OF FIRE AND VELVET

To free the thought,
to make him ride the wind
and laughing at borders.
To fertilize with each verse,
carried by the mestral or the cerç, (*)
a new possible universe.
To share loneliness
and learn how to straighten shields
when come times of barbarism.
To murmur or shout,
light bonfires at night
and tear out the heart of oblivion.
To live in the here and now
and also tomorrow morning
and in the forty-fourth century.
To lose the north,
and sail away from the harbor
laughing Death …
Of fire and velvet
I want the words.
Of fire and velvet
I want the songs.
Of fire and velvet,
the melody that takes flight.
Of fire and velvet,
the voice that spreads joy and mourning.
To bite, to caress,
and, if necessary, to pollinate
the words that lie in the books.
To keep the desire alive,
and where there is ash, the heat
of a red scar.
To silence the horror,
to give images to the blind man
and arsenic to certainties.
To invent a new color
and to plant a seed
that does not germinate with fear.
To hold your hands
and accompany you for a few moments

or maybe for a lifetime.
To, without getting out of bed,
make way on a night train
which takes you to infinity.
Of fire and velvet
I want the words.
Of fire and velvet
I want the songs.
Of fire and velvet,
the melody that takes flight.
Of fire and velvet,
the voice forged in the crucible.
To splash with fire the gray of the prison,
and bring a smile
to those who suffer exile.
For tenderness, the fight,
the dance, and also the violent
explosion of the unexpected.
To give the wolf to the lamb.
So that they are never erased
childhood dreams.
To play dice at random,
find a sea in the middle of the desert
and to illuminate like a lighthouse.

To make the giants small
and try to put some grains
of sand in certain gears,
So that the imagination
never apologize
to power or reason.
Of fire and velvet
I want the words.
Of fire and velvet
I want the songs.
Of fire and velvet,
the melody that takes flight.
Of fire and velvet,
the voice that intoxicates like alcohol.
(If a poet is cunning enough
to mix fire and velvet,

for a musician it is a game
to remove the velvet from the fire.)
(*) Catalan names of the winds from the North-West and from the North.

IT’S EASY TO CALL YOURSELF AN ANARCHIST

Me, it’s morally that I have my elegance. (Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac)
Anarchy is not chaos,
is order without power.
It’s not swallowing toads
like the one who drinks coffee.
It’s not the bomb, the gun
nor the hatred of the bitter one,
is the school of freedom.
It’s not about doing what you want to do,
but what you know you have to do
when only you are in charge
and only you are signaling the street;
and its to go through turbulent times,
without losing sight of the fact
that it is easy to call yourself an anarchist
but being one is not.
Anarchy is not about bowing
before gods, before lords;
is to play your card
without fear of dog teeth.
But don’t skip the traffic lights:
whoever has the green deserves respect,

whether young or old.
There are no sacred conventions,
they are arbitrary and futile,
but it must be said that sometimes
they can be quite useful
to live with your neighbors,
and I don’t want to be a moralist,
but it’s easy to call yourself an anarchist,
being so takes a lot of work.
Anarchy is to face
the absurdity of existence
knowing that nothing protects you,
accepting obsolescence,
and do not conjugate the verb “to believe”
using ‘I’ as subject
for the duration of your journey.
Anarchy involves anguish
when you step on stage,
not finding that the life is lame
without an imaginary friend,
and live in the here and now
knowing you are a fleeting tourist.
It’s easy to call yourself an anarchist
but to be so, you have to suffer.
Anarchy is utopia
that we go up step by step,
a spark of madness
which seasons the reason.
It’s love, humor and doubt,
revolt and tenderness,
a flash of lucidity.
Anarchy is vertigo
of jumping borders, no
renouncing your origin
nor to the words you carry in the basket,
watching how grow the nose
of more than one colonialist
who wants to be an anarchist
but he is incapable of it.
Anarchy is trying
to improve a little every day
and, above all, not to impose
your choice to others.
Nobody has the recipe,
each one is made to measure

peeling the daisy.
This is my anarchy,
and if you do not agree,
it think it’s fantastic: it’s no funny
to go everybody to the same port.
In any cvase, you have to walk there,
for no highway leads there.
It’s easy to call yourself an anarchist
but being so has its price.

