HEADLINES FOR 1957
A plague of Vespas in Santiago
Francoise Sagan goes out for a drive.
Earthquake in Iran: 600 dead.
The government halts inflation.
The presidential candidates
Are courting the Church.
The unviersity out on strike.
Graveside homage by Oscar Castro's fans.
Enrique Bello invited to Italy.
Rossellini claims that Swedish women
Are colder than icebergs.
Speculation over stars and planets.
His Holiness Pope Puis XII
Has the nicest news this year:
He sees Jesus several times.
The author is photographed with his dog.
The Blue Waters make their public debut.
Grupo Fuego celebrates its first year together.
Charlie Chaplin, despite his age,
Is once again a father.
The Fire Department stages drill.
The Russians shoot objects at the moon.
Shortages of bread and medicine.
Luxury-car imports on the rise.
Students take to the streets
But the cops come and mow them down.
The cops kill for killing's sake.
Nicolai fumes against Russia
Never suspecting what an idiot he's being
San Cupertino makes backwards strides.
Half of spirit is made of matter.
Embassy personnel named in thefts.
On the first page of Ercilla
Pictures of the confiscated luggage.
Jorge Elliott's new anthology.
A poor messenger pigeon
Tangles up in the wires.
Passers-by try to rescue it.
A marble monument causes dissension.
"They should have built it to Gabriela Mistral."
Plague of Argentine terrorists.
Kelly escapes disguised as a woman,
A skeleton with waggling hips.
Enrique Lihn sets the record straight.
Perico Miller sells his soul.
Doctors abandon the hospitals.
They get the wheat dilemma squared away.
Graveyard workers out on strike.
A policeman, clowning around.
Blows his brains out.

Peru, on its home ground, beats out Chile
The Chileans are first-rate players
But having a run of bad luck.
A Catholic poet proclaims
Jehovah should be a woman.
Further harassment of the poor Indians.
They want them off their land.
The only land they have left!
And here they're the sons of the earth.
Benjamín Velasco Reyes is dead.
No there are no more true friends left.
Benjamín was the last one to go.
This month is the tourist season.
Watermelon and cateloupe rinds.
Are they planning to dig out an underground temple?
Frei is touring Europe.
The King of Sweden receives him.
He makes statements to the press.
A lady gives birth on a bus
Son kills drunken father.
Discussion of flying saucers.
Humiliated while visiting aunt.
The god of women's wear dies.
Flies, fleas and mice plague country.
Father's grave profaned.
Science Fair at P.S. 5.
Everyone looks at the sky through a tube.
Spider-stars and housefly-lanets.
A crash between Cartagena and Santiago
The police count the bodies.
Like so many watermelon seeds.
Another point to bring out:
The author's aching teeth.
His deviated nasal septum
And the sale of the ostrich feathers.
Old age and its Pandora's Box.
But anyway, we'd rather stick with
The old year that's almost over
(Despite some discordant notes)
Because the year that's about to start
Can only bring us more gray hairs.

translated by Naomi Lindstrom
traducido por Naomi Lindstrom

 

en: revista Latin American Literary Review, 1981.

 

 
SISIB - Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades - Universidad de Chile