The Romantic Dogs, by Roberto Bolaño

The Romantic Dogs

At the time I was twenty years old

And I was crazy.

I had lost a country

But gained a dream.

And if I had that dream

The rest did not matter.

Not working, not praying

Not studying into the morning

Beside the romantic dogs.

And my dream lived in the gap of my spirit.

A wooden room,

In darkness,

In one of the tropical lungs.

And sometimes I turned within myself

And visited the dream: a statue eternised

Into liquid thoughts,

A white worm twisting

In love.

A runaway love.

A dream within a dream.

And the nightmare would tell me: you will grow.

You will leave behind the images of pain and the maze

And you will forget.

But at the time growing would have been a crime.

Here I am, I said, with the romantic dogs

And here I intend to stay.

Translated into English by Jorge Salavert, 2013.

This is the poem I chose to read at the annual Dead Poets' Dinner held in Canberra. It was well received by those attending. Even if the younger Bolaño, the one who founded the Infrarrealists Group in Mexico City, would have very likely booed at every single poem that was read at the Dinner.