Martin Adan

Love is anywhere, but nowhere is it any different.

***

The world is not exactly crazy, just overly decent. There is no way to make it talk when it is drunk. And when it isn't, it abhors drunkenness or loves its fellows.

But I honestly don't know what the world is or what mankind is.

I only know that I must be fair and honorable and love my fellow man.

And I love the thousands of men within me that are born and die each instant and do not live at all.

Behold my fellow men.

Justice is a few ugly statues in city squares.

***

I am not wholly convinced of my own humanity; I do not wish to be like the others. I do not want to be happy with permission of the police.

Now there is a little sun in the streets.

I don't know who has taken it away, what evil man, leaving stains on the ground like of a slaughtered animal.

***

I want to be happy in a small way. With sweetness, with hope, with dissatisfactions, with limitations, with time, with perfection.

Now I can board a transatlantic liner. And during the crossing fish adventures as if they were fish.

But where would I go?

The world is insufficient for me.

It is too large, and I cannot shred it into little satisfactions as I would like.

Death is only a thought, nothing else, nothing else.

And I want it to be a long delight with its own end, its own quality.

***

The panaroma changes at every corner like a movie.

The final kiss already echoes through the shadows of a room full of burning cigarettes. But this is not the final scene. This is why the kiss echoes.

Nothing is enough for me, not even death; I want proportion, perfection, satisfaction, delight.

- Martin Adan, from The Cardboard House (translated from the Spanish by Katherine Silver)