no hay pan ni luz: un cristal frío cae
sobre secos geranios. De noche sueños negros
abiertos por obuses, como sangrientos bueyes:
nadie en el alba de las fortificaciones,
sino un carro quebrado: ya musgo, ya silencio de edades
en vez de golondrinas en las casas quemadas,
desangradas, vacías, con puertas hacia el cielo:
ya comienza el mercado a abrir sus pobres esmeraldas,
y las naranjas, el pescado,
cada día traídos a través de la sangre,
se ofrecen a las manos de la hermana y la viuda.
Ciudad de luto, socavada, herida,
rota, golpeada, agujereada, llena
de sangre y vidrios rotos, ciudad sin noche, toda
noche y silencio y estampido y héroes,
ahora un nuevo invierno más desnudo y más solo,
ahora sin harina, sin pasos, con tu luna
de soldados.
A todo, a todos.
Sol pobre, sangre nuestra
perdida, corazón terrible
sacudido y llorando. Lágrimas como pesadas balas
han caído en tu oscura tierra haciendo sonido
de palomas que caen, mano que cierra
la muerte para siempre, sangre de cada dia
y cada noche y cada semana y cada
mes. Sin hablar de vosotros, héroes dormidos
y despiertos, sin hablar de vosotros que hacéis temblar el agua
y la tierra con vuestra voluntad insigne,
en esta hora escucho el tiempo en una calle,
alguien me habla, el invierno
llega de nuevo a los hoteles
en que he vivido,
todo es ciudad lo que escucho y distancia
rodeada por el fuego como por una espuma
de víboras, asaltada por una
agua de infierno.
Hace ya más de un año
que los enmascarados tocan tu humana orilla
y mueren al cantacto de tu eléctrica sangre:
sacos de moros, sacos de traidores,
han rodado a tus pies de piedra: ni el humo ni la muerte
han conquistado tus muros ardiendo.
Entonces,
qué hay, entonces? Si, son los del exterminio,
son los devoradores: te acechan, ciudad blanca,
el obispo de turbio testuz, los señoritos
fecales y feudales, el general en cuya mano
suenan treinta dineros: están contra tus muros
un cinturón de lluviosas beatas,
un escuadrón de embajadores pútridos
y un triste hipo de perros militares.
Loor a ti, loor en nube, en rayo,
en salud, en espadas,
frente sangrante cuyo hilo de sangre
reverbera en las piedras malheridas,
deslizamiento de dulzura dura,
clara cuna en relámpagos armada,
material ciudadela, aire de sangre
del que nacen abejas.
Hoy tú que vives, Juan,
hoy tú que miras, Pedro, concibes, duermes, comes:
hoy en la noche sin luz vigilando sin sueño y sin reposo,
solos en el cemento, por la tierra cortada,
desde los enlutados alambres, al Sur, en medio, en torno,
sin cielo, sin misterio,
hombres como un collar de cordones defienden
la ciudad rodeada por las llamas: Madrid endurecida
por golpe astral, par conmoción del fuego:
tierra y vigilia en el alto silencio
de la victoria: sacudida
como una rosa rota: rodeada
de laurel infinito!
MADRID (1937)
At this hour I remember everything and everyone,
vigorously, sunkenly in
the regions that—sound and feather—
striking a little, exist
beyond the earth, but on the earth. Today
a new winter begins.
There is in that city,
there is no bread, no light: a cold windowpane falls
upon dry geraniums. By night black dreams
opened by howitzers, like bloody oxen:
no one in the dawn of the ramparts
but a broken cart: now moss, now silence of ages,
instead of swallows, on the burned houses,
drained of blood, empty, their doors open to the sky:
now the market begins to open its poor emeralds,
and the oranges, the fish,
brought each day across the blood,
offer themselves to the hands of the sister and the widow.
City of mourning, undermined, wounded,
broken, beaten, bullet-riddled, covered
with blood and broken glass, city without night, all
night and silence and explosions and heroes,
now a new winter more naked and more alone,
now without flour, without steps, with your moon
of soldiers.
Everything, everyone.
Poor sun, our lost
blood, terrible heart
shaken and mourned. Tears like heavy bullets
have fallen on your dark earth sounding
like falling doves, a hand that death
closes forever, blood of each day
and each night and each week and each
month. Without speaking of you, heroes asleep
and awake, without speaking of you who make the water and the earth
tremble with your glorious purpose,
at this hour I listen to the weather on a street,
someone speaks to me, winter
comes again to the hotels
where I have lived,
everything is city that I listen to and distance
surrounded by fire as if by a spume
of vipers assaulted by a
water of hell.
For more than a year now
the masked ones have been touching your human shore
and dying at the contact of your electric blood:
sacks of Moors, sacks of traitors
have rolled at your feet of stone: neither smoke nor death
have conquered your burning walls.
