Santa Librada College Poem by Jotamario Arbeláez

To parra, the sweeper
to teacher varela, of literary
precepts and contraceptives
to an ex-rector, armando romero lozano,
to his scholarly sharpness
to buenaventura enrique, ex-student
labyrinth
in your pool
I bathed naked
like an angel

I evaded the watchfulness
of the watchman

I jumped over the railing
I played billiards in the corner
of the tavern
I went to the movies in the Alameda

I strolled in the corridors
like the ambassador of abyssinia
in abyssinia

even though I was not
dumb
I never got beyond 3.1416
in geometry

with classmates
as different
as equilateral
triangles
we cheated in exams
isoscelely
or scalenely

in the national holidays
we paraded in white
uniforms
I did not carry the flag
because my hair was untidy
and I was in platoon number 12

eagle eye the librarian
watched over the books
afraid
of my razor blade on the naked pictures
cutting out the hernia
of aphrodite
or making fun of the mahabarata

in the philosophy class
I devoted myself to chess
and in a lucky
move
I made double checkmate
with a horse
to the king
and to parmenides

the vice-rector
inspected
the classrooms

the vice-rector
inflexibly took note
of irregularities

the vice-rector
was the rector
twice over

the chemistry teacher
drank black coffee
from a crucible
he read the news
in the periodicals
and afterwards talked to us about cadmium hydroxide
Cd (OH)2
about the drunk electron
about the ones who did not go to mass
on sunday
about the disappearance of an erlenmeyer flask
about the ultramicroscope
about the school report
and about some elements
yet to be discovered

the drawing teacher
explained the perspectives
of art
with his palette
he opened all doors
to the imagination
including the front
doors

in the toilets
next to other bourgeois
phrases
I read the first revolutionary
graffiti
"down with the state of siege"
"open lectures or death"
"we don't want to go to the barracks"
"the ones in room B are homosexuals"
and as if we didn't have enough
"more books fewer guns"

le professeur de français
parlait de brigitte bardot
et de la guerre dans sa patrie
(voici l'opportunité
de lui dire
merde)

the history teacher
with his map of america
figure
sincerely
explained to us
that there was no roman decadence
but rather a devaluation
of the sesterce

biology class
the teacher doesn't find the formula
in the lab or in the book
the teacher tests in a tube
the effervescence of life
the teacher waits for the result
of his experiments

the urbanity teacher
arrived punctually
neatly
did not smoke
or cough
or shouted
he absconded

the dentist pulled out our teeth
and let
fall on our groin
bits of cotton that he picked up
sinfully

the geography teacher
bechuanaland capital mafeking
inlet of utría
first oil producer
father lebret's report
up to page forty
he was killed by an absentminded taxi driver
in cali-colombia
we never saw him again

the music teacher (a lady)
gave the discordant
pedagogic note
she let us sleep in her concerts
showing us her thighs quaver to quaver
flat sostenuto
fa
mi
re
do

the teacher of religion
exhorted us
to repent
he told us proofs
of the existence of god
he listened to my objections
with crucifix despondency
and the bell
used to save
him and god

the teacher of the bolivarian
course
came wrapped in his cheap suit as in the cloak
of iris
he resigned from his post
when be became convinced that we mistrusted
his altruism

the accounting teacher
is a small seat
in my memory

the physician examined our
testicles
asked about our rotten
teeth
interviewed our hearts
with a stethoscope
and prescribed us laxatives
every three months

in the recess
we threw fruit at each other
seeds
pieces of brown sugar loaf
with murderous intention
we threw biology
books
chemistry notebooks
against the walls
to see if they exploded
we burnt the calendars
because we liked summer
we stained our hands with ink
to shake others' hands
we hit the scrotums
of the nerds
some seniors smoked
pot
hiding in the museum
the nurse
gave first aid
to the guys who got injured
playing soccer or crashed
against the barbed wire fence
of the church

the watchmen and the teachers
drank black coffee
while people stole bicycles

the statue of the hero
francisco de paula santander
in the main courtyard
used to be
a baseball base

during the end of term
ceremony
diplomas were given
to the seniors
there were speeches
mass
laughter
glasses of wine
pipes and fine cigarette smoke
prizes for merit
for attendance
for constancy
for faith
for hope
alvarado luis carlos (applause)
acevedo argemiro (applause)
aragón luis alfonso (applause)
arbeláez jota mario (suspended)

santa librada "college"
theistic not atheistic
twelve hundred students
lightning rod
seventy two classrooms
record collection
national prestige
fifty-five
competent teachers
secretary

santa librada
college
I owe you
nothing

Translation: 2006, Nicolás Suescún