THE RIVER

1
I am a river,
I'm going down by
the wide stones,
I am going down by
the hard rocks,
along the path
drawn by him
wind.
There are trees around me

shaded around
because of the rain.
I am a river,
lower each time
furiously,
more violently
under
every time a
bridge reflects me
in its arches.
2
I am a river
a river
a river
crystalline in the
tomorrow.
Sometimes I am
tender and
kind. Me
I slide smoothly
through the fertile valleys,
I give to drink thousands of times
to the cattle, to the docile people.
The children approach me from
day
y
trembling lovers at night
they rest their eyes on mine,
and the dog his arms
in the dark clarity
from my ghostly waters.
3
I am the river.
But sometimes I am
bravo
y
strong
but sometimes
I do not respect even
life neither to the
death.
I went down the
overwhelmed waterfalls,
down with fury and with
resentment
blow against the
more and more stones,
I make one for you.

to pieces
endless.
The animals
huyen
fleeing
when I overflow
through the fields,
when I sow from
small stones
slopes,
when
flood
the houses and the pastures,
when
flood
the doors and their
hearts,
the bodies and
sus
hearts.
4
And it is here when
but I rush
When can I arrive?
a
the hearts
when can I
take them by the
blood
when can I
to look at them from
inside.
And my fury
calm return,
and I become
tree
and I stagnate
like a tree,
and I fell silent
like a stone,
and I fall like a
rose without thorns
5
I am a river.
I am the river
eternal of the
saying. I already feel
the nearby breezes,
I can feel the wind
on my cheeks,
and my journey through
of mountains, rivers,
lakes and prairies
becomes endless.
6
I am the river that travels on the banks,
tree or dry stone
I am the river that travels on the shores,
door or open heart
I am the river that travels through the meadows,
flower or cut rose
I am the river that travels through the streets,
wet ground or sky
I am the river that travels through the mountains,
rock or burnt salt
I am the river that travels through the houses,
hanging table or chair
I am the river that travels within men,
fruit tree
rose stone
heart table
heart and door
returned,
7
I am the singing river
at noon and at the
men,
that sings before her
tombs
he who turns his face
before the sacred channels.
8
I am the darkened river.
I already go down for the waves

gorges,
through the unknown towns
forgotten,
through the cities
public certifications
in the display cases.
I am the river
I am already on the prairies,
there are trees around me
covered with pigeons,
the trees sing with
the river,
the trees sing
with my bird's heart,
the rivers sing with my
arms.
9
The hour will come
what will I have to
lead to the
oceans
what to mix my
clean waters with their
turbid waters,
what will I have to
silence my song
bright
what I will have to silence
my furious screams at
dawn of every day,
that clear my eyes
with the sea.
The day will come,
and in the immense seas
I will not see my fields anymore

fertile,
I will not see my trees
greens,
my nearby wind,
my clear sky,
my dark lake,
my sun,
my clouds,
I will see nothing,

only the
blue sky
immense
y
everything will dissolve in
a plain of water,
where a song or a poem more
they will only be small rivers that flow down,
mighty rivers that come together
in my new luminous waters,
in my new ones
waters
extinguished.

A stone
Cold stone,
stone me
If you could talk
on my side,
if you could sing in
your spring!
If you were to flow into a
river width,
And you will bring peace to
whole world
by singing to you in your

distilled water,
soul you would be in me
dark front
you would be an arm

of my old
hair

SOLO
In the mountains or the sea
feeling alone, air, wind
tree, sterile harvest.
Smile, face, sky and
silence, in the South, or in
the East, or at the birth
of a new river.
Rain, wind, cold
and nitrogen.

Coast, lightning, hope,

in the mountains or in the
mar.
Alone, alone,
only your solitary laughter,

only my lone spirit,

alone
my solitude
y
you
silence.

MY HOUSE
1
My room is a
apple
with her
books
with his
peel,
with her bed
tender for
the night lasts.
My room is the
of all
that is to say,

with his
little lamp that
it allows me to laugh
next to Vallejo,
that allows me to see
the eternal light of
Neruda.
My room, in
end
it is a
apple
with his books,
his papers,
with me,
with his
heart.
2
Through my window it is born

the sun almost all

the mornings.
And in my face,
in my hands,
in the sweet
clamor of the pure light,
I open my eyes between the
dead night,
between the tender
hope of
stay alive a
one more day,

a new day,
for
open the
eyes before the
eternal light.

SOME THINGS
Butterflies, trees
narrow streets and
upcoming, how to tell them
that at twilight
its living branches will return
to crackle in the storm!
If at night
they will repair the widest river,
how to deny them their candor
bloody
his clear chest
clarified!
Butterflies, trees in the
storm, in the clear river
mercy your wings to
noisy wind
that between the two will come out

the dawn.

THE JOURNEY

THE JOURNEY OF REST

I would like to rest
a whole year
and turn my eyes
to the sea,
and contemplate the river
grow and grow
like a channel,
like a huge
open wound
in my chest.
Get up,
sit down,
to lie down on
the slopes
o
on the shores
of the seas,
to lie down on
the growing
to settle down
gently in
the waters
o
in
the
springs.

THE POEM
1
I have slept all
one year
or maybe I have died
just a moment,
I don't know.
But I know that one year
I have been absent,
I know a year has passed.

rested
I know that at that time
the blackberries and the fruits
they were cutting their roots

grinding them
of flavor and joy.
I rested
in the mountains,
and happily my
the heart did not dry up
with the humidity
of the crying,
he didn't sob,
he did not claim sadness
past.
Everything happened as
always
and I was resting
resting,
the trains still weighed their rails,
the ships were sinking
afternoon and last night,

many fish
they were exhausting in the sea.

