I Don’t Write Because Others Wrote Before Me by Ana Minga Translated by Alexis Levitin
No!
I write because strange moments have touched me
when I have a presentiment of death
of fear
that business of growing invisible
and killing oneself in front of everyone.
Moments when you know that you were born for Lucifer
and that just like him you have to stagger through the world
after a meeting with alcohol.
I don’t write because others have written before me.
I write because I came to see that I was alive
and so I went to the park to watch the people going by like pigeons.
I write for me
for all the others.
I write denunciations
a complaint
some questions:
where is your back?
where are we?
I write even if it’s just street corner existentialism.
I write something
because one is also the seventh John without Heaven *
a common place
because they have also tortured one.
I dial for God
one who had to be crucified as well
a witch—a perfect apple- on the bonfire.
I write of my plumage
of the moons that fall upon the house
of the meadow where for the first and last time I knelt down
of the deepest darkest night.
Of the wind that heralded the dance of the vultures
of the flower that long ago died
of the music that lies at the foot of my bed
of my father who was once a child
of the gun powder that pushed me to smoke at one in the morning
of the cry that you not leave me
of the blood that clogs my veins
of the hands that howl like dogs without masters
of the clown who cries before the mirror
of the sheet of paper that in bright dawn only gives back truths
of the photo where one still pretended innocence
of all that lets me lift this cup in the darkness.
I write
not because others have written before me
excuse my arrogance
but what’s for sure
I write drunkenly
sometimes crying for joy
sometimes moaning ashes.
I don’t write from humility
even less to free myself of my dead
that is to say of my only companions.
No!
I write because I detest oblivion
because I can’t find anything else to do in my agenda:
that trunk full of noise.
* John Without Heaven (Juan sin Cielo) is an unfortunate character who suffers injustices in a poem by Ecuador’s best known poet, Jorge Carrera Andrade.
I Don’t Write Because Others Wrote Before Me by Ana Minga Translated by Alexis Levitin
