STAN LAUREL AND OLIVER HARDY NONCHALANTLY 
           BREAK 75 TO 76 CARS THEN AFFIRM IT WAS 
THE GRIEVOUS FAULT OF ONE SLIPPERY BANANA PEEL

It surprises me the Prohibition has almost universally provided 
     police provision to apprehend drunks on the hour every hour
because I want to know who invented the pride that enters
     chocolate when it remembers the wheated white cream
And I am preoccupied much with silence and astronomy
and the velocities of a multiplicity of standing horses
and the unmoving express trains prefiguring future deaths
     in lost trams across the clouds
but more than this was you coming into the world wearing a hat
     looking preoccupied
yeeeeeeessss
I regularly remember my little maternal grandmother 
when a rasping raven razed the tower
and your breakfast, Ollie, 144 nails and brass tacks 
     numbering 18
and it is that they fired you as chauffeur for ignoring all the cities
     on the Left
I think I’m going to have to cry
I think I’m going to have to cry this sunrise because a streetlight
     killed my bicycle

                        WE ARE GOING TO CRY

and my soul, scientifically preoccupied, knows, that 
     the elaborative process of steaming cocoa goes
     slowly with tears
because I fall crying always, 12 to 13 times daily
and now resulting that I have no need of snacking
it appears we have no need of snacking
of crying
of snacking
of crying and snacking
or of snacking and crying

                   WE WILL NEVER CRY OR SNACK AGAIN

and it is that I would like to die because
     I am very much in love
and I am filled with tenderness when I see a 
     policeman dressed as a white bird
I am very much in love and you are filled
     with tenderness completely when 
     you see a policeman dressed as a white
     bird
and 
     suffering the grave error of confusing
     the police station for a fruit plate when 
          you know I want to die
     tell me seriously if I want to die.

Author: Rafael Alberti
Translator: Manny Grimaldi