To have gathered from the air a live tradition or from a fine old eye the unconquered flame This is not vanity. Here error is all in the not done, all in the diffidence that faltered . . .
Neruda, 1949 speech at the Continental Peace Congress in Mexico City: "When Fadeyev said that if hyenas could handle the pen or the typewriter they would write like the poet T.S. Eliot or the novelist Jean-Paul Sartre, I think he was insulting the animal kingdom..."
I am not walking on sand, but I feel I am walking on sand, the poem is accompanying me on the sand, We remember not man but his metaphor. Fungus lacing the rock, on the ribs, mould. Moss feathering the mute roar of the staved-in throat, the prose of somebody somebody said, grounded, like un coche ensable, probably in Ulysses, Stephen walking over the brittle currag shells, what loops of the imagination and your voice growing hoarser that the chafed Pacific, your voice falling soundless as snow on the petrified Andes, the snow, a million small feathers from the tilting rudderless condors, emissary in a black suit who walks among eagles, hand whose five knuckled peninsulas bar the breaking ocean . . . all of us are netted to a rock in an old word, in a new word, brotherhood, word which arrests the crests of the longrunning ocean in a flash to snow-blowing sierras, the round fish mouths of the children, the word, cantan.
Ishmael Reed, "Poem Delivered Before Assembly Of Colored People Held At Glide Memorial Church, Oct. 4, 1973 And Called To Protest Recent Events In The Sovereign Republic of Chile:"
In the winter of 1966 Pablo Neruda Lifted 195 lbs of ragged scrawls That wanted to be a poet and put Me in the picture where we stood Laughing like school chums
No little man ever lifted me like that
Pablo Neruda was a big man It is impossible for me to believe that Cancer could waste him He was filled with barrel-chested poetry From stocky head to feet and Had no need for mortal organs The cancer wasn't inside of Pablo Neruda Cancer won't go near poetry The cancer was inside ITT The Cancer God with the Nose of President Waterbugger The tight-Baptist lips of John Foster Dulles And the fleshy Q Ball head of Melvin Laird Dick Tracy's last victim
The Cancer God with the body Of the rat-sucking Indian Plague Flea All creepy transparent and hunched up Stalks the South American copper Country with its pet anaconda It breathes and hollars like All the Japanese sci fi monsters Rolled into one: Hogzilla Its excrescency supply the Portuguese With napalm
The Cancer God is a bully who mooches up Rational gentle and humanistic men But when it picked a fight with the poet It got all the cobalt-blue words it could use And reels about holding in its insides
Do something about my wounded mother Says President Waterbugger Shambling across the San Clemente beach Whose sand is skulls grinded Do something about my wounded mother Says the slobbering tacky thing Pausing long enough from his hobby Ripping-off the eggs of the world Their albumen ozzing down his American Flag lapel, his bareassed elephant Gyrating its dung-wings Give her all of South America if she wants it And if she makes a mess Get somebody to clean it up Somebody dumb
A colonel who holds his inaugural address Upside down and sports Mix matched socks
And if they can't stomach their New leaders' uglysucker French Angel faces then cover them up with A uniform or hid its Most Disgusting In a tank Cover it up like they want to cover Me up those pitiful eyes gazing from The palm tree freeway of the Dead War
President Waterbugger your crimes Will not leave office No imperial plastic surgeon can Remove them from your face They enter the bedroom of your Hacienda at night and rob you Of your sleep They call out your name
President Waterbugger Next to you Hitler resembles A kindergarten aide Who only wanted to raise some geese And cried when listening to Dietrich Ficher-Dieskau Everything you put your paws on Becomes all crummy and yukky In New Jersey the mob cries for Jumboburgers In Florida the old people are stealing Vitamin E
President Waterbugger only your crimes Want to be near you now Your daughters have moved out of town Your wife refuses to hold your hand On the elevator Inexplicably, Lincoln's picture Just fell from the wall Next time you kill a poet You'd better read his poems first Or they will rise up and surround you Like 1945 fire cannons a few miles from Berlin And History will find no trace of Your ashes in the bunker of your hell
Nathaniel Tarn, “At Gloucester, Mass., After Foreign Travel; For P.N.”
At Gloucester, Mass., after foreign travel, Labor Day mists the lovely breath of one more summer dying out the sea swelled contrapuntally as we swam and a smell of old furniture came up from the water into the dusting sunlight
As if all the woods that had gone down into the sea surfaced to farewell summer the boats crossed and crisscrossed over the drowned and the great feast of work crimson with lobster shells, stubbed toes and girls’ bandannas set round the pink of nipples in loose red shirts / O flag of love over America the damned!
