Translation of The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door -
Only this, and nothing more."

Érase una medianoche lúgubre, mientras reflexionaba, débil y cansado,
sobre una buena cantidad de curiosas leyendas populares,
mientras cabeceaba, casi dormido, de repente me llegó un repiqueteo,
algo así como un suave golpeteo, golpeteo en la puerta de mi aposento.
"Debe de ser algún visitante", murmuré, "repiqueteando en la puerta de mi aposento.
Sólo eso, y nada más".

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore -
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore -
Nameless here for evermore.

Ah, recuerdo de manera clara y distinta que estábamos en el crudo Diciembre,
y cada brasa agonizante despertaba su fantasma al caer al suelo.
Ansiosamente deseé la mañana; vanamente había intentado pedir prestado
a mis libros el cese de mi pena -pena por la perdida Lenore-
por la rara y radiante mujer a quien los ángeles llaman Lenore -
Sin nombre ahora para siempre jamás.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,
"'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door -
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; -
This it is, and nothing more."

Y el sedoso, triste, incierto crujido de cada cortina púrpura
me aterrorizaba - me llenaba de terrores fantásticos nunca sentidos antes;
Así que ahora, para calmar el golpeteo de mi corazón, me levanté repitiendo,
"Debe de ser algún visitante suplicando entrar a la puerta de mi aposento
-algún visitante de última hora suplicando entrar a la puerta de mi aposento;-
Eso es, y nada más".

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you"- here I opened wide the door; -
Darkness there, and nothing more.

Mientras tanto mi alma se hizo más fuerte; y ya no dudé por más tiempo,
"Señor", dije, "o señora, verdaderamente imploro tu perdón;
pero el hecho es que me estaba durmiendo, y tan suavemente viniste golpeteando,
que apenas estaba seguro de haberte oído" -y entonces abrí completamente la puerta;
y sólo había oscuridad, y nada más....

The Beckham Family

Last time I saw the Beckham Family I still was working for an adventure travel agency which was situated in the core of El Rastro and they -the Beckham Family- used to pass the shop window while working at mid-day. They liked to look at me just the last second before plonging into the nothingness. For me, the Beckham Family was the bad copy, the exact opposite of the Real Beckham Family. The husband of the fake one did not show a tattoo with his son's name next to his bottom, as the real Beckham did. He was made of a monumental Valley, I mean... belly, upon which there was a billiard ball with a seventies moustache in it. The family’s wife was an ugly dumb aged doll who liked to scream from time to time who knows what she did that for. Finally, the children. He looks like his father. She looks like her mother. The team was done.

I don't know if the father worked or not, if the mother sewed for an illegal company or not, if the children did not go to school or they did. I just know that they were all day long wandering around the district's pourest and dirtiest cafeterias, messing about doing nothing apart from looking at anything, at anyone, doing nothing, but doing alright because they seemed to be happy being the way they were, being as grotesque as they liked to be, being the exact opposite of the Real Beckham Family.

I never knew why they were called the Beckham Family. The true thing is that the husband never was blond and athletic and good-looking and famous, the truest thing is that the wife will never be as posh as the real Beckham's wife is. And the children... I never could have imagined that they would be running after his famous parents' tracks -if their parents would have been the famous one-, as the Real Beckham Family's children would do for sure. I only know that the Real Beckham Family is a fairy tale. They will always be brilliant and young and terrific, they will always be in the spotlight, while the others will always be in the spotshadow...

Anyway, the fake Beckham Family is more real than the real one. I can see their flesh ruining, their wrinkles deeper day after day. However, the Real Beckham Family will never die. I cannot imagine their coffins at the gates of the stadium. As a matter of fact, I cannot imagine a standing minute of silence for the real Beckhams, as I observed for the fake Beckham Family's husband when I heard about his dead. A sudden heart attack killed him while seating in a bus stop looking at anything, at anyone, waiting for any coming bus.

LEVART

Stevenson says (I quote by heart): "Even the longest journey starts by the first step". But what would happen if we decided to step back, to return to the dark nothingness of the past, to the somber kingdom which doesn't belong to us anymore, which is as misterious as our own future, which shows faces and landscapes which we never saw before? If we wanted to travel back, we would have to take the letter L, and then the E, and then the V, and then the A and the R and, finally, flow into the T of "Turning back to the beginning".

Long time ago, October the 20th 2000, we landed in Amsterdam, not just for smoking marihuana in our Red Lights District's favourite coffee shop, but for windowshoppining before taking the next plane to Moscow.

Even we saw Lenin's mummy. Yes, we were in Moscow just for praying the Our Lenin before Kropotkin and Gogol's graves.

Vividly scketched! All those bad-tempered people. Besides, we were not able to understand a bloody thing. We only wanted to purchase a ticket for following the legendary tracks of Miguel Strogoff, Dostoievski and Zhivago's soles. But it was impossible.

A miracle! Yeah, we finally got a ticket from an Anna Karenina-like clerk. This is why we were rubbing our hands together in front of Baikal lake three days and a half later. By the way, you could cross the lake on a sleigh or by using a pair of ice skates (hands at your back, a scarf around your neck), and going all the way whistling a borrowed tune.

Rolling around the wind. We left Irkutz and then such a city returned to its place in the You-will-never-be-there maps.

To Kyzyl, the capital of Tuva. After a dangerous trip driving around the mountains and steppes of the broken throats' country, we crossed the border to Kazakhstan by train.

---
Foto de Marina Fernández Bielsa.

LATELY

I don't know what is happening lately.
There is something dark beyond my control.
My inner self is a mole,
blind-blind-blind-blind-blind.
I miss my savoir faire badly.
I don't know what has happened lately.
Maybe a puffed cloud, perhaps a new Pearl Harbour.
I just know that nobody trusts anybody
(I am not talking about the underground).
Yesterday, I crossed eyes with a businessman
in a restaurant,
nails and boiled eggs as in the eigthies
(I swallowed a spoonful of sweet evil).
I don't know what happened lately.

EL MERCADO ES DE TODAS

THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION CHRONOLOGY

1.William Blake
2.Aldous Huxley
3.The Doors

'If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is: infinite.'
(WILLIAM BLAKE)

'Most visualizers are transformed by mescalin into visionaries. Some of them--and they are Perhaps more numerous than is generally supposed--require no transformation; they are visionaries all the time. The mental species to which Blake belonged is fairly widely distributed even in the urban-industrial societies of the present day. The poet-artist's uniqueness does not consist in the fact that (to quote from his Descriptive Catalogue) he actually saw those wonderful originals called in the Sacred Scriptures the Cherubim.'
(The Doors of Perception, by ALDOUS HUXLEY)

BETWEEN THE CAPITALISM AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA

When Nietzsche asserted that 'God is dead", the capitalism took his torch and went ahead. From then on, the golden calf became the only God we could worship. However, nobody, not even the most conspicuous members of that congregation, could understand his nature totally. This is why Madoff and others as mean as him misunderstood the Divine Message and this is why mankind is now between the capitalism and the deep blue sea.

So brothers, why don't we 'sail on summer breeze and skip over the ocean like a stone'?