Rafael Alberti

Angel of Avarice

Those loungers on street corners
in kingdoms and clans still unguessed by the map makers,
were speaking their minds:
 
“He's dead
and don't know it.
Sure, he'd hold up a bank if he could,
burgle the clouds and the stars, steal the gold from a comet
to buy something really high-class:
a piece of the sky, nothing less!
But he's dead as they die.”
 
Now earthquakes bear down on his head
and graveplots jar open.
Anomalous echoes,
indeterminate noises, a clatter of pickax and spade
swarm in his ears.
His eyes
are acetylene gases,
wet gold-leaf that shines from a balcony.
His heart,
an explosion of flint, jubilation, and dynamite charges.
 
And he dreams about mines.
 
Translated by Ben Belitt
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