La Balada del Pocho Martinez [English translation]

This is the story of José Fernández;

in fact, I don't know if he was Fernández or Pérez,

if he was Martínez, if he was Gómez or Sánchez

or if they called him Pepe or called him Pocho.

Anyway that's not important

let's suppose that his name was Gómez.

José Fernández had a dream once,

Pocho Martinez was a man who dreamed.

Pepe Gómez was always dreaming things:

once he dreamed his name was Fernández,

he also dreamed other times that

his last name was Sánchez and they called him Pocho.

But this time he dreamed something very different,

José dreamed that he himself was dreaming,

and in that dream Pocho Gómez was dreaming

that he was dreaming that he was dreaming.

And in that sixth dream was included

another dream in which Pepe Martínez,

a dream in which Pocho Pérez was dreaming

that he was dreaming that he was having a dream.

Needless to say that the dream Sánchez had

consisted in dreaming that he was dreaming

that he was dreaming that he was dreaming

that dreamed that dreamed that he was dreaming.

And all like that, always in succession

each dream opened the door of the next;

like a mirror reflecting another mirror,

Pepe dreamed that he himself was dreaming.

Poor José, when he tried to wake up

he had many dreams on top of him;

when he woke up from the last dream

he was still dreaming in the previous ones.

When he woke from the second to last dream,

he still had left all the preceding dreams,

and little by little years went by,

José Sánchez was waking up from his dreams.

Pepe Fernández was waking up little by little

Pocho was waking up slowly,

and when he could escape from the first dream,

Martínez was already a very very old man.

That's why Pepe went to sleep again;

Don Pérez entered into a very deep sleep

and he wrapped himself in eternal blankets:

Martínez fell on the definitive dream.

Some people say that when he died,

the poor José was dreaming that he was alive.

Others say that, when he kicked the bucket,

the very naive dreamed that he was on his knees.