Poems

This saltin the salt cellarI once saw in the salt mines.I knowyou won’tbelieve mebutit singssalt sings, the skinof the salt minessingswith a mouth smotheredby the earth.I shivered in thosesolitudeswhen I heardthe voiceofthe salt in the desert.Near Antofagastathe nitrouspamparesounds:abrokenv oice,a mournfulsong. In its cavesthe salt moans, mountainof buried light,translucent cathedral,crystal of the sea, oblivionof the waves.And … Read more

The artichoke With a tender heart Dressed up like a warrior, Standing at attention, it built A small helmet Under its scales It remained Unshakeable, By its side The crazy vegetables Uncurled Their tendrills and leaf-crowns, Throbbing bulbs, In the sub-soil The carrot With its red mustaches Was sleeping, The grapevine Hung out to dry … Read more

When I close a bookI open life.I hearfaltering criesamong harbours.Copper ignotsslide down sand-pitsto Tocopilla.Night time.Among the islandsour oceanthrobs with fish,touches the feet, the thighs,the chalk ribsof my country.The whole of nightclings to its shores, by dawnit wakes up singingas if it had excited a guitar. The ocean’s surge is calling.The windcalls meand Rodriguez calls,and Jose … Read more

The streetfilled with tomatoesmidday,summer,light ishalvedlikeatomato,its juicerunsthrough the streets.In December,unabated,the tomatoinvadesthe kitchen,it enters at lunchtime,takesits easeon countertops,among glasses,butter dishes,blue saltcellars.It shedsits own light,benign majesty.Unfortunately, we mustmurder it:the knifesinksinto living flesh,redviscera,a coolsun,profound,inexhausible,pop ulates the saladsof Chile,happily, it is wedto the clear onion,and to celebrate the unionwepouroil,essentialchild of the olive,onto its halved hemispheres,pepperaddsits fragrance,salt, its magnetism;it is the … Read more

Day-colored wine,night-colored wine,wine with purple feetor wine with topaz blood,wine,starry childof earth,wine, smoothas a golden sword,softas lascivious velvet,wine, spiral-seashelledand full of wonder,amorous,marine;never has one goblet contained you,one song, one man,you are choral, gregarious,at the least, you must be shared.At timesyou feed on mortalmemories;your wave carries usfrom tomb to tomb,stonecutter of icy sepulchers,and we weeptransitory tears;yourgloriousspring … Read more

Y fue a esa edad… Llegó la poesía a buscarme. No sé, no sé de dónde salió, de invierno o río. No sé cómo ni cuándo, no, no eran voces, no eran palabras, ni silencio, pero desde una calle me llamaba, desde las ramas de la noche, de pronto entre los otros, entre fuegos violentos … Read more

And it was at that age … Poetry arrivedin search of me. I don’t know, I don’t know whereit came from, from winter or a river.I don’t know how or when,no they were not voices, they were notwords, nor silence,but from a street I was summoned,from the branches of night,abruptly from the others,among violent firesor … Read more

To whoever is not listening to the seathis Friday morning, to whoever is cooped upin house or office, factory or womanor street or mine or harsh prison cell;to him I come, and, without speaking or looking,I arrive and open the door of his prison,and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent,a great fragment of thunder … Read more

What it takes on this planet, to make love to each other in peace. Everyone pries under your sheets, everyone interferes with your loving. They say terrible things about a man and a woman, who after much milling about, all sorts of compunctions, do something unique, they both lie with each other in one bed. … Read more

What it takes on this planet, to make love to each other in peace. Everyone pries under your sheets, everyone interferes with your loving. They say terrible things about a man and a woman, who after much milling about, all sorts of compunctions, do something unique, they both lie with each other in one bed. … Read more