Poems from The War (A guerra) (2013)

In war there is nothing one cannot get used to.

The newspapers talked about war and didn’t call it war.

They counted the dead but said nothing of death.

In strange, mutilated times, in times
made of husks, of bits left behind by another century,
against light and against lion tactics, 
we are brought to this; that is,
here to the eye of the storm, to the sodden ash
of history, to life, 
its imperfect places;
life, anti-geometric yet heroic,
corrupt and scarce, concrete and kingless
where someone wonders, “ què volen aquesta gent 
que truquen de matinada1?”and the animals are dead and yet
they speak, they denounce nomadic truths
as unworkable and prefer
to scrape down into the dank soil of this graceless 
land, to proclaim the insurgency even though
the only available register is one of
defeat and the heavy burden of living flesh,
hand in hand with
uncertainty, that moment when what’s happening
opens up and we find ourselves contrary to forest structures,
to nostalgia for childhood, and even to the mistaken transparency
of literature; like this: without a firm stance,
without any hard, broken notion that might make our situation clearer.

We are traitors and, as such, we are witnesses.

In war, being astute is more important than being brave.

We are soldiers no more.

Will they read our letters?