Inspired by Pablo Neruda's
"Burial in the East"(1)
I work nights, he says
Surrounding himself with the terrible dead
Shrouded in red muslin.
I've worked nights
Surrounded by terrible dead
My dead are shrouded in green linen
Inelegant
Ignoble
Sounding their rusted chains and bugles
The shroud of plebs adorned
To imitate the valor of kings
But kings we are not
The authority with which we are vested
hangs limp around the neck of cadavers.
Blogspot - Life and Death in Translation
(1) Pablo Neruda. 1963. "Burial in the East" in Selected Poems (pp. 62-63). New York: Grove Press, Inc.
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Powerful:
ReplyDelete"I've worked nights
Surrounded by terrible dead"
To imitate kings, to be kings, no, plebs and dead:
"The authority with which we are vested
hangs limp around the neck of cadavers."
An amazingly brief poem to match short lives.
Thanks Susan.
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