DIVERGENT MEMORIES

– I met her one summer evening,
at a great sophisticated party
where I wore my attractiveness.
I seduced her with a conversation
full of wit and elegant humor
about Aristotle, the Persian Empire,
the Monty Python, Tintin and the Tirant. (*)
– It was at the Festival of Gràcia (**)
that I met that guy.
He danced like a hen,
it smelled like bad whiskey
and it turned out to be more than pathetic
his effort to seem occurring.
Let’s be honest: it was unsightly,
pulling old and quite horny.
– We got carried away by the dance,
forgetting the next day,
and in the midst of a waltz, with a shudder,
our lips met.
– When he gave me the big kiss
it was like kissing a toad,
but I was very high

and I said to myself, ‘Come on! Let’s fuck. ”
– I took her to a very select hotel
in the top of the town, an exquisite place.
– In fact, it was a very infected hostel,
“The cheerful bedbug” or “The smart lice.”
– And, how I wanted to show her
of my style, of my pedigree,
I ordered champagne and some oysters.
– Some sandwiches and a bottle of wine!
– I undressed her delicately
caressing each piece of skin
with wise fingers, full of tenderness,
like one who caresses a fragile bird.
– Of a stride, with treachery,
he tore my panties, gentlemen!
But he needed a tutorial
to unbutton my bras.
– Voluptuous and enthusiastic,
he climbed up to the seventh heaven.
And she screamed in full orgasm
which woke up the whole hotel.
– I didn’t get to the seventh heaven.
It hadn’t passed the mezzanine
when I screamed for that asshole
got the wrong hole!
– I showed her that the experience
makes a lover get better with age.
– And I had to be patient
because it had a rusty engine.
– That was Sodom and Gomorrah!
What a passion! How we loved each other!
– In less than twenty seconds he cummed
and he had a hard on no more.
– Time passed and dawn came.
Also time to say goodbye.
She was crying in despair …
I’m a Don Juan, but I was sorry.
– It was finally daylight!
I saw that they had put up the streets
and I wept, but with joy,
thinking, “Hurray! I’ll never see him again!”
– If the sky is blue, if the grass is so green,

our love was gold and silver.
– More like the colour of shit,
of a cat in the night, of a depressing gray.
– The memory roots in me like the acacia.
– I want to get rid of it, but I’ll never can.
– And for my joy …

– Unfortunately for me …

– It was one night

– that I will not forget.
(*) Tirant lo blanc, Catalan novel of the XV century.
(**) Gràcia: ancient town near to Barcelona. Today, it has been absorbed by the big town.

LIKE A SONG BY JACQUES BREL

It smells like rain and dead leaves,
this autumn song.
It knows how to get through all the doors
and gets in every corner.
It talks of loves to come,
of old lovers, and of you and me.
It heals and it hurts. It’s fire and it’s ice,
like a song by Jacques Brel.
It talks about friends who are underground
but are still as alive as ever.
It spits in the face of war
and watches over children’s sleep.
It tastes like alcohol, it tastes like smoke,
it tastes like tears, but its perfume
heals and hurts. It’s fire and it’s ice,
like a song by Jacques Brel.

Friends and loves, kisses, laughs,
time leads them to death.
But death is a straw fire
when he has to face the memory.
No need to shout, “Ne me quitte pas”, (*)
he follows you like a dog here and there.
It heals and it hurts. It’s fire and it’s ice,
like a song by Jacques Brel.
(*) Don’t leave me, title of a very popular song of Jacques Brel.

HELL AND GLORY

I am a child of Judeo-Christian Europe:
Freedom frightens it and it worships those who command.
You say “hedonism” and it looks disgusting,
and always wallows in guilt and punishment.
Well, I decided to assume its inheritance
and I wanted to take it to excellence.
If we came into the world to weep and suffer,
it’s better to do it right. Look at me:
When I go to the dentist, I don’t want anesthesia.
If I have sweet memories, I resort to amnesia.
Whenever I shave, I try to cut myself.
If Alba makes me horny, I fuck with Carme.
I love going on the subway to get wrinkled
for people who don’t shower and smell sweaty,
but I prefer commuter trains:
it’s a lot of accidents, and delays, and breakdowns.
When I go to a public demonstration, I never start running,
because I don’t want to miss a beat on the head.
And I confess that since I can remember,

