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Category: Neruda

  • I Will Return (Neruda)

    Snow

    Some other time, man, or woman, traveler,

    later, when I am not alive,

    look here, look for me

    between stone and ocean,

    in the light storming

    through the foam.

    Look here, look for me,

    for here I will return, without saying a thing,

    without voice, without mouth, pure,

    here I will return to the churning

    of the water, of

    its unbroken heart,

    here, I will be discovered and lost:

    here, I will, perhaps, be stone and silence.

    — Pablo Neruda

     

  • Neruda’s The great urinator

    SGSD0792

    Pablo Neruda, From Selected Failings (Defectos Escogidos) 1972-1973

    The Great Urinator (El Gran Orinador)

    The great urinator was yellow
    and the stream that came down
    was bronze-colored rain
    on the domes of churches,
    on the roofs of cars,
    on factories and cemeteries,
    on the populace and their gardens.

    Who was it, where was it?

    It was a density, thick liquid
    falling as from
    a horse, and frightened passersby
    with no umbrellas
    looked up skyward,
    meanwhile avenues were flooding
    and urine inexhaustibly flowing
    underneath doors,
    backing up drains, disintegrating
    marble floors, carpets,
    staircases.

    Nothing could be detected. Where

    was this peril?

     

    What was going to happen to the world?

    From on high the great urinator
    was silent and urinated.

    What does this signify?

    I am a pale and artless poet
    not here to work out riddles
    or recommend special umbrellas.

    Hasta la vista! I greet you and go off

    to a country where they won’t ask me questions.