The Dictators

By Pablo Neruda (Chilean Poet, 1904–1973)
Neruda’s death linked him with the unrest in Chile and elevated his status even further. General Pinochet denied permission to conduct a public funeral for Neruda. In protest, thousands of shocked and saddened Chileans disobeyed the curfew and mourned in public. Neruda’s funeral became the first public protest against the military dictator.

An odor has remained among the sugarcane:
a mixture of blood and body, a penetrating
petal that brings nausea.
Between the coconut palms the graves are full
of ruined bones, of speechless death-rattles.
The delicate dictator is talking
with top hats, gold braid, and collars.
The tiny palace gleams like a watch
and the rapid laughs with gloves on
cross the corridors at times
and join the dead voices
and the blue mouths freshly buried.
The weeping cannot be seen, like a plant
whose seeds fall endlessly on the earth,
whose large blind leaves grow even without light.
Hatred has grown scale on scale,
blow on blow, in the ghastly water of the swamp,
with a snout full of ooze and silence