Hugo de China

Booze and smoke,
unended egomaniac poems
written with color pencils
on the Yellow Pages.

Booze and dope, no tv,
broken radios shouting
a funny conversation between
Fidel Castro and god,
strange voices laughing behind the walls.

Booze and more booze,
broken ashtrays, dead phones,
scattered pictures of a gone world.
This is no game, never more.

You take a glance to your shoes
and realize you could have been someone else,
someone who reads out loud every morning
la palabra diaria with a razor in hand,
someone who has a serious opinion
about how things should be handled
Terrorism, alcoholism, satanism, modern art,
someone who knows the perfect ocassion for each tie.

Booze and funk, dudes talk,
cracked up ceilings,
drunken mosquitoes crashing agaisnt dirty windows.

Booze in silence, dim lights,
you are getting sentimental,
looking for the connection between your mother,
Lassie and Lucille Ball.

Winter is falling,
thursday morning five o´clock,
tomorrow you better wake up early, last call.
You wish to dream with beatifull junky angels sucking your dick,
they really think you deserve it,
cause you have made such a great poem,
you´re news in heaven.

Booze and booze and booze
and no more than booze and booze and booze.

It was just another all-times boxer
who later became a venezuelan fire-fighter
and got alone and forgotten in his very own hometown
and died surrounded by bottles and poverty downstairs.

KID VAQUERITO,
they didn´t even give you the front page,
you where just a color picture
in the backyard of Ultima Hora.

I´m sitting in my bed with a huge cahuama
thinking about your glory nights in la vieja Havana,
Mambo swing, los años trenta,
which in my mind is a fat guayavera
running through the sunday park
with a blue painted cangrejo shouting
YO SOY SURREALITA, YO SOY SURREALITA.

I go every day to the alley and see men like you,
long bearded undercover Einsteins
driving round the streets on an 84 red Renault,
looking for an underground spiritual gate
to get out of this world.

They like to watch Lucha Libre,
el deporte que está conmoviendo a las grandes capitales del mundo.
They don´t mind to win the lotto,
they´ve been playing cero cinco every sunday for the last sixty years,
also in quiniela and caraquita.

It´s the future,
it´s somekind of premonition they had back in time.
It has to work someday,
at least for a black and white picture
on the backyard of the New York Times.

Soñar no cuesta nada,
desde que vivo aquí no hago otra cosa.
Sueño que un día seré
recaudador de impuestos de aduana
o un guitarrista matahambre,
que vendo chicharrón en una esquina
en bata, rolos y plantillas de media,
espantando las moscas con un palito,
que fumo tabaco negro sin filtro
y que deseo la muerte de todos los españoles,
los palomitos, los parqueadores de carros.
En fin, voy camino de Cabo Engaño
y lo que quiero es dinero.

Aquí está otra vez esa mosca
y ni siquiera he pensado en dormir,
estoy listo para otro trago.

El techo con la pintura rasgada
ha estado escupiendo los últimos días.
¿será eso lo que perturba mi sueño?

El agua en la nevera sabe a cebolla,
los vasos están manchados con tinta de café,
los cables pelados detrás de la nevera
espantan a las cucarachas.
No se acerca ni un perro por la calle.
Estoy listo para otro trago.