when I am in Hell, I feel in Glory.
When I’m feel fine, I go to the doctor.
I am a collector of stones in the liver. (*)
If I have ace poker, I hide the cards.
I often crouch down to enjoy the lumbago.
I only drink alcohol to nourish cirrhosis.
I only kiss with the tongue the girls who have halitosis.
And I like being a vassal of a state that insults me,
he steals and abuses me, fascist and uneducated.
I don’t know if I prefer some slaps in the face
or a good kick in the testicles,
but in any case, gentlemen, since I can remember,
when I am in Hell, I feel in Glory.
But it has landed in my life
Gloria, a very patient girl.
She says she loves me, she’s pretty and she’s very tender,
and my world wobbles and turns to ashes.
I don’t know how it went … One day yout don’t think about it
and suddenly you see your defenses fall.
I’d like to get away with it, but I can’t.
and I look in the mirror and say, “What are you doing?”
I want her and I hate her, she disgusts me, she attracts me …
I feel like I did a great mistake.
And in the middle of summer and in the heart of winter
when I’m with Gloria I feel like Hell!
(*) posar-.se pedres al fetge: to worry about anything.

RUDIMENTS OF ANATOMY

There are pear-shaped butts, there are apple-shaped butts.
Some are harder than a pebble, and some are more like rubber.
There are sweaty, cold, misanthropic and gregarious asses.
There are silent asses, and some asses always make comments.

There are pink asses like piglets, some are yellowish and greenish.
There are hairy and bare asses, there are clean asses and asses with louses.
There are shy, daring asses, smooth asses and asses with some cracks.
Some carry a flower and some traces of shit.
I’ve seen all kinds of asses,
just know how to search:
at the end of each back
there is one that is easy to reach.
But my favorite ass,
it’s your ass, darling:
a moon that dazzles,
a lighthouse in the middle of the storm.
If still available,
if you don’t have it preengaged,
you will tell me if it’s possible
make me a place by his side.
Go around the world and back to the Born… (*)
He and she know this:
the one who runs away from the pan
often ends up in the oven.
There are insolent breasts, and others that fall on the navel.
There are small, thick, turgid, gingerbread nipples.
There are breasts that need a crane to hold them, and there are
the size of an orange, that fit right in your hand.
There are breasts that bras imprison, and there are breasts
which sway happily within reach of the eyes and fingers.
Some breasts are so modified that they look fake,
but there are those who make you want to suckle like a baby.
I have seen breasts of all sizes
traveling up and down,
you don’t have enough of a life
to know them in detail.
But the breasts that make me silly
they are yours: that simple.
Your bow mask
is a double Krakatoa;
if still available,
if you don’t have it preengaged
you will tell me if it’s possible
make me a place by his side.
Go around the world and back to the Born…
He and she know this:
the one who runs away from the pan
often ends up in the oven.

The are bald pussies, and some that make you get lost in the woods.
For more than one, the Pope and the whole Curia would be damned.
Some are not visited, others are like a market:
they are open almost all day and everyone is invited.
Some of them turn an angel into a devil.
Some deny you the wet if you don’t wear a raincoat.
Some welcome you sweetly, others tend to break the nuts,
but they all act like milkmen, laying eggs at the door.
I have seen very different pussies,
because the world is full of them,
and there are two-thirds
that made me lose my breath.
But your flower open,
girl, it’s a whole other thing:
a black hole with the obsession
to suck all matter!
If still available,
if you’re okay, if you’re not sorry,
you will tell me if it’s possible
make me a place within it.
Go around the world and back to the Born…
He and she know this:
the one who runs away from the pan
often ends up in the oven.
(*) Roda el món i torna al Born (the Born is and very old market in Barcelona): popular saying. It
means that most travelers end up returning home.

I AM AN INLAND FISH (NEW VERSION)

Look,
Cuba was not for my grandfather
more than a word on the lips,
a postcard image. (*)
Look,
he ignored the force
born of the habanera,

its sea was the bathtub
and the fan was his westerlies.
Look,
they say that the laws of inheritance
shape us like we were mud,
but as far as I’m concerned,
its main effect
was injected into my blood …
I’m an inland fish,
what do you want me to do,
if the whitebaits are
my distant cousins…
There is no salt in my hair
no color on my skin,
not a hint of sand in my hands.
I know it’s not a matter of pride
or shame:
not everyone is the same
and thankfully …
But I often think of the sea
like the child away from home,
and I splash the blue of the sea with my dream,
Look,
I don’t annoy the seagulls
with messages for neighbours
from other shores, overseas. (**)
Look,
I don’t care much about Neptune:
he is a grumpy old man
who works as a scrap merchant
with the ships that he sinks.
Look,
at the sound of sirens
I don’t save cotton for the ears:
I don’t like the idea of getting too close
to a damn bitch
with no crotch…
I’m an inland fish,
I have no pirates
neither treasures nor brigs
down in my childhood,
and even though I drank
a lot of North winds with a funnel,
I couldn’t get drunk on the ocean.
I know it’s not a matter of pride

or shame;
not everyone does the same things,
what a bore, if not!
But I often think of the sea
like the child away from home
and I splash the horizon with my dreams.
(* / **): References to two habaneras very popular in Catalonia: “El meu avi” (My grandfather)
and “La gavina” (The seagull).

