Related quotes: Lean men, broad shouldered men,...

For Pablo Neruda (elegy)

Lean men,
broad shouldered men,
I see them in the newspaper
with their perfectly styled hair
and their sagging inquisitive eyes
and the gold bars on the epaulets of their uniforms
that shine even there is no light—
they took you down, Neruda,
it didn’t matter to them
that you emerged from the
birthplace of shadows—
it didn’t matter to them
that you imitated the moon with words
for a woman, or that you screamed at the blood
on the factories
of the poor—
they simply wanted you dead—
you were weak,
you were old,
you saw it coming,
it was the same state police siren you heard
when they wanted you dead before—
I read how they withheld your medicine
when you were already dying,
how they confiscated your piece of land,
how they decorated the flowery bedrooms of militarymen
with your exotic collection of shells,
how they burned all your books that were related
to the vegetation you were about to become.
I re-read your Nobel speech tonight, Neruda—
you said you always put your trust in man,
you said you never lost hope,
you said you believed in the prophecy of Rimbaud,
how “in the dawn, armed with a burning patience, we
shall enter the splendid cities”—and now
the corporatemen, and the police informers,
and the military have covered the splendid city again
with their piss and spit and bullets.

It doesn’t matter to them.
All the fires are out of you
now, Neruda. There is no Phoenix—only
in your poems,
there is no splendid city—only
in words we are too rotten to believe.

4 a.m.
The lamp in the patio
burns all night
like a wing
on a dead body
that won’t stop flying.

poem by Doren Robbins
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes

Shall I Wait Till I Understand Pablo Neruda

Perchance I happened to meet
One editor of a newspaper big
In conversation I told him
About my interest in writing
In Odia and in English do I write
And conveyed my wish
To get them published.

Asked he me some questions
To gauge my knowledge depth
Ma'm! Have you read
Jayanta Mohapatra and Pablo Neruda?

I am a casual writer
Not a person who has read much
Limited is my knowledge in literature
Yes, Great Poems one or two I have read
From Jayanta Mohapatra and Pablo Neruda
To be frank
I could not fully comprehend

Then he recited with all right intonations
Some stanza's from Neruda's poems
And some of his own creations
I heard in amazement
How to the ears they sound so sweet

After he left
I questioned myself
Questioned my knowledge limited
How I dare to venture to this world
A world full of Jayanta Mohapatra, Ramakanta Ratha
Shakespeare and Wordsworth
Above all Pablo Neruda

Restless was I
Restless were my days
As a voice in me always tormented
'I do want to come out', the voice implored
I want to see the light
Oh Mother, Bring me out

Notwithstanding
What the great minds say of me
I brought her to the fore
And looked at her
Eyes, face and forehead
What the future
Written there
I know not, I know not
Am I not beautiful, my baby asked
Oh! You are beautiful, very beautiful
You are my sweet child
I would not compare you
With that of Pablo Neruda
Or never that with Jayanta Mohapatra.

I blew a kiss on her forehead
And in whisper i said
Oh my child
Always, always feel blessed.

poem by Bharati Nayak from Book-Words Are Such Perfect Traitors (2016)
Submitted by Bharati Nayak
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Open Stage Poetry Reading

After the one that sings, and after the one
that can make up poems of a kind right on the spot;
after a girl who didn't . . . walk very well,
took five minutes to get from her seat to the stage
then read one poem with hardly any words in it
and halted the whole way back in a staggering silence;
after the bald one's rhymes about this teeth;
a woman got up whose poems won't write down,
it's all in the way the voices in her come out.

We went to a medium once, and a woman locked
in a trance let a dead man come inside her and talk.
She held herself like . . . a woman being a man.
That's what it was at the open stage poetry reading,
and I left without talking, I hadn't come expecting it.
What could I have told her, I think it's a dead man?
It wasn't something I wanted to get that close to.
I could never do it myself, let a dead man come in-
or would it be, into me, a dead woman that would come?

poem by Eric Torgersen
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Castro Alves From Brazil

Castro Alves from Brazil, for whom did you sing?
Did you sing for the flower? For the water
whose beauty whispered words to the stones?
Did you sing to the eyes, to the torn profile
of the woman you once loved? For the spring?

Yes, but those petals were not dewed,
those black waters had no words,
those eyes were those who saw death,
still burning the tortures behind love,
Spring was splashed with blood.

I sang for the slaves, aboard the ships
as a dark branch of wrath.
They travelled, and bled from the ships
leaving us the weight of a stolen blood.

I sang in those days against the inferno,
against the sharp languages of greed,
against the gold drenched in the torment,
against the hand that rose the whip,
against the maestros of darkness.

Each rose had one dead man in their roots.
The light, the night, the sky were covered in tears,
the eyes separated from wounded hands
and it was my voice the only one to fill the silence.

I wanted that from the man we could be rescued,
I believed that the route passed through the man,
and from there destiny would be made.
I sang for those who had no voice.
My voice hit doors that until then were closed
so that, fighting, Freedom could be let in.

Castro Alves from Brazil, now that your pure book
is reborn to a free land,
let me, poet of our America,
to crown your head with the laurels of the people.
Your voice joined the eternal and loud voice of the men.
You sang well. You sang how it must be sung.

poem by Pablo Neruda
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Story of the Ashes and the Flame

No matter why, nor whence, nor when she came,
There was her place. No matter what men said,
No matter what she was; living or dead,
Faithful or not, he loved her all the same.
The story was as old as human shame,
But ever since that lonely night she fled,
With books to blind him, he had only read
The story of the ashes and the flame.

There she was always coming pretty soon
To fool him back, with penitent scared eyes
That had in them the laughter of the moon
For baffled lovers, and to make him think --
Before she gave him time enough to wink --
Sin's kisses were the keys to Paradise.

poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Tale of Three Cities

New York blasted London blasted
Singapore -
Ripped off each other's metaphoric balls,
Crumbling walls.

Priapic city monoliths -
Blue-sky scraping bastards -
Shout about their height (but really length) .

V8 arseholes didn't care -
Pumping shit into the air,
So long as they were always there to
Fart aloud a smoggy cloud,
Laughing at the weak asthmatic,
Humoured that it seems traumatic.

Watch the greedy cities oozing
Chair-bound fat committees, though they
Look a bunch of titties as they
Waffle on about the pound.

Ever thought to look around and see
That they were dead?

city city city city city city
city city city city city city
city city city city city city
city city city city city city
city city city city city city
city city city city city city

poem by Mark R Slaughter
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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