I Explain A Few Things (Explico algunas cosas)

1You are going to ask: and where are the lilacs? and the poppy-petalled metaphysics? and the rain repeatedly spattering its words and drilling them full 5of apertures and birds? I'll tell you all the news. I lived in a suburb, a suburb of Madrid, with bells, and clocks, and trees. 10From there you could look out over Castille's dry face: a leather ocean. My house was called the house of flowers, because in every cranny 15geraniums burst: it was a good-looking house with its dogs and children. Remember, Raul? Eh, Rafel? Federico, do you remember 20from under the ground my balconies on which the light of June drowned flowers in your mouth? Brother, my brother! Everything 25loud with big voices, the salt of merchandises, pile-ups of palpitating bread, the stalls of my suburb of Arguelles with its statue like a drained inkwell in a swirl of hake: oil flowed into spoons, 30a deep baying of feet and hands swelled in the streets, metres, litres, the sharp measure of life, stacked-up fish, 35the texture of roofs with a cold sun in which the weather vane falters, the fine, frenzied ivory of potatoes, wave on wave of tomatoes rolling down the sea. And one morning all that was burning, 40one morning the bonfires leapt out of the earth devouring human beings - and from then on fire, gunpowder from then on, 45and from then on blood. Bandits with planes and Moors, bandits with finger-rings and duchesses, bandits with black friars spattering blessings came through the sky to kill children 50and the blood of children ran through the streets without fuss, like children's blood. Jackals that the jackals would despise, stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out, vipers that the vipers would abominate! 55Face to face with you I have seen the blood of Spain tower like a tide to drown you in one wave of pride and knives! Treacherous 60generals: see my dead house, look at broken Spain : from every house burning metal flows instead of flowers, 65from every socket of Spain Spain emerges and from every dead child a rifle with eyes, and from every crime bullets are born which will one day find 70the bull's eye of your hearts. And you'll ask: why doesn't his poetry speak of dreams and leaves and the great volcanoes of his native land? Come and see the blood in the streets. 75Come and see The blood in the streets. Come and see the blood In the streets!

Preguntaréis: Y dónde están las lilas?
Y la metafísica cubierta de amapolas?
Y la lluvia que a menudo golpeaba
sus palabras llenándolas
de agujeros y pájaros?


Os voy a contar todo lo que me pasa.


Yo vivía en un barrio
de Madrid, con campanas,
con relojes, con árboles.


Desde allí se veía
el rostro seco de Castilla
como un océano de cuero.
                                          Mi casa era llamada
la casa de las flores, porque por todas partes
estallaban geranios: era
una bella casa
con perros y chiquillos.
                                    Raúl, te acuerdas?
Te acuerdas, Rafael?
                                 Federico, te acuerdas
debajo de la tierra,
te acuerdas de mi casa con balcones en donde
la luz de junio ahogaba flores en tu boca?
                                                                  Hermano, hermano!
Todo
eran grandes voces, sal de mercaderías,
aglomeraciones de pan palpitante,
mercados de mi barrio de Argüelles con su estatua
como un tintero pálido entre las merluzas:
el aceite llegaba a las cucharas,
un profundo latido
de pies y manos llenaba las calles,
metros, litros, esencia
aguda de la vida,
                           pescados hacinados,
contextura de techos con sol frío en el cual
la flecha se fatiga,
delirante marfil fino de las patatas,
tomates repetidos hasta el mar.


Y una mañana todo estaba ardiendo
y una mañana las hogueras
salían de la tierra
devorando seres,
y desde entonces fuego,
pólvora desde entonces,
y desde entonces sangre.
Bandidos con aviones y con moros,
bandidos con sortijas y duquesas,
bandidos con frailes negros bendiciendo
venían por el cielo a matar niños,
y por las calles la sangre de los niños
corría simplemente, como sangre de niños.


Chacales que el chacal rechazaría,
piedras que el cardo seco mordería escupiendo,
víboras que las víboras odiaran!


Frente a vosotros he visto la sangre
de España levantarse
para ahogaros en una sola ola
de orgullo y de cuchillos!


Generales
traidores:
mirad mi casa muerta,
mirad España rota:
pero de cada casa muerta sale metal ardiendo
en vez de flores,
pero de cada hueco de España
sale España,
pero de cada niño muerto sale un fusil con ojos,
pero de cada crimen nacen balas
que os hallarán un día el sitio
del corazón.


Preguntaréis por qué su poesía
no nos habla del sueño, de las hojas,
de los grandes volcanes de su país natal?


Venid a ver la sangre por las calles,
venid a ver
la sangre por las calles,
venid a ver la sangre
por las calles!

Pablo Neruda, Selected Poems: A Bilingual Edition
Edited by Nathaniel Tarn, Translated by Anthony Kerrigan, W.S. Merwin, Alastair Reid and Nathaniel Tarn, Penguin Books


This one is obviously one of Neruda's more political works. It's about the violence and destruction in Spain caused by the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). This poem reminds me of Pablo Picasso's painting, Guernica, which was also on the same topic. Before I did background research on this, I could already feel the intense emotions and energy exerted through the poem - anger, but with a sadness that Spain was not the flowery and lively image it once was: "...lilacs?/and the poppy-petalled metaphysics?" (1-2), "the house of flowers, because in every cranny/geraniums burst..." (14-15). He pulls the reader into the poem with phrases such as "You are going to ask: and where are the lilacs?" (1) and "And you'll ask: why doesn't his poetry/speak of dreams and leaves/and the great volcanoes of his native land?" (71-73), making the title, "I Explain A Few Things", appropriate in order to answer these rhetorical questions, allowing him to release his strong beliefs on this issue. Neruda also questions the art of poetry in the quote that I mentioned in lines 71-73; poetry does not always express the beauty in life, but can also be used to examine the ugly and negative aspects of life and human nature as well.
As I mentioned in his biography, Neruda was friends with many famous writers such as Federico Garcia Lorca and communist poet, Rafel Alberti - both who are mentioned within this poem. Lorca was murdered by fascists around this time, which accounts for the instance of grief where Neruda looks back towards the past when Spain was homely and flourishing and when his friend was alive: "Federico, do you remember" (19)
One last point that I want to make is a connection to his other poem (that can be found in another blog) called "Ode to the Tomato". The line "wave on wave of tomatoes rolling down the sea." (48) that comes before the shift to violence and reptition of the word "blood" remind me of the imagery found in "Ode to the Tomato" where the tomato's "... juice/runs/through the streets." (10-12) and "Unfortunately, we must/murder it:/the knife/sinks/into living flesh,/red/viscera," (28-34). To me, it seems like he is using the redness and "viscera [gut]"-likeness of the tomato as a metaphor for blood and gore in this poem as well.
 
Apostrophe: "Remember, Raul?/Eh, Rafel? Federico, do you remember" (18-19)
"Brother, my brother!" (23)
Tautology: "and the blood of children ran through the streets/without fuss, like children's blood." (50-51)
Repitition: "Come and see the blood in the streets"x3:
"Come and see the blood in the streets.
Come and see
The blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood
In the streets!" (74-78)


This article explains every stanza!:
http://21stcenturysocialism.com/article/im_explaining_a_few_things_01482.html