SERGEI STEPANSKY' S NARRATIVE Poem by León de Greiff

I gamble my life!
It wasn't worth much!
I have lost it
hopelessly!

Erik Fjordson



I gamble my life, I barter my life
I have lost it
anyway . . .


And I gamble or trade it for the most puerile mirage,
I give it in use, or I give it away . . .


I gamble it against one or against everybody,
I gamble it against zero or infinity,
I gamble it in a bedroom, in an agora, or in a gambling den,
in a crossroads, in a barricade, in a mutiny;
I definitely gamble it, from beginning to end,
breathwise and deepwise
on the periphery, in the middle,
and in the underdepth . . .


I gamble my life, I barter my life,
I have lost it
hopelessly.


And I gamble it, or trade it for the most puerile mirage,
I give it in use, or I give it away . . .
or I trade it for a smile and four kisses
all is the same to me:
whatever is eminent and base, trivial, perfect or bad . . .


All is the same to me:
there is room enough for everything in the minute horrid abyss
where my brain is knotted like a snake.


I trade my life for old lamps
or for the dice used to gamble the seamless tunic
- for the most anodyne, the most obvious, the most futile:
for the pendants the simian mulatto girl
hangs on her ears,
as do the Nubian terra-cotta,
the pale brunette, the yellowish oriental woman, or the hyperborean blonde:
I trade my life for a tin ring
or for Sigmund's sword,
or for the orb
Charlemagne held in his hands: to let the ball go rolling . . .


I trade my life for the idiot's or the saint's
candid halo;

I trade it for the collar
they painted around fat Capet's neck;
or for the rigid shower that fell upon the neck
of Charles I;

I trade it for a romance,

I trade it for a sonnet;
for eleven Turkish Angora cats
for a doggerel or a saeta,
for a song;
for an incomplete pack of cards;
for a large knife, for a pipe, for an ancient harp . . .

or for that doll that cries
like any poet.


I trade my life - on credit - for a factory of sunsets
(with red glows):

for a gorilla from Borneo;
for two Sumatran panthers;
for the pearls swarthy Cleopatra drank -
or for her little nose that must be in some Museum;
I trade my life for old lamps,
or for Jacob's ladder or for his pottage of lentils . . .


or for two minute holes
- on my temples - through which in grey rotten humours flow away
all the boredom, all the weariness, all the horror
I keep in my head!


I gamble my life, I barter my life.
I have lost it
anyway . . .


Netupiromba (1931)