2
But I'm already here.
I have returned, however,
with a rare flavor
to bitter land,
many sufferings
I had accumulated
and it is hard to forget
in a year.
It's hard to let go
all abandoned,
a year is always
One year and it's never enough.
It's hard to leave everything,

pale bushes
they cover the heart
of hatred,
and starting is always
leave something
a hole,
a fine root;
the breath
of hate tirelessly
habitat
in the heart
and in the dream.
3
Today I have returned

my paths.
I left a while ago
one year.
Everything could deny it.
now
I don't know if I have been born,

I don't know if I have read it.

once a book.
Maybe it has been opened today

a verse by Salinas
that today I want to forget.
One year is never enough
when one wishes for rest.
If I have been born

it's because I have to finish

with my bones
in the sea:
(the sea washes everything)
the sea covers
the herbs and the grasses,
he fills the hearts
of salt and of darkness).
But have I already died,
a year is always a year,
I really haven't
not rested at all,
Or is it that I want
lie down again
in the bed
of the rest, where
in dreams I would hear
the rumor
from the slopes
of autumn?
4
I have returned already.

Mom, Dad,
I'm back.
Brothers,
here I am
like before,
singing in
the nights
of winter,
with my dry
heart
of bread and stone.
Gustavo, you
you have grown.
And you no longer tell
with the fingers,
and you no longer read

letter by letter
and you no longer dream

with the tigers

And elephants?
It is true, parents,
brothers,
Here I am.
I don't know if I have rested,
and it is that on the way
I found a willow that
laughed with the wind and
with my steps,
that laughed with
the teeth and the branches,
who laughed at everything

like a child,
and this has me
made to doubt.
5
I have been long
year stretched in
the grass of oblivion,
covered by
the leaves of love and
of autumn.
I have already rested
a little, I confess,
I left without saying goodbye,
but it's that in my heart
my flowers no longer fit,
it wouldn't fit in my heart
the hard secret of life.
6
I have returned slowly
A little bit of sleep
it is always necessary
even if it's short like
the silence of the
vines).
For every town I passed
back,
I saw that their doors
they were open
for me,
that their roofs were mine,
that their fields,
his ears,
everything belonged to me.
I was walking and
I was walking,
I did not look back
towards my bed of leaves,
one year is enough
he/she was telling me,

it is not necessary to die

but if we want
open your arms and say:
see you tomorrow, thank you,
nothing has happened,
and I am as always
between the rivers,
and I am like never before

among the stones.

And I kept walking,
thinking about bread
hot from the house,
savoring the rice
prepared by my mother
feeling my
bed
with
sus
sheets
happy.
7
The song of the
rivers
I accompanied my
pies
of the warm walker,
the river
I sang with my arms,
in him
I was looking at death and at
life.
But one is always
composed
of a piece of death and of
path,
and one is always a river,
the song,
or covered tear.
8
I am back. I slept for a
long year, I rested,
and I was dead, but
I enjoyed April
and of the white flowers.
9
Today I have returned for
the fields,
a rats running
suffocated
a resting rats
again at the foot
from a tree of
chestnut leaves.
The sun above,
(as always),
singing loudly
triumph songs
or challenging me to run
throughout the countryside.

I stopped
in the slopes,
I was drowning my arms
in its waters,
was conversing
refreshing
the head.
And I saw myself again
reflected in
the sea and here I doubted

again
I haven't known anything,
I have traveled for a whole year

through the villages

of dreams.
I don't know if I am just
a dead person that hits
on your suffocated drawer,
I don't know if in a piece
if I could remember you
a whole life lost,
but I know that I have been
asleep
A year is a century
When is a year
of dreams and of forgetfulness.
10
Don't blame me for anything
I have been absent.
a whole long bunch
of tight days,
it's because I assumed
that can never be
to live so much,
my hands were already
hands only for
the cry and the refuge.
I used to build my
caves with my eyes,
and the nails did not exist
neither for the bread nor for

the wheat.
I will never know if I have

rested
knowing is not enough,
a year is always a year,
but I know that I have slept,
and there where I slept
the flowers were covering

my head,
and I wasn't worried
neither of the river nor of the valley,

neither the sea nor the sands.

Today I return,
today I return
after a year,
after a year
of rest or
of perennial journey
towards life.
But the journey
of the rest,
or the journey without rest,
or the journey and the rest,
everything is a relief for
my dead eyes.
Today I return with the doubt
and the word
today I return with
the joy in the throat,
without rest or with rest,
but without new dreams.
Without a new dream
that forces me to
return to my bed
of herbs and flowers,
without a new and long
dream
I will be able to build

new words
maybe I will smile
with a happy face,
someday I will greet
to life,
and I will wait

to death joyfully,
with my dry heart.

YEARLY RECAP
Once finished
the year,
I proceed to collect
my new things,
I proceed to claim
old papers
I do to the beat
of friendly chats
the year's recount
the count of my
365 days passed:
everything is gone

quickly,
there was no time
for the harvest,
neither for
sow the wheat
in the cornfields.
The days flew by
suddenly,
I was sitting,
reading,
or ever
writing
until the night.
I was not afraid
from death,
I couldn't sow.
love as
I wanted,
I picked up some
fallen fruits
and I assumed that
in the end, I would die

some afternoon
among birds
and trees.
I am not dead.
however,
between afternoon and afternoon

when they vibrate

the blows
from the silence,
I open my heart
to the spell
of the wind
and the word,
and I build
houses
lands,
mares,
new dawns
new sorrows,
and I fall in the end
(as always
remembering and
remembering.

THE SEASONS
poem
Dark is the time and light
the smiles of the days.
The day assumes its pallor
as a child: his joy is
express in the nights
of love and revenge.
It is the hour of the dead,
there where the pale arise
faces of consumed children
by the wind.
Long is the road and dark
the smiles of the days.
The tombs preserve their
old fears, the men
his old writings
and the children are born

with new ones

resentments on the lips.
And there where the day offers itself
(dark joy of fallen herbs)
I open my eyes to the light of love
and from your lips.

Winter
August has already passed.
Tough springs
they happen to my forgotten ones

memories.
(The scars
of time and oblivion,
the scars of hatred
and the love,
the plains of blood
open with the hand,
the desolate fields
for thirst and love).

