Pablo Neruda 1904 - 1973
   
The Dictators

An odor has remained among the sugarcane:
a mixture of blood and body, a penetrating
petal that brings nausea.
Between the coconut palms the graves are full
of ruined bones, of speechless death-rattles.
The delicate dictator is talking
with top hats, gold braid, and collars.
The tiny palace gleams like a watch
and the rapid laughs with gloves on
cross the corridors at times
and join the dead voices
and the blue mouths freshly buried.
The weeping cannot be seen, like a plant
whose seeds fall endlessly on the earth,
whose large blind leaves grow even without light.
Hatred has grown scale on scale,
blow on blow, in the ghastly water of the swamp,
with a snout full of ooze and silence
Copyright 2007 Red Pulp Underground

Pablo Neruda 1904 - 1973

This Chilean poet, and diplomat, was awarded
the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. His original
name was Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto, but he
used the pen name Pablo Neruda for over 20
years before adopting it legally in 1946. Neruda
is the most widely read of the Spanish American
poets. From the 1940s on, his works reflected the
political struggle of the left and the
socio-historical developments in South America.
He also wrote love poems. Neruda's Twenty Love
Poems and a Song of Despair (1924) have sold
over a million copies since it first appeared.
Red Pulp Underground
Your Laughter

Take bread away from me, if you wish,
laughter.

Do not take away the rose,
the lance flower that you pluck,
the water that suddenly
bursts forth in joy,
the sudden wave
of silver born in you.

My struggle is harsh and I come back
with eyes tired
at times from having seen
the unchanging earth,
but when your laughter enters
it rises to the sky seeking me
and it opens for me all
the doors of life.

My love, in the darkest
hour your laughter
opens, and if suddenly
you see my blood staining
the stones of the street,
laugh, because your laughter
will be for my hands
like a fresh sword.

Next to the sea in the autumn,
your laughter must raise
its foamy cascade,
and in the spring, love,
I want your laughter like
the flower I was waiting for,
the blue flower, the rose
of my echoing country.

Laugh at the night,
at the day, at the moon,
laugh at the twisted
streets of the island,
laugh at this clumsy
boy who loves you,
but when I open
my eyes and close them,
when my steps go,
when my steps return,
deny me bread, air,
light, spring,
but never your laughter
for I would die.