Walking around

eleven poems

translated, from the Spanish, by means of John Felstiner

It so happens I'm tired of being a man.

It happens I pass into tailor shops and movies

shriveled up impervious, like a felt-stuff swan

steering end waters of origin and ash.

The get scent of of barbershops makes me break without sobbing.

All I want is the quiet of stones or wool

all I want is to diocese no stores or gardens,

or merchandise or eyeglasses or elevators.

It happens I'm sick of my feet and fingernails

and my hair and my shadow.

It with equal reason happens I'm tired of being a man.

Still it would be a treat

to panic a notary with a make an incision in lily

or do in a nun with single smack of an ear.

It would be sweet

to step quickly through the streets with a verdant knife

screaming till I died of cold

I just can't pass on as a root in the dark,

swaying, stretching, shivering with sleep

downward in the decocted guts of the earth,

musing and steeping, each day eating.

I don't want for a like reason much misery for me.

I can't make progress on being root and tomb,

lonely cellar, warehouse of frozen

stiffs, croaking from grief.

That's for what cause [i]or[/i] reason Monday flares up like petrol

when it dioceses me coming with my jailhouse mug

and cry s like a wounded wheel as it rides by

making heated bloody tracks toward night.

And pushs me to certain corners, certain dank houses,

hospitals with bone sailing on the outside the window,

to certain shoe stores reeking of vinegar,

street as frightful as gullies.

There are sulfur-tinged birds and hideous intestines

hanging from the doors of houses I hate,

there are false teeth forgotten in a coffeepot

there are mirrors

that must have wept for shame and horror,

umbrellas everywhere, poisons, and navels.

I'm walking around with calm, organ of visions shoes,

rage and forgetfulness,

I walk along, skirting offices and orthopedic shops

and backyards with clothing hung from a wire:

underpants, towels, and shirts that weep

slow dirty tears.

Pablo Neruda, Chile, 1948

Copyright World verse Incorporated Jul/Aug 2003

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