 I When the light comes through into new day, No one knows really how it will be, How the moon will shine, strangely, Or not; or if the air will breathe you In its Inspiration. We pick up after the blood has flowed, After the glints of divinity have been covered By death and disillusionment, Slowly, like a Bruckner symphony; Agony wanders into grandeur and immensity. O how I love you, now and forever, You are so beautiful, sexy, and lovely, Without you all would be absurd; And I will be with you my sweet darling Until all flames burn out and still then. You are the beauty of a new burning day, Your lips insanely sweet, kissing like explosions: Your perfumed ecstasy, your lusciousness, Your fabulous and gorgeous soul. II The rich and powerful stamp on all the rest Everywhere, and use them in their vile and futile wars; All truth that is accumulated or congealed In religion, philosophy, or art; All love in poetry, or music, Is betrayed by them, and sold into the blood Of others. Others suffer for their emptiness, Their deathliness of being, their hopeless souls, Their lies, their ignorance, their philistine minds, Their lack of either sense or sensitivity. You lose your own humanity When you obliterate the Other, Or if you do not listen to their woes Or look at who they really are. You waste your own potential for growth If you bury the Other in stereotypes and prejudice; How can you learn anything at all From what is out of your sight? Jarring are the contradictions within my pleas; My odes sometimes to the sun, sometimes the moon, Sometimes their intermixture, at others their mutual Extinction, negation, annihilation. I am frightened for my soul, not for my death, To Hell with the latter; for the former, do I do right? Have I beaten against the right Walls, Or merely been a fool? Now I can learn again, it is NEVER TOO LATE. I'll go back again To school, in my imagination: Will you too my friends? The point is, as ever, to make A just society, without wars all the time. And there lies a Nightmare: The ghastly idea of Progress, Which has nothing to do with improvement, Or happiness, or love between human beings. In extreme misery and pain, I await if my lousy country goes to war Against Iraq. Ha! mere murder, As those who will die had nothing to do With anything. No comparison With Hitler, you idiot bastards; He was supported by the same swine as you Who today crow for stupid War. O your lies destroy my ears, Jack Straw, You are the treacherous Appeaser! The best thing is to bomb Iraq, And bomb it again and again, To drive those horrid terrorists Out of their evil dens. Baghdad, an ancient city, was Once very interesting; Now it is a nasty place Because of Saddam Bam. It really needs a whole lot more Of our big, banging bombs, To make it a better, nicer place, That agrees with all our Values!  III How could you have had that courage, Schubert, To write such utterly beautiful music When you were dying. I love you, Now, as I always have; Without your soul, I would not be me. Ah, in spite of all, my dear friend, I am now in love, With a beautiful girl that you would have loved; She is so sweet and precious, so totally lovely, Just as you, my friend, would have understood. She could be meant for your pure sounds Of passion and wild intensity; I have felt as desperate as you, I swear, Although I have been able to burn In your genius and sublimity. Franz, my friend, please allow This presumption; you remember The crazy moon over a dark mountain, The scowling clouds and the break of sunlight, When your Spirit was still alive? I am here Franz, here in Bogotá, You would have loved it here, like Vienna: City, big, grand, fabulous views over mountains, my friend, Many streams nearby, fish a-jumping, And a friendly kindness that would have suited you. And music; now Franz I speak Of Nidia again, my delicious happiness; O Franz, just look at her! See her gorgeous wonderful eyes! You understand, I know you do! IV Moments of eternal love The sky dark now Today and tomorrow it was and is Beautiful sunlight In deep happiness of love Heavy the beautiful rain-drops Rainbows through a million lights Brilliant colours in perfect spectra V The world is always being created All the time, every instant; Its revelation is always Now, There is no other Eternity. Only to Attend, that is all, All the Time, every second; Creation pours itself into us Permanently, as if Forever. VI We all have dark and dangerous pasts On the journeys backwards to the womb, Half-way through the forests of our life Thought backwards to the womb. Their harsh shadows threaten us Between one locus amoenus and the next, Their horrific shadows strangle us Before we emerge into Sunlight. VII I love you, I love you, Eternally, I love you; If you go, I will die, I will melt, and I will die, If I am not with you. My solitude will be inconsolable, And if I see you, it will be Certain that a shivering in finding you Will leave me naked in my sadness. VIII Such a brilliant stroke, to knock that evil head Off Thatcher, from its shoulders; Everywhere they know of this. Here in a bar in Bogotá, They spoke of that sublime action. We