THAT TIME OF THE “JAZZ CAVA”

That time of the Jazz Cava

it was the time of my fifteen years …
You got there by that ladder that didn’t led to Hell
but to a little paradise, warm as a maternal cloister.
A brick vault, a bar, a stage, a few seats …
a refuge where you felt safe from the elements.
Very often in the middle of the afternoon I went down those steps
with the girls with whom I drafted my kisses.
A jam often took place there in the evening,
and I applauded the young musicians, warmed by a voll-damm. (*)
That time of the Jazz Cava
it was the time of my fifteen years,
the blue note time,
a time of dreams and friends.
That time of the Jazz Cava
taught me to improvise,
jumping from octave to octave,
on a musical theme that life insisted on sing with me.
There I discovered the records of the great masters of be-bop,
ragtime, blues and dixie, and swallowed sip by sip
Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Grapelli, Satchmo, Jacques Loussier,
Billie Holiday, Chet Baker, Stan Getz, Sidney Bechet …
Fascinated and open-hearted, I learned with emotion
the difficult balance between the game and the equation,
and alternated Round Midnight and Thelonius Monk’s solos
with duels between soloists, great ping-pong games.
That time of the Jazz Cava …
On concert nights, thick smoke filled the air
while Valentí Grau, as usual, was presenting the event.
I saw there Johnny Griffin, Joan Albert, Gene “Mighty” Flea,
Jordi Sabatés, Joe Newman and many more that I can’t tell you.
I still remember Adrià Font’s breaks,
that were after midnight an antidote for sleep,
the fingers of the great Tete Montoliu (*) dancing near my nose,
Lou Bennet’s Hammond organ, Farràs’ trumpet …
(…)
The years have passed, or maybe I am the one who has passed,
and the project of a few crazy people has been consolidated.
Now there is a new Cava, much bigger and smokeless.
and it has become and habit for jazz to fill the streets once a year.
But I can trace in my mind that little place inch by inch:
he colored a gray time that didn’t want to leave.

There I caught a virus I have never cured of,
that resistant virus called Freedom.
That time of the Jazz Cava …
(*) Voll-Damm: beer brand.
(**) Blind Catalan pianist, known around the world.

INTERSECTIONS

Mercè, there weren’t a thousand and one,
they were only five nights.
Five nights the moon spied on us
while I caressed your breasts.
Five nights, writing a story
where every second can be eternal,
they were enough for the memory
to cook up some memories for the winter.
We are here to share
maybe a few years, maybe a few hours,
but we do not go beyond the outskirts
me of you, nor you of me.
The kisses that last too long
they end up wearing out.
Let’s love, then, the fleeting
wonders of the moment,
and let’s sing the short song
of our intersection.
Cristina, you are the sun; me, the rain.
You and I are the face and the cross.
Just open your mouth, the tone goes up
and disagreement finds its voice.
Together we could never live,
but I’m sure that in a while
I will remember you with a smile,
that the years make emeralds of manure.
You can wet a dry memory
and if it is too wet, you can dry it.
If it is obtuse, you make it acute
and you erase its wrinkles.
From the remembered rose
you can remove every thorn,
when the Viuda Reposada
transforms into Carmesina (*)
and blooms the short song
of our intersection.
I don’t know your name, but one day

I will have to embark on your eyes
and without rudder we will make our way
until we bump into the reefs.
Let’s not waste spring
because autumn is coming …
Everything is to be done,
let us live the present without fear.
A present that is now the future
and that will have to be left behind,
but that with a slight spell
it will taste like cherry again.
May longing not overcome you:
nothing is lost, nothing remains.
Just get into the dance
and forget of how and when
born and dies the short song
of our intersection.
(*) La Viuda Reposada and Carmesina are characters from the Catalan medieval novel Tirant lo
Blanc. The first one is a middle-aged, ugly, bad widow. The other, a beautiful, young and gentle
princess.

