To Pablo Neruda: by Azly Rahman

TO PABLO NERUDA:
by Azly Rahman


pablo--
you reign supreme amongst comrades, poetry your sword
your heart and soul unscatched by the journey
you rose from a speck of dust
untainted by the economies of scale
you serenade us with songs of children labored in chains and
           left to rot from the politics of pain
from the politic of mouth which speaks
from heart diseased like cold molten crust

pablo--
i do not know what you found, what you saw
in your wide awakened drunkedness
whilst you still called your poetry flawed

oh pablo
i may be a laureate your comrades longed for
nor my poems memorized by those in love and by the masses silenced

but wait pablo--
let me read you like a subtext
let me bathe in your passion for folklore
as i sit solemnly on a bench outside a new york city mall of glitz but violence hidden
as i sit - come hither
    let us have tea and talk about a revolution

you are a friend of the people
of allende whose for freedom instantaneously shattered
by round of ammunition spewed from the brilliance of the lost souls
                  of The Pentagon's totem pole
                  of a clever siege of copper and cattle

and you pablo --
your spirit rose above the ashes
as the wheels of commerce trample geopolitical marshes

am i wrong pablo--
    if is say that love might not conquer all?
       in this world of guns, guts, glory?
     where poetry lives in vain and machiavellian logic build human amongst us all?

am i not right comrade neruda ---
     in saying that the world is in a hurry
     to catapult darwin and friedmann to their glory
     and leave the child alone -- disfigured by splinters of the world economy?

oh pablo ---
you have descended from the poetry of love
cane down this earth, praises be unto you
but wait!
this is not the end of the story of love
the revelation use be constructed anew

and then--- let us finish our cup of tea
and talk about REAL nationalism
          and strange strategies
          and of the self in society
          and of the self in the march of history

ah ... let us now talk about this:
   who has the gin
   and who is hungry
oh ... wait a minute is it this:
   who has the gun because the child is hungry
wait again:
    who still has the gun and the child is still hungry

or-- they have the guns, guts, and glory
     and how do we arm the child with poetry and philosophy

ahh ... this will make sense pablo--

so that we will now know
      how politics is buried under metaphysical poppies!

may you rest in peace, comrade ...