:: Ismael Serrano ::

Dad, tell me once more that beautiful story
about gendarms¹ and fascists, and students with fringes of banged hair,
and sweet urban guerrilla in flared trousers
with Rolling Stones' songs and girls in mini-skirts.

Dad, tell me once more about all the fun you had
spoiling the old age of rusty dictators,
and how you sang Al Vent² and occupied La Sorbonne³
in that French May⁴ in the days of wine and roses.

Dad, tell me once more that beautiful story
about that crazy guerrilla fighter who was killed in Bolivia⁵,
and whose rifle no one dared to take again,
and how from that day on everything seems uglier.

Dad, tell me once more that after so many barricades
and so many clenched fists and so much spilled blood,
at the end of the game you couldn't do anything,
and below the cobblestones there wasn't any beach sand.

The defeat was hard: all that was dreamt
rotted in the corners and was covered by spider webs,
and nobody sings Al Vent anymore, no more madmen no more pariahs,
but it still has to rain, the plaza is still dirty.

That May is long gone, Saint Denis is long gone,
long gone is Jean Paul Sartre, long gone is that Paris,
sometimes i think it didn't make any difference after all though:
those who speak too much still get walloped.

And the same putrid dead are still there.
Those who now die in Bosnia died then in Vietnam.
Those who now die in Bosnia died then in Vietnam.
Those who now die in Bosnia died then in Vietnam.