HELENA’S BLUE SOCKS

How I like Helena’s blue socks …
Neither the sea nor the sky have such beautiful blues.
They make the sky cry,
and the sea becomes angry and decide to sank some ships.
I know enough that Ivette’s yellow blouse is a splash
of sun on some golden wheat …
I guess the poppies blooming in the middle
of twinned hills.
Just looking at it is enough to fall on your back.
However, if I have to be honest with you,
next to Helena’s blue socks
Ivette is powerless.
Helena’s blue socks, and I’m not kidding,
they are so worthy that they do not accept any hole.
They make my socks die of shame
if they ever dare to show up by their side.
Clearly, Ruth’s black stockings are a sickle
able to take your breath away,
a luxury case for two not trivial legs,
a shiny, obscene case.
When I look at them, my thoughts run wild
However, if I have to be honest with you,
next to Helena’s blue socks
Ruth is powerless.
Helena’s blue socks are a stove for me,
they are as warm as a teddy bear.
Near them, the snow is melting.
Against them, the hail is powerless.
Of course, the white gloves Alba wears when winter arrives
they are wicked and sorcerers.
If they walk through your body, they can take you to hell

with the onslaught of an express train.
They have the allure of siren singing.
However, if I have to be honest with you,
next to Helena’s blue socks,
Alba is powerless.
How I like Helena’s blue socks …
How I like it when I go to bed with her
and she only wears her socks, and the chain
of his body ties me up all night.
But Helena’s blue socks without Helena are just
two inanimate bunches.
To feel in my heart a sweet and deep feeling
she has to wear them.
If, with the excuse of love, stupidity
has taken over the songs,
be lenient when I speak to you tenderly
of Helena and, above all, of her socks.

THE BANK WINS

As profits go up, we sack more and more people.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t find it logical, we’re fine with this.
That you earn a shitty salary working like slaves?
Don’t even bother to complain: you are privileged.
There are others with less mania that can replace you.
You are predators or you are prey: this is how the Market works.
We take the unions out for a walk on May 1st
and the rest of the year they come to food in our hand.
Retirement pensions? It’s a thing for poor poeople. Being poor is not fashionable.
The poor old people live too long, let the wheel roll
and crush those who do not shudder. While Marx plays hopscotch,
the Bank wins.
We are so good that we let you believe that you have the right to choose,
and we let us vote for those who will obey us.
You can choose between right and right disguised
as left, and with fascism lurking around the corner.
And if something goes wrong, and if you don’t choose right,
we can always correct it with the help of a court.
The culture? We prefer to talk about entertainment.
If a tertullian shouts enough, he doesn’t need an argument.
We know what you do, what you look for, what you buy, how you fill your leisure
time…
You give us your personal data for free so we can do business with it.
We don’t even have to shoot, and the bird falls off the branch.
Bank wins.
We expel the arts and critical thinking from school
and so the language becomes increasingly stunted.
Children need to be profitable, not wise. They are future
parts of our gear, the heights do not suit them.
We already have centers that prepare the elites …

What about equality? Come on! Don’t make us laugh.
When necessary, we put on the mask and make a meal out of everything,
using empty words, also inclusive language,
and so everything remains the same, and our little song
makes you fall asleep while we are still socking on the breast.
Justice? She’s a bitch who open her legs and does blowjobs to us.
Bank wins.
We have televisions and newspapers, and we buy the political leaders,
and we decide fashions and currents.
Masters of hypocrisy, virtuosos of cynicism,
we speak about democracy while we finance terrorism
and, to implant a police state, with three fallacies
we terrorize you and yet you thank us.
We charge you outrageous prices for water, electricity, and other things
-we must feed those who let us pass through the revolving doors …
We leave you only the straw while we take the grain with us
and we will soon charge you commissions for breathing.
When we want, the tap opens; when we want, the tap closes.
Bank wins.
Come on! You can win the lottery, have five minutes of fame …
Join us, follow our program!
We tell you what to think, we tell you what is unthinkable,
we tell you what to spit on, we tell you what is desirable,
who is good and who is bad, what is a lie and what is true.
Stay tuned, let’s move on to advertising.
Don’t you want to be a loser? So come on, buy, buy
a new car, the latest cell phone … Don’t tell me you don’t want
a brand new flat the size of a rabbit cage!
You can leave the mortgage as an inheritance to your children.
And if you can’t afford it, we’ll be your therapist:
we will stay with the flat and you with the debt.
Globalization? Of couse! In our style, however:
movies, music … everybody consume the same
and you are convinced that you want what we sell you.
We create the needs and then we satisfy them.
It’s not English, it’s money, the real international language.
Bank wins.
There is health care for the poor, there is health care for the rich.
A medecine is only made if it is to give benefits.
Even a pandemic is helpful if it comes to earning more.
We say if a war is fair, we decide which is not,

