The Dictator... By Pablo Neruda. Poem by sisirachandra vaduge

The Dictator... By Pablo Neruda.



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

Plot: Prevailing power crisis between the rulers and common mass.

Pablo Neruda was the pseudonym of Neftali Ricardo Reyes who served as Chilean Consul in then Ceylon at the very young age of 24. A leading member of the Chilean Communist Party he stepped down in favour of his close friend Salvador Allende who was the coalition presidential candidate at the 1970 elections in Chile. He was then accredited to Paris as Chillean Ambassador.
In 1971 he was awarded the Nobel Priae for Literature. In 1973 he was dead. He died of cancer not long after the brutal military coup that brought down Allende’s Government.As Chilean Council it is known that Neruda lived in a ‘Seaside Chalet’ in
[a seaside city in Colombo Srilanka] Wellawattha now identified as No.52,42nd Lane and wrote some of his poetry there.In 1957 he was back in Ceylon for world peace Council sessions when he opened his speech saying “Hail Ceylon, pearl of greenness, flower of the islands, tower of beauty!
Thirty years ago, life brought me to your shores, I wrote some of my books at Wellawattha.My ideas and my poetry owe much to this Island.I have known and loved its generous people.
[Sunday Observer Srilankan Weekend News Paper, Lake House Publications]

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