Curtis Bauer - Selfi americano

Primera edición: febrero, 2022

© Curtis Bauer, 2019

Título original: American Selfie

© de la traducción: Natalia Carbajosa, 2022

Última lectura: Inés Sáenz

© Vaso Roto Ediciones, 2021

ESPAÑA

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Grabado de cubierta: Víctor Ramírez

Queda rigurosamente prohibida, sin la autorización de los titulares del copyright , bajo las sanciones establecidas por las leyes, la reproducción total o parcial de esta obra por cualquier medio o procedimiento.

Impreso y gestionado por Bibliomanager

ISBN: 978-84-124844-3-4

eISBN: 978-84-124882-6-5

BIC: DCF

Depósito Legal: M-2556-2022

Curtis Bauer

for my family

of friends—you

know who you are

Para mi familia

de amigos: vosotros

sabéis quiénes sois

I I “The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all.” SØREN KIERKEGAARD

I I «El mayor de todos los peligros, perderse a sí mismo, puede ocurrir inadvertidamente en el mundo, como si no fuera nada.» SØREN KIERKEGAARD

Euphoric

Eufórica

Returning To A Moment

Regreso a un instante

Selfie With Wind

Selfi en el viento

Evensong

Himno de Vísperas

Occupational

Ocupacional

Obituary

Obituario

Selfie With Dust

Selfi en el polvo

Cloud Study—A Grammar of Grackles

Estudio de nubes: gramática de zanates

One Reason For Your Silence

Uno de los motivos de tu silencio

What Beauty Is, Is

Lo que la belleza es, es

In Praise of Maybe

En alabanza del quizá

Loving This Woman—Three Movements

Amar a esta mujer: tres movimientos

Portrait of a Dog, Dancing

Retrato de una perra bailando

II

II

Border Fragments

Fragmentos fronterizos

Attrition

Atrición

American Selfie

Selfi americano

Justice—Variations

Justicia: variantes

Border Selfie

Selfi fronterizo

A Poem For One Of The Men Who Raised Me

Poema para uno de los hombres que me crio

To Whoever Stole My Bike Seat

A quien me robó el sillín de la bici

Coffee in the Dark

Café en la oscuridad

Río Manzanares

Río Manzanares

Mujer Cisne

Mujer Cisne

Exile

Exiliado

The Kind Of Man I Used To Be

La clase de hombre que fui

Falling for the Woman Walking by the Deadwood

Cautivado por la mujer que camina por Deadwood

Happy, TX

Happy, TX

Selfie In Dark Interior

Selfi en interior oscuro

III

III

Selfie With Goathead

Selfi con garras del diablo

First Dust Storm

Primera tormenta de arena

On Finding Myself In Wrong Places

Al encontrarme en lugares equivocados

Ode to Not Writing the Perfect Poem

Oda sobre no escribir el poema perfecto

Fuck Spring

Pasión primaveral

Sometimes In The Dark

A veces en la oscuridad

Longing Deconstructed

Deconstrucción del anhelo

Family Night Out, Buenos Aires circa 2015

Salida nocturna familiar, Buenos Aires en torno a 2015

A Sound Like A River

Suena como un río

Stupid Job

Estúpido trabajo

If Brueghel Had Painted An Iowa Landscape

Si Brueghel hubiera pintado un paisaje de Iowa

Three Sketches of Anxiety

Tres bocetos de la ansiedad

Lines Regarding the Black Feathers on Canton

Versos sobre las plumas negras en Canton

Career Change

Cambio de profesión

Three Abstractions of Light

Tres abstracciones de luz

Another Woman I Loved

Otra mujer a la que amé

Vermilion Flycatcher

Atrapamoscas bermellón

Notes

Notas

“The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very

quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all.”

SØREN KIERKEGAARD

«El mayor de todos los peligros, perderse a sí mismo, puede ocurrir

inadvertidamente en el mundo, como si no fuera nada.»

SØREN KIERKEGAARD

Maybe I should praise the mapped green

vast where the road I follow disappears

and the GPS triangle that is me begins

to twirl as if I’m not the only one confused

but then follows me into the expanse

in front of the car, in front of the declining sun

that in four hours more or less will glint the humping pump jacks

some oil shade of rusted, and I hope to be gone by then,

to have found some paved road I have never reached

down to touch but will to thank it and whisper thank you

like some hostage newly freed and returned to her country

kissed the tarmac in front of cameras before the neck

of her wife or cheek of her father or saluted

some officer obliged to welcome her home,

or I would better show my gratitude today by pulling

down the six coyote carcasses lining the property fence

I shouldn’t have entered thinking it was a new way home,

past the gravel pit where kids from Ralls must come to drink

and fuck maybe their older cousins to escape their marriages

or to shoot cans or the sky and someone got so piss-drunk

he took off that pair of green denim jeans perfect

on the rack at Sears and less so each minute, out here

on a road without a name, a path really, and left them crumpled

on the crumpled dirt, the only green in this sea, this sea of red

earth a few still think what they do is farm

and therefore spend their money and hours

disking back and forth across the fields

like boats trawling the Salton Sea or

an astronaut on Mars who lost a special tool

in what wouldn’t be called a field but something else

interstellar and spatial like terra vasta and this

is Texas so that might work

because the ground is vast and about

to blow around your face and

I haven’t killed anything

with four legs and fur in years

though last night I misstepped again

and my friend the salamander

who clung to the wall near the kitchen

and watched me pass every day since July

jumped beneath a shoe and stayed

kissing the floor, as if euphoric,

having finally been released from the wall,

and I buried him in the trash heap I call compost

and I should drive back east to find those carcasses

now bristling in the evening wind and help them back

to that euphoric ground which adored them

and kissed each of their trotting feet.

Tal vez debería apreciar el vacío verde

en el mapa donde se pierde la carretera por la que avanzo

y donde el triángulo del GPS que soy yo comienza

a girar como si no fuera yo el único confundido