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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
A WARRANT FOR PABLO NERUDA, by THOMAS MCGRATH Poem Explanation Poet's Biography First Line: With the fury of cinders, with the despair of dusty Last Line: An alchemy of resistance transmutes your flowering name Subject(s): Chile; Government; Nobel Prizes; Poetry & Poets; Socialism; South America | |||
With the fury of cinders, with the despair of dusty Great meat-eating birds stuffed under glass, with The public stealth of rust on wedding rings, The shriveled bureaucrats with flag-false eyes -- Smug as one-legged guides of the blind Or politicians impersonating men -- Water their withered bible, loosen the night's black Knife and now on the polo fields of the rich Exercise the clanking hounds of illusion And oil up a warrant for the twentieth century. They are hunting for you, Neruda. And who now Will stop them from stuffing the wild birds of the forest With the blue fission of national neuroses? Who Will found the myth of Copper? Who at Magellan's Delta remember the ritual of forgiveness? No one but you. No one but you. It is just. They must hunt you, because of what they have forgotten: The name of the buried miner. (The bronze face of wheat, The river of indulgence that flowed from O'Higgins' side, Dries in their heads like moss in a filing cabinet.) And what of Bolivar's tears, curling like purple chips From the lathes of usury? They go with you to the high Andes where police cannot marshal a true man to hunt you -- No, though the Supreme Court, unhappily sane And naked, run through the downtown streets, shouting That laws have become just, black white, odd even -- No. The Conspiracy of October Lilacs is against them; The Fronde of Innocence cocks a summer rifle; The Union of Barley is on strike, and everywhere An alchemy of resistance transmutes your flowering name. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE DAFFODIL FIELDS: 2 by JOHN MASEFIELD THE DAFFODIL FIELDS: 3 by JOHN MASEFIELD THE DAFFODIL FIELDS: 4 by JOHN MASEFIELD A SEA-BIRD; OFF PERU by EDNA DEAN PROCTOR GOMEZ TO BLANCO by EDNA DEAN PROCTOR THE LAST INCA by EDNA DEAN PROCTOR WAR WITH CHILE by EDNA DEAN PROCTOR THE FEAST OF PADRE CHALA by THOMAS WALSH PAN-AMERICA by AMOS RUSSEL WELLS ODE FOR THE AMERICAN DEAD IN ASIA by THOMAS MCGRATH |
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