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Twelve Verses to Giselle

[Dominican Republic] Frank Baez

Translated by Yan Zimeng

To meet you, I must cage the beast,

Must move to a northern city,

The snow on the stairs must be salted,

Got to feed a cat, got to fear the night.

I visited New York and saw the Empire State Building

Look down, you are not there.

Someone is running in the train station, like a love movie,

She is not you.

Someone is swallowed up by the fog in the city center, and it's not you.

Someone is floating in the Osama River1She is not you.

Someone is blowing dice in a Las Vegas casino2，

Not you either.

Someone left me waiting in the park, and it wasn't you.

Someone held a pair of scissors and threatened to stab me to death. She was not you.

Marina Tsvetaeva3Hanging on a rope,

She is not you.

I waited for you in the apartment.

Squirrels come in and out, kidnapping my poems.

Snowflakes are falling outside the window.

The moon coughed in the sky.

Where is she? I asked a passing waitress,

They ignored me. Where are you?

I asked, cutting off my hands.

Throw down a bridge in Chicago.

Where is she? I asked

Like a person living on the twentieth floor of a building on fire

Men are like Paris at dawn

Baudelaire sat on the bench.

You are not on the beach, only

The waves whisper your name to the sand.

(Bright sunlight, seagulls peck clumsily

A suicide shoe)

I hold a cigarette between my lips and try to find out your whereabouts.

Shuffled the dominoes, trembling,

Like a depressed tree

Let the leaves fall and the cold come.

I have looked for you in museums and libraries,

I fell asleep in the library, translating melancholy:

I dreamt she was loved or dead

Because this city is too small.

I looked for you in my dreams, in the bolero4middle,

In the group performance of low-budget movies,

I looked for you.

Open or close your eyes.

My love, I have looked for you.

Like in Plato's dialogues

Aristophanes' words:

The two halves of a person search for each other throughout their lives.5

Note:

1. A river in the Dominican Republic.

2. Blowing the dice is believed to bring good luck.

3. Marina Tsvetaeva (1892-1941), an important poet of Russia's "Silver Age", committed suicide by hanging.

4. A Spanish dance.

5. In Plato's Symposium, Aristophanes talks about the myth of the origin of man. Everyone used to be a circle, with four hands, four legs, and all organs in pairs. Zeus decided to find a way to keep people alive while weakening their strength: "I cut them again, so that they can only walk unsteadily." The cut people want to return to their original nature and let the two halves become one. When they meet their original other half, they will experience a thrilling experience of love and intimacy. Both of their hearts are obviously longing for something.

Twelve Strophes for Giselle

Frank Báez

To meet you I had to cage the beast,

move to a city in the north,

pour salt on the snow along the stairs,

feed a cat, fear the night.

I visited New York and looked down

from the Empire State and you weren’t there.

You weren’t the woman at the train station

who was running like in romantic movies.

You weren’t the one who’d swallowed the mist

Downtown. Weren’t the one who floated in the Ozama.

Weren’t even the one who blew on the dice

in a casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

You weren’t the one who left me waiting

in a park. Weren’t the one who threatened to kill me

with scissors in her fist. Weren’t Marina Tsvetaeva

hanging from a rope.

I waited for you in an apartment where squirrels

climbed in and kidnapped my poetry.

Snow was falling behind the windows.

The moon was coughing in the sky.

Where is she? I asked the waitresses

who went by and ignored me. Where are

you? I asked cutting my hands off and

dropping them from a Chicago bridge

Where is she? I asked like the man

on the twentieth floor of a building

that’s on fire, like Baudelaire sitting

on a bench in Paris at dawn.

You weren’t on the beach while

the waves whispered your name to the sand.

(The sun shone and a seagull clumsily fished up

some woman’s shoe who’d killed herself.)

I asked for you with a cigarette between my lips.

shuffling the dominoes and trembling,

like a depressive tree that’s shed

all its leaves and feels cold.

I looked for you in museums and libraries

where I slept and translated in my melancholy:

I dream of her either loved or killed

because the town’s too small.

I looked for you in a dream, in a bolero,

among the extras in a low-budget

movie, I looked for you

with closed eyes and open eyes.

I looked for you, my love,

the way Aristophanes says

in one of Plato’s dialogues

two halves look for each other.

Translated from Spanish by Hoyt Rogers

Last night I dreamed that I was a DJ

[Dominican Republic] Frank Baez

Translated by Yan Zimeng

I called Miguel.

Ask him whether he thinks I am better as a DJ or a poet

Miguel said I should continue to be a poet

My girlfriend also said I should be a poet

My girlfriend's brother also said I should be a poet

But I just met

The little girl in front of me in the cinema said I should be a DJ

The girls all said I was more suitable to be a DJ

Women shopping in the supermarket

He advised me to continue writing poetry

My mother said I should be a poet

The plumber told me I should be a poet

Five poets I know told me

I'm more suitable to be a DJ

My sister abstained from voting.

I went to see Tiesto's concert

A foreign girl held my hand

Tell me DJs are created by God, they are angels

As she was saying this

I imagine DJs flying in the air

Their DJ sets surround God

Like a swarm of mosquitoes

Driven away by God's hand

In short, the problem lies with poets and DJs

Can we coexist?

Can it be integrated?

Is it possible to write poetry with one hand?

The other hand is used to play the DJ

Can I be half poet and half DJ?

Can the person above the navel be a poet?

DJ below the belly button

or vice versa

Or maybe the poet can

Become a DJ

Or maybe I'm exaggerating.

All DJs want to be poets at heart

And all poets want to be DJs

There is a fable that tells the story of

DJ and poet fell into the same well

They yelled and shouted

Until a man stuck his head out and threw them a rope

Let them climb up slowly.

DJ went up first, and they threw the rope to the poet

The poet shouted to them to leave him down there

The man and the DJ did so, and they waited quietly for a while

Then leave

Last Night I Dreamt I was a DJ

Frank Báez

I call Miguel on the phone and ask him

if he thinks I would be better off as a DJ or as a poet

and Miguel answers as a Poet.

My girlfriend also says Poet.

My girlfriend’s brother says Poet

and the chick I met when she was in line behind me at the movies

says DJ.

Girls tend to see me more as a DJ

while the women shopping at supermarkets

say that I should stick with the poems.

My mother says Poet.

The plumber says Poet.

The five poets I know all say

I’d be better off as a DJ.

My sister abstained from voting.

I went to see DJ Tiësto

and a gringa grabbed my hands

and said that DJs are creatures of God.

They’re angels, she said and while she was talking

I imagined all the DJs with their turntables

flying around God like mosquitoes

and God shooing them away

with his hand.

But the question is whether the poets and the DJs

can be reconciled;

if they can be One,

if it’s possible to write poems with one hand

and with the other scratch records,

if it’s possible to be half-poet, half-DJ,

to be a poet above the waist

and below the waist a DJ

or vice versa

or maybe, during a full moon, a poet

could transform into a DJ

or maybe I’m complicating everything

and the fact is every DJ wants to be a poet

and every poet wants to be a DJ.

There’s a legend in which a DJ and a poet

fall into a well.

They shout and shout until

a man appears and throws down

a rope. The DJ climbs up first but when

they throw the rope back to the poet he screams, Leave me down here,

and the man and the DJ do so. They wait in silence

for a little while, and then they leave.

Translated from Spanish by Scott Cunningham

About the translator: Yan Zimeng, majoring in Spanish at Beijing Language and Culture University. His sideline is as an independent writer and amateur drummer.