TORMENT
Unreasonable, that’s what I am,
just a teenage poet boy,
unrealistic, greedy, maybe even
truly mean.
No one could be more cruel to me
than I am being to myself.
Where are all those bossy grown-ups now
when I suddenly need
their wisdom?
NATURE
I stand at the edge of a blue lake
alone.
Above me
white clouds and herons soar
toward some great unknown
heaven . . .
while down here, doves flutter,
wings swiftly entering my thoughts, filling me
with a restlessness
that somehow
eventually
floats
toward
peace.
A DECLARATION OF LOVE
When I announce my intentions,
all my older friends laugh, slap me on the back,
and shake their heads with disbelief.
Poets, editors, librarians, even senators,
all share the same disturbing idea that marriage
is hard work, and must be reserved for mature,
educated, responsible adults.
Maybe they’re right, but I won’t soon find out
because they take up a collection, everyone
donating coins to buy me a ticket that they say
will carry me away to another country
where I’ll have to stay until I’m older
and calm.
MISUNDERSTOOD
Adults think they understand everything,
while I don’t know if I’ll ever comprehend
anything.
If marriage is only meant for grown-ups,
why do teenagers always feel
so lovesick?
Shouldn’t there be some easy way
to make passion
patient?
There is one approach, I suppose,
by pouring
all my stormy
thoughts and feelings
into poetry. . . .
A MOB OF GROWN-UPS
Friends
pack my bag
drag me to the port
push me onto a ship
and send me away
from the daydream
called love.
EXILE
From the deck of the ship
I see a port—La Libertad, El Salvador.
Now that I’m in a foreign country
where I know no one, what should I do,
try to make my way back across the border
toward memories of childhood,
or stay here and beg strangers
for help?
I DARE MYSELF
Courage
is a challenge.
So I’ll meet it.
I must—I will!
Believing that I was an orphan
for so many years before learning the truth
about my devious parents
has made me accustomed
to expecting rejection,
but now—instead of
allowing myself
to feel only fear,
I claim a blaze
of confidence
as strong as one
of El Bocón’s
bold stories.
Yes, I seize the bravest action I can think of,
relying on my imagination for guidance.
Courageously, I step off the ship
and find an office where I can send
a courteous telegram
to the powerful president
of El Salvador.
I call myself the Poet Boy
of Central America,
using fame as a bridge
between nations.
UNEXPECTED SUCCESS
The answer comes quickly.
A hearty welcome, and an invitation.
A driver.
A coach.
Horses.
Soon I’m on my way
best hotel, with fine meals,
dazzling opera singers,
and a chance to visit
the presidential palace.
Apparently my reputation as el niño poeta
extends far beyond the borders of Nicaragua.
MEETING ANOTHER POWERFUL MAN
Surrounded by guards,
I can’t admit that I’m heartsick,
love-torn, homesick, lonely . . .
so we speak of verses, the president expressing
his admiration for my poetry.
Then he asks: ¿Qué deseas?
What do you wish?
This surprising question makes me hesitant.
I long to tell the truth about the green-eyed girl
and my dream of immediate marriage,
but I fear the same reaction I encountered before
among poets and senators—insulting laughter.
So what should a poet boy request?
Una buena posición social, I venture timidly,
imagining that “a good social position” will change
adult minds about everything else, because wealth
is so often mistaken for wisdom.
A GIFT OF RICHES
Long-haired and skinny,
I return to the fancy hotel
with five hundred silver coins,
a present from the president.
I feel as fortunate and overwhelmed
as a poor shepherd boy in a fairy tale,
but in those stories there is always a set
of three impossible tasks.
So what will the president demand
in return—verses in his honor?
What if I fail?
This isn’t a magical world.
The tests will be challenges
to my character, not spells
cast by witches.
WASTED WEALTH
I fail so swiftly!
How easy it is to spend,
when plenty of local poets flock to greet me,
and I meet so many other friendly people,
the hotel such an easy place to celebrate
by ordering fancy food and drinks for all.
Ever since I learned that Uncle Manuel
is really my father, I’ve wondered whether I will
turn out to be a drunkard too.
Apparently I already am.
Too much rum, all the money gone,
raucous fights,
wild behavior,
until I find myself
evicted,
escorted
out the door
by a stern
police chief.
PUNISHMENT
Instead of the good social position
I wished for, suddenly I’m a prisoner.
The angry police chief
delivers me to a school
where he informs me
that by order
of the president
of El Salvador,
I must stay off the streets
and serve my sentence
by teaching grammar.
Estoy perdido.
I’m lost.
For how long will I have to recite
memorized rules, instead of writing
my own free truths?
THE STUDENTS ARE MY OWN AGE
What can I teach
that won’t put them to sleep?
We work on irregular verbs, conjugations,
and punctuation, until finally I make up my mind
to experiment.
First, I try hypnosis,
an entertainment I learned
at the circus.
Next comes love letters, because of course
nothing else fascinates boys my age more
than girls, and nothing pleases a young girl
more than verses, especially
when the poems
are framed
within formal
gardens of prose.
Learning grammar is easy for students
who treasure an amorous goal.
TRULY A PRISON
Some schools only seem to have walls,
but here
the director never allows me to leave
for nine
entire months.
IN PRAISE OF FREEDOM
Time passes as slowly
as all the centuries of history,
but love letters are perfected,
and students receive glowing grades.
