(no subject)
Bad Time for Poetry
Yes, I know: only the happy man
is liked. His voice
is good to hear. His face is handsome.
The crippled tree in the yard
shows that the soil is poor, yet
the passers-by abuse it for being crippled
and rightly so.
The green boats and the dancing sails on the Sound
go unseen. Of it all
I see only the torn nets of the fishermen.
Why do I only record
that a village woman aged forty walks with a stoop?
The girls’ breasts
are as warm as ever.
In my poetry a rhyme
would seem to me almost insolent.
Inside me contend
delight at the apple tree in blossom
and horror at the house-painter’s speeches.
But only the second
drives me to my desk.
Brecht
Injustice
Whoever discovers the who of me will find out the who of you,
and the why, and the where.
Early on, I discovered the range of injustice.
Hunger was not just hunger,
but rather a measure of man.
Cold and wind were also measures.
The proud man racked up a hundred hungers, then fell.
Pedro was buried at the hundredth frost.
The poor house endured a single wind.
And I learned that centimetre and gramme,
spoon and tongue, were measures of greed,
and that the harassed man soon fell
in a hole, and knew no more.
Nothing more. That was the setting,
the real gift, the reward, light, life.
That was it, suffering cold and hunger,
not having shoes, feeling fear
in front of the judge, in front of the other one,
the other being with his sword or his inkwell,
and so, digging and cutting,
sewing, making bread, planting wheat,
hammering every nail the wood needed,
burrowing in the earth as in intestines
to drag out, blind, the cracking coal,
and, even more, going up rivers and mountains,
riding horses, tending to ships
baking tiles, blowing glass, washing clothes
in such a way as to make that seem
a kingdom newly brought into being,
grapes shining in their clusters,
when man set his mind on being content,
and was not, and was not so. I was discovering
the laws of misery,
the throne of bloodstained gold,
the whore freedom,
the land with no overcoat,
the wounded, worn-out heart,
and the sound of the dead, tearless,
dry, like falling stones.
And then I left off being a child
because I understood then that for my people
life was not allowed
and the grave has forbidden them.
Neruda
Yes, I know: only the happy man
is liked. His voice
is good to hear. His face is handsome.
The crippled tree in the yard
shows that the soil is poor, yet
the passers-by abuse it for being crippled
and rightly so.
The green boats and the dancing sails on the Sound
go unseen. Of it all
I see only the torn nets of the fishermen.
Why do I only record
that a village woman aged forty walks with a stoop?
The girls’ breasts
are as warm as ever.
In my poetry a rhyme
would seem to me almost insolent.
Inside me contend
delight at the apple tree in blossom
and horror at the house-painter’s speeches.
But only the second
drives me to my desk.
Brecht
Injustice
Whoever discovers the who of me will find out the who of you,
and the why, and the where.
Early on, I discovered the range of injustice.
Hunger was not just hunger,
but rather a measure of man.
Cold and wind were also measures.
The proud man racked up a hundred hungers, then fell.
Pedro was buried at the hundredth frost.
The poor house endured a single wind.
And I learned that centimetre and gramme,
spoon and tongue, were measures of greed,
and that the harassed man soon fell
in a hole, and knew no more.
Nothing more. That was the setting,
the real gift, the reward, light, life.
That was it, suffering cold and hunger,
not having shoes, feeling fear
in front of the judge, in front of the other one,
the other being with his sword or his inkwell,
and so, digging and cutting,
sewing, making bread, planting wheat,
hammering every nail the wood needed,
burrowing in the earth as in intestines
to drag out, blind, the cracking coal,
and, even more, going up rivers and mountains,
riding horses, tending to ships
baking tiles, blowing glass, washing clothes
in such a way as to make that seem
a kingdom newly brought into being,
grapes shining in their clusters,
when man set his mind on being content,
and was not, and was not so. I was discovering
the laws of misery,
the throne of bloodstained gold,
the whore freedom,
the land with no overcoat,
the wounded, worn-out heart,
and the sound of the dead, tearless,
dry, like falling stones.
And then I left off being a child
because I understood then that for my people
life was not allowed
and the grave has forbidden them.
Neruda