Pablo+Neruda

Gabi Sorrentino
 * Pablo Neruda**

Pablo Neruda was born July 12th, 1904, and died September 23rd, 1973. His real name is Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. He was born in Parral,Chile. His father was a railway employee, and his mother was a teacher. SaIly, his mother died shortly after his birth. Pablo spent his childhood and youth in Temuco. At the age of thirteen, he began to contribute articles to the "La Manana". Some of the poems Neruda wrote were published in his first book. Between 1927 and 1935 the government put him in charge of a number of honorary consulship's which brought him to Burma, Ceylon, Java, Singapore, Buenos Aires, Barcelona, and Madrid.

**Walking Around** It so happens I am sick of being a man. And it happens that I walk into tailorshops and movie houses dried up, waterproof, like a swan made of felt steering my way in a water of wombs and ashes.

The smell of barbershops makes me break into hoarse sobs. The only thing I want is to lie still like stones or wool. The only thing I want is to see no more stores, no gardens, no more goods, no spectacles, no elevators.

It so happens that I am sick of my feet and my nails and my hair and my shadow. It so happens I am sick of being a man.

Still it would be marvelous to terrify a law clerk with a cut lily, or kill a nun with a blow on the ear. It would be great to go through the streets with a green knife letting out yells until I died of the cold.

I don't want to go on being a root in the dark, insecure, stretched out, shivering with sleep, going on down, into the moist guts of the earth, taking in and thinking, eating every day.

I don't want so much misery. I don't want to go on as a root and a tomb, alone under the ground, a warehouse with corpses, half frozen, dying of grief.

That's why Monday, when it sees me coming with my convict face, blazes up like gasoline, and it howls on its way like a wounded wheel, and leaves tracks full of warm blood leading toward the night.

And it pushes me into certain corners, into some moist houses, into hospitals where the bones fly out the window, into shoeshops that smell like vinegar, and certain streets hideous as cracks in the skin.

There are sulphur-colored birds, and hideous intestines hanging over the doors of houses that I hate, and there are false teeth forgotten in a coffeepot, there are mirrors that ought to have wept from shame and terror, there are umbrellas everywhere, and venoms, and umbilical cords.

I stroll along serenely, with my eyes, my shoes, my rage, forgetting everything, I walk by, going through office buildings and orthopedic shops, and courtyards with washing hanging from the line: underwear, towels and shirts from which slow dirty tears are falling.

How neatly a cat sleeps, Sleeps with its paws and its posture, Sleeps with its wicked claws, And with its unfeeling blood, Sleeps with ALL the rings a series Of burnt circles which have formed The odd geology of its sand-colored tail.
 * Cats Dream**

I should like to sleep like a cat, With all the fur of time, With a tongue rough as flint, With the dry sex of fire and After speaking to no one, Stretch myself over the world, Over roofs and landscapes, With a passionate desire To hunt the rats in my dreams.

I have seen how the cat asleep Would undulate, how the night flowed Through it like dark water and at times, It was going to fall or possibly Plunge into the bare deserted snowdrifts.

Sometimes it grew so much in sleep Like a tiger's great-grandfather, And would leap in the darkness over Rooftops, clouds and volcanoes.

Sleep, sleep cat of the night with Episcopal ceremony and your stone-carved moustache. Take care of all our dreams Control the obscurity Of our slumbering prowess With your relentless HEART And the great ruff of your tail.