and we sell weapons everywhere, and repress all tumult:
Human Rights are very useful for wiping our asses.
A new feudalism is approaching, the future is no longer what it used to be …
and you don’t move a finger! The revolt? A chimera.
You are vassals who obey and envy the master.
You’re the lambs that go by theyselves to the slaughterhouse.
You are the black notes, the quavers, the demisemiquavers… and we are the
white ones.
Bank wins.
While half the world is agonizing and the other half is repressing,
while the mafias rule, while the climate is destroyed,
we’ve convinced you, and that’s as funny as it is terrible,
that this world of the wretched is the only possible thing today,
and we entertain you by waving the colors of the flags
while our capital jumps all borders.
When, after so much milking of the planet, we turned it into a rag,
when this old Earth is going to be destroyed,
we will have tickets reserved for other solar systems,
just like yesterday we had the nuclear shelters.
It is our the point of support and the control of the lever.
Whoever we want is left behind, whoever we want jumps the fence
and who we want stumbles. Anyway…
the bank wins.

A KING ON SALE

At the flea market, once
I found a king at a low price,
with a dented crown
and with stockings fallen to the ankles,
a sad residue
of a specie coming from the past.
The seller informed me:
back in the 21st century,
when the monarchy fell,
ocurred to someone
to freeze that asshole
as if it were a hake.
I took him home
and so she saw him enter
Sílvia said to me: “What a jerk you are,
you’ve been deceived again!
You always buy crap
and you just want to make your law!
Can you tell me, Maties,
what is the use of a king?”
Needless to say, she was right:
he didn’t know how to wash dishes
nor do the laundry
nor cook two fried eggs.
He spent the whole day there
scratching his royal testicles …
These blue-blooded guys
they are real dumbass!

But at night, this guy
suddenly cheered ,
picked up a guitar
and sang with feeling
these poorly written verses
that evoked a lost time:
“My father was a bastard
which was chasing elephants.
Between a tango and a bolero
he knew how to make dirty money
and then he danced the waltz
in tax havens.
The family, what a gang!
Thieves, witches and idiots…
If Goya still lived,
imagine what portraits!
I, having very little charisma,
and being not very smart,
I got close to the fascism,
the tricorn and the stick.”
Because he didn’t close his mouth
and the neighbours complained,
and it was also out of tune
like a choir of a hundred piglets,
Sílvia, very angry,
stopped the song
and took him
to the trash can.
That was five weeks ago,
I’m sure they’ve recycled him
and they will have made cat food
of this poor stupid guy.
And I don’t know why it will be,
but I miss him so much.
I went again
to the flea market and I bought
a dissected monkey
which I call “Majesty.”
I hung him a few galloons
and a lot of medals.
But Sílvia can’t stand it:
he says it stinks a lot

and he has moths … “But he doesn’t sing!”
I say with conviction.
She replies, “You’re like flies,
if you have tasted the excrement
you just want dark stuff.
I mean shit, of course.”
She’s right: the monarchical virus
I’m finally realizing it,
is a virus of the most reactionaries
and it is very contagious.
Attacking each neuron,
and turning the brain into a soup,
it turns a hunan being
into the most humiliated vassal.
Let someone give me a shot
of a libertarian vaccine, please,
while I have a little bit
of reason and dignity!
They who are in low hours
learn the lesson well:
never buy
a king on sale!

I’M FROM THE REED BUSH

“And if anyone asks me ‘What is the example of the reed bush?’ , I tell you that, if you tie the
bush with a rope, then ten men, no matter how hard they try, will not pull it off; and if you take
the rope out of it, an eight-year-old boy will pull it from reed to reed, and not a single reed will be
left. ” Ramon Muntaner, Chronicle.(1)
I don’t sing per valencianes, (2)
for that I am very bad at it,
but for the Valencian girls
that stole my heart
I eat creïlles, patates
and trumfes (3) in a single dish
and, if I want to chase rats,
for me it’s the same a gat or a moix. (4).

