Sirens and cows, a bestiary that would leave an organ grinder penniless cranking out melodies beside a stairwell in New York City. Since he lacks an animal ballet to make the sounds seeable, nobody ever stops to listen. A class dedicated to poetry alone? Craziness. So the swirling Colorado waters cackled at the tentativeness of one finally forced to refer to oneself; tantalized by the red and studious apple, he ate it and then invited her out for a couple of drinks, bracing himself to be sundered and then subsequently reassembled once he found the right rocks to run into.

Decoding? I've heard commented mental masturbation. Such self-assured assertions are always astounding – no droplet of shame that the vulgarity may also be theirs. In general, I say sidereal particularity masks bad eyes, in which case privacy's not so necessary after all.

Yes, they found the Higgs boson, but when placed beside Fierro's bosón de Higgs it's the long sought de particle that is seemingly revealed – that expression of ownership rendered invisible in English by word order. As long as we believe de exists we aren't quite rid of God, Nietzsche might say; or of Delaware, Woody Allen might say. Word overpopulation has caused an excess of wisdom and a shortage of souls.

There are many who inhabit our grammatical pantheon built from a faith in language and a distrust of words, lending structures to the void. Lorenzo the Magnificent is now amongst them, a tent spike holding down the tarp. We thank him for his inscriptions upon the materials within this world of whirling nonsense.

Parece que Manning busca sirenas en el río Colorado. Pero sólo se ha topado, hace tres días, con una vaca. Ni estudiosa (como la de María Elena) ni colorada, pasa la tarde muge que te muge a la espera de alguna amiga que la entienda y que se atreva a invitarla a tomar una copa en el Anrejó con Bernabé Michelena o en el Berna con Juan Carlos Onetti.

Y parece que Fierro no encuentra las palabras que le permitan comunicarse con Larrubia y Marcuccio para saber hacia dónde se dirige el sol de Austin cuando nos abandona por el Este y no por el Oeste.

Comentan que nadie entiende. Y que los pocos que entienden, no atienden. ¿Siempre habrá sido así?

Dejemos para el final de esta breve entrada una noticia más que conmovedora: todo parece indicar que ha sido hallado el bosón de Higgs, la partícula de Dios, "una casi nada que explica casi todo". Palabras más, palabras menos, esto concluimos después de leer varios periódicos europeos.

Ahora o nunca más, me digo y le digo a Sean.

Porque hace días nos llegó desde Playa Albina la noticia que nunca hubiésemos querido recibir: el entrañable Lorenzo García Vega nos abandonó para irse a reunir, dicen que en una esquina de Buenos Aires, con el Conde y con Macedonio, con Héctor Libertella y con Alejandro Rossi. Así nos lo acaba de confirmar Pigafetta después de escudriñar el vasto territorio argentino desde su observatorio de las Nubes de Magallanes.

Sirva, pues, este regreso a la escritura de Foes Amis como una nota de agradecimiento a Lorenzo el Magnífico, quien tanto apoyó al Fierro y al Manning, como él solía nombrarlos, en la bloguera aventura de estos perdedores convictos y confesos.

If I may be so bold I will now break ranks for a minute to translate entries only spoken and heard since some January frost, Grisha explained, has kept the rabbit's head frozen in mid-air. But what of me taking two turns? Unheard of elocuted revolution! If I can't win my fortune this way, then all must be hopeless and I a true apprentice to fraudulence. Nevertheless, the best example possible.

The masses imagine seeing retirees turning to silhouettes, lumbering and sulking away. They imagine a physique where Doppler's peak is already reached, and now, gently descending the downside, the finished begin to disappear. But for this those people need a stationary imagination fixed there in the street. They need that, or for their two feet to skulk backwards, into the sun, chin up towards the icosahedral cloud hanging just about as high. Even so, the more space that's made, breaking apart air pockets of car horns and Pizza Hut to place inside pieces of insolence and fist-pounding, the longer their shadows will grow, always closing the distance. Depending on the time of day, one or the other is constantly forced closer, a gusty game of pong, Newton's cradle rocking. It's unavoidable. It's the inheritance. Or the silence. Or the coming comeuppance when, while walking away, they will take their tumble and their senescent silhouette hand can't grasp their cane piercing the crosswalk to pull themselves up.