SPRING
It is the hour of blood
and of the clamor.
there where they vibrated

the old trumpets,

there where they sounded
the old sonnets,
they vibrate and sound

the dark days

of time and of love.
The dead are waiting
happy are the thunders
patients
and the frozen rivers
they wait for the arrival
of summer.
Summer, old solid,
nothing you can do against

the burning tyranny

of spring.

SUMMER
Redoubled whispers of love
they shake the heart and the eyes.
It is the light of life and
of the days. It is the punishment of the
death and of the nights).
I gather and sow the seeds.
of love;
path between nights
obscured by
the wine
I ask the earth
and to the mountains,
I tear down mountains
of hatreds and tumult
What are the afternoons?
next to peace,
what are the mountains
beside the dreams,
What are rivers
beside the tears,
What are a smile,
a cry,
a shudder,
a
face
a
hand
yes day by day
they die
the herbs
in the fields,
yes day by day
they fall in their

nights
the trees
of love and
of silence?

AUTUMN
In the autumn rivers,
my blood, my dead,
my love, the fallen herbs,
my lips, the scars
open
they will merge like
a spring,
they will join like children

playing
in the eternal rebirth
from our hearts.

MY DEAD HOUSE
1
Don't demolish my house
old, she had said.
Do not demolish my house.
2
We had our pergola,
and two doors to the street,
a garden at the entrance,
small but great,
a dry apple tree
now for the scream
and the cement.
The peach and the orange tree
had died earlier,
but we also had
(how to forget it!)
a pomegranate tree.
Grenades that were coming out

from its trunk,

red
greens
the tree was blending
with the wall,
and next to,
on the street,
a trunk that
give me a break
every year,
that filled with leaves
in autumn the doors
from my house.
3
Don't tear down my old house,
he had said,
at least leave my
grenades
and my blackberries,

my apples and my
bars.
4
All of this contained
my small garden.
It was a piece of
guarded land
day and afternoon for a
fence
a tall brown fence
what
the children at the exit
from the school
they jumped easily,
taking the apples
and the blackberries,

the pomegranates
and the flowers.
5
It's true, I don't deny it,
the walls were collapsing
and the doors wouldn't close
totally.
But they killed my house,
my bedroom with its
high morning window.
And nothing was left
of the pomegranate,
the blackberries no longer

they get my shoes dirty,

I only see from the apple tree

today,
a sad trunk that
s/he cries for his/her apples
and their children.

6
My heart stayed
with my dead house.
It's difficult to rescue
a little joy,
I have lived among
cars and cement,
I have always lived
between trucks
and offices,
I have lived among
ruins all the time,
and change a little
of tree and grass,
an ancient palm tree
with swings,
a red grenade
shot in battle,
a fallen blackberry with a child
for a little bit
of painting
and of hail,
is
change
also something
of joy
and of sadness,
it is also to change
a little bit of my life,
is also called
a little here to death
(that accompanied me
every afternoon
in my old house,
in my dead house).

I DO NOT LAUGH AT DEATH

ELEGY
You wanted to rest
in dead land and in oblivion.
You thought you could live alone.
in the sea, or in the mountains.
Then you knew that life
it is solitude among men
and my solitude among the valleys.
That the days that circulated
in your chest they were only ours
of pain between your crying. Poor
friend. You didn't know anything nor did you cry anything

I never laugh
of death.
Simply
it happens that
I don't have
fear
of
to die
between
birds and trees
I do not laugh at death.
But sometimes I am thirsty
and I ask for a little bit of life,

sometimes I am thirsty and I ask

daily, and as always
It happens that I don't find answers
but a deep laughter
and black. I already said it, never
I usually laugh at death,
but I do know their target
face, his grim clothing.
I do not laugh at death.
However, I know your
white house, I know its
white clothing, I know
its humidity and its silence.
It is clear that death does not
has not visited me yet,
And you will ask: what
Do you know? I don't know anything.

That is also true.

However, I know that upon arrival
I will be waiting for her.
I will be waiting standing up
or maybe having breakfast.
I will look at her gently
(don't be scared)
and how I have never laughed
from her tunic, I will accompany her,
solitary and solitary.

THE KEYS TO DEATH

Now and always on my face
I preserve the unmatched voice,
the unique voice that will open the
tireless doors of life,
the inexhaustible doors
of death.
The only voice on my face
I eternally keep, my
face that is immediate
at noon,
what is susceptible at the front
to the eternal sun, which is a score
of weeping before death.
The unique voice contains
tirelessly
my face. The unparalleled voice
what is capable of opening the doors
of life, which can open
the doors of death.
My face and my voice are
they confuse at the doors
of life,
they blend in at dawn
from death,
both
face
y
voice
how
a
key
how
a
bunch
of keys,
how
eternal
keys
of
the
death.

EPILOGUE
I am only
a sad man
that exhausts its words

POEMS BY RODRIGO MACHADO

Explanation
Rodrigo Machado was born on a day in the month of July in Havana, the year 1962. (His age does not...
it is known already since he is the age of his people's struggle). The war against imperialism, to
the one who will go along with 40 comrades, will either speak or remain silent about the years he is to complete.
Will he stay in some mountain soaked with a bullet in his body? Will he continue traveling to the
hope or will they bury it in the bed of some river, then completely dry?
No, but the rivers of life, of hope, will continue to flow with crystal-clear torrents.
Because in the river is the life of a man, of many men, of a people, of many
towns. And Rodrigo Machado, standing or lying down, will continue singing with a rifle on his shoulder,
because the rifle will be one of the means to achieve liberation. And once liberated, the
worthy and honorable men will tell the truth to everyone about our people, about their
struggles and their future life. Only then, Rodrigo Machado and the 40 who departed towards
life (standing or beneath the earth) will feel happy and joyful.
Havana, October 1962.

