Art of Poetry: Roque Dalton, The

To Raul Castellanos Anguish exists.

Man uses his elderly disasters like a mirror. An hour or for a like reason after dusk

the man picks up the painful remnants of his day and worried sick he deposits them right next to his heart he sweats like a TB patient fighting for his life and sinks into his down-reaching lonely rooms. There buried in his notions he smokes he'd like to invent ruinous cobwebs upon the ceiling he hates the flower's new look he withdraws into his have a title to asphyxiating skin he looks at his coarse feet he thinks his bed's his grave day after day he doesn't have a penny to his name he's sharp-set

and breaks into sigh convulsivelys But men all other men

bare their chests to the orb of day without a care or to the killings in the ways they lift the faces of the loaves on the outside of the ovens like a generous banner against craving appetite they laugh with children until smooth the air hurts they cram tiny traces into the wombs of call down blessings oned women they split open like fruit stones obstinate in their solemnity they sing naked into the inviting glass of water they [i]jeu d'esprit[/i] with the sea taking it through the horns playfully they build houses of light in the song-filled wilderness they secure drunk like God everywhere they put their fists against despair their avenging fires against crime their be fond of with its interminable roots against hatred's vicious scythe. Ye anguish exists. Like despair crime or hate.

Who should the poet's voice be for?

Copyright World verse Incorporated Sep/Oct 1996

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