Yes, yes, maestro, back to work. I've already read Les Chants and À la recherche. I'll have Suite for Monday. –What do we do now? –Wait. –Yes, but while waiting? –What about hanging ourselves? No such luck. That rope, Grisha yarned, is also a sphere, so I submit that you will now have to translate me instead.

Some October frost froze the sphere in mid-air; professor and student set down their paddles to stretch their legs. Ping-pong frozen like in a photo taken atop the Turkish Mount Ida, looking down at a fallen oriental fortress in decadence under the Austin sun. In suspension with Cervantes, lazy, waiting for momentum to overthrow.

From deep within a shadowy swamp of dissertation alligators, where details roll about drowning ideas forced down well below sea level and intelligibility, the word late inside translation glowed more neon each night. And so from behind the great walls the gods lured Hector to his destruction. My doom has come upon me; let me not then die ingloriously and without a struggle, but let me first do some great thing that shall be told among men hereafter. And the gates opened.

What terror to grow old before you're done. Like the string of sounds lashed and bound round the ear. The ones that did not make it. The ones just missing because of a gust of wind. The ones left teetering at moments upon the precipice, the rim of the word processor set to purée, the purée that forms the cast setting the mold to produce the statue.

Adieu tristesse, Bonjour tristesse. Let's walk with (r)apt hope gained from days spent with Paul Éluard and Enrique Fierro. Two tomes. With one step let's toss our weekly workings overboard, bringing luck back to our side, making a man of whales become that man of Wales, correcting again and again from some sad height, never going gentle into that good night...
yelling I think that's a record just as we both collapse.

Héctor (López Vignoli) propuso este título para la foto que publica Manning: "Dos orientales de la Decadencia bajo el sol de Austin". A Fierro no le pareció mal y así empezó a nombrarla, aunque algunos de sus amigos le dijeron que tendría que consultar a Ida. Pero a él, poltrón y perezoso como es, todavía no le ha llegado el momento de hacerlo.

Primero, porque ha tenido que ocuparse de muchas cosas ajenas a este arrítmico ping-pong: los "cuidados pequeños", que decía Darío, jamás perdonan a los que se olvidan de ellos.

Y segundo, porque ha pasado días y días con los dos tomos de La Pléiade de Paul Éluard, que supo ser uno de los poetas franceses que lo acompañaron en sus años liceales y de Preparatorios. Y del que llegó a traducir algunos poemas para una revista impresa a mimeógrafo que "dirigiera" con un grupo de alumnos de Ildefonso Pereda Valdés, su primer profesor de Literatura (Tercer Año B, 1956, Liceo Juan Zorrilla de San Martín, Montevideo). ¿Habrá leído ahora en Ëluard lo que leyera entonces, cuando sus angustias primeras habían sido hechas a un lado por un entusiasmo sin límites y la esperanza se había adueñado de su corazón? Lo dudo. Conociéndolo como lo conozco, lo dudo.

Para concluir una noticia que no le importa a nadie: después de muchos intentos fallidos, Fierro al fin escribió en un ra(p)to un texto que debía enviar y envió a Montevideo para su aprobación. Aunque todavía no acaba de convencerse del mismo y es probable que lo corrija una y otra vez hasta que lo abandone y decida no publicarlo jamás.

First, a promising photo never seen:

And now I will transcribe several words I wrote twenty-one years from now. Parasites the lot of them, their intention is to be not as tall as those of the honoree:  

THE TREES HE KEPT MOOING

For Enrique Fierro, when radiating his ninety years

1)

An orange

An orange Earth

An orange Earth blue

An orange for Enrique

             ... forgetting his dark premonitions he has stayed here beside us.

2)

Seen on good days

Seen on very good days

About the town of Austin

Around the shores of its Sidewalks

For he who has lasted

among poets: Enrique

             ... wandering his distinct way, newspaper under arm.

3)

Your cow moos trees

that you, Enrique, mooed first

that you, Enrique, still moo

             ...measuring their verses in rings and in years.

4)

And with so many words

Enrique Fierro, you should start

             ... writing those memoires we so often request.