To sweep, a granera, (5)
the old Montgó to climb, (6)
and when my heart beats for love,
I estime, estimo and estim.
I go like a cagalló per sèquia
and I know I say obvious dois,
but it is not an entelechy
that language makes us brothers.
I am a Valencian from the north
(they want to destroy me),
a native of Roussillon (7) in the south
(some would like me dumb),
a continental Balearic man
(I am denied bread and salt)
and from Fraga to l’Alguer (9)
I walk down the same street.
In the lands of the “bon dia” (10)
we are branches of the same trunk.
Oh, Muntaner, what can I tell you? (11)
I’m from the reed bush!
I speak the very abused
language of Llull and Fuster, (12)
of Rodoreda and Moncada,
Foix, Marçal and Verdaguer,
of Estellés, Costa i Llobera
and Jordi Pere Cerdà,
Caria, Scanu, Piera,
Blai Bonet and Guimerà,
of Pere Quart, Quico Mira,
Guillem d’Efak, Quim Monzó,
Pla, Ovidi, March, Comadira,
Espriu and Clara Simó,
of Maragall, of Vinyoli,
of Salvat, Bartra and Raimon,
of so many who spread like an oil lik
and who make my world go round.
I am a Valencian from the north …
Three centuries of westerly wind,
of gowns of judges and uniforms,

of dandruff, and puffs
of cheap brandy,
of Jacobins, of gonelles,
of blavers (13) and other idiots
who insist on convert oaks and pines
into dead splinters.
Three centuries we stand facing
who has wanted to separate us.
Three centuries already, and still
they have not been able to bend us.
To make our food
no ingredients may be missing:
the chronicler, in Xirivella, (14)
he made it very clear to us!
I am a Valencian from the north …
I proclaim it with joy,
I’m from the reed bush!
(1) Ramon Muntaner is the author of one of the four great medieval Catalan Chronicles, and a
defender of the union of the Catalan countries and of the unity of Catalan language.
(2) Style of traditional singing in the Valencian country.
(3) Dialectal forms for “potatoe” in the Valencian country, Catalonia and North Catalonia.
(4) “Cat” in Catalonia and in Mallorca.
(5) “granera” is “escombra” (broom) in the North-Occidental Catalan dialect. (Lleida, etc.)
(6) Montgó: a mountain of the Valencian country.
(7) The ending of the first person of the present in verbs as “estimar” are -e in the Valencian
country, -o in Catalonia, and has no final vowel in Balearic Islands.
(8) Roussillon: the main part of North Catalonia (Perpinyà, etc.), that belongs to France from
1659.
(9) Fraga: town in the “franja” in Aragon. L’Alguer (Alguero): town of in the island of Sardinia.
They are the Occidental and Oriental limits of Catalan language.
(10) “Good mornig” in all the Catalan countries.
(11): Muntaner’s usual expression to adress his readers (or listeners).
(12) From here, names of writers from all the Catalan countries and from different times.
(13) Jacobins: centralists and enemies of diversity; blavers and gonelles: minority but virulent
groups that deny the unity of the Catalan language in València and Mallorca.
(14) Xirivella: the valencian town where Muntaner wrote his Chronicle.

I HAVE NO TIME TO GET OLD

I have no time to get old.
I want to do still so many things
before the body and the brain
wither like roses.
It is necessary to be young
for a doctorate in uncertainty,
to have ready always one «why?»,
to keep the flame lit
and to turn as a weathercock.
I have no time to get old.
I have no time to get old.
I still have some trips to make
and I must fill my basket
with memories and mirages,
live another eternal love
of those that last years or days
and that can carry you to Hell,

but that you would never leave
when it clings to your skin.
I have no time to get old.
I have no time to get old.
I want to be fearless, shameless,
yield to any temptation
and sing songs of revolt,
I want to convert the cholesterol
in a shoot of adrenaline,
read books, make the idiot,
get away of the routine
and take flight like a bird.
I have no time to get old.
I have no time to get old.
I want to play with marked cards,
embark on a ship
to unknown lands,
forget to do plans
and say enormous lies,
make trips to the pedants
and pee on the uniforms.
If I have to defend the castle,
I have no time to get old.
I have no time to get old.
I know that at the end Death,
the big whore of the brothel,
will get me on the boat,
but I want to prove to her
that I can perform the last act
with the same energy of the first act,
and with youth intact.
Until my name falls off the poster,
I have no time to get old.

