Blood in the Streets

Harold Pinter, in his Nobel Lecture quoted a poem by Pablo Neruda which I think is worth reading in full:

I Explain a Few Things (Explico algunas cosas)

You will ask: And where are the lilacs?
And teh metaphysical blanket of poppies?
And the rain that often struck
your words filling them
with holes and birds?

I am going to tell you all that is happening to me.

I lived in a quarter
of Madrid, with bells,
with clocks, with trees.

From there one could see
the lean face of Spain
like an ocean of leather.

                            My house was called
the house of flowers, because it was bursting
everywhere with geraniums: it was
a fine house,
with dogs and children.
                          Raul, do you remember?
Do you remember, Rafael?
                            Federico, do you remember
under the ground,
do you remember my house with balconies where
June light smothered flowers in your mouth?

                                               Brother, brother!
Everything
was great shouting, salty goods,
heaps of throbbing bread,
markets of my Arguelles quarter with its statue
like a pale inkwell among the haddock:
the olive oil reached the ladles,
a deep throbbing
of feet and hands filled the streets,
meters, liters, sharp
essence of life,
                    fish piled up,
pattern of roofs with cold sun on which
the vane grows weary,
frenzied fine ivory of the potatoes,
tomatoes stretching to the sea.

And one morning all was aflame
and one morning the fires
came out of the earth
devouring people,
and from then on fire,
gunpowder from then on,
and from then on blood.

Bandits with airplanes and with Moors,
bandits with rings and duchesses,
bandits with black-robed friars blessing
came through the air to kill children,
and through the streets the blood of the children
ran simply, like children's blood.

Jackals that the jackal would spurn,
stones that the dry thistle would bite spitting,
vipers that vipers would abhor!

Facing you I have seen the blood
of Spain rise up
to drown you in a single wave
of pride and knives!

Treacherous
generals:
look at my dead house,
look at broken Spain:
but from each dead house comes burning metal
instead of flowers,
but from each hollow of Spain
Spain comes forth,
but from each dead child comes a gun with eyes,
but from each crime are born bullets
that will one day seek out in you
where the heart lies.

You will ask: why does your poetry
not speak to us of sleep, of the leaves,
of the great volcanoes of your 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!

trans. Donald D. Walsh
from Spain in our Hearts (Espana en al corazon)