SPECIAL POEM

It is now about writing

something original, new, surprising.
Tomorrow I'm going on a trip.
I will go to Mexico as a Peruvian,
tourist exploring the ancient ruins
and then Bolivia,
laughing at police dogs
and hurried dogs.
I will enter along with 30 classmates.
furtively to my homeland.
Armed with words and rifles,
armed with new desires
of a younger Peru,
we will plant in the Andes mountains
subversive seeds
I
But this has a more distant origin.
It was in April (cruel and soft April)
when one morning appeared
the Commander.
It was the brave Fidel in flesh and blood.
that proposed to us to rise up in arms
and change the course of the History of Peru.
40 we accept.
We climbed to Turquino
2,200 meters high and during
6 months we learned guerrilla warfare.
Everyone will know the end.
(I get bored and don't finish this poem)
But I go to battle and to war
for the love of my homeland, my Peru,
for the love of my soil, of my landscapes,
for the love of the poor of my land,
for the love of my mother, for her affections,
for the love of my father, for his harshness,
for the love of brothers and friends,
for the love of life and death,
for the love of the things of the days,
for the love of the days of autumn,
for the love of winter's cold.
I don’t know what will happen to me and my
brothers in the struggle,
but I knew how to live and die like
worthy man,
wanting to respect and save the one who
everything suffers,
wanting to open new saving soles.
The end of the story will tell it
my colleagues,
up, down, on top of the story,
and they will tell my children
true stories,
and hope will live forever.
Havana, Nov. 62
Javier Heraud Gustavo Melgar Rodrigo Machado

Before leaving Havana, Javier wrote this poem in November 1962. It

titled 'Special Poem' and in it he explains the journey he would take and his decision to enter Peru
to open a guerrilla front. It is signed by three names: Javier Heraud and his
pseudonyms Gustavo Melgar and Rodrigo Machado. (Gustavo was the name of his younger brother who
he always remembered it in his letters.
A part of this poem was published in 'Complete Poetry', under the title 'Fragment of
"Special Poem". This is the version of the complete poem that Javier left to one of his
companions who remained in Bolivia to form that guerrilla front.

EXPLANATION

I
Earlier I spoke of the river and the mountains,
I sang to the autumn, to the winter,
I cursed the summer and its rituals.
I spoke, I strolled, I stepped on other lands,
I said Peace in Moscow, in squares,
in streets and bridges.
Today I do something else.
Some will ask what
it is about, what happened.
Nothing has happened.
One day I met Cuba,
I met his lightning of fury,
I saw the squares full
of people and rifles,
I heard their screams,
I touched, I felt, I walked Sierra Maestra,
I stepped on the Turquino,

I saw the Apostle in stone

forever.
I saw Fidel of shifting stone,
I heard her voice of uncontrollable fury.
towards the enemies.
And I remembered my sad homeland,
my village gagged,
their sad children, their streets
devoid of joy.
I remembered, I thought, I glimpsed their

empty squares, their hunger,

his misery at every door.
We all remember the same thing.
Sad Peru, we said, it is still time
to recover spring,
to sow the fields again,
to bar the miserable
exploitative patriots.
They will come to an end, we said, the

palatial parties for the less fortunate

and the tables without food
and hungry.
And one day a few of us got together.
It's easy to handle a rifle, to shoot
hopes
it's harder to contemplate helpless
"the misery" we said,
and with confidence we begin
a new life,
a life of futures for
the homeland.
Sad Peru, wait,
new rivers will be born,
new springs will be
devastated, like autumns,
and on every face it will shine
the overflowing joy
and the strength of the
gathered and holy people.

II
I stand up and ask
Who suffers?
ALL
What are we waiting for? I asked.
if the times have ripened,
many died uselessly
(but not without cause)
many corpses are waiting
his redemption,
there is the corpse of Juan
the peasant
and of Peter the fisherman,
and from Mateo the lumberjack.
Let's all go together, we say,
now and with weapons in hand.
That one has a Mauser.
(comrade who had
requesting the word
that other a Thompson,
we all have dynamite
and braids.
This is enough to wake up
the dormant consciousness of Our
Town,
this is enough to fly the
the entrails of the bourgeois regime.
Now we possess everything.
We are strong and noble,
the rivers will be ours
and the golden waters of
the seas,
ours will be the bread,
the wheat, the sword and
the sunny fields.
Everything belongs to us.
To joy we go.
Bolivia 1963.

III
this path
Fidel shows the way.
It's easy but difficult,
there is a lot to do,
many are left behind,
they retreat,
but the majority move forward
towards the future.

IV
Asked:
Who stops the people
in their progress towards the future?
Everyone answers 'Nobody'.
And amid smoke and gunpowder
and rifles,
he is seen advancing
in front of History.

V
they
Where will the traitors remain?
at salary, the sold, the poor
devils?
Where will the trash of the country go,
those who spoke of 'freedom',
of "justice", of "equality"
when thousands were dying in the fields,
(communal farmers, peasants, indigenous people)

unarmed) under the bullets

of oil, of the large estates,
of the exploiters?
Let's just let them listen.
the first shots.
Let's just let them see the
first armed peasant.
They will say "it's easy". And they will command.

lead and huiski officers.

They will die. Others will be sent.
And almost, almost at the end
they will be thrown down
of the beds.
They will go to the embassies.
It doesn't matter. We'll get them out of

their filthy holes,

he will judge all of them together
the village.
No one will be able to ask for mercy for
them,
well, they are alone.
They will die before the court
of the town.
No one will mourn them.
They will soon be forgotten.
La Paz, 1963

VI

ballad of the guerrilla who left

One afternoon he said to his beloved

I'm leaving, it's already time for the rains.
everything is flooded
life wraps itself around my throat
I can no longer endure oppression.
While my brothers
they die in the mountains from bullets
assassins,
I should not remain thoughtful,
indifferent
Goodbye, I am going to the mountains

with the guerrillas

He said goodbye and left
And one day I was already
up, arm in arm with the guerrillas.
It was her hand, a finely crafted silver sword,

plowed, sowed, harvested

the earth
he shot rays with his rifle
of hope.
and another day he was already dead,
on the shoulder.
Thoughtful and sad
he still remembers his beloved
in memorial for a long time.
And she waits for him by the river,
at the bridge where he saw him depart.
And she caresses her belly with sadness,
thinking of him, of everyone,
with her beautiful eyes
and radiant
look towards the bridge, to the river,
to life.
And feels in his heart
hope, the new
joy that her beloved gathered
on the earth.

