Neruda And Vallejo: Selected Poems Part 47

que uno puede matar perfectamente, ya que, sudando tinta, uno hace cuanto puede, no me digan Volveremos, senores, a vernos con manzanas ; tarde la criatura pasar, la expresin de Aristteles armada de grandes corazones de madera, la de Herc.l.i.to injerta en la de Marx, la del suave sonando rudamente Es lo que bien narraba mi garganta: uno puede matar perfectamente.

Senores, caballeros, volveremos a vernos sin paquetes ; hasta entonces exijo, exigire de mi flaqueza el acento del da, que segn veo, estuvo ya esperndome en mi lecho.

Y exijo del sombrero la infausta a.n.a.loga del recuerdo, ya que, a veces, asumo con exito mi inmensidad llorada, ya que, a veces, me ahogo en la voz de mi vecino y padezco contando en maces los anos, cepillando mi ropa al son de un muerto o sentado borracho en mi atad Hacia 1937

And don't bother telling me anything,

that a man can kill perfectly, because a man, sweating ink, does what he can, don't bother telling me Gentlemen, we'll see ourselves with apples again, the infant will go by at last, the expression of Aristotle fortified with huge wooden hearts, and Herac.l.i.tus's grafted on to Marx's, the suave one's sounding abrupt My own throat used to tell me that all the time: a man can kill perfectly.

Sirs and gentlemen, we'll see ourselves without packages again ; until that time I ask, from my inadequacy I would like to know the day's tone, which, as I see it, has already been here waiting for me in my bed.

And I demand of my hat the doomed a.n.a.logy of memory, since at times I a.s.sume my wept-for and immense s.p.a.ce, successfully, since at times I drown in the voice of my neighbor, and I suffer counting the years like corn grains, brushing off my clothes to the sound of a corpse, or sitting drunk in my coffin .

Translated by Robert Bly

Y bien? Te sana el metaloide plido?

Los metaloides incendiarios, cvicos, inclinados al ro atroz del polvo?

Esclavo, es ya la hora circular en que las dos aurculas se forman anillos guturales, corredizos, cuaternarios.

Senor esclavo, en la manana mgica se ve, por fin, el busto de tu tremulo ronquido, vense tus sufrimientos a caballo, pasa el rgano bueno, el de tres asas, hojeo, mes por mes, tu monocorde cabellera, tu suegra llora haciendo huesecillos de sus dedos, se inclina tu alma con pasin a verte y tu sien, un momento, marca el paso.

Y la gallina pone su infinito, uno por uno ; sale la tierra hermosa de las humeantes slabas, te retratas de pie junto a tu hermano, truena el color oscuro bajo el lecho y corren y entrechcanse los pulpos.

Senor esclavo, y bien?

Los metaloides obran en tu angustia?

27 septiembre 1937

And so? The pale metalloid heals you?

The flammable metalloids, civilized, leaning toward the hideous river of dust?

Slave, it's now the huge round hour when the two auricles make guttural rings, slippery, post-Tertiary.

Esquire slave, the bust of your quivery snore is visible at last in the enchanted morning, your suffering is seen on horseback, the good organ goes by-the one with three ears-, I leaf month after month through your long one-stringed hair, your mother-in-law sobs as she makes tiny bones from her fingers, your soul bends madly over to see you and for an instant your temple keeps time.

And the hen lays her infinite, one by one ; handsome earth rises from the smoking syllables, you get photographed standing by your brother, the shadowy color thunders under the bed, the octopuses race around and collide.

And so, esquire slave?

Do the metalloids work with your anguish?

Translated by Robert Bly

Tengo un miedo terrible de ser un animal

de blanca nieve, que sostuvo padre y madre, con su sola circulacin venosa, y que, este da esplendido, solar y arzobispal, da que representa as a la noche, linealmente elude este animal estar contento, respirar y transforma.r.s.e y tener plata.

Sera pena grande que fuera yo tan hombre hasta ese punto.

