Las Cosas Que Pasan

How nice it was to sit at a bar table
And watch Buenos Aires go by

A postman passes by on a bicycle
With a violet-colored telegram
A police patrol car
Looking for a thief for fifteen days

The milkman passes by with a blank face
Selling contaminated milk
A notary found himself locked up
Blowing kisses to a lawyer

A politician passes by with short steps
Longing for the congress with an absent air
A vampire passes by looking for a Mina
But they rape him around the corner

The executioner passes by with his stun gun
And as he passes, he looks at me with desire
Two nuts pass by eating snacks
An old lady crosses and they turn her into a pulp

Taxis and buses pass by
The executive secretaries
A tango-dancing retiree
Jorge Luis Borges, the girl, and her lover

The seven madmen, the smugglers
The good men, the masochists
The prostitutes and their pianists
The healers and their analysts

A girl with a thousand last names passes by
Jealously selling the dispossessed
A band of criminals passes by
On their beautiful police motorcycles

A Mercedes with a foreign license plate passes by
Carrying the lover of any man
A Mercedes with an official license plate passes by
Carrying the lover of a general

Second, the employees pass by in the dark
Elbowing the guy next to them
The guys next to them pass by in the dark
Elbowing the unemployed

The students run by
Because they are being chased by the guards
The guards run by
Because they are being chased by the students

A worker in espadrilles passes by
With twenty pesos, which is all his money
The Minister of Economy passes by
Telling him: My boy, there is no more surplus value!

The crazy ones pass by, the sane ones pass by
If you don't give them attention, they hit you with iron
A lady in a low-cut suit
A priest follows her and falls into sin

Men pass by with an air of death
Passing by crying their sad fate
I pass by myself and see myself sitting
Watching the people passing by my side

The President's guard passes by
Swords in the air, all insane
The history of our nation passes by
Century after century without a solution

Cats pass by, dogs pass by
The living pass by, the dead pass by
Running by, buzzing by
Silence passes by, screaming passes by

The country and the continent pass by
My life passes by stupidly
And I'm still here sitting in a bar
Watching Buenos Aires go by