Gaudeamus
José Kozer
1983
[…] In my confusion
I didn’t know how to answer my detractors, those
who brand me
a poseur because I pronounce the c in the Castilian manner or I say fellow instead of guy (I love)
miscegenations
(peruvianisms) (mexicanisms)
of diction and vocabulary: I am neither the one (nor the other) neither straight nor ambiguous,
barbarously
flat-nosed
and big-nosed Assyrian (beards) oblique (eyes) and I come from the other side
of the river: Cuban
and vain (a Jew) and tabernacle (shofar and taled) violin of the Aragon or first trumpet
of the Sonora Matancera: what
more could one have wished that not to be a migratory ibis (scorn) or a sporadic
heart
made for the scandal of whom at the nuptial hour, at the hour
of the feast
crosses the threshold and inhales a scent of potions (scent) of tropical fruits and dill:
well
that’s how it is, he
and I, cistern and limbo (myriads) the hands that climb the scales contaminate
thought
with ring-worm and scum (waters) imperturbable: nationless, quiet
future
and mirth of round casseroles (my hands) are my race that
dig into crepitation
of matter.
Translated by .
Gustavo Pérez
Firmat
Credits
José Kozer, "Gaudeamus," from Life on the Hyphen. The Cuban-American Way, written and trans. Gustavo Pérez Firmat (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994), pp. 165, 168. Reproduced by permission of the authors.
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 10.
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