POEM
Now it must be, Juan, wield your rifle,
Pedro, you take the thirty.
Now we will talk with the weapons.
It used to be easy, they caught us with the shouts
in hand, they would put us in prisons.
We are fewer, it doesn't matter. We are.
armed and with faith in the people:
peasants, workers, students:
now is the time
Let's all rise
to plant in the ground,
in our Peru
a new life with machetes,
rifles, sickles and hammers.
Who will be able to stop us,
if now we are fewer
but we will all be
against the handful that governs..
POETIC ART
Truly, truly speaking,
poetry is hard work
what is lost or gained
to the rhythm of the autumn years.
(When one is young)
and the flowers that fall are not picked up
one writes and writes through the nights,
and sometimes they fill hundreds and hundreds
of useless sheets.
One can boast and say
I write and do not correct,
the poems come from my hand
like the spring that they brought down
the old cypress trees on my street
But as time goes by
and the years filter through the temples,
poetry is taking shape
pottery work,
clay that is baked between the hands,
clay that molds quick fires.
And poetry is
a marvelous lightning,
a rain of silent words,
a forest of heartbeats and hopes,
the song of the oppressed peoples,
the new song of the liberated peoples.
And poetry is then,
love, death,
the redemption of man.
Madrid, 1961 Havana, 1962.

Other scattered poems by Javier Heraud

PROLOGUE
It has arrived already
man of the seas
Sir, open your door
Sir, open your heart
that has arrived already

the man of the seas..

Gabier Ero
1960

NOBODY BOTHER YOU, BROTHER

Nobody bothers you,
brother.
Today you sleep in your crib
And in your milk,
tonight you sleep in your dream
and in your night.
What terrors, what
fears will catch you
in the early morning and

they will shake you in

Friday or on Saturdays
or in tumultuous Saturdays?
No. Here I am,
brother,
watching over your tranquility
and your nights,
looking at your hands
linked with
the moon
looking at your face
sunk in your
autumn sounds.
Winter. And here
is your brother,
your blanket, your
sheet, and
your pillow,
and your brother
to avoid that
perverse angels
they passed by your
eyes
to take your
dreams and lull them
fiercely.
Today, sleeping,
taking care of your death

for moments,
I will prevent new ones.
soles are born in you
in front, I will avoid

the darkness and the

ruins
the miseries and,
the evils,
(that are emerging today)
in my eyes
to make of you,
brother,
a new man
born here in
the dawn.
June 1960.
POEM TO A FRIEND
Thursday, last day of the
childhood
Thursday, Friday sweet days
and bitter to the ear
what shadow that lights
what suns
they rested
in
you
f rent
what suns brought you closer
to the past,
Thursday
sweet,
last, day of
Mondays
poetry
Tuesday of the
week.
Luis, brother,
today humanity
it tastes strong
today I rest
in my eyes
and in my voice.
June 28, 1960

THE VISITORS OF THE NIGHT

You have given me to drink
in your hands the water
that comes out of the fountain,

the source to appease,

my thirst for walking,
I knew that I was running through

the covered fields and

sun fabrics
the source to calm
my thirst for life and death.
I thirst for your fresh hands,
the clear fountain,
the fountain that laughed with Machado,
the fountain that immersed me with its kisses
This fountain has filled with stones
my dry heart,
the fountain and your hands.
the water that you offered me
to drink that afternoon of
Birds among the desert,
the source and the stone,
love destroys like death,
love fills my fresh water
face and my breath,
the source like a day in your hands,
the source of the afternoon and the night,
the source and my thirst
your hands and the fountain of the afternoon.

NEW IMAGE
For Armando Zubizarreta
Sometimes I look a little like
to the image of death
that my mother discovered
among his stories.
With my sunken eyes and
my hands pointing
white streets
they usually confuse me
with the devouring death,
and then,
to play,
I penetrate in some
houses,
relieving the carpenters and
artisans of pain,
taking lands
and sinking them
in the sea.
I am death at times,
And at times I preserve my beauty
and my clothes
I scare dogs, cats,
and in the end,
as always,
to the barren and solitary fig tree
I burn it with the lightning of my hands
October 25, 1960

Krishna O The Wishes

A. C. B., eternal friend.
Keshava, with what object would you kill?
to mine? I do not desire victory,
neither the kingdoms nor the pleasures.

Bhagavad-Gita. I, 31
I

I do not desire victory.

Victory is always fleeting,
there is nothing left but death,
the rejoicing, the false joy of life:
a fallen grass over the shoulder,
a refuge that awaits your return,
a hidden cry after the
battle and victory.
A pulsating glass,
a body in perpetual motion,
an eternally empty ashtray
they are more fleeting than victory,
ephemeral and vain, tired and exhausting.
It is difficult to row with a loose oar,
it's difficult to fill the full glass,
it's difficult to change someone else's time.

I desire neither victory nor death,

I do not desire defeat nor life.
I only desire the tree and its shade,
life with its death.
II
I do not desire the kingdoms.

A kingdom is always measurable:

so many meters and distances,
so many oxen and horses it
they separate from other kingdoms passengers.

I desire no kingdom:
my only kingdom is my heart singing,
it's my heart speaking,
my only kingdom is my heart crying,
it is my wet heart
my kingdom is my dry heart (I already said it)
my heart is the only kingdom
indivisible
the only kingdom that never betrays us,
my kingdom and my heart,
(I already have the heart)
I do not desire kingdoms if I have my
chest and my throat,
I do not desire the valleys nor the kingdoms.

