Julio Cortázar, "The Canary Murder Case II"

translated from the Spanish by Steve Dolph (original title in English)


The Canary Murder Case II (from Último Round)

Es terrible, mi tía me invita a su cumpleaños, yo le compro un canario de regalo, llego y no hay nadie, mi almanaque es defectuoso, al volver el canario canta a chorros en el tranvía, los pasajeros entran en amok, le saco boleto al animal para que lo respeten, al bajarme le doy con la jaula en la cabeza a una señora que se vuelve toda dientes, llego a casa bañado en alpiste, mi mujer se ha hido con un escribano, caigo rígido en el zaguán y aplasto al canario, los vecinos claman por la ambulancia y se lo llevan en una tablita, me quedo toda la noche tirado en el zaguán comiéndome el alpiste y oyendo el teléfono en la sala, debe ser mi tía que llama y llama para que no vaya a olvidarme de su cumpleaños, elle siempre cuenta con mi regalo, pobre tía.



The Canary Murder Case II (from Último Round)

It’s terrible, my auntie invites me to her birthday, I get her a canary as a gift, I get there and there’s no one, my calendar is defective, on the way back the canary trills terribly in the tramcar, the passengers go nuts, I pay fare for the animal so they’ll respect it, getting off I bonk this broad on the head with the cage and she starts snarling, I get home showered in birdseed, my woman’s run off with a notary, I fall frozen stiff in the hall and crush the canary, the neighbors call for an ambulance and they take it away on this tiny board, I spend all night crumpled in the hall eating birdseed and hearing the telephone in the living room, probably my auntie calling and calling so I won’t forget her birthday, she always counts on my gift, poor auntie.


Julio Cortázar (1914-1984) was an Argentine intellectual, poet, storyteller, prankster, translator, novelist, essayist, you name it. He hated Perón and ended up exiling himself to Europe. He once said, “But it seems to me that with us style is also an ethical problem, a question of decency.” Último Round was published in 1969. To view an interview with Cortázar on Radiotelevisión Española in 1977 click here.


[Calque will be periodically featuring new translations of poetry or short prose. These translations will run on the front page for a week. The feature will then be given a permanent link in the translators page. To submit single pieces for online publication, email us.]


Rafal Wojaczek:

"Musisz się zawsze róży bać . . ."
translated from the Polish as "You Have to Fear the Rose..." by Piotr Gwiazda



Musisz się zawsze róży bać . . .

Musisz się zawsze róży bać, która ustami
jest rany, co się wewnątrz ciebie wciąż rozkrwawia.

Bo, choć szukam, językiem cię nie umiem, naga:
powiedz mi, że się boisz, uwierzę, że jesteś.

Że jesteś w sobie, ciału swojemu przytomna
--ciało jest okennicą, skąd wiatr płochym gestem

bezwiednej dłoni wypchnąć może szybę krwi
--już w sąsiednim powiecie opadnie zamiecią

ognia, co noworodkom powypala oczy,
a oślepłe z rozpaczy matki wyłysieją.

Powiedz więc, żebym chociaż włosami usłyszał.
Niech chociaż skóra prędkim szeptem dreszczu powie

wargom, czy jeszcze mieszkasz w tej grząskiej osobie;
nim jeszcze nie przeciekłem przez nią całkem, powiedz.



You Have to Fear the Rose . . .

You have to fear the rose; it is the mouth
of the wound that bleeds continually inside you.

Because my tongue, oh naked one, can’t find you.
Tell me you are afraid, I’ll believe you exist.

That you exist in yourself; conscious of your body.
The body is a shutter the gentlest breeze’s hand

can turn into a windowpane of blood.
A firestorm will seize the neighboring district,

burn out the eyes of every newborn baby,
while the blind, grieving mothers lose their hair.

Tell me then, so that only my hair can hear you,
so that my skin can tell the lips, with a quick shudder

of whisper, whether you still live in this muddy person;
before I’ve flowed through it entirely, tell me.



Rafał Wojaczek (1945-1971), Polish poet, especially admired for his penetrating lyricism and provocative diction. His poems reveal fascination with sex and death, language and silence, reality and myth. Throughout his short career he struggled with alcoholism and depression. He is the subject of Wojaczek (Life Hurts), a film directed by Lech Majewski (1999).

Piotr Gwiazda teaches in the Department of English at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He is the author of Gagarin Street (Washington Writers' Publishing House, 2005).


[Calque will be periodically featuring new translations of poetry or short prose. These translations will run on the front page for a week. The feature will then be given a permanent link in the translators page. To submit single pieces for online publication, email us.]

Ludwig Fulda: "Drei Professoren"

translated from the German as "Three Professors" by Marcus Bales


Drei Professoren

Der erste hat ein Haar gespalten
Un einen Vortrag daruber gehalten.
Der zweit fugt es neu zusammen
Und muss die Ansicht des ersten verdammen.
Im buche des dritten kann man lesen,
Es sei nicht das richtige Haar gewesen.


Three Professors

The first professor split a hair
And lectured as it withered there.
The second fixed the hair and cursed
The senseless theories of the first.
The third one´s book proved, I recall,
They had the wrong hair after all.



Ludwig Fulda was a popular playwright during the Empire and the Weimar Republic. He wrote poems and plays, and was active as a translator. He fought against government censorship, particularly as one of the joint founders of the Goethe federation in Berlin, and organized the two the first German performances of Henrik Ibsen's "The Ghosts," in Augsburg, officially not public performances, in order to get around the censorship. "The Talisman" ranks among his most important pieces for the stage. He worked as an important translator, too, particularly of the works of Molière. His Poems was published in 1890.

On his 70th birthday, in the summer 1932, he was awarded the Goethe medal for science and art by President Paul von Hindenburg. On May 5, 1933 it was rescinded on grounds that Fulda was a Jew. Fulda died at the age of 76 in 1939 in Berlin, waiting for a residence permit to the US, where his son Karl Hermann had emigrated in 1936.


Marcus Bales: Not much is known about Marcus Bales except he hosts a weekly literary event at Gallery 324 in the Galleria in downtown Cleveland every Saturday at noon. His poems have not appeared in Poetry Magazine or The New Yorker.

[Calque will be periodically featuring new translations of poetry or short prose. These translations will run for a week. The feature will then be given a permanent link in the translators page. To submit single pieces for online publication, email us.]