want no more of her foul approach To life and misgovernment, Nor of Reagan, Bush, nor Blair, Rat-arses with poisonous fumes. Let those bastards die upon the morn, Their crooked souls turned into sacred curses, Then let others with milder dreams, And visions of wilder beauty, Replace them, and fly with smiles and happiness, And intellects that try to understand, With imagination and normal feeling, The life of all upon this planet, Without recourse to bombs, or planes, and lies. War-mongering pigs, with brains like peas, Just because you have the biggest bombs; You can ignore all complaints, all pain and darkness Of the weaker ones, who must bow down Before your bombs, and learn to see That black is white, and lines are circles. IX Poetry? Those effete dollops Of well-mosaiced, insignificant rubbish! Those well-spanned felicitous trivial games! That is the 'poetry' in Poetry Magazines, As dead as the carcases of dinosaurs, Creeping with silent maggots and flies! Heard they never words of fire? Knew they never The Agamemnon? No surprise I am never welcome In their empty, dreary tombs! Poetry should set the sky alight, Or touch your heart to melting love, Arouse forgotten dreams, or pull Sweet thoughts from your panting soul! If all you want is neat patterns, Go to a dictionary and plug it in To a computer, and watch the dross Dribbling out of your printer. Sure, indulge yourselves in that, But do not call it Poetry! Idiots, who break the Night with tears, Without celestial tones of fire, Drooping as dreading dead bulbs, Scrambling twittering words, blank forgetfulness: Sitting at desks and marking time! Wondering at how your acceptance comes! Snore throughout your frightened lives, But do not call it Poetry!  X O the sweet drops of dawn light! Quietness in the soul, full with hope! Gentle the thoughts of Love, uncoiling into joy! Morning birds twittering, peace and serenity! O Schubert, Shelley, friends of my soul! Love has wings, but She descends, For blessed moments, and those are sweet, Let us give thanks to the Goddess of Love! Deep in the night, and unto dawn Love threads Her quiet way, Like music of the heart's fire, Like wine drunk from Her golden cups! Soft dawn, touching with its pinkness, Aerial merriment in the deep skies, Communion with morning's loveliness, Mystical ecstasy in everything. Love surrounds the soul in warmness, Tears of happiness playing like dew, Sprinkling spectral colours of every hue, Rainbows of wonderful, gorgeous day. Beautiful Love in soft flight, Songs of bliss in eternity, Airs wafting as rapt juiciness, Her kisses wrapping us in sublimity. XI Love flies from deep gestation And does not think anything, but feels: There is the Way better to be; Something about caring for everyone Without exception, not killing For fixed ideas or dogmas. Looking for that which burns in beauty Everywhere, as it always does; The heart somewhere on fire, in everyone. Like the poetry of fire from Gonzalo Arango, Or the strange painting of Fernando Botero Of a lost Christ, heart with thorns and flames. There is a burning ecstasy, Delicious flames of Love, That strange, greater Understanding. We are all children of the Sun, Wrapped originally in hopes from Love; Stir again, we always can; Our dreams tap in again and again To bright happiness, and acceptance of all In Unity of spirit, joy in our existence XII You thugs from Hell, you ghoulish yobs, Drop your own corpses upon dead lands, Pour your own dead blood upon the victims Of your evil arrogance, your murderous plans! Your empty brains, your disgusting thoughts, Let them spurt into an empty zone Where they may be spent of their viciousness And be returned onto normal earth As painless drops of mediocrity. You, Bushblair, Blurbosch; drink the blood Of innocent victims of your endless bombing, That blood of your victims beneath the rubble, The children, women, the older poor, In those lands upon which you wreak revenge Against that resentment that you deserve, You vile, powerful, mindless cowards. Even the Pope tells you: NO! And we, your subjects, scream forever, NO! Do not bomb Iraq's poor To satisfy your weird whims. When did you creeps turn into pigs? Before you left the womb, or afterwards? You have murdered Palestinians, You bombed everyone here and there, You overthrew democracy In Chile, Nicaragua, and everywhere. You kept Saddam Hussein in power, You encouraged him to attack Iran; That's why they hate you, want to blast Your citadels of evil power; But it is we, the people who die For your ghastly, murderous crimes. Jack the Straw, Strawman Jack, Mutilating history, dining out On Britain's reputation against Hitler! Go to Hell, liar, you sell out All truth, as the Appeasers did then. You demented, arrogant, ignorant hoods, You insane zealots in ghastly sanctimony, You gangsters that run the regime of Bush, You are the heirs of Nazi Germany, Who trample on ordinary humanity! (And if Baghdad becomes Stalingrad, Americans will be the Germans.) XIII She is the very light of my soul, Her sweetness inundates me with love, Joy soaks through my very being As I bathe in honey, skinless. The darkness of