III
I do not desire pleasures.
Pleasure does not exist, only doubt.
Pleasure does not exist, only death.
Pleasure does not exist, only life.
The sea will wash my spirit on the sands,
he washes it every day in memory,
he has washed it with words,
the sea is not a pleasure but a life).
The sea is the realm of solitude and shipwreck.
IV
I desire nothing but life,
I desire nothing but death.
V
Rest in the valley
that bathes the river every afternoon,
in the sands that the sea covers
every night,
in the wind that blows in the eyes,
in the life that breathes no longer with fire,
in the death that breathes the air full,
in my heart that lives and dies daily.
November, 1960.

POEM
The valley of
Tarma is big.
But bigger
it's my heart
when I look at him,
but broader
it is my chest when
I inhale air, and air,
sky and condor,
Tuesday and Thursday,
bigger than the
river is the man,
bigger than the
valley are the eyes
of so many walkers
to the side.

POEM
A eucalyptus, tall,
spindly, contains
forever my heart.
Eucalyptus,
high germ of the
land, ear of wheat and
river stone,
eternal and sacred fruit
of men.
Forests, valleys,
fields and ravines,
creeks that flow down
like a man,
ravines that descend
in the breasts,
shadows that descend
like bodies
shadows that descend
like shadows.
 POEM
I walked slowly,
through the city
And through its streets.

Warm stones supported

my shoes,
they were supporting my body

tender hands of the night

like stars.

POEM
A thousand countries that

I don't know.
a thousand stars and
tunnels
a thousand countries and towns,
a thousand and one bridges

uncountable,
unknown country
at your gates already
I feel tortured,
in your mouth I already

I feel chewed up,

in your rivers already

I feel now
and always and never
drowned.

TWO QUESTIONS
first question
In what place of Lima, the golden,
Did those who built it live there?
(Bertolt Brecht)
second question
Why is it that they still exist?
unhappy ones who speak to us of a Lima
senatorial, ancient, colonial and beautiful?
Why are there still unfortunate people?
they constantly long for the city of the Kings,
the covered women, the balconies, the promenade,
if from that only a garbage dump of hunger remains,
of misery and of lies?
City of Kings
from exploitation and hunger,
three times crowned by submission,
sad, hungry, miserable city
everywhere,
except for small corners
where 'la flor de la canela' is sung
long live Peru and serene
with ice and Coca-Colas.

SCENIC BALLAD ABOUT

THE CUBAN REVOLUTION
Characters: an American and
a Cuban militiaman.
A Yankee official appears
chewing gum -Talk.
I speak between the full moons
of communists.
They have occupied the Caribbean

we have lost an island.

But they don't dare with us.
Do you still remember what we did?
boil 300 thousand Japanese, already?
But there is freedom,
democracy, justice,
the equality among men
they have been victimized by Russian tanks.
Castro, oh yes, he is a crazy bearded man,
must die in the gas chamber,
Why don't you shave?
We must bring Cuba to its knees,
and that's why I also kneel,
because my new president is Catholic,
believe in the one existing god,
and he also has a beautiful and industrious wife.
(aside)
Do you forgive me for a moment,
but I've felt like urinating.
(a portable door appears
what a sign says:
For white men, only
(In the distance, voices can be heard. They are getting closer.)

Officials from different Latin American countries appear.

and paid journalists dressed as acrobats. They put themselves in
line up and repeat in chorus what the yankee said.
They leave.

A militia member appears in his olive green uniform and with a rifle.
Speak:
Because my homeland is beautiful
like a sword in the air,
and bigger now and still
even more beautiful,
I speak it and defend it
with my life.
I don't care what they say
the traitors,
we have closed the past
with thick tears of steel.
The sky is ours,
our daily bread,
we have sown and harvested
the wheat and the earth,
and the wheat and the land
they are ours,
and they belong to us forever
the sea
the mountains and the birds.
(Sale)
(1961)

RED SQUARE 1961

Red Square 1961.
summer of burned autumns.
Doves that circle the air
with every step we take.
Men who stop.
Open air and pure and healthy.
(Saint Basil sings his beautiful
ballad of colors)
Lenin, asleep,
he watches over the march of his people.
There it is. You can see it.
It is not a deception).

Pavers and steps.

People who gather:
Gagarin returning from his flight
with a flower that sheared from the stars.
(Titov kissed the women and the children).
Red Square 1961
The Kremlin rests with its wall.
expressed from the depths of the centuries.
Gorky on the wall
sings to the children their story
(In the gardens of the Kremlin
the children play with ice creams
of fruits and with balloons)
The lovers kiss
under leafy trees.
The broken bell silences its sound.
(Doves come out of the canyon)
they play at the trills).
Red Square 1961.
Here I have been at the center of the fire,
in the middle of Red Square and several times,

swallowing my sorrows
and forcing my tiniest joy.
I have said Peace in red, in streets,
in squares and gardens.
And I say peace in Moscow, in Tashkent,
or in the wounded heart of my people.

in Red Square
At this time, on these days,
I was in Moscow,
and from my 23rd floor of the Ucraína hotel
I saw the Moscow River at night
to a city at night
who lives and sleeps in peace
of its dawns.
At this hour, Arturo and Mario
They will stroll through Moscow.

But it's different.

They will talk to Marcos Ana,
they will talk about Spain,

they will see with wider eyes

from his village
the rebirth and hope
(But it is different
we are in 1962
Nicolaiev and Popovich
they add up to more than 100 laps,

They will walk through Red Square,

They will talk about me among the cobblestones.

I would also like to speak.

with Marcos Ana,
to tell you about my village and its struggle.
But now
(it is not demagogic to say it)
there are other struggles to fight,
And Arturo and Mario will speak for me
with the pigeons.

WORD OF A GUERRILLA
Because my homeland is beautiful
like a sword in the air,
and bigger now and still
even more beautiful,
I speak it and defend it
with my life.
I don't care what they say
the traitors,
we have closed the past
with thick tears of steel.
The sky is ours,
our daily bread,
we have sowed and harvested
the wheat and the earth,
and the wheat and the earth
they are ours,
and they belong to us forever
the sea
the mountains and the birds.

