What
did you do? Did your word ever come
for
your brother of the deep mines,
for
the grief of the betrayed,
did
your fiery syllable ever come
to
plead for your people and defend them?
Pablo
Neruda.
from
CANTO GENERAL
(1950)
Pablo
Neruda
I
Accuse
Then
I accused the man
who
had strangled hope,
I
called out to America’s corners
and
put his name in the cave
of
dishonor.
Then
they reproached
me
for crimes, that pack
of
flunkies and hired hoodlums:
the
“secretaries of government,”
the
police, wrote their murky insult
against
me with tar,
but
the walls were watching
when
the traitors
wrote
my name in large letters,
and
the night erased,
with
its innumerable hands,
hands
of the people and the night,
the
ignominy that they try
in
vain to cast on my song.
Then
they went at night to burn
my
house (the fire now marks
the
name of he who send them),
and
all the judges joined together
to
condemn me, to summon me,
to
crucify my words
and
punish these truths.
They
closed Chile’s cordilleras
so
that I couldn’t leave
to
tell what’s happening here,
and
when Mexico opened its doors
to
welcome me and protect me,
Torres
Bodet, pitiful poet,
demanded
that I be delivered
to
the furious jailers.
But
my word’s alive
and
my free heart accuses.
How
will it end, how will it end?
In
Pisagua’s night, jail, chains,
silence,
the country debased,
and
this bleak year, year of blind rats,
this
bleak year of rage and rancor,
you
ask, you ask me how will it end?
The
Victorious People
My
heart’s in this struggle.
My
people will overcome. All the peoples
will
overcome, one by one.
These
sorrows
will
be wrung like handkerchiefs until
all
the tears shed on the desert’s
galleries,
on graves, on the steps
of
human martyrdom, are squeezed dry.
But
the victorious time’s nearby.
Let
hatred reign so that punishment’s
hands
won’t tremble,
let
the hour hand
reach
its timetable in the pure instant,
and
let the people fill the empty streets
with
fresh and firm dimensions.
Here’s
my tenderness for that time.
You’ll
know it. I have no other flag.
(‘The
Poetry of Pablo Neruda’, Ed. Ilan Stavens, pp. 235-236, Farrar,
Straus and Giroux, 2005).
BAGHDAD
(2004)
Kunhappa
Pattannur
A
scream
That
writhes up
Towards
the church domes
Beneath
the curls of incense
And
soft holy murmurs?
Beside
the graves
The
cassocks, crosses and oaths
The
cannibals
With
their venomous orations?
NO…
The
march of history
Cannot
be drowned
In
these tides of blood
NO…
These
nightmares
Cannot
enfeeble
The
strides……
The
bay
Shall
wake up once again
With
the symphony of pangs
And
the melody of sandstorms
The
songs, the flowers
The
shining pupils.
The
lush forests and the green banks
The
juvenescent waves of Tigris.
The
cribs and lullabies
Shall
surely be back.
A
village boy…
A
turbaned sultan…
Tales
that singe the brain
Like
oil wells
That
burn out
Those
who crowned thrice
Shall
end in this fire-this fuel
On
the outskirts of the holy city
Children
shall gather with their songs…
The
citadel of the west shall wither
Crumble
The
vermin shall perish
In
their glass houses
From
the agony of the massacres
Shall
sprout a heroic lore
The
night of setting heroes
Shall
come to an end
When
a star explodes!
(‘Baghdad’,
pp. 19-20, Kavitha Publishers, Kannur. Translated from the Malayalam
by C. Padmanabhan)
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