Jeffrey Mc Daniel / Where Babies Come From

Jeffrey Mc Daniel

WHERE BABIES COME FROM

For my eighth birthday
I got a toy train set
my father helped assemble.
My job was to hand him
pieces of track and re-light
the cigarettes that went out
in his mouth. Halfway
through, I asked him
where babies come from.
He told me that eight years
ago today I showed up
on the front stoop
in a cardboard box, how
he spent the whole afternoon
putting me together,
just like this train set,
that I was probably lucky
the box arrived on a Saturday.

Aurelio Arturo / Song of Leaves and Distances

SONG OF LEAVES AND DISTANCES

By Aurelio Arturo
BIOGRAPHY

Translated by Raúl Jaime Gaviria

With the collaboration of

Edgardo Arturo and Nicolás Suescún

CANCIÓN DE HOJAS Y LEJANÍAS  

  
They were the leaves, the murmuring leaves,
the freshness, the countless glowing.
They were the green leaves – the living cell,
the imperishable instant of the landscape –  
the green leaves that bring near, in their murmuring,  

the sonorous distances like rigging,         
the fine, the naked, oscillating leaves.

The leaves and the wind.
Leaves that waved with marine rhythm,
leaves with pure voices
speaking at the same time, and they were not     
so many but a single one, palpitating       
in a thousand mirrors of air, an endless        
humid leaf in all the lights,            
queen of the horizon, agile,        
jumping little bird, pecking through all
the circles of the horizon, the sparkling circles.

The leaves, the flocks of leaves,
on the brink of the blue, on the brink of flying.

They were the leaves and the murmuring distances,
the leaves and the distances full of languages,
the distances that the wind strums as strings:
oh the stave, the stave of distances                 
where the leaves are notes played by the wind.

In the leaves beautiful countries and their clouds rustled.
In the leaves murmured distances of remote countries,
they rustled like rains of joyful green,
they laughed, laughed the rains of perfectly clear languages
like waters, fairies’ cheerful languages, vowels of joy.

And the distances had rustles of successive fronds,
the distances heard, heard rains that tell legends,
they heard ancient rains. And the wind             
carried the distances as it carries a leaf

Aurelio Arturo / Silence

Night Forest Hand Painted Silk Scarf

SILENCE

By Aurelio Arturo
BIOGRAPHY

Translated by Raúl Jaime Gaviria

With the collaboration of

Edgardo Arturo and Nicolás Suescún  

SILENCIO

Heads of hair and confused dreams
cover the bodies like muffled mosses
in the night, in the embroidering shade  
of deep velvets and oblivion.

Gold flickers the sky like beaks
of birds that swoop down in flocks,
black warps inlaid with living gold,                 
over that great silence of corpses.         

And thus, alone, saved from the shade,
next to the library where the murmur           
of aged trunks wanders, I hear something like  
the limitless clamour of a valley.

Harsh drum amid the night, it sounds     
when all are dead, when all
in the dream, in death, fall into   
a silence full and deep as a scream.       

Let the dream of silky wings haunt me,
haunt me like a laurel of dark leaves
but oh the great hurricane of the deep silences,
of the clamorous silences.

And next to that bivouac of old books,
while the still night that imitates
a grove moves shade and silence,    
I look for you in the prodigious depths,  

fiery, voracious, chained word.

Aurelio Arturo / The Song of Summer

The Song of Summer
LA CANCIÓN DEL VERANO

By Aurelio Arturo
BIOGRAPHY

Translated by Raúl Jaime Gaviria

With the collaboration of

Edgardo Arturo and Nicolás Suescún  

    
And this is the song of one summer
among many beautiful summers,
when the dust rises and dances             
and the sky is a blue, distant foliage.

And then she came with the breezes
that rose from the streams and its shells,     
she that sang the song of the summer,
the song of dry and aromatic herbs    
that rustled, when at my side             
I felt her like a land that breathes             
and like a dream of pollen and stars                         
that slide lukewarm on the skin and the hands.

Then she came leaping                 
amid the breezes and the afternoon, together,
and the first thing I saw was her waving dress       
in the distance, in the distance against the pure sky.
But from then on I never again had eyes for her dress.
And I heard nothing else, but the song of the summer.

Aurelio Arturo / Still

Billie Holliday

STILL

By Aurelio Arturo
BIOGRAPHY

Translated by Raúl Jaime Gaviria

With the collaboration of

Edgardo Arturo and Nicolás Suescún 

TODAVÍA 

A woman sang, she sang
feeling herself alone in the night,         
in the night, velvety valley.  

She sang and the sweetest
a woman’s voice can be, that was hers.             
It flowed from her lips
loving life…                        
life when it has been beautiful.

