Colombia

1

Has someone slipped me burundanga?
I feel so sleepy, so helpless,
Forgetful, feeble and compliant…
No past, no future,
Just the vagueness of now…
Can I pay the sun’s ransom
With flesh and bones?

2

“There have been three great fools in history:
Jesus, Don Quixote and I”:
So Simón Bolívar on his deathbed,
Crossing the white mountains,
Disintegrating like the land he had created…

3

The ceremonial raft sails out to the centre
Of Lake Guatavita,
And the Muisca cacique,
Coated with gold dust,
-The meteor,
The divinity,-
Plunges in.
Into the deep end
Of everything.

4

It is always 1499:
Alonso de Ojeda,
Climbing into the Sierra Nevada,
Gold everywhere, and tales of great treasure inland.
El Dorado:
Is it mountains of emeralds,
Or three thousand species of orchid?

5

Time is just an ambience.
Who can pay history’s ransom?
And who has the balls to fight with God?
Give me wisdom, give me grace-
Or sun, rum
And a girl with a beautiful bum.

6

Down on the coast no farm beast is safe
From horny country boys in gangs,
Proudly venting their lust:
“Come on, it makes your cock grow bigger!”
While one stands caressing the she-donkey’s head,
Each caballero takes his turn to mount her from behind;
Dropping their kecks and yanking out their tiny peckers,
Holding up the tail with one hand and gripping her scrawny haunches,
Each humps the oblivious donkey’s behind,
While his buddies whoop and cheer and egg him on.

7

Like Muisca offering emeralds to the gods,
Placing them in the tombs of the dead,
Musicians introduce their sounds
Under our eyes,
Porro, merecumbe, mapalé.