a tight tunnel Opens to sunlight and happiness; The bad spaces in suppressed feeling Open unto wondrous plains of life. I am so deep in love with her I hardly know what to do; I think our beings melt into one, Like musical notes at dawn. Such happiness streaks across the sky In a jubilant, pink sunrise; Free from thoughtfulness, all dives, Into a sea of luxury. Her perfume and her sweet smell Are soft, and draw me to the grand Beauty of the Universe; alive, Aflame, rockets of joy exploding, Fireworks into heaven. XIV She is full of the loveliness of morning, Quivering like a warm star in a blue sky; Her spirit glows in a glorious sweetness, Her delicious face, as she kisses me, Buries me in joyous love, like an infant child, Rolling in smiles and ecstasy. Her beauty astonishes my entire soul, Like a wild, vast sun in my dreams, Breaking ultimate, intense White Light Upon my being, in all its resonance. As I now burn in her beauty and kindness, I wonder if I remember the moon Deep and dark from before my birth Mad in the spasms of gorgeous love. There, may have overboiled some premonition, Some anticipation that later fires, In a happiness of déja-vu, Dreamt, waiting from within the womb From which I came; a memory Of the future, perhaps, a Creation From spheres in the outer realms of Nature, Where the stars flamed and the spheres turned. XV Like creative medicine in my skull, Light creaking as dawn, Dust settling like sediments On the bottom of Lake Fuquene, In a discipline of uselessness, Soft calmness and peace, Arms of pink dawn spreading Over the Cordillera Oriental Peace, the white bird of Love, La paloma of sweet dreams, Bird-man, jaguar, flying lizard Over the ripples of Lake Guatavita, As creamily fresh as a dove of paradise, Strange as a golden bat, The dreams of peace floating high, Waiting to dive for Love.  XVI Supposing one were able to count the number of dead That would result from a particular war, And were able to calculate that against The number that would die without the war; Even if that left a good discount, Should one, even then, make War? Yes, I think so, if it were clear, That ten times more Jews would die in ovens, With no war, than others would die In full war. But rarely is it so. And never it seems, when politicians agree: NOW IS THE TIME TO MAKE WAR. When these bastards decide to do it, It is always for other reasons. "Do not believe your politicians, They are hired by you to do a job, And if they stop doing it, or change their tune, Tell them NO! GET OUT, NOW!" For that you need a good Democratic Mechanism, and that is difficult. My country is on the brink of War With even the Holy Pope against it. But it is not really a war, It is a calculated 'Operation', Just another regime change, An alteration of the West's puppets, Outcome assured, number of deaths not, A twiddling of knobs, by the World's Empire. XVII Allow the birds to twitter in the morn, Do not destroy the peace, like a woodman who expels Love's gentle dryads, that dwell Somewhere quiet; walk away. O where the worms commune with God In that spiritual realm beneath the sod Knowest thou of what I speak? That cosmic Soul where the flowers grow. Shelley, my friend, be with me again, I need your unerring sense of Justice. You always knew, though you were very shrewd When not to compromise; you were no saint But you were never a coward. I look to you, because although I grow Year by year below where you always flew, I need your sense of ultimate Truth, Without pathetic lies and excuses. And I know Love, of that I'm sure Because I feel it now; in all my soul, My heart at last is on gentle fire, I melt into sun and snow. O Adonais, you are not dead, Now I know of what you spoke, It is the Eternal feel of Love, Of which you were, and now I touch. It is not Wisdom, for all its worth, But movement of the Soul, in words, That is the strange Thing called Poetry: Divine prophesy in sound. For many years in my life, I was far away from happiness, O Pablo, born in 1904, I am still here, now. Music is your special friend I am here until the end. XVIII No one can ever really know Why you are who you are, It is a kind of mystery, Due to that weird different drummer. Out in outer space Or deep within the ice Your heart and guts are on your own: Be brave to hear them through! XIX Middle night - all sleeps now Under the wings of silent cloud Rays of the moon Shadows of light There is in the narrow street An old colonial window Colour symphony of milky strawberry Lyrical Queen of Rhythm! Songs of sun and rose Tones of myrrh and lacquer! Byzantine enamel, irridescent rays In cardinal gems of enflowered June. Last night I was alone in the depth of sleep, Dreams of other epochs appeared to me: Dreams of hope, glories, happiness, Wonders that had never been mine. There was a grave silence in all the room And a fragrance of forgotten pasts. XX These ghouls fly in lightning lies Between their drinks of holy blood: These Christians of the United States, Who preach the Bible to declare That Jesus Christ would have loved to bomb Iraq, because it does not worship Him. Prophets of American Holy War, On TV I