Born in the USA
The light that falls and shakes the leaves
airs out a stale town
and poisonous age.
Turned off the deaf image
a radio cassette in a town
played out without Rock
no reason no rhyme
Between love and garbage
The short circuit serene
on the fingers
Clean slashed through the vein
and the song
Born in the U.S.A
The lights of distant ads
and light at the river bottom
Honey and ice in the track
Return trip
vacant
Mirror echo
Where to?
Born in the U.S.A
Light in the fire bottom
and a sub zero song
Peace and rancor
mutilating
The gaudy haught of dying
and the bother of zeal
The hours a novel takes
The waves a song lasts
A film
A poem.
Born in the U.S.A.
Lights and distant ads
Born in the U.S.A
Light in the fire bottom
Born in the U.S.A.
Music at the river bottom
Born in the U.S.A.
Little lights pooling
in the U.S.A.
AND FROM THIS LIFE AT LAST YOU HAVE LOST ALL HOPE
Since the first of these shopping malls
I’ve kept an obedient mirage
a rehearsed vision
a lit and stripped metaphor
a waterfall of lights and drips.
It is the desert of thirst for these forms
that falling want to refresh
the rehearsed vision
of a dark dealer of metaphors
of shades of revisioned conjectures.
The city behind the modules and walls
dissolves in its luxurious verticals
the illusion rehearsed
turns crystal the city and borders
from drips like ramparts.
Dust and city at the same time twist
the view towards the persistent traveler
in their rehearsed mission
and a name becomes cloud among other quotes
returning along the endless corridor.
Without water and without lights feeling the weight
of a drop the traveler who runs through
a rehearsed route
that in front splits and merges
with other descriptions and other causes.
In cities where measure fades
and open their dominion among other shades
a rehearsed drive
penetrates the ceiling pipes
and travels in cups mouths dreams bodies.
With pigeons or sparrows through deserts
of an at first indecipherable traveler
the rehearsed conscience
instead empty aisle warning so
rejoicing mirages and waterfalls.
WE ARE THE WORLD
Take the car and go
exhaling purity and ordure.
Time for listening to
the voice of the wheel
the hand of the road
for nothing.
We are the world
Leave the car and walk back
down the daily streets
evoking the girth
and diction of other courses.
Do donuts in the rust
and the journey’s knockers.
Futility of the steering wheel
and the route.
We are the world
Locate a veiled envelope
a remittent language
an excluded whereabout.
Forget the heart
the deadbolt.
Rehearse the translation of the heart
that beats in the road’s signs.
We are the world
Hunger.
Half bread
half stone.
And a drive without countryside.
And the beam of matted day
without crowns nor vowels.
And consonant earth
and vowel water.
We are the world
Just you and me?
We are the world
Just you and me?
We are the world
Just you and me?
We are
Translated by Alexis Graman
WARNING: DELUSION SHOW
Watch out for what’s coming
Sunday morning.
As the first sign they’ll
sound the bells and
The wind’s portents’ll
Rustle in the branches.
He will come from a distant mall
Axle plywood and anchor
He’ll climb up on stage
with bits of bone and bread crusts.
Out there in filthy clothes
We’ve seen stick to him
Like skin onto bone
He’ll make his sordid walk-in
Careful not to look at his teeth
That conjure ants, the deceased.
Snakes’ pleasure or the nettles’ scritch
The cats’ smooth step or ardent lips
Singing:
He’s become so famous (god)
From the waist down
Though from the belt up
He’s a corpse (raggedy wad).
Although he’s got the cash
He never turns down or naps
In the summer, de-forms
And in winter he cracks.
Because the dis-illusionist
knows the fame that calls to
You’ll always find him lurking
just there behind the pane
When he sees you he’ll smile
a whispered fortune cast at first glance.
And without paying
the slightest mind
you’ll be stepping
Into the dressing room
Singing:
He’s become so famous (god)
From the waist down
Though from the belt up
He’s a corpse (raggedy wad).
Looking at his hands - careful -
the lines will have been lost.
You’ll feel queasy
You’ll have lost the thread
You’ll feel it in his eyes
You’ll lose your dress.
The time he looked at me straight
on it went like this:
I was thinking about all the people
In alleys poor things
that I let him let try
his choruses on me
Singing:
Although he’s got the cash
He never turns down or naps
In the summer, de-forms
And in winter he cracks.
Because on his repulsive dial
he’ll go on sowing his stains.
In no time they’ll have seen him
change wine to water
Pitting sons versus fathers
and mothers daughters and sisters.
He’ll have made them forget
the most red lettered days
And lose justice without
a single shred of alibi.
He’ll have a court of clones
doing cheap tricks
with fire and drums
and stilts in traffic
Singing:
He’s become so famous (god)
From the waist down
Though from the belt up
He’s a corpse (raggedy wad).
Careful about turning your back
or following him into his schemes.
In no time there’ll be many
Faced with serious straits
And there’ll be wrists with watches
Crushed by axe blows
And with trick photos he’ll
offer you magical words
Singing:
Although he’s got the cash
He never turns down or naps
In the summer, de-forms
And in winter he cracks.
And he’ll keep you queasy
filling his cups with air
Using screens scissors
canvases ropes and mirrors
And once he marches off
you’ll follow in his orbit.
And you’ll welcome his murmurs
in your vacant eyes
And you’ll lose your memories
in a dead-ended nation.
And you will only want to want him
and you’ll live only to see him
Singing:
Although he’s got the cash
He never turns down or naps
In the summer, de-forms
And in winter he cracks.
We warn you of the monster so you won’t fall for ‘im.
We alone smell his steps among the nets.
Nor do we have any other body
Than that which smolders in his hands.
Nor now do we have another mouth
Than that which ends at his lips.
Singing:
He’s become so famous (god)
From the waist down
Though from the belt up
He’s a corpse (raggedy wad).
Although he’s got the cash
He never turns down or naps
In the summer, de-forms
And in winter he cracks.
Watch out for what’s coming ‘round
on Sundays.
Translated by Judah Rubin
Christian Formoso is a Chilean poet. Among his verse collections are: Puerto de hambre (2005), El cementerio más hermoso de Chile (2008), bellezamericana (2014), and WWM —Walt Whitman Mall— (2020). Some of his poems have been translated to English, French, German and Greek and have appeared in anthologies, in Chile and abroad. Among other distinctions, he was awarded the National Council Prize for the Best Book Published in Chile for El cementerio más hermoso de Chile in 2009 and the Pablo Neruda Prize of the Pablo Neruda Foundation in 2010. He teaches Latin American Literature at Universidad de Magallanes and holds an MFA and a PhD in Hispanic Literature and Languages from Stony Brook University.