"and the blood of children ran through the streets"

[ConsAreLiars]

Harold Pinter's acceptance speech for his Nobel Prize in Literature in 2005 was a passionate denunciation of the US rulers' long history of mass murders around the planet, the slaughter of Iraqis in particular, and of all such crimes against humanity. The two parts appeared on December 30 an 31. He died on December 24. You should watch (or just listen or read if you you don't have broadband).

Part 1: http://www.democracynow.org/2008/12/30/harold_pinter_1930_2008_on_art
Part 2: http://www.democracynow.org/2008/12/31/harold_pinter_1930_2008_part_2

As part of this speech, he quoted the following excerpt from a poem by Pablo Neruda, who was living in Spain when Franco's Fascists seized power. (A fair-sized collection of Neruda's poems is available at: http://www.poemhunter.com/i/ebooks/pdf/pablo_neruda_2004_9.pdf ) This poem, "I'm Explaining a Few Things," begins with a description of his nice home near Madrid and pleasant life, and then continues, telling a lot of truths that people try not to hear:

And one morning all that was burning,
one morning the bonfires
leapt out of the earth
devouring human beings
and from then on fire,
gunpowder from then on,
and from then on blood.
Bandits with planes and Moors,
bandits with finger-rings and duchesses,
bandits with black friars spattering blessings
came through the sky to kill children
and the blood of children ran through the streets
without fuss, like children’s blood.

Jackals that the jackals would despise
stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out,
vipers that the vipers would abominate.

Face to face with you I have seen the blood
of Spain tower like a tide
to drown you in one wave
of pride and knives.

Treacherous
generals:
see my dead house,
look at broken Spain:
from every house burning metal flows
instead of flowers
from every socket of Spain
Spain emerges
and from every dead child a rifle with eyes
and from every crime bullets are born
which will one day find
the bull’s eye of your hearts.

And you will ask: why doesn’t his poetry
speak of dreams and leaves
and the great volcanoes of his native land.

Come and see the blood in the streets.
Come and see
the blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood
in the streets!

[mia]

1. thank you

Your post gave me a lot to think about.

[ConsAreLiars]

7. And thanks to Amy Goodman and Democracy Now!

The corporatist media would never allow Pinter's or Neruda's words to be heard. The truths in Neruda's poetry and in Pinter's words undermine their power and control.