Then,
what’s happening, then? Yes, they are the exterminators,
they are the devourers: they spy on you, white city,
the bishop of turbid scruff, the fecal and feudal
young masters, the general in whose hand
jingle thirty coins: against your walls are
a circle of women, dripping and devout,
a squadron of putrid ambassadors,
and a sad vomit of military dogs.
Praise to you, praise in cloud in sunray,
in health, in swords,
bleeding front whose thread of blood
echoes on the deeply wounded stones,
a slipping away of harsh sweetness,
bright cradle armed with lightning,
fortress substance, air of blood
from which bees are born.
Today you who live, Juan,
today you who watch, Pedro, who conceive, sleep, eat:
today in the lightless night on guard without sleep and without rest,
alone on the cement, across the gashed earth,
from the blackened wire, to the South, in the middle, all around,
without sky, without mystery,
men like a collar of cordons defend
the city surrounded by flames: Madrid hardened
by an astral blow, by the shock of fire:
earth and vigil in the deep silence
of victory: shaken
like a broken rose, surrounded
by infinite laurel!
ODA SOLAR AL EJERCITO DEL PUEBLO
Armas del pueblo! Aquí! La amenaza, el asedio
aún derraman
la tierra mezclándola de muerte,
áspera de aguijones!
Salud, salud,
salud te dicen las madres del mundo,
las escuelas te dicen salud, los viejos carpinteros,
Ejército del Pueblo, te dicen salud, con las espigas,
la leche, las patatas, el limón, el laurel,
todo lo que es de la tierra y de la boca
del hombre.
Todo, como un collar
de manos, como una
cintura palpitante, como una obstinación de relámpagos,
todo a ti se prepara, todo hacia ti converge!
Día de hierro,
azul fortificado!
Hermanos, adelante,
adelante por las tierras aradas,
adelante en la noche seca y sin sueño, delirante y raída,
adelante entre vides, pisando el color frío de las rocas,
salud, salud, seguid. Más cortantes que la voz del invierno,
más sensibles que el párpado, más seguros que la punta del trueno,
puntuales como el rápido diamante, nuevamente marciales,
guerreros según el agua acerada de las tierras del centro,
según la flor y el vino, según el corazón espiral de la tierra,
según las raíces de todas las hojas, de todas las mercaderías firagantes de la tierra.
Salud, soldados, salud, barbechos rojos,
salud, tréboles duros, salud, pueblos parados
en la luz del relámpago, salud, salud, salud,
adelante, adelante, adelante, adelante,
sobre las minas, sobre los cementerios, frente al abominable
apetito de muerte, frente al erizado
terror de los traidores,
pueblo, pueblo eficaz, corazón y fusiles,
corazón y fusiles, adelante.
Fotógrafos, mineros, ferroviarios, hermanos
del carbón y la piedra, parientes del martillo,
bosque, fiesta de alegres disparos, adelante,
guerrilleros, mayores, sargentos, comisarios políticos,
aviadores del pueblo, combatientes nocturnos,
combatientes marinos, adelante:
frente a vosotros
no hay más que una mortal cadena, un agujero
de podridos pescados: adelante!
no hay allí sino muertos moribundos,
pantanos de terrible pus sangrienta,
no hay enemigos; adelante, España,
adelante, campanas populares,
adelante, regiones de manzana,
adelante, estandartes cereales,
adelante, mayúsculos del fuego,
porque en la lucha, en la ola, en la pradera,
en la montaña, en el crepusculo cargado de acre aroma,
lleváis un nacimiento de permanencia, un hilo
de difícil dureza.
Mientras tanto,
raíz y guirnalda suben del silencio
para esperar la mineral victoria:
cada instrumento, cada rueda roja,
cada mango de sierra o penacho de arado,
cada extracción del suelo, cada temblor de sangre
quiere seguir tus pasos, Ejército del Pueblo:
tu luz organizada llega a los pobres hombres
olvidados, tu definida estrella
clava sus roncos rayos en la muerte
y establece los nuevos ojos de la esperanza.
SOLAR ODE TO THE ARMY OF THE PEOPLE
Arms of the people! Here! The threat, the siege
are still wasting the earth, mixing it with death,
earth rough with goading!
Your health,
your health say the mothers of the world,
the schools say your health, the old carpenters,
Army of the People, they say health to you with blossoms,
milk, potatoes, lemon, laurel,
everything that belongs to the earth and to the mouth
of man.
Everything, like a necklace
of hands, like a
throbbing waist, like a persistence of thunderbolts,
everything prepares itself for you, converges on you!
Day of iron,
fortified blue!
