Tr. Camilo Roldán

one day god opens up his Facebook and realizes there are elections happening in his third-world country he's speechless how long has it been since you read a newspaper, god? god needs to find a job that will pay him enough to eat sushi to go to the movies to take an Uber when he doesn’t have his own car go to the beach in December god already got a master's degree he's well qualified he will send out resumes and contact friends to see what comes up but god harbors a crisis at the bottom of his heart god knows he can find a job a good one good enough to get an iPhone the latest Mac but he knows that in that job he will become depressed worn out won’t sleep poor god can’t have everything now he lives off his savings and makes music
a languid music

he strums guitars
god knows
deep down
he can’t really write fifteen pages
in an afternoon
deep down he knows
he should think about them
and search for a musicality
that’s truly rare
god knows he isn’t inventing
a language
in this poem
that maybe no one will care
to read it
he knows he isn’t using punctuation
but the truth is that
god doesn’t know how to punctuate
he doesn’t know
because he never learned to use his own language right
god gets discouraged
hesitates
god is poor
like the poor
though he has a decent quality of life
god is poor
though he has a master’s degree
god doubts his poems
he's menopausal
god goes dancing
and no one asks him to dance
though there are dance partners in their 60s
partners that are 65
no one asks him to dance
god remains seated

a distant song can be heard
a song he danced to endlessly when
he still had hips
he moves his new body
god is premiering a body
cellulitic lacking flabby
the music moves through him on the dance floor
god got divorced
twice
has a son
the second divorce was worse than the first
god wants a healthy relationship
at 53
god is a philosopher
has structure
he gets by with that
he contemplates and analyzes reality
he knows the patriarchy doesn’t accept it
because he doesn’t have hips
because his face is drawn
because of his gaunt bitten shrewd skin
god gets out of his chair
alone
and dances
to the distant song

god wants to move through the eyes of so many judges who also hope to be published
while they burn the Amazon and packs of monkeys die in the flames
there must be a way to move forward with the manuscript
to find the strangest way to be a poet
in the first poem
god

un día dios abre su Facebook se entera de que hay elecciones en su país tercermundista se queda atónito ¿hace cuánto no lees periódicos, dios? dios necesita conseguir trabajo que le de para ir a comer sushi ir a cine coger uber cuando no tiene carro ir a la playa en diciembre dios ya hizo maestría tiene un buen título va a mandar hojas de vida y a contactar amigos a ver qué le sale pero dios alberga una crisis en el fondo de su corazón dios sabe que puede conseguir trabajo uno bueno uno para tener iphone mac último modelo pero sabe que en ese trabajo se deprime se agota no duerme pobre dios no puede tenerlo todo ahora vive de sus ahorros y hace música
una música lánguida

rasga guitarras
dios sabe
en el fondo
no es cierto que pueda escribir en una tarde
15 páginas
en el fondo sabe
que debería pensarlas
y buscar una musicalidad
bien rara
dios sabe que no está inventando
una lengua
en este poema
que tal vez a nadie le importe
leerlo
sabe que no usa puntuación
pero la verdad es que
dios no sabe puntuar
no sabe
porque no aprendió bien su lengua
dios se desanima
duda
dios es pobre
como los pobres
aunque tiene calidad de vida
dios es pobre
aunque tenga maestría
dios duda de sus versos
está menopáusico
dios sale a bailar
y no lo sacan
así haya parejos de 60
parejos de 65
no lo sacan
dios se queda sentado

suena una canción remota
una canción que bailó hasta el cansancio cuando
todavía tenía cintura
mueve su nuevo cuerpo
dios está estrenando un cuerpo
celulítico carente fofo
la música lo atraviesa en la pista de baile
dios se ha separado
dos veces
tiene un hijo
la segunda separación fue peor que la primera
dios quiere un amor sano
a los 53
dios es filósofo
tiene estructura
con eso se defiende
piensa y analiza la realidad
sabe que el patriarcado no lo acepta
porque no tiene cintura
porque su cara está ajada
por su piel macilenta mordelona aguda
dios se para de la silla
solo
y baila
la canción remota

dios quiere atravesar los ojos de tantos jueces que también anhelan ser publicados mientras
queman la amazonia y jaurías de micos mueren ardidos
hay que poder hacer avanzar el manuscrito
encontrar la manera más extraña de ser poeta
en el primer poema
dios

María Paz Guerrero is the author of the poetry collections Dios también es una perra (Cajón de Sastre) and Los Analfabetas (La Jaula) and the essay “El dolor de estar vivo en Los poemas póstumos de César Vallejo” (Universidad de la Andes), and she is the editor of the poetry anthology La Generación sin Nombre (Universidad Central). Her poems have appeared in the anthologies Pájaros de sombra: Diecisiete poetas colombianas, 1989–1964 (Vaso Roto) and Moradas interiores: Cuatro poetas colombianas (Universidad Javeriana, colección de poesía). She received her Master's Degree in Comparative Literature from The New Sorbonne University, Paris. She currently works as a professor in the Creative Writing Department at the Universidad Central in Bogotá.

Camilo Roldán is a Colombian-American poet and translator born in Milwaukee, WI and currently living in Bogotá, Colombia. He is the translator of the chapbook Amilkar U., Nadaísta in Translation (These Signals Press), co-author of the chapbook Δ [delta] with Douglas Piccinnini and Cynthia Gray (TPR Press), and author of the chapbook La Torre (Well Greased Press). His first full-length book of poems, Dropout, was published by Ornithopter Press. His poems and translations have appeared in various print and digital magazines in the US and Colombia.