Food for thought (and for the soul)

I read this poem a couple of weeks ago, and it touched me deeply; it's become one of my all-time favorites. It was written by Spanish poet Gabriel Celaya in 1955, in response to the repression of the fascist dictatorship of Francisco Franco. The historical parallelisms between Spain and the US are, in my opinion, astounding- the facist, ultra-conservative, ultra-repressive Spain of Franco is what we will become if we don't use our democratic power to change things. I just saw the thread of the criminalization of feeding the homeless in some major cities, and felt I had to post this.

Because, my brothers and sisters, "we are touching rock bottom" as a society...

This is my translation, so I ask the spirit of Gabriel Celaya and you all for forgiveness (translations can easily unintended cartoons of an original, or a new work by themselves)...


"Poetry is a gun loaded with a future" by Gabriel Celaya (1955) (fragment)

When nothing inspiring is personally expected anymore
but the heart keeps beating and conscience is still here with us,
fiercely existing, blindly affirming,
with a pulse that beats darkness

when one looks directly to
the vertiginously clear eyes of death,
truths are told:
the barbaric ones, the terrible ones; loving cruelties.

Poetry for the poor, necessary poetry,
like the bread we eat every day,
like the air we demand thirteen times per minute
in order to be and, as soon as we are,
to give a glorified "Yes".

I damn the poetry that is conceived as a cultural luxury
by those who remain neutral,
by those that, washing their hands, try not to think and evade.
I damn the poetry of those who do not take a position
and get stained by it.

Because we live getting hit, because we are hardly allowed
to say that we are who we are,
our poetry cannot be, without sinning, a decoration.
We are touching rock bottom.

I make mine the mistakes. I feel inside me those who suffer
and I sing breathing.
I sing, and sing, and singing beyond my own personal sorrow
I grow.

I want to give life, to provoke new actions,
and I calculate that I can with technique.
I feel like an engineer of the verse and as a worker
that works with others on the irons of the homeland.

This is not poetry that was thought drop by drop.
This is not a beautiful product. It is not a perfect result.
It is something like the air we all breathe
and it is the song that contains everything we carry inside.

They are words that we all repeat feeling
like they are ours, and then fly. They are more
than what is being said. They are what is truly essential:
what has no name. They are cries in the sky
and deeds on Earth.

for this beautiful poem

"Idamn the poetry that is conceived as a cultural luxury
by those who remain neutral," AMEN!

Thank you.

from Roots and Wings Poetry from Spain 1900-1975. A Bilingual Anthology

would you like to read it? I'll be happy to provide it, or you could look for the anthology on Amazon and find many more poems that i'm sure you would enjoy. It's one of my all time poetry anthologies.

in fact, i'll include another from it here:

Full Consciousness
Juan Ramon Jiminez

You are carrying me, full consciousness, god that has desires,
all through the world.
Here, in this third sea,
I almost hear your voice: your voice, the wind,
filling entirely all movements;
eternal colors and eternal lights,
sea colors and sea lights.

Your voice of white fire
in the universe of water, the ship, the sky,
marking out the roads with delight,
engraving for me with a blazing light my firm orbit:
a black body
with the glowing diamond in its center.

trans. by Robert Bly

peace
dp