BARBICAN CENTRE
WALKING AROUND
by Pablo Neruda
It so happens I am sick of being a man.
And it happens that I walk into tailorshops and movie houses
withered, impenetrable, like a felt swan
navigating on a water of origin and ash.
The smell of barbershops makes me break into hoarse sobs.
I only want a rest from stones or wool,
I only want not to see establishments or gardens,
merchandise or eyeglasses or elevators.
It so happens I am sick of my feet and my nails
and my hair and my shadow.
It so happens I am sick of being a man.
Still, it would be marvelous
to terrify a notary with a cut lily
or kill a nun with a blow on the ear.
It would be great
to go through the streets with a green knife
letting out yells until I died of the cold.
I don't want to go on being a root in the dark,
vacillating, extended, shivering with dream,
downward, in the soaked guts of the earth,
absorbing and thinking, eating each day.
I don't want so much misery.
I don't want to go on as a root and a tomb,
alone under the ground, a warehouse with corpses,
rigid in the cold, dying of grief.
That's why Monday burns like oil
at seeing me arrive with my convict face,
and it howls on its way like a wounded wheel,
and leaves tracks full of warm blood leading toward the night.
And it pushes me into certain corners, into some moist houses,
into hospitals where the bones fly out the window,
into shoeshops that smell like vinegar,
into streets horrifying as crevices.
There are sulfur-colored birds, and hideous intestines
hanging over the doors of houses that I hate,
and there are false teeth forgotten in a coffeepot,
there are mirrors
that ought to have wept from shame and terror,
there are umbrellas everywhere, and venoms, and umbilical cords.
I stroll along serenely, with my eyes, my shoes,
my rage, forgetting everything.
I walk by, going through office buildings and orthopedic shops,
and courtyards with washing hung from a line:
underwear, towels and shirts from which slow
dirty tears are falling.