’t recognize you in the dusk without their glitter. 2 No glasses or antennae, poor insect,…

  • The Dead in Frock Coats

    There was in the corner of the living room an album of      unbearable photos, many meters high and infinite minutes old, over which everyone leaned in the joy of mocking the dead in frock coats. A worm began to chew the indifferent frock coats and chew the pages, the inscriptions and even the dust of…

  • Thieves

    "Talent," Robert Blaine said in his slow, invalid's voice, "is simply a matter of knowing how to handle yourself." He relaxed on his pillow; eyes gleaming, and shifted his skinny legs under the sheet. "That answer your question?" "Well, now, wait a minute, Bob," Jones said. His wheelchair was drawn up respectfully beside the bed…

  • A Brief History of the Banana

         —for Ricardo Sternberg Shaped like a bureaucratic grin It floats Unseen Past the general’s head As he sits Studying an old newsreel of Peron’s exile. Even the palace guard Daydreaming About the young girl in the marketplace Thinks it only A phallics spectre Thrown up in the mind’s eye Like The curvaceous angel The boxer…

  • A Few Quotations

    A dramatic necessity goes deep into the nature of the sentence. Sentences are not different enough to hold the attention unless they are dramatic. No ingenuity of varying structure will do. All that can save them is the speaking tone of voice somehow entangled in the words and fastened to the page for the ear…

  • On Tour with Rita

    1. Georgia Black train flying north, Rita’s hat Awfully large and with a white ribbon, Legs crossed, cheap novel in her lap, Fingers casual on a bright necklace; Someone across the aisle is snapping Newspaper pages and blowing cigar smoke— This game of American spaces is tiresome: Trains may pound paradise into honeymoons And politics,…

  • excerpts from El Mono Gramático

    [ Translator's note: What follows is a selection of passages from E1 Mono Gramatico (literally, "The Monkey Grammarian," but not to be taken literally: to be taken freely, calling up all the puns, associations, analogies that flood our minds when we juggle mono, mono, gram-, grammar, grammarian of monads, monkish keys, graminivorous appetite for semantics…

  • Primero de Enero

    Las puertas del año se abren, como las del lenguaje, hacia lo desconocido. Anoche me dijiste:      mañana habrá que trazar unos signos, dibujar un paisaje, tejer una trama sobre la doble página del papel y del día. Mañana habrá que inventar, de nuevo, la realidad de este mundo. Ya tarde abrí los ojos. Por el…

  • Just Stopping By

    Who shares your room, I wish I knew. A centipede, with eyes of blue? She will not see me snooping here To count each slipper, boot and shoe. Our little dresser must think it queer To hold her panties pink and sheer. I’ll bet her ass will never quake The coldest evenings of the year….