Me Quieren [English translation]

I

Assassins want to bury me,

meals with salt and mirrors.

The old men have wanted to bury me

and another spirited one, new pine.

They want to bury me where I intuit

--they always wanted to hide me far away--

object of the funeral entourages,

yesterday and today, seems my destiny.

Keep your compliments and efforts,

signs of ingenuity or decadence;

I've spent a thousand years with gravediggers

and I know their decoys and ideas.

Whoever must bury me among the flowers

needs only a little patience.

II

Homages want to bury me,

as do certain fussy young ladies.

Why might it be that someone must

place a veil on me, send me on a trip?

Don't they realize that such a passage

goes best for the broken hope,

the throbbing sound that wears down,

the harlequin consumer of iron?

Ringworms, lizards, eyesores,

bored amphibians and shrinks,

the blood still runs in my instrument,

just go, birds of ill omen.

Fierce world, I swear:

burying me will tan your hide.

• Artist:Silvio Rodríguez