Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Little Viennese Waltz



Little Viennese Waltz


In Vienna are ten young ladies,
a shoulder for death to cry on,
and a forest of mounted doves.
There’s a fragment of tomorrow
in the museum of frost.
There’s a parlor with a thousand windows.
Ay, ay, ay, ay!
Take this waltz with its silent mouth.

This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz
of itself, of brandy and death
that dips its tail in the sea.

I want you, I want you, I want you
with the armchair and the dead book,
through the melancholy hallway,
in the dark attic of the iris,
in our bed of the moon,
in the dance the turtle dreams.
Ay, ay, ay, ay!
Take this waltz with its shattered waist.

In Vienna there are four mirrors
where your voice and the echoes play.
There’s a death for piano
that paints the boys blue.
There are beggars on tiled rooftops.
There are fresh garlands of tears.
Ay, ay, ay, ay!
Take this waltz that dies in my arms.

Because I want you, I want you, my love,
in the attic where the children play,
dreaming the aged lights of Hungary
through the buzz of a tepid afternoon,
watching sheep and iris of snow
through the dark silence of your brow.
Ay, ay, ay, ay!
Take this waltz of “I want you always”.

In Vienna I’ll dance with you
in a disguise that holds
the river’s headwaters.
See my hyacinth shores!
My mouth left behind between your legs,
my soul in photographs and white lilies,
and in the dark waves of your stride
I want, my love, my love, to leave behind
violin and sepulcher, the ribbons of the waltz.


Federico García Lorca, “Pequeño vals Vienés”
Translation by Jack Hayes
© 2017


Image links to its source on Wiki Commons:
Liebespaar (Selbstdarstellung mit Wally) Lovers (Self-portrait with Wally):  Egon Schiele - gouache and pencil on paper; 1914 or 1915.
Public domain



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