These two poems by Colombian-American writer Armando Caicedo have been translated from Spanish by Kenneth D. Weiss.
It Is Too Late Now
This is the hour to go our separate ways.
and its indolent eternal life.
and the beating of our arteries set the pace.
as we part, trembling, to go our separate ways.
into the tempestuous waters of another last goodbye.
Last Testament
I leave to you my bad examples,
my cheap jokes,
three marked up books,
and a list of good friends
who will not attend my funeral.
I leave to you my dog
and my sworn fidelity,
written on a bar bill for rum.
I leave you a box of love letters,
six arrest orders that I ignored
and the loaded dice
I chanced to steal one day.
I leave you, unfinished,
a romantic poem,
a satirical essay,
an adventure novel,
six cooking recipes,
a book of grammar,
the history of the best lady in my wedding,
an informatics manual,
my office memoirs,
and other major works
that I really never wrote.
I leave you the “catty valor” medal
won by that water dog
that I never ever bathed.
Also, I bequeath to you
authentic counterfeits, made in China,
of Diogenes lantern
of Socrates’ hemlock
of Caligula’s hair
of Lazaro’s wounds
and of the columns of Hercules.
I leave you a suppressed sigh,
an abstract drawing,
three urgent telegrams,
a great opera that I plagiarized,
my collection of toothpicks,
my worthless opinion
and my two linden syrups
with no expiration dates.
I leave you an alarm clock,
an untraveled world,
and my American Dream
in its original packaging;
a lifetime guarantee of frustrated love,
a bit of currency that is false
and another that is less so,
and three obscene words
that, on a night of insomnia
I must have coined myself.
I leave you my debts;
care for them jealously
also my passport, with no stamps
and a visa to the Congo that I did not use.
I leave you three frustrated wishes:
to send my boss to a shithole,
and his saintly little mother
and a hundred bill collectors whom I managed to ignore.
I leave you a bad check
to calm the hunger of the four curious ones
who will go to my funeral,
and of the tax collector
who examines indiscreetly
the poor luxuries that go in my coffin.
I leave to you my milk teeth,
a book on “Macondo,”
my bilingual dog,
my maid and my poet,
the cat and the parrot,
and still more treasures
that I have always kept.
I leave you,
yes, I leave you
because I can hear the clarions,
the trumpets vibrating,
the people, excited, as in a carnival.
They are announcing, for the poets,
the first act of the final judgment.
