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Written by Antonio Rivero Taravillo and translated by Lawrence Schimel. Read the original in Spanish.
After attending a lecture
on Scandinavian skaldic poetry, scowling
I have sat down to dine alone, taciturn,
and I ordered, just because, Norwegian salmon
and Danish beer. Iceland lies
very close to this table tonight.
My sadness
is like that treeless island today;
like its winter or its night, my soul.
(Diners watch me from other tables
perplexed that I set down symbols
on a paper that they know is not the bill
nor the credit card receipt:
I am a barbarian here, I speak in poetry,
that dead language which no one understands any more.)