THERE IS A SQUARE IN TERRASSA (NEW VERSION)

There is a square in Terrassa (*)
tender, foolish and decadent,
a square with a great ability
to put people together.
Strategically, it stands
in the middle of a human lair
and, anarchic and hungry,
swallows pedestrians.
When the evening stretches out his arms
and the king sun is carried away by the wind,
a basket of butts and noses
fill the benches and the pavement,
and a fog of words
and vegetable smoke
adorns the old classrooms
of the skiping school of the asphalt.
An old bar
with tachycardia pump, kindly,
a blood that twins the cognac
with the pastis
and manufactures anisette antibodies.
The Priorat (**)
chats with the rum and with a coffee au lait,
and waiters and customers dance
around non-existent spaces.
There is a square in Terrassa
-I said it a few moments ago-,
a square that goes beyond
reason and arguments.
Girl’s eyes splash it
above and on the sides,
and it becomes an immense bouquet
of unsuspected colors.

Some black jacquets
mix, insolently,
with curly beards
and incipient breasts,
while an echo of a bell
suddenly turns into a bird
the powerful Bartrian voice (***)
that comes to us from the Torre del Palau. (****)
The next day, there
you will see grandparents chatting quietly
while experts in crochet art
are vigilant
that the children do not fall to the ground.
And very close
a church forgives the blasphemies
that the grass makes grow on the heads
of the playful young people.
If you walk through a square
in the Vallès Occidental (*****)
and you see that,
leaning on a lamppost,
the presence is still rising
shamelees and fierce-eyed
of my adolescence,
that has been today drowned by common sense,
drink a beer together
and talk about time fleeing,
shoot at the sadness
until the last cartridge is burned
and, like who doesn’t want to,
share a golden dream,
that no one bothers
an non-transferable square inside the heart.
(*) Big town near Barcelona
(**) Catalan wine
(***) Agustí Bartra was a Catalan poet who, after many years of exile in Mexico, lived in
Terrassa until his death.
(****) The Tower of the Palace, vestige of the medieval castle of Terrassa, located next
to the Plaça Vella (the Old Square), in the center of the town.
(*****) Vallès Occidental: the comarca (or region) where Terrassa is located.

LIFE CUTS

Well, I was born in Madrid and Terrassa adopted me,
and childhood passes
before you are aware of it.
And I saw Carrero Blanco take off, (*)
and when Franco kicked the bucket
I was a teenager.
I started writing songs, I don’t know how or why,
making a candle with the words, and the wick with the music.
Nourished with the good and the best, I became demanding

-a cordon bleu can’t find the food he needs in McDonald’s-
and, wishing to address both hearts and brains,

I got on a stage when I was still a puppy.
Playing with words, notes and rhyme,
I practiced fencing
with my voice as rapier.
Maybe everything has already been said,
but I’m looking for a way
to light a bonfire
with my own flame.
A singer usually has an ego unfit for a monastery:
if you don’t learn to control it, it swells like a zeppelin.
In a corral with little grain and too many roosters, too many chickens,
I’ve seen beaks blows, murderous stabs,
and I’ve met great artists who were pretty good people
but also some stupid and arrogant assholes.
I’ve always been fascinated by humor, which angers fanatics,
fascists and dogmatists.
I reject all taboos,
and I have never preached collective solutions:
I don’t want to give
mental enemas to anyone.
I have known rainy evenings and sunny mornings,
I walked on roses and on sharp knives.
Sedentary in my heart, I have not stopped traveling.

If I’ve never been able to sell myself, I didn’t let myself be bought
I have been ignored, insulted and, worse, flattered.
They have made me more than one trip, I fell and got up.
I’ve always known I was alone, despite the company,
and I haven’t spent a day
without thinking about death:
knowing you are doomed forces you to work,
to have the tools always ready
and to run away from comfort.
I have written plays and articles, and novels and screenplays,
crosswords and other things, but mostly songs.
I have always fed my doubts with gains and disappointments,
I’ve learned to open many doors despite the rust of the years,
and here I am, still brandishing the useless and essential:
irony, beauty, a fraternal smile.
I’m not an old man yet, I’m not a young man anymore.
If time soften me,
I still risk everything,
and as long as I have energy, and as long as I have ideas,
I will make tides grow
of sounds and words.
Some people still ask me, “What are you doing other than singing?”
or what is so typical and topical: “Why do you write in Catalan?”
I don’t answer idiots anymore: the time I have left is counted
and, before the curtain falls, I want to take advantage of it.
I still have a lot to write, a lot to say, a lot to read,
I still want to be seduced and, if possible, I want to seduce.
When I leave, I’ll leave you a tune,
and a few verses for the road.
Well, nothing important:
A few life cuts, a few footprints
than the wind and the waves
sooner or later will erase.
(*) Carrero Blanco: fascist military that could have been Franco’s successor. He died in a bomb
attack that caused his car to take off many meters with him inside.