We went down to the sea all the poets together and gave ourselves up to the waters in various positions of loss: I realized that I have never dived into water and within five minutes after giving myself completely to the wave I did about ten things never done in my life before such as: throwing my body like a javelin into the waves spreading myself like a banner on the swell somersaulting in the deep holding the sand’s things in my hands and all the fear was gone
We had spent the whole day looking for loons and grasses old Dogtown had risen for us from the ground and Olsen’s floor and windowboards full of dates had defied the policy on National Monuments – white building slats among the red stripes the stars of my Union Jack
exclusive to the night:
and she seen rightly had no need to be touched she seen rightly became a thousand faces one after another seen rightly there was no face the world could take on which was not her face and a golden aura red with cheap scents raved round her hair. Oh the hands that went out the bodies that moved out towards her on our belief Labor-Day, Gloucester, Mass., oh the copulations that took place towards her on the arrow of sight drawing no flesh at all out of its sheathing!
The America he dreamed never existed, cause of lost causes – but dreamed it with the throat of need the passionate thirst of a tramp sweat on his whiskers. And she in whose hands lies my life brings her creased eyes to town
brings her body like a banner she said she could not use advertising ships, and land, and whispers among hutments, and “today,” she said, “today,” “tears of blood coming out of the ground at what has become of this Republic which was to be the laughter of the world!”
If it be true / that this polity has killed Allende for instance / has killed Neruda if it be true that Spain is being repeated – billed to this polity – then the devices of the world of ice the hanging in the maws of the old windmill the great Giver devised shall be but as childsplay to what awaits our shabby emperor in his greasy feathers encore une fois l’refrain
Swallow on the air mackerel in the sky mackerel in the water swallows on the sea stitching silver to silver in the heart’s water: I am so glad to be home!
I have laid up in a world of words for the immortal gods of this Republic that all the 50 stars might sing in unison together! Our moods of love as they will seize and shake us all our lives wood rising from the sea, trees soaring on first shores –
Ezra Pound, "LXXXI," The Cantos:
ReplyDeleteTo have gathered from the air a live tradition
or from a fine old eye the unconquered flame
This is not vanity.
Here error is all in the not done,
all in the diffidence that faltered . . .
Neruda, 1949 speech at the Continental Peace Congress in Mexico City: "When Fadeyev said that if hyenas could handle the pen or the typewriter they would write like the poet T.S. Eliot or the novelist Jean-Paul Sartre, I think he was insulting the animal kingdom..."
ReplyDeleteDerek Walcott, "For Pablo Neruda:"
ReplyDeleteI am not walking on sand,
but I feel I am walking on sand,
the poem is accompanying me on the sand,
We remember not man but his metaphor.
Fungus lacing the rock,
on the ribs, mould. Moss
feathering the mute roar
of the staved-in throat,
the prose of somebody somebody
said, grounded, like un coche ensable,
probably in Ulysses, Stephen walking
over the brittle currag shells,
what loops of the imagination
and your voice growing hoarser
that the chafed Pacific, your voice
falling soundless as snow on
the petrified Andes, the snow,
a million small feathers from
the tilting rudderless condors,
emissary in a black suit who
walks among eagles, hand whose
five knuckled peninsulas
bar the breaking ocean . . .
all of us are netted to a rock
in an old word, in a new word,
brotherhood, word which arrests
the crests of the longrunning ocean
in a flash to snow-blowing sierras,
the round fish mouths of the children,
the word, cantan.
Miguel Angel Asturias, "Neruda Alive:"
ReplyDeleteforever, giving the world
his seagulls over the ocean-foam.
