{"id":567,"date":"2004-07-18T16:51:49","date_gmt":"2004-07-18T20:51:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/wordpress\/?p=567"},"modified":"2004-07-18T16:51:49","modified_gmt":"2004-07-18T20:51:49","slug":"pablo-nerudas-centenary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=567","title":{"rendered":"Pablo Neruda’s Centenary"},"content":{"rendered":"

Randy Paul of Beautiful Horizons comments<\/a> on articles in the NYT<\/i> and Miami Herald<\/i> that reflect on this passage in time.<\/p>\n

You can read some of Neruda’s exquisite poetry here<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Walking Around<\/b><\/p>\n

From: ?Residencia en la tierra II? <\/p>\n

It so happens I?m tired of being a man.
\nIt so happens I enter clothes shops and movie-houses,
\nwithered, impenetrable, like a swan made of felt
\nsailing the water of ashes and origins. <\/p>\n

The smell of a hairdresser?s has me crying and wailing.
\nI only want release from being stone or wool.
\nI only want not to see gardens and businesses,
\nmerchandise, spectacles, lifts. <\/p>\n

It so happens I?m tired of my feet and toenails,
\nmy hair and my shadow.
\nIt so happens I?m tired of being a man. <\/p>\n

Still it would be a pleasure
\nto scare a lawyer with a severed lily
\nor deal death to a nun with a poke in the ear.
\nIt would be good
\nto go through the streets with an emerald knife
\nand shout out till I died of cold. <\/p>\n

I don?t want to go on being just a root in the shadows,
\nvacillating, extended, shivering with dream,
\ndown in the damp bowels of earth,
\nabsorbing it, thinking it, eating it every day. <\/p>\n

I don?t want to be so much misfortune,
\nI don?t want to go on as a root or a tomb,
\na subterranean tunnel, just a cellar of death,
\nfrozen, dying in pain. <\/p>\n

This is why, Monday, the day, is burning like petrol,
\nwhen it sees me arrive with my prison features,
\nand it screeches going by like a scorched tire
\nand its footsteps tread hot with blood towards night. <\/p>\n

And it drives me to certain street corners, certain damp houses,
\ntowards hospitals where skeletons leap from the window,
\nto certain cobbler?s shops stinking of vinegar,
\nto alleyways awful as abysses. <\/p>\n

There are sulphur-coloured birds and repulsive intestines,
\nhanging from doorways of houses I hate,
\nthere are lost dentures in coffee pots
\nthere are mirrors
\nthat ought to have cried out from horror and shame,
\nthere are umbrellas everywhere, poisons and navels. <\/p>\n

I pass by calmly, with eyes and shoes,
\nwith anger, oblivion,
\npass by, cross through offices, orthopedic stores,
\nand yards where clothes hang down from wires:
\nunderpants, towels, and shirts, that cry
\nslow guilty tears.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Randy Paul of Beautiful Horizons comments on articles in the NYT and Miami Herald that reflect on this passage in time. You can read some of Neruda’s exquisite poetry here. Walking Around From: ?Residencia en la tierra II? It so … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-99","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}