Translation from Spanish by Scott Ezell and the author
[editor’s note. In
his new gathering, The Whipping Boy (El niño de varas), Javier
Taboada fuses all his resources as a poet (investigative poetry, translations,
total transcriptions, news excerpts, etc.), in the great tradition of his
avant-garde & modernist predecessors, at once broadly international &
markedly American (both north and south). In the process he uses the
procedures of extreme collage to create a narrative, brilliant & foreboding
by turns, of the modern & ancient ways-of-the-scapegoat as an instrument of
political, social, & religious overreach & cruelty. His is a
world, in short, in which present & past come together to stand as images
of our own time & of the real dangers that we face & will continue to
face as we try to move forward & evolve. (J.R.)]
1/ Pharmakós event
preparation
Choose
10 bums.
Feed
them and keep them clean.
Place
them at 10 points in the city.
Force
them to beg for one year.
Collect
the money
put
it in a common treasury.
settlement
Gather
the 10 in case of these calamities:
a)
fire
b)
drought
c)
famine
d)
foreign attack
e)
plague
selection
and dress
Select
the ugliest. Name him pharmakós.
Dress
him in special clothes.
Give
him a backpack with cheese
bread barley and dried figs.
Wreathe his head with garlands
a headwrap or a conical cap.
Flog
his testicles 7 times
with fig tree branches.
Give
masks to the other 9 and undress them.
procession
The
pharmakós and the 9 will set off from
a public square
directly to a river
lake or stream.
no
wells no ponds
If
there is no water,
go to a road or train tracks.
The
9 will escort the pharmakós.
Spectators
may line both sides of the path
and cast stones curse spit
or beat the pharmakós.
If
they do (and as a sign of repentance)
they should scratch their faces
or rip out their hair.
The
9 may beat and intimidate the spectators
without consequence
while the procession lasts.
final
After
crossing the city:
1.
If there is a water flow
the 9 will beat the pharmakós
and
try to drown him
2.
If there is no water flow
the 9 will beat the pharmakós
tie him to the first tree they find
and try to burn him
If
the pharmakós survives
he may never return to
the city
If
the pharmakós survives and reaches
another town
he’ll be greatly honored
and considered a god.
Give
the common funds to his relatives.
Elect
a new member for the following year.
2/ Pit of Bones, cranium 17
the perimortem
fracture
entrance vector
or
exit wound
the shape a
bat
(rorschach’s
fifth card)
two
blows
half an inch apart
from bregma / or fontanelle each
and both
at
oblique angles:
the
chopper’s
chop
a beam repeated
high-energy
concentration the first maybe
lower than the second
(consider adrenaline)
lower than the second
(consider adrenaline)
an opening towards light
the thunder
and its four pebbles
and its four pebbles
the spirit dwells in the forehead
he knew it?
te cavero le budella
he maybe
said or thought (in his tongue)
looking for a glance
between the curled fire
maybe he mumbled the name
(and with it the cause of death)
maybe he rehearsed his moves
looking for a glance
between the curled fire
maybe he mumbled the name
(and with it the cause of death)
maybe he rehearsed his moves
maybe he rehearsed lying
down
his
gestures
and dreamed his tone of voice
his scream between each blow
maybe he considered an hour
and dreamed his tone of voice
his scream between each blow
maybe he considered an hour
the waning shadow
of the
second sun
the old sun bending on the mountains
the old sun bending on the mountains
maybe he planned a hoax
it’s certain he was right-handed
and pre-Neanderthal cranium 17
a young individual (male or female)
a young individual (male or female)
whose third molar attests
to recent passage
into adulthood
to recent passage
into adulthood
and they were face to face
430 thousand years ago
"the earliest clear case of deliberate, lethal interpersonal
aggression in the hominid fossil record”
.
maybe he
dragged the body to the pit
dragged the body to the pit
maybe he misjudged the weight
and had to ask for help
and had to ask for help
and maybe
maybe just that noise
maybe just that noise
its
slight delay
(what is the speed of a body
in free fall?)
made him feel something akin to joy
(what is the speed of a body
in free fall?)
made him feel something akin to joy
. . . . . . .
Some Notes on
the Preceding
Pharmakós event is a reconstruction of the “scapegoat” ritual (called pharmakós, with its double meaning:
illness and remedy) in ancient Greece. The old polis need of purge, lead us to a present in which a certain
ethnic, religious or political group (always marginal) is thought to be a
threat to the safety of the city.
Pit of Bones, cranium 17 is about the discovery of “the earliest case of lethal interpersonal
violence” in the hominid fossil records. I’m trying to recreate/ elucidate the
cause for that murder (its motivations, planning, corpse disposal), since there
are no evident “ritual” tracks in the cranium. Maybe the murderer just wanted
to get rid of someone annoying, or just different. And with that in mind,
remark the deliberate nature of cruelty, violence and hate in us.
Javier Taboada (Mexico City,
1982). MA in Classics. Poet
and translator. Among others, he has translated the full works of Alcaeus of
Mytilene (Poemas y Fragmentos, 2010),
Jerome Rothenberg’s Testigo &
Milagros (A Further Witness &
A Poem of Miracles, 2017), and
Katherine Mansfield’s The Garden Party
and other stories (upcoming, 2018). He is the author of Apothecary Poems (Poemas de Botica, 2014) and Nacencia (2017).
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