Brothers, onward,
onward through the ploughed lands,
onward in the dry and sleepless night, delirious and threadbare,
onward among the vines, treading the cold color of the rocks,
good health to you, go on. More cutting than winter’s voice,
more sensitive than the eyelid, more unfailing than the tip of the thunderbolt,
exact as the swift diamond, warlike anew,
warriors according to the biting waters of the central lands,
according to the flower and the wine, according to the spiral heart of the earth,
according to the roots of all the leaves, of all the fragrant produce of the earth.
Your health, soldiers, your health, red fallow lands,
health, hard clovers, health, towns stopped
in the light of the lightning, your good health,
onward, onward, onward, onward,
over the mines, over the cemeteries, facing the abominable
appetite of death, facing the bristling
terror of the traitors,
people, effective people, hearts and guns,
hearts and guns, onward.
Photographers, miners, railroadmen, brothers
of coal and stone, relatives of the hammer,
woods, festival of gay nonsense, onward,
guerrilla fighters, chiefs, sergeants, political commissars,
people’s aviators, night fighters,
sea fighters, onward:
facing you
there is only a mortal chain, a hole
of rotten fish: onward!
there are only dying dead there,
swamps of terrible bloody pus,
there are no enemies; onward, Spain,
onward, people’s bells,
onward, apple orchards,
onward, banners of the grain,
onward, giants of the fire,
because in the struggle, in the wave, in the meadow,
in the mountain, in the twilight laden with acrid smell,
you bear a lineage of permanence, a thread
of hard harshness.
Meanwhile,
root and garland rise from the silence
to await the mineral victory:
each instrument, each red wheel,
each mountain mango or plume of plough,
each product of the soil, each tremor of blood
wants to follow your steps, Army of the People:
your ordered light reaches poor forgotten
men, your sharp star
sinks its raucous rays into death
and establishes the new eyes of hope.
ALSO FROM NEW DIRECTIONS IN
BILINGUAL
SPANISH - ENGLISH EDITIONS
Pablo Neruda
RESIDENCE ON EARTH
Residencia en la tierra
Translated by Donald D. Walsh,
with a new Introduction by Jim Harrison
“Residence on Earth is one of those very rare poems you must drown in. You don’t understand it in discursive terms, you experience it…. Neruda haunts our bodies on an actual earth with the same power that Rilke haunts the more solitary aspects of our minds.”
—Jim Harrison, from the Introduction
Residence on Earth (Residencia en la tierra) is widely regarded as Pablo Neruda’s most influential work, a tempestuous ocean that became “a revolution…a classic by which masterpieces are judged” (Review). “In Residence on Earth,” wrote Amado Alonso, “the tornado of fury will no longer pass without lingering, because it will be identified with Neruda’s heart.”
Written in the span of two decades (1925-1945), beginning when Neruda was twenty-one, Residence on Earth was originally pu
blished in Spanish in three successive volumes (1933, 1935, 1947). Most of these poems were penned when Neruda was a self-exiled diplomat in isolated regions of South Asia.
ISBN 0-8112-1581-4
Pablo Neruda
THE CAPTAIN’S VERSES
Los versos del Capitán
Translated by Donald D. Walsh
Matilde and I took refuge in our love….It was the first time we had lived together in the same house. In that place of intoxicating beauty, our love grew steadily. We could never again live apart. There I finished The Captain’s Verses, a book of love, passionate but also painful…. My love for Matilde, homesickness for Chile, passion for social consciousness fill the pages of this book that went through many editions without its author’s name.
—Pablo Neruda
Pablo Neruda finished writing The Captain’s Verses (Los versos del Capitán) in 1952 while in exile on the island of Capri—the paradisal setting of the blockbuster film, II postino (The Postman) that centers around this period of Neruda’s life. Surrounded by the sea, sun, and the natural splendor of a thousand orchards and vineyards, Neruda addressed these poems of love, ecstasy, devotion, and fury to his lover, Matilde Urrutia, the one “with the fire / of an unchained meteor.”
“It is difficult to find an analogue for the sustained passion and gentleness communicated in this absolutely stunning apotheosis of the poetry of sexual love….Neruda comes closest to the exultation of the Song of Solomon….Matilde Urrutia deserves to enter history in the company of Petrarch’s Laura and Dante’s Beatrice.”
—Library Journal
ISBN 0-8112-1580-6
Nicanor Parra
ANTIPOEMS
How to look better and feel great
Antitranslation by Liz Werner
“One of the great names in the literature of our language.”
—Pablo Neruda
“A poet with all the authority of a master.”
—Mark Strand, The New York Times Book Review
“Real seriousness,” Nicanor Parra, the antipoet of Chile, has said, rests in “the comic.” And read in that light, this newest collection of his work is very serious indeed. It is an abundant offering of his signature mocking humor, subverting received conventions and pretensions in both poetry and everyday life, public and private, ingeniously and wittily rendered into English in an excellent antitranslation (the word is Parra’s) by Liz Werner, who has lived and studied in Valparaìso, Chile, where she worked closely with Nicanor Parra in preparing this book.