When the president hears reports
of my success as a teacher, he invites me
to write an elegant poem for a centennial celebration
in honor of Simón Bolívar, courageous liberator
of most of the Américas.
Second chances are rare blessings,
and I know that if I fail, I might end up
teaching grammar forever, so I make
an honest effort to praise liberty,
wrapping my rhymes and rhythms
in a veil of hope as peaceful
as blue sky
and blue sea.
A DIFFERENT KIND OF LIBERTY
The Bolívar centennial
means temporary liberation
from my prison, the school.
A dramatic recitation, then a fiesta,
such a wonderful party, where once again
I fall in love with a girl
my own age.
I set a table with a dinner
for invisible guests—Homer,
Pindar, and Virgil
from the ancient world,
and Cervantes, the author
of Don Quixote.
Then I offer a toast to each,
until I’m so drunk that I might as well be
a knight on a horse, challenging a windmill
to a duel, as if it were truly a giant with enormous
spinning
swords. . . .
I AM MY OWN PRISONER
Oh, why did I drink so much,
wasting precious freedom
and condemning myself
to adult disapproval?
Falling in love
made me foolish.
Toasting dead poets
led to drunkenness.
Now I’ll have to face
the fury
of a president,
but first . . .
SMALLPOX
Oozing sores, pain, fear. . . .
Horror of scars, probably blindness,
the possibility of death. . . .
Passionate letters are set aside
half-finished.
By the time this unforeseen ordeal is finally over,
I find it impossible to believe that I ever craved
wealth, praise, or fame, when clearly
all that matters in life
are love
and health,
two treasures worthy
of celebration.
THE MATHEMATICS OF ANGER
Powerful men can do anything they want,
even when it means listening to gossip.
Rumors of wild celebrations are all it takes
for el presidente to send me away, back
to my own nation, the famous Poet Boy
shamed,
disgraced.
I’ve been abandoned by two parents,
hated by two presidents, and banished twice
just to keep me separated
from girls
who love
verses.
So my rage at authority doubles,
and my devotion
to rebellious poetry
multiplies.
WAITING TO GROW UP
Apparently while I was gone,
my death from smallpox was announced
in the newspaper, so when I reappear,
Bernarda and all my family and friends
are so relieved that they forgive
the rumors of my scandalous
behavior.
By now, Nicaragua has a new president
who grants me a dull secretarial job
that allows plenty of free time
for writing poems and stories.
What is there to say about feeling suspended
between childhood and maturity?
Each day is a road of dreams
leading toward my future—adult liberty.
LOVELESS IN MY OWN HOMELAND
On warm nights, I lie down
on a wooden dock beside the lake,
free to stargaze while I listen
to the music of rhythmic waves.
Daydreams and wishes,
hikes up steep volcanic slopes,
afternoons bird-watching,
evenings observing
turtles, monkeys,
fishermen, farmers,
and crocodile hunters.
What next?
Will I always spend
all my hours alone,
collecting visions, words,
rhythms, and melodies
for my solitary
whirlwind
of verses?
WRITING, WRITING, WRITING
I’m lonely, so I pass the time by practicing
imitations of French styles, Cuban ones,
and those of ancient Greeks.
In one poem, I mimic the verses
of fifteen different classical Spanish poets,
and I do it so expertly that every critic
can identify the masters I’ve chosen
as my long-dead guides.
I memorize dictionaries, both Spanish and Galician.
Then I translate French poems, and those written
by Miskito people from the Caribbean coast,
their native language a treasure to me,
not an embarrassment, the way so many
arrogant poets who only appreciate Europe
might assume.
BARS
Drinking
too much
jumbles
my verses.
Will I ever learn
to control
this
curse?
The poems I scribble
when I’m drunk
just sound like foolish
self-pity.
WHEN I’M SOBER
Terza rima, hendecasyllabic,
a style of three-lined stanzas
where each middle line rhymes
with the first and third lines
of the next tercet.
No poetic form is too complex.
I am determined to always claim
freedom
for experimentation . . .
but I still love wildly shaped verses too,
and imaginative stories told in prose,
with hurricanes of words
about the world,
not just my own
explosive
emotions.
WANDERLUST
Months pass, then years.
Life is restful, but soon enough
I begin to imagine adventures.
A new start, far away, perhaps even
the United States . . .
it’s the country that produced William Walker,
a madman who tried to conquer Nicaragua,
but it’s also the birthplace of so many poets:
Emerson
Whitman
Poe. . . .
Ever since my mother left me
in that cattle pasture, I’ve felt like a wanderer,
homeless.
Now I dream of roaming in a new way,
voluntarily, instead of by abandonment.
FINALLY
For a poet born in poverty,
the most likely way to have a
book published
is by order of the government.
Now, it’s happened, the president of Nicaragua
has decided to support me, so a volume
of my verses
will be printed,
almost
a miracle!
THE SOUL OF A POEM
All my older friends tell me
that as soon as my book is printed,
I must forget the distant United States
and sail in the opposite direction, to Chile,
the wealthiest nation of Latin America,
where every poet is published in Spanish.
The life of a verse, they insist, is found
in its original language, no matter how universal
the emotions.
Only a truly brilliant translator
can carry the glowing heart of a poem
from one word to another.
I am like a fish, my friends assure me
that can never be safely moved
from a freshwater tropical river
to any salty northern sea.
THE EDGE OF THE EARTH
I’m practically an adult now,
but when I think of distance
I feel small.
Chile lies at the southernmost tip
of South America,
thousands of miles away, reached only