Four Cantos on the Island
of Salina.
2010
Along with overweight and fast-food boxes,
laughter rotted by drink and sleeplessness,
the trippers bring their mobile jabber . . ,
“We’re on that beach. Yer know! The one
that’s in that film. An’ d’yer know some tosser
called Neruda? Yeah! Sprayed on the effin’ cliff!
“Neruda Rules!”
Neruda? Who’s ‘e play for?”
. . . and never look beyond the frosted glass
that separates these dreary purlieus,
the island’s present, from its past illusions.
“Can’t hear yer for the feckin’ jet-skis.
And feck!
Me signal’s goin’. I’ll call yer back.”
1994
There is no construct “self.” It’s a conceit.
We choose from fictions that we show each other.
Even the names we use may be unreal . . .
A actor in middle age adjusts his cap, then -
“Pablo . . hold just like that. Take three . . . and .
. Action!”
And nothing moves except the shifting sea,
lapping the edge of simulated grief.
Professional, as if he himself had written
Neruda’s Cancion Desesperada,
written of brown limbed children, beloved Matilde
who now must share his artifice of mourning,
wishing – perhaps – love, gratitude and time
had not made them islomanes and called them back.
1950
Most times there is little here but sound.
Sound of the small waves at the water’s rim.
Sound where the wind plucks harp-strings in the grass.
Sound of the church bell calling them to prayer.
And el cartero’s
jingling cycle bell.
Was it for such as these Neruda came –
seeking for sounds his questing ear could meld
into his Twenty Songs of Love, his pain?
Or did he hope in exile here to find
Or did he hope in exile here to find
something much simpler - peace, wherein to wait,
wait until Chile sought to call him back?
2010
“Needed a piss,but. Gotta betta signal.
Came down the beach a spell. Guess what?
That effin’ spray-can artist’s bin down ‘ere!
Tellin’ it like it is . . . in green this time,
Colore de esperanza. Can’t
clock that!
Some manky dago lingo by the look.
Next bit’s easy.
But why the feck’s he say
“Come back Neruda.” “Neruda lives, O.K?”
Gloss
Cancion Desesperada, Song of Despair
el cartero postman
Colore de esperanza colour
of hope.
Time travel with a difference, for it takes a good look beyond the frosted glass...But this too is a song of despair. Poor Neruda.
ReplyDeleteand poor Spain.
ReplyDeleteThis poem is wonderfully erudite, and extremely well crafted. I salute you, Richard.
1950 Spain is the go. Laurie Lee wrote beautiful descriptions of Spain befor WW2
ReplyDelete' As I walked Out One Midsummer Morning'
I'm attracted more to 1950 and 1994 for some reason?! :0) I particularly love those 1950 sounds, singing.
ReplyDeleteRall and Derrick . . . the poem draws heavily on the film "Il Postino", which imagined the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (pen name) in self-imposed exile on the island of Salina(*), off the north coast of Sicily. In the film, "Neruda" (Philipe Noiret) has become fluent in Italian!
ReplyDelete(*) In fact he spent his exile in Mexico and Argentina. But the film is nevertheless a little gem. The beach where some of the filming was done has been popularised - to its detriment - by film buffs, Neruda fans and gawpers.
I first had to look him up, knowing the name but nothing about him.
ReplyDeleteYour poetry is a fine thing, FTSE. I can appreciate the thought and craft behind this - it reads effortlessly.
How time changes a place, and attitudes towards it.
ReplyDeleteSad, but I seem to need a gloss for the english as well. "Islomanes" was new for me, and "manky".
ReplyDeleteenjoyed
b_ "Manky" is an adjective that roams free mainly in Scotland and signifies something is unfit for purpose.
ReplyDeleteI will check "islomanes." I came across it in one of Lawrence Durrell's Mediterranean travel books, either "Prospero's Cell" or"Reflections of a Marine Venus" - both of which are lovely, but describe a Med just after WW2 which "tourists" have destroyed. Durrell took it to mean "people addicted to island life" - islomania. He may well have invented it. His vocabulary was enormous. His poetry is lyric, beautiful and horribly ignored these days.
Deborah . . . thank you. Both the poem and FTSE were heavily influenced by Mike Radford's 1994 film "Il Postino" which I think is a small scale masterpiece, despite its distortions of Neruda's life. You will easily find it's haunting theme music on YouTube.
ReplyDeleteThank you for thiis
ReplyDelete