Utensilios de batalla

Instrument of Battle: The Horses

Prostrate in their carpets of excrement, the wounded
horses, the old horses, tell tehmselves splendid
tales that never Hill return. Because the sandez
of instruments nevermore usable has no limits,
only laid aside, as now they know, and which cannot put
their faith in another life, and, nevertheless,
preserve the aroma of as many bodies as they possessed.
All therir faces emerge pale befote the mister mirror
In which they look, and they retouch theri eyes, befote death.

They are vain these wounded old asses of love
Yellow in the photographs - desperate-that pour out
Without rhyme or reason - their peals of laughter in the night,
Clinging to the shaky ladder where, at any moment,
Their banished faces can fall down into the joyanca (1).

Be they glass vedas, be they prefume, bright coloured cloths
For the skin, even glossy, of the horses without return;
Be they vines, toothpaste, discreet light…!

From La invasión de los bárbaros del Sur.

(1) Joyanca: place where refuse is throuwn. There is a famous
joyanca in Jerez de la Frontera - Juan de Loxa's note.