Neruda And Vallejo: Selected Poems Part 19

rodean de aire neutro las fachadas

como cuchillos: mientras

el aire del peligro roe las circunstancias,

los ladrillos, la sal se derrama como aguas

y los carros de gordos ejes tambalean.

Ola de rosas rotas y agujeros! Futuro

de la vena olorosa! Objetos sin piedad!

Nadie circule! Nadie abra los brazos

dentro del agua ciega!

Oh movimiento, oh nombre malherido,

oh cucharada de viento confuso

y color azotado! Oh herida en donde caen

hasta morir las guitarras azules!

THE RUINED STREET.

A tongue from different eras of time is moving

over the injured iron, over the eyes

of plaster. It's a tail of harsh

horsehair, stone hands stuffed with rage,

and the house colors fall silent, and the decisions

of the architecture explode,

a ghastly foot makes the balconies filthy,

so slowly, with saved-up shadow,

with face masks bitten by winter and leisure,

the days with their high foreheads drift between

the houses with no moon.

The water and the customs and the white mud

that the star sprinkles down, and especially

the air that the bells have beaten in their rage

are wearing things out, brus.h.i.+ng

the wheels, pausing

at the cigarshops,

and red hair grows on the cornices

like a long sorrow, while keys are falling