POEM TO RAFAEL ALBERTI

(Composed in her presence, on May 5, 1960, at the José Carlos Mariátegui Institute).

Rafael,
Alberti
let me call your voice
from my voice,
to your song from my song
shipwrecked
let me learn in your eyes
the burning word,
the living and clear poetry.
Rafael,
Sailor in land and sky,
sailor and angel
sailor and land,
earth and sky,
Alberti and Rafael.
Alberti
to your sky, to your voice,
to your face
excited
now, I have to sing
in the voice of the pigeons.
Bone in the tree, Pedro,
federico, rafael
coming from so far and
so close.
Alberti
may your waters come pure
to your sky, that your
rain falls gently
today in my
chest
may your sky rain fertile
in Spain,
may your voice spread across America,
and in the land of his
fruits, from flowers in the oceans,
plant trees in the
men. Filled with flowers
this world.
Nothing can overcome death
against you.
Rafael,
death no longer exists
in your meadows,
she no longer reigns in your fields

blues,
forgetting will no longer forget you
in its stormy waters.
Alberti
rafael,
in the word, in the face
of your poetry,
you put your voice and your throat,
you left your soul and your blood
open
Rafael in your voice
you stayed.
Eternally.

To leave for my subdued homeland

and for you, my dear
Vals 'Melgar'.

One day I left home

I left my mother at the door
with their goodbye biting my eyes.
(My brother, the little one,
I didn't understand anything and I believed

that would return soon).

I knew that trip was
for a lot
and that's why I hugged quite a bit

I greeted my father.
future marriages of my sisters.
The car was already leaving,

I left, I departed, I got away

quick from home,
fulfilling past threats
that I would profess.
I didn't want to say goodbye to Amaranta
because "the time of love does not come back".
I knew it,
and so between bitterness and despair,
I walked away one afternoon,
I abandoned everything,

my homeland, my country, my home,

the world that I secretly look at
And so I arrived in Havana,
remembering past episodes
between songs and laughter.
Ode to Pablo Neruda

I
You came to me like a
fast steed. You brought me
hard and golden nails,
dried grapes and
invisibles.
You were a vine in
your hair, you got mixed up
tree, you became
gold, you became a soul
in my soul.

II
Now you are the rose
from today in the announcement.

Then you were the voice

oak dry
hardened.
You are again the
light and the light

clarified.

III
You were singing in the
offered world. You
was bread and stone
pierced. You were
fresh, innumerable
writing in the
heart, in the
bird, in the
rough water.

IV
To you, swarm
never understood, to
your father Vegetable,
to you seed
germinated,
I sing,
oh tree,
oh my sky.

V
In you, death is
reclining stone
on the slope,
pure song, iridescent
crying, wet leaf
in the perpetuated river.
The voice of the wind was
sweet in your ears.
The sea in waves you
brought geraniums daily
in his/her mouth,
the blackberries were blooming

in trees when
you used to name them.

VI
However life,
the light and the currents,
they didn't make you happy.
You were fighting in your
fatherland, oh fatherland,

you were returning to her

blood, you were approaching

your cheek to his

soul, to its name
of snow.
You wanted to sleep in his
substance, you wanted
change shade.
Choose the hardy flowers
of the nitrate.
Knit the yarn
glacial of the bell,
weave your branch
to beauty.

VII
They were the rivers, rivers

arterial, humidity
thickness and thunder.
The wind does not you
will not forget, nor the

silence will cover

your face.
America, love
America filled you
of fruits, it will give you

the harvest, the wheat,

the sword and hilt.
Your name is
written in the dry ones
arteries of your America.

VIII
If you would just hide
your armor,
if you would just be quiet
your mouth in front of him

sound of the arrow,

there wouldn't be even Pablo,

neither song, nor verse,

no hope.

IX
Like a ghost
unleashed, like
a footprint in the
shore, like
pure extended presence
the sea
you will be all the
life
coast
rain
lightning
hope.

X
You were getting tired of

to be a man in the
shirts
the blood was gushing
by their fists
and you cried.
You laughed to the tune

of the guitar.
No, you don't sleep.
still.
No, don't dream
victoria
hide your daggers,
death
nothing you can do against

the rock
cleared.
Pure poetry,
aladak
humid.

XI
Sleeping in
extinguished ashes
you were city in
the crros of the
night of leaves,
you didn't stop the
sea in your agony,
you used to sleep under the

forest of the
green leaves,
to the star of
eternity.

XII
Sometimes I ask,
What is your name?
Did you found your

stone in the
tear, or in
the wood,
or in the bee,
or on the stone
same?
Did you found your
books in your
soul, in your
heart, or did you feel
to tremble before
the influence of
crying?

XIII
You, American from
the altar towers,
you, American
of death
dark, you
American
from the door
eternal.

XIV
In the song
what did you build
to the petals,
in the singing
built at the
gates of Warsaw,
the fire, the
tree, they live in
your soul of
Nogales.
Give it back to you
tower, open your
heart so
open
and renew yourself
to the nest of your
sacred light.

XV
It was in you Spain
sweet comfort.
Who could you call?
but
to her mouth?
Who did you implore?
but to his blood
Clara?
To whom?
you asked if not
on her lips?

XVI
You were arena of
Spain in the
ossuaries,
unleashed pink eras,
you were
alone
frightened town
in the *
agitated.
Undeciphered word in
the original manuscript.

Seventeen

You will be happy with

the song of the

waters.
You will be happy with

the hardened chest

with the knees and the
arena.
The world is today
your soul,
is your mouth today,
in the air, in
the earth,
on the skin
of your freshness.

Eighteen
You walked nearby
fifty years
with her,
poetry.
You spilled it a little
a little in you
inexhaustible water,
in your
heart
burned,
reviving
since the
ashes.

XIX
The weather is little
little by little you

will become
land and
will let run
eternally
the waters
of you
river, in
poetry
without death
resumption
in new ones
dawn of
sorrowful sunset.