Un disparate, una premisa uberrima a cuyo yugo ocasional suc.u.mbe el gonce espiritual de mi cintura.

Un disparate En tanto, es as, ms ac de la cabeza de Dios, en la tabla de Locke, de Bacon, en el lvido pescuezo de la bestia, en el hocico del alma.

Y, en lgica aromtica, tengo ese miedo prctico, este da esplendido, lunar, de ser aquel, este talvez, a cuyo olfato huele a muerto el suelo, el disparate vivo y el disparate muerto.

Oh revolca.r.s.e, estar, toser, faja.r.s.e, faja.r.s.e la doctrina, la sien, de un hombro al otro, aleja.r.s.e, llorar, darlo por ocho o por siete o por seis, por cinco o darlo por la vida que tiene tres potencias!

22 octubre 1937

I have a terrible fear of being an animal

of white snow, who has kept his father and mother alive with his solitary circulation through the veins, and a fear that on this day which is so marvelous, sunny, archbishoprical, (a day that stands so for night) this animal, like a straight line, will manage not to be happy, or to breathe, or to turn into something else, or to get money.

It would be a terrible thing if I were a lot of man up to that point.

Unthinkable nonsense an overfertile a.s.sumption to whose accidental yoke the spiritual hinge in my waist succ.u.mbs.

Unthinkable . Meanwhile that's how it is on this side of G.o.d's head, in the tabula of Locke, and of Bacon, in the pale neck of the beast, in the snout of the soul.

And, in fragrant logic, I do have that practical fear, this marvelous moony day, of being that one, this one maybe, to whose nose the ground smells like a corpse, the unthinkable alive and the unthinkable dead.

Oh to roll on the ground, to be there, to cough, to wrap oneself, to wrap the doctrine, the temple, from shoulder to shoulder, to go away, to cry, to let it go for eight or for seven or for six, for five, or let it go for life with its three possibilities!

Translated by Robert Bly

Y si despues de tantas palabras,

no sobrevive la palabra!

Si despues de las alas de los pjaros, no sobrevive el pjaro parado!

Ms valdra, en verdad, que se lo coman todo y acabemos!

Haber nacido para vivir de nuestra muerte!

Levanta.r.s.e del cielo hacia la tierra por sus propios desastres y espiar el momento de apagar con su sombra su tiniebla!

Ms valdra, francamente, que se lo coman todo y que ms da!

Y si despues de tanta historia, suc.u.mbimos, no ya de eternidad, sino de esas cosas sencillas, como estar en la casa o ponerse a cavilar!

Y si luego encontramos, de buenas a primeras, que vivimos, a juzgar por la altura de los astros, por el peine y las manchas del panuelo!

Ms valdra, en verdad, que se lo coman todo, desde luego!

Se dir que tenemos en uno de los ojos mucha pena y tambien en el otro, mucha pena y en los dos, cuando miran, mucha pena Entonces! Claro! Entonces ni palabra!

And what if after so many words,

the word itself doesn't survive!

And what if after so many wings of birds the stopped bird doesn't survive!

It would be better then, really, if it were all swallowed up, and let's end it!

To have been born only to live off our own death!

To raise ourselves from the heavens toward the earth carried up by our own bad luck, always watching for the moment to put out our darkness with our shadow!

It would be better, frankly, if it were all swallowed up, and the h.e.l.l with it!

And what if after so much history, we succ.u.mb, not to eternity, but to these simple things, like being at home, or starting to brood!

What if we discover later all of a sudden, that we are living to judge by the height of the stars off a comb and off stains on a handkerchief!

It would be better, really, if it were all swallowed up, right now!

They'll say that we have a lot of grief in one eye, and a lot of grief in the other also, and when they look a lot of grief in both .

So then! Naturally! So! Don't say a word!

Translated by Robert Bly

with Douglas Lawder

"LA CLERA QUE QUIEBRA AL HOMBRE EN NIOS"