Long Chilean Poems

Soliloquio del Individuo by Nicanor Parra, Translated by T. Wignesan


(Homage to Nicanor PARRA, 1914-2018, the Chilean ANTI-POET, winner of the "Cervantes Prize" (the highest literary honour for writers in Spanish), four times nominated for the...

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       Hay un dia feliz by Nicanor Parra, Translated by T. Wignesan

      To come by a happy day

(In this poem, Parra maintains lines of...

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As soon as I heard 
You were the First African American Male
To win the Pulitzer prize for Poetry
I wanted to run out and celebrate
I wanted to wake up Hughes and Dunbar
And Baraka and say we...

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The crying grass 
(for the late Victor Jara,* Pablo Neruda 
and Salvador Allende)
by ‘bro. zayid’

In this stadium
of footlaunched spotted balls
of what should be promising soccer stars…
In this stadium
reeking with the stench of terror
and the numbing...

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Two thousand feet in the belly of the earth
So near the opulence of golden ore
And so far the poor man's dream of worth
From the falling sweat of toil
Around the Chilean house
The wringing hands toll in...

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Coplas on Wine

( here, the famous AntiPoetic Chilean Poet Nicanor Parra, b. 1914, uses the more popular form of the « copla » genre that he contains in quatrains of 8 to 10 syllables with...

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Located in the hot Chilean desert of Atacama
Is the San Jose mine that became the focus of drama
The miners reported for work, to start their day
Totally unaware of what was coming their way.

It was August...

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I spend time with a friend 
well, a pseudo-friend 
an acquaintance of sorts 
no, I guess he'd be a friend, 
shit, who knows 
one of those types you never really share your heart 
that authentic...

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Let it be that - we are simply disconnected
And all of it that was before is now neglected.
Just as in an international call
And I'll stop knowing what you whisper all
Over her right ear, 
Petting her...

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There's a time for loves to be won and lost… At least there was for us.
For 33 Chilean miners, lost below… life was simply stopped.
Alive and well, but buried deep…  2,200 feet below.
They had...

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Okies silly one now I want a verse about an old broad who thought she was a flamingo!  
(BIG SMILES  Thank you for the fun challenge!)

 “She Thinks She is a Flamingo”

“Me hablo...

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Born in Ireland in eighteen seventy four
He was a remarkably brave explorer
Three times to Antartica he did go
To that barren wilderness of ice and snow.

Once with Captain Scott and twice on his own
And it was...

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I think I’ll make a portrait
With inky words of my soul
But false starts get in the way
I’m hungry the body says
Feed the body, not the soul
The soul will pester my body

Make a mark, hear the...

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Proyecto de tren instantaneo entre Santiago y Puerto Montt by Nicanor Parra, Translated by T. Wignesan

Soliloquio del Individuo by Nicanor Parra, Translated by T Wignesan 

(Homage to Nicanor PARRA, 1914-2018, the Chilean ANTI-POET, winner of...

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No doubt there are some folks who will scoff at the concept I propose,
But I think God chose courageous leaders when times of adversity arose.
He's done a pretty good job of selecting people who acted...

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SMOKING WILL KILL YOU

He said “Smoking will kill you!”
catching the faint smell, scanning 
for ash trays as he entered her apartment,
ready to accept months of miscalculation 
of red lips and laughter, dark hair and desire,...

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Toconao, Oase im Sand
Wunder in der Atacama
Wo das klare Wasser fließt
Dort am Rande der Düne
Verschlingt schon die Quebrada
Allmählich der heiße Sand
Noch wandere ich langsam
Dort im einsamen Traume
Wo ruhig in den Gärten
Noch leise Wasser plätschert
Im kleinen...

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Bernardo O’Higgins Riquelme
was born in Chillan in central Chile.
The bastard son of Ambrosio, Marquis de Orsorno,
his Irish-born father hailed from County Sligo.
Bernardo’s mother was Isabel Riquelme.
She was from a prominent South American family.
Bernardo was supported...

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Pablo Neruda, the great Chilean poet, 
Was exiled in an isolated Italian island during WWII,
Only communication he had with the world,
Were thru the letters delivered by the postman(Mario).

Mario: What's a poem?
Neruda:
It's a metaphor, it's a...

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That goldfish bowl......... 
Wedged on my head, 
did nothing instead 
Just left an almighty hole, 
where I dropped,like a piece of lead 
(Not a piece of eight!) 
Is it me? 

Well, never mind 
Lets see...

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Remind me of the sea that kisses the coast of Algiers
Where the tides are soft and the winds all but fierce
In that country past the strait of Gibraltar
Where the trip to Casablanca didn’t halt her

Taking...

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where to begin
we're going to
go stepping out
dressed in what
some may see
as fashionable
but for us we
dress passionately

looking at you knowing
what's underneath your
yellow dress fit to form
your figure go figure you
are everything in anything
you wear or have...

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Advice to Young Poets
by Nicanor Parra Sandoval
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Youngsters,
write however you will
in your preferred style.
Too much blood flowed under the bridge
for me to believe
there’s just one acceptable path.
In poetry everything’s permitted.

Originally published...

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Power of Journeys

New horizons speak in hope and pull me to Pablo Neruda’s country
                   ‘Twenty poems of...

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A fine missionary was Ursula
eyes gleaming bright in the Chilean sun
Shining a smile from ear to ear
Striking, with black horn rim sunglasses on
Her humility made her a giant 
Her kindness: an admirable friend
Her spirituality soaked...

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