[Svenska]  [Español]

Sofia, February 2010

gypsy girl

gypsy girl
with breasts, clitoris and a trembling belly
you know that it’s not real you are not
you are not who they think you are
you were invited to the party by mistake

you shouldn’t exist
but life explodes without asking questions
and you have no other choice
than to pretend you are not
one of those people dancing in the rain

you shine your boots
to dance with him
a successful european guy

he belongs to the world
you do not
you are not successful
not european
not male

you take care of him
and it feels good
but you are empty-handed
when you come back home

though you don’t come home anymore
you are not
anywhere anymore
when it rains
on the broken clay of the rooftops

you are just like them
a gypsy girl
with pointed nipples
and a mouth turned into water

some dance in the rain
others works
and the world is somewhere else

you are the same as them
you also have
a shiny black jeep floating in your head
you also paint
golden frills on your castle of junk
your accordion of rubbish
your kingdom of colourful parties

some want to work
or so they say
the rest of us don’t

you just want to dance
fill your body with the sweat of others
and anyway the fact is
the chinese work so much
that there is nothing left to do

and us
we think a lot
and eat and drink and smoke
and smile to the gypsy girl

London, November 2010

all items 99 p

i’m wandering round and round nowhere to go
i’m lonely in london
london is lovely so

and people walk around london
and london isn’t clean like it used to be
everything has been spilled
milky tea trickles down the street
bits of burger are blown by the wind
smoke puffs out the mouth of the underground
like in a futuristic film

it smells of curry of herbal tea london
of paper cups
of fry-ups
people walk from one place to the next
and back again

buying
tights for 99 p
umbrellas for 99 p
the wind blows them away
they buy them again about
they work all day
run
to buy umbrellas for 99 p
to catch the train

he straightens his tie
to catch the train
that will take him to beautiful London
with its bucolic rain
on the other side of the world
where people hurry on so peacefully

he slightly straightens his tie
and tries to enthuse her
awaken a spark
in his companion
and argues for the war
smiling wide and open
with a confident well-bred smile
and the teeth of the woman
who needs so many sparks
turn to stones

he speaks as well
about his house being redone
and the place he’ll live in provisionally
and the choice of schools for his daughter
and minority integration
and her eyes
turn to stones

while outside london smells like curry
perspires
spurts oil like a broken machine
while my eyes go looking for flying saucers in the sky

_______

Lalo Barrubia
Poems from Borracha en las ciudades, Ediciones Liliputienses, 2013.
Translation into English: Juana Adcock
Picture: Jaime Culebro