A woman sang
as in a deep forest, and without looking at her
I knew she was so sweet, so beautiful.
She sang, still
she sings…

Aurelio Arturo / Word

WORD

By Aurelio Arturo
BIOGRAPHY

Translated by Raúl Jaime Gaviria

with the collaboration

of Edgardo Arturo and Nicolás Suescún 

PALABRA

 
The word surrounds us
we hear it
we touch it  
its aroma surrounds us                 
a word that we say
and we model with the hand
fine and rough
and that
we forge
with the fire of blood                 
and the softness of the skin of our beloved ones
omnipresent word
with us from the dawn
and even before                     
in the dark water of the dream
or in the age from which we barely save
remnants of memories
of frights
of terrible tenderness
that goes with us
a silent monologue
                 a dialogue
a word we offer to our friends
a word we coin
for love for complaining       
for flattery                             
a coin made of sun                 
or silver
or a false coin
in it we look at ourselves
to know who we are
our occupation                                 
and race  
it reflects  
our self                            
our tribe
deep mirror
and when it is happiness and anguish
and the vast skies and the green foliage
and the earth that sings
then that flight of words
is poetry     
can be poetry

Pablo Neruda / I Explain A Few Things

Pablo Picasso

I Explain A Few Things

By Pablo Neruda
BIOGRAPHY

Pablo Neruda / Explico algunas cosas

You are going to ask: and where are the lilacs?

and the poppy-petalled metaphysics?

and the rain repeatedly spattering

its words and drilling them full

of apertures and birds?

I'll tell you all the news.

I lived in a suburb,

a suburb of Madrid, with bells,

and clocks, and trees.

From there you could look out

over Castille's dry face:

a leather ocean.

My house was called

the house of flowers, because in every cranny

geraniums burst: it was

a good-looking house

with its dogs and children.

                                              Remember, Raul?

Eh, Rafael?

                 Federico, do you remember

from under the ground

my balconies on which

the light of June drowned flowers in your mouth?

Brother, my brother!

Everything

loud with big voices, the salt of merchandises,

pile-ups of palpitating bread,

the stalls of my suburb of Arguelles with its statue

like a drained inkwell in a swirl of hake:

oil flowed into spoons,

a deep baying

of feet and hands swelled in the streets,

metres, litres, the sharp

measure of life,

                           stacked-up fish,

the texture of roofs with a cold sun in which

the weather vane falters,

the fine, frenzied ivory of potatoes,

wave on wave of tomatoes rolling down the sea.

And one morning all that was burning,

one morning the bonfires

leapt out of the earth

devouring human beings -

and from then on fire,

gunpowder from then on,

and from then on blood.

Bandits with planes and Moors,

bandits with finger-rings and duchesses,

bandits with black friars spattering blessings

came through the sky to kill children

and the blood of children ran through the streets

without fuss, like children's blood.

Jackals that the jackals would despise,

stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out,

vipers that the vipers would abominate!

Face to face with you I have seen the blood

of Spain tower like a tide

to drown you in one wave

of pride and knives!

Treacherous

generals:

see my dead house,

look at broken Spain :

from every house burning metal flows

instead of flowers,

from every socket of Spain

Spain emerges

and from every dead child a rifle with eyes,

and from every crime bullets are born

which will one day find

the bull's eye of your hearts.

And you'll ask: why doesn't his poetry

speak of dreams and leaves

and the great volcanoes of his native land?

Come and see the blood in the streets.

Come and see

The blood in the streets.

Come and see the blood

In the streets!

      

Pablo Neruda
Third Residence 1935 - 45   

Pablo Neruda / Ode to Tomatoes

ODE TO TOMATOES

By Pablo Neruda
BIOGRAPHY

        

The street

filled with tomatoes

midday,

summer,

light is

halved

like

a

tomato,

its juice

runs

through the streets.

In December,

unabated,

the tomato

invades

the kitchen,

it enters at lunchtime,

takes

its ease

on countertops,

among glasses,

butter dishes,

blue saltcellars.

It sheds

its own light,

benign majesty.

Unfortunately, we must

murder it:

the knife

sinks

into living flesh,

red

viscera,

a cool

sun,

profound,

inexhausible,

populates the salads

of Chile,

happily, it is wed

to the clear onion,

and to celebrate the union

we

pour

oil,

essential

child of the olive,

onto its halved hemispheres,

pepper

adds

its fragrance,

salt, its magnetism;

it is the wedding

of the day,

parsley

hoists

its flag,

potatoes

bubble vigorously,

the aroma

of the roast

knocks

at the door,

it's time!

come on!

and, on

the table, at the midpoint

of summer,

the tomato,

star of earth,

recurrent

and fertile

star,

displays

its convolutions,

its canals,

its remarkable amplitude

and abundance,

no pit,

no husk,

no leaves or thorns,

the tomato offers

its gift

of fiery color

and cool completeness.

Pablo Neruda / The Dead Woman

The Dead Woman

By Pablo Neruda
BIOGRAPHY

    

If suddenly you do not exist,

if suddenly you are not living,

I shall go on living.

I do not dare,

I do not dare to write it,

if you die.

I shall go on living.

Because where a man has no voice,

there, my voice

Where blacks are beaten,

I can not be dead.

When my brothers go to jail

I shall go with them.

When victory,

not my victory,

but the great victory

arrives,

even though I am mute I must speak:

I shall see it come even though I am blind.

No, forgive me,

if you are not living,

ifd you, beloved, my love,

if you

have died.

Pablo Neruda / Walking Around / Videos

Photography by André Kertész

WALKING AROUND

By Pablo Neruda

English Translation by Robert Bly

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.