Ishmael Reed, "Poem Delivered Before Assembly Of Colored People Held At Glide Memorial Church, Oct. 4, 1973 And Called To Protest Recent Events In The Sovereign Republic of Chile:"
ReplyDeleteIn the winter of 1966 Pablo Neruda
Lifted 195 lbs of ragged scrawls
That wanted to be a poet and put
Me in the picture where we stood
Laughing like school chums
No little man ever lifted me like that
Pablo Neruda was a big man
It is impossible for me to believe that
Cancer could waste him
He was filled with barrel-chested poetry
From stocky head to feet and
Had no need for mortal organs
The cancer wasn't inside of Pablo Neruda
Cancer won't go near poetry
The cancer was inside ITT
The Cancer God with the
Nose of President Waterbugger
The tight-Baptist lips of John Foster Dulles
And the fleshy Q Ball head of
Melvin Laird
Dick Tracy's last victim
The Cancer God with the body
Of the rat-sucking Indian Plague Flea
All creepy transparent and hunched up
Stalks the South American copper
Country with its pet anaconda
It breathes and hollars like
All the Japanese sci fi monsters
Rolled into one: Hogzilla
Its excrescency supply the Portuguese
With napalm
The Cancer God is a bully who mooches up
Rational gentle and humanistic men
But when it picked a fight with the poet
It got all the cobalt-blue words it could use
And reels about holding in its insides
Do something about my wounded mother
Says President Waterbugger
Shambling across the San Clemente beach
Whose sand is skulls grinded
Do something about my wounded mother
Says the slobbering tacky thing
Pausing long enough from his hobby
Ripping-off the eggs of the world
Their albumen ozzing down his American
Flag lapel, his bareassed elephant
Gyrating its dung-wings
Give her all of South America if she wants it
And if she makes a mess
Get somebody to clean it up
Somebody dumb
A colonel who holds his inaugural address
Upside down and sports
Mix matched socks
And if they can't stomach their
New leaders' uglysucker French
Angel faces then cover them up with
A uniform or hid its Most Disgusting
In a tank
Cover it up like they want to cover
Me up those pitiful eyes gazing from
The palm tree freeway of the Dead War
President Waterbugger your crimes
Will not leave office
No imperial plastic surgeon can
Remove them from your face
They enter the bedroom of your
Hacienda at night and rob you
Of your sleep
They call out your name
President Waterbugger
Next to you Hitler resembles
A kindergarten aide
Who only wanted to raise some geese
And cried when listening to
Dietrich Ficher-Dieskau
Everything you put your paws on
Becomes all crummy and yukky
In New Jersey the mob cries for Jumboburgers
In Florida the old people are stealing Vitamin E
President Waterbugger only your crimes
Want to be near you now
Your daughters have moved out of town
Your wife refuses to hold your hand
On the elevator
Inexplicably, Lincoln's picture
Just fell from the wall
Next time you kill a poet
You'd better read his poems first
Or they will rise up and surround you
Like 1945 fire cannons a few miles from
Berlin
And History will find no trace of
Your ashes in the bunker of your hell
Neruda: "Ah más allá de todo. Ah más allá de todo."
ReplyDeleteNathaniel Tarn, “At Gloucester, Mass., After Foreign Travel; For P.N.”
ReplyDeleteAt Gloucester, Mass., after foreign travel,
Labor Day mists
the lovely breath of one more summer dying out
the sea
swelled contrapuntally as we swam
and a smell of old furniture came up from the water
into the dusting sunlight
As if all the woods that had gone down into the sea
surfaced to farewell summer
the boats crossed and crisscrossed over the drowned
and the great feast of work
crimson with lobster shells, stubbed toes and girls’ bandannas
set round the pink of nipples
in loose red shirts / O flag of love over America the damned!
We went down to the sea
all the poets together
and gave ourselves up to the waters
in various positions of loss:
I realized that I have never dived into water
and within five minutes
after giving myself completely to the wave
I did about ten things
never done in my life before
such as: throwing my body like a javelin into the waves
spreading myself like a banner on the swell
somersaulting in the deep
holding the sand’s things in my hands
and all the fear was gone
We had spent the whole day looking for loons and grasses
old Dogtown had risen for us from the ground
and Olsen’s floor and windowboards full of dates
had defied the policy on National Monuments –
white building slats among the red stripes
the stars of my Union Jack
exclusive to the night:
and she seen rightly
had no need to be touched
she seen rightly
became a thousand faces one after another
seen rightly
there was no face the world could take on which was not her face
and a golden aura
red with cheap scents raved round her hair.
Oh the hands that went out
the bodies that moved out towards her on our belief
Labor-Day, Gloucester, Mass.,
oh the copulations that took place towards her on the arrow of sight
drawing no flesh at all
out of its sheathing!
The America he dreamed never existed,
cause of lost causes –
but dreamed it with the throat of need
the passionate thirst of a tramp
sweat on his whiskers.
And she in whose hands lies my life
brings her creased eyes to town
brings her body like a banner
she said she could not use
advertising ships, and land, and whispers among hutments,
and “today,” she said, “today,”
“tears of blood coming out of the ground
at what has become of this Republic
which was to be the laughter of the world!”
If it be true / that this polity
has killed Allende for instance / has killed Neruda
if it be true that Spain is being repeated – billed to this polity –
then the devices of the world of ice
the hanging in the maws of the old windmill the great Giver devised
shall be but as childsplay to what awaits
our shabby emperor in his greasy feathers
encore une fois l’refrain
Swallow on the air
mackerel in the sky
mackerel in the water
swallows on the sea
stitching silver to silver
in the heart’s water:
I am so glad to be home!
I have laid up in a world of words
for the immortal gods of this Republic
that all the 50 stars might sing in unison together!
Our moods of love
as they will seize and shake us all our lives
wood rising from the sea, trees soaring on first shores –
the Adam-hut, its ghost
I am so glad to be home!