XX
The time is yours
inseparable friend,
will not separate you
of the soul of
the springs,
neither of the

similar land.
About your time,
the threads of the
fragments, they will leave

the footprint never

erased: one
fragrant honeysuckle
and living like
the fire.
Time will erase
the identity
what separates you,
and the same
that raised two
llamas like
spikes,
will give you the

victory, eternal
and you will be one only

be final under
the earth.

SHELTER ME AS ALWAYS
IN YOUR CHESTS

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE
(To my friends)
I just want to know myself
to the bottom as always,
I just want
to rest in dead land and in oblivion.
I could live alone
in the sea,
or in the mountains,
but always
I would need
of a few,
from a handful,
of a bunch
of friends
to pass the
nights by your side
of the coffee and of the

silence.
Take refuge in me

as always
in your
breasts
hearts
alerts.
I don't know if
I will be able to

to write
more
well
yes
no
I can
fix
this poem
to free myself from this
table, to free myself

of
this cider.

POEM ON THE PLANE*

If they ask me
where I was
and if they insist, they want
find out the places I have visited,
I will tell you.

Three months are three years,

three years are three days,
three days are three hours,
and truly, truly speaking
I just went out for a walk.
through the park,
I entered the cinema
I stumbled upon other people in others.
parts.
And I'm here now,
nothing has happened to anyone,
I continue as always
admiring the rivers of autumn,
I continue as always
waiting for summer to curse it,
and talking with my parents
beloved objects:
and don't ask anymore,
that there will be no more answers from me.
Well, I should tell them
to my friends, 'I have done it.'
I was in Moscow.
That time I went back home
I felt very defeated.

POEM WRITTEN UPON HIS RETURN FROM HIS TRIP TO MOSCOW AND EUROPE

How difficult,
pour my heart out now,
in the heart of Spain,
in the heart
bleeding from Madrid,
when the doves
of peace and autumn
they fly towards the heights
buildings of the future
and here spring
dies before being born,
Come without coming!
How difficult to say:
I come from Moscow,
from Asia,
I have seen Samarkand rise.
with its high hermitages
that the years built,
how difficult
I repeat, to repeat to you

to the oceans their

wilted symbols,
and then say:
I have been to Spain
and there my heart bled
immediately
as if it were making contact
with the wind that
Cut the roses in winter!
But it is true.
This is Madrid,
this is my heart
bleeding,
this is our way,
and I will continue shouting the

truth of the
extinguished forests,
the truth of roses
falls,
the truth of Spain
and their stories.

Written in Madrid. October, 1961.

L: WHERE IS COMBRAY?
In Swann's garden, in autumn.
They are leaves that I collected from Swann's garden
an eighth of October in Combray or Illiers,
it doesn't matter.

We had taken the train to Chartres

Lucho, Rachel, me and Amaranta.
It was very cold there,
but a rain consoled us
that forced us to have some cognacs.
Of course, and there was also the cathedral.
showing us clear prints,
dirty labyrinths and white peasants
We didn't pay anything for them and I still keep them.
There was no train to Illiers
but the bus was waiting for us.
And very cold also in Combray,
but there was a hotel in the picture
with perfect rooms and feather comforters.
And that dove that we ate,
and the red wine of the village,
and the natural cheese that they make there,
and the light bread and the apple dessert.
Yes, they are leaves that I collected from Swann's garden,
on a hill, on a small bridge
and a navigable stream,
but Lucho got seasick in the boat and we didn't go up.
I don't know if the town was beautiful,
but there was Marcel's house,
and Aunt Leonie's muffin,
and the photo of Francisca the sweet,
and the usual book by Ruskin,
by Enrique the forgetful of Prussia.
What else was there?
Perhaps a portrait of Proust,
perhaps a window with colored glass,
perhaps a lily, a garden,
a rosebush, some roses and these leaves.
1961

FRIEND'S SONG

A Degenhart Briegleb
deal for some

1
We walk
a long time
together
together we arrived
to school,
together we left
the bicycle
we fought together,
we were talking,
we played,
we laughed
together
as always
and like now.

2
It is impossible
place you
exactly.
No
I remember the
I need a moment
in what we
we saw,
surely
it was in the
mutual waters of
childhood.
(A bank, a
small folder
I don't know.

But a long time

we have walked together:
years that seem
cold autumns,
days like rays,
fires like
images.

3
But I no longer
agreement with you.
It's clear
everyone can
tell me,
that if it
I knew so much
time, no
can
to have moved away
on my side,
even if I am
absent as
now.
But for me, it's not like that.
I have seen faces
slightly and
I still remember them.
But let him go
few times
appears in my
memories
today I walk alone,
clear,
I have
friends
but none
like him.

4
We share a lot
things at school:
at the same time we start
to write some
verses that later
poems were made with
the weather.
He must continue
writing like me:
I on my ground,
and he exiled
voluntarily
(drinking
cold,
spitting snow,
advancing
the breath for
the time.)

5
If you knew
how difficult
it's living among
corpses
how difficult
walking with
the closed eyes,
because it can no longer be seen.
And here (you had
reason, all the
life I will be a
child
I forget your
regrets
I live among
corpses
but I live among
mine
( which is
always a
comfort
and you, however
you collect and drink
the dust of the
distance.

6
When you
you went reading
to Machado
to Vallejo,
with fervor
we discovered
Dario,
Hölderlin
he/she gave it to us

to read Carlos
Espinoza,
Juan Ramón
it made us happy
and smiled.
Today Juan
Ramón lies
forgotten,
Darío is always
a poet, I know,
but not anymore
me
touch.
I conserve,
(surely
you too)
I live in Vallejo
and Machado,
but there is
others than
are you okay?
head
others than
they go down in the

nights to
to knock on the window
from my room.

7
I hardly remember you:
However now,
I want to raise a
huge song of
doves and
sing to you
return,
what
I sense
it will last a
time.
Two years
that's already a lot,

you take a long time

return.