buscándome líos::looking for trouble

 Buscándome líos

La noche de mi primera reunión de célula llovía

mi manera de chorrear fue muy aplaudida por cuatro

o cinco personajes del dominio de Goya

todo el mundo ahí parecía levemente aburrido

tal vez de la persecución y hasta de la tortura diariamente soñada.

Fundadores de confederaciones y de huelgas mostraban

cierta ronquera y me dijeron que debía

escoger un seudónimo

que me iba a tocar pagar cinco pesos al mes

que quedábamos en que todos los miércoles

y que cómo iban mis estudios

y que por hoy íbamos a leer un folleto de Lenin

y que no era necesario decir a cada momento camarada.

Cuando salimos no llovía más

mi madre me riñó por llegar tarde a casa.

Roque Dalton
Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry, a bilingual anthology
University of Texas Press, USA (1996)

 Looking for trouble

The night of my first cell meeting it was pouring rain

four or five characters out of the world of Goya

were very impressed with the way I dripped

everyone there seemed somewhat bored

perhaps from the persecution and the daily nightmares of torture.

These somewhat hoarse-sounding organizers of labour unions

and strikes told me I'd have to 

find a pseudonym

that I was going to have to pay five pesos a month

that we had to agree to do this every Wednesday

and how were my studies going

and for today we were going to read a pamphlet by Lenin

and that it wasn't necessary to say "comrade" every minute.

When we broke up the rain had stopped

mother scolded me for coming home late.

Roque Dalton
Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry, a bilingual anthology
University of Texas Press, USA (1996)