Walkin on Air
Pablo Neruda's Ossuary Notice
Pablo, my dear, dear elder brother,
How can I express the revulsion?
Never enough, it seems, can they get of your soul:
paltry tapestry poetry, yet they assume?
They considered you so then and now, what to say?
Maybe they missed the point of your love:
how you expressed in literature
that, which only our inner heart-recesses can safely hold…
Nobel prize they fathom not at all:
‘investigation into your death'?
Ha! Little do they know you immortality;
a diplomat, not political acrobat,
honey dripping from every word you ever wrote;
exhumation of your remains, who gains?
Allende's ghost haunts hallways of hate
and underscores the obvious: murder has no rivalry!
Objectivist drug-cartels, no less?
In spite of Uncle Sam's muscle flex
Augusto Pinochet remains a walking dead;
none of them come close to your excellence of muse:
honor, discretion, truth thus unveiled their abuse.
Re-examined turbulent time means what?
Poison injection-cancer poison?
Neither could the wonderful essence of your poetry touch.
Be advised, beloved poet friend,
with pick and spade they aim to defile;
socialist violation of heritage:
your bones' final resting-place and sweet memory,
unearthing what is left of your ossuary!
Such are naught but crude and crass grave-robbers
besmirching the legacy of your kith,
clamoring for pointless ransom your poetry long since paid.
How can I express the revulsion?
Never enough, it seems, can they get of your soul:
paltry tapestry poetry, yet they assume?
They considered you so then and now, what to say?
Maybe they missed the point of your love:
how you expressed in literature
that, which only our inner heart-recesses can safely hold…
Nobel prize they fathom not at all:
‘investigation into your death'?
Ha! Little do they know you immortality;
a diplomat, not political acrobat,
honey dripping from every word you ever wrote;
exhumation of your remains, who gains?
Allende's ghost haunts hallways of hate
and underscores the obvious: murder has no rivalry!
Objectivist drug-cartels, no less?
In spite of Uncle Sam's muscle flex
Augusto Pinochet remains a walking dead;
none of them come close to your excellence of muse:
honor, discretion, truth thus unveiled their abuse.
Re-examined turbulent time means what?
Poison injection-cancer poison?
Neither could the wonderful essence of your poetry touch.
Be advised, beloved poet friend,
with pick and spade they aim to defile;
socialist violation of heritage:
your bones' final resting-place and sweet memory,
unearthing what is left of your ossuary!
Such are naught but crude and crass grave-robbers
besmirching the legacy of your kith,
clamoring for pointless ransom your poetry long since paid.
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Pablo Neruda`s Ossuary Notice
Pablo Neruda`s Ossuary Notice
