Amid the Rubble

by Xe M. Sánchez

(Asturian)

quiciabes nun pescancies 

qu’un poema  

ye una triba de sabotax 

escontra les tiraníes invisibles 

de les nueses vides cotidianes. 

*** 

los poemes  

son pintaes disidentes 

nes muries de fumu  

allevantaes por dellos 

que nagüen por dixebramos. 

***  

poro cada vegada  

qu’intento escribir un poema 

decátome de qu’entá toi vivu, 

agullando a la lluna cada nueche, 

pente l’escombriu de la mio mocedá. 

(English)

maybe you do not understand 

that a poem 

is one type of sabotage 

against the invisible tyrannies 

of our daily lives.  

*** 

poems 

are a dissenting graffiti 

on the smoke walls 

erected by some people 

who want to separate us. 

***  

for this reason, each time 

I try to write a poem,  

I realize that I am still alive, 

howling at the moon each night, 

amid the rubble of my youth. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Xe M. Sánchez was born in 1970 in Grau (Asturies, Spain). He received his Ph.D in History from the University of Oviedo in 2016. He is an anthropologist, studied tourism, and also has three masters. He as published in the Asturian language Escorzobeyos (2002), Les fueyes tresmanaes d’Enol Xivares (2003), Toponimia de la parroquia de Sobrefoz. Ponga (2006), Llué, esi mundu paralelu  (2007), Les Erbíes del Diañu (E-book: 2013, Paperback: 2015), Cróniques de la Gandaya (E-book, 2013), and El Cuadernu Prietu (2015). His work has been published in Asturies, the United States, Portugal, France, Sweden, Scotland, Australia, South Africa, India, Italy, England, Canada, Reunion Island, China, Belgium, Ireland and the Netherlands. 

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