heard them, they really believe Bosh was appointed by DOG. What an interruption to poetry, My discovery of José Asunción Silva, Superb dreams from the Nineteenth Century In Bogotá, in Candelaria; But how can I tear myself away From CNN and BBC World, When they are full of mad darkness Of looming War against Iraq, Of insane ignorance and arrogance, Of sclerotized minds deep in error, In those who control such dreadful weapons; They who know THEY ARE RIGHT To bomb and kill in the name of DOG. Here we go, Vietnam, War between Islam and America, The blood already starts to smell, As badly as the dead brain cells. How can I enjoy Art, or even Love, Fully, in the face of this? What is Poetry against Napalm, Mozart against Cluster-Bombs? A silly Drone and some clapped-out trucks Threaten to start a massive War. Why did you not fight against Saddam Hussein when he caused the deaths Of a million people in the First Gulf War? (With weapons of mass destruction.) O ho, you helped him and loved that! Now you say, you stand for Justice, Forget your earlier 'mistakes'! But that is just what Saddam says, Why is he any worse than you? What is Terrorism if not to fight Outside of Law and Democracy? Exactly what you do, attacking Iraq, Against the decisions of the United Nations? (Two wrongs obviously make a right If you are British or American.) Thank God For France! "Changer La Vie!" "Vive La France!" I am Iraqi! "We Want The World And We Want It Now!"  XXI In the spirit of love, we should envelop All into a unitary mystery; I am not Christian, nor Buddhist, nor Moslem, But with the deepest layers of these I do agree, though express it all In rather different words. But of that, who cares? It is to bring into one, all understanding That makes us try to embrace others Across seas and continents, cultures and mountains, And not to make War upon people We do not even know. Let's get back to something good, Bruckner for example, Symphony Number Five! Such wild, extreme, notes of fire Blasting back and forth in brass. Or the lovely sun through the window here Of our apartment in Bogotá. Or the thought of my lovely darling, Out at the moment, at work. How extraordinary, to remember Hearing this same Bruckner, years ago, In misery: how then it tore My very heart-being to shreds! But now, because of a woman I love, It sounds ecstatically happy, and beautiful. XXII Transform into music and colour With synaesthetic magic The words of poetry; It is the night, my sweet Luminous lamp of fire Bathing in vague rose light In a smiling attitude Hearing the whistling wind, Through a corridor of shadows. XXIII When America bombs Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Overturns Democracy in Nicaragua, Chile, or Guatemala, Sends in its murderers to let flow the blood Of all its enemies, It does so with such a lovely smile Towards its domestic audience. O the jolly, friendly Yank, So lacking in airs and graces, So informal, unlike the Old Europeans, Some of whom have learnt their lessons. Micky Mouse and Bosh the Dosh, With all their thousands of tons of bombs, Really they are so folksy, So very egalitarian they, Millionaires that rule the roost Among their electronic bombs and planes. Yellow cowards of the soul, Chickens of the hard road, They believe they are so good To terrify the world's people, Who know not what to do. They sit in their fat suits Gargling on television, Pontificating about who should die So long as it is never they. Agent Orange, Napalm; Who used them in Vietnam? Chemical and biological weapons Of mass, total destruction. Ah but those Americans Against the War, How I love them, What Hell for them to be alive In these dead days, How ghastly for them, they are so brave In such an awful situation, They are perhaps the real heroes Of this total, hellish debacle. Said Blair: "I only want to do What Thatcher and Churchill did, But I also want something else, my friends, And this is hard to declare: I drink only very little wine And unlike Major, who loved warm beer, I am so sensible in the day, But at night I desperately need To drink Iraqi blood!" (He was addicted to a foul gamble, To be seen by History as a 'Great Man,' Courageously fighting as a White Knight, For Goodness, against Dark Evil.) When your own land is foul, What can you really do? You have to love something, Some imagined alternative, William Blake's Albion, That Other Britain, that never existed, That is of what I am a Patriot: That is the thought for which I die, Even if it can never be. O that imaginary land of dreams, Green fields and fire of Truth! Justice standing among equals in fire! Naked as God made us, unflinchingly! Receiving Visions of Intensity, In Love, Courage, and Imagination! Perhaps I find it more, here, In Colombia, it matters not; It is an oath to an unborn Being. I shall stay by thee, brethren, No matter what the threat, We are altogether here, Under God's blue sky, Standing on the green earth, And shall not move, that is certain, Until the truth of our dream breathes; Forever will we stand strong, Never accept a bloody compromise. I feel the hope of my ancestors Who lived in every land. |
