I was lucky enough to see with my own eyes the recent stock-market crash, where they lost several million dollars, a rabble of dead money that went sliding off into the sea.

I know there is no straight road No straight road in this world Only a giant labyrinth Of intersecting crossroads

Angel and Muse approach from without; the Angel sheds light and the Muse gives form (Hesiod learned of them). Gold leaf or chiton-folds: the poet finds his models in his laurel coppice. But the Duende, on the other hand, must come to life in the nethermost recesses of the blood.

The day we stop resisting our instincts, we'll have learned how to live.

My head is full of fire and grief and my tongue runs wild, pierced with shards of glass.

I was lucky enough to see with my own eyes the recent stock-market crash, where they lost several million dollars, a rabble of dead money that went sliding off into the sea. Never as then, amid suicides, hysteria, and groups of fainting people, have I felt the sensation of real death, death without hope, death that is nothing but rottenness, for the spectacle was terrifying but devoid of greatness... I felt something like a divine urge to bombard that whole canyon of shadow, where ambulances collected suicides whose hands were full of rings.

Variación / Variations El remanso de aire bajo la rama del eco. El remanso del agua bajo fronda de luceros. El remanso de tu boca bajo espesura de besos. * The still waters of the air under the bough of the echo. The still waters of the water under a frond of stars. The still waters of your mouth under a thicket of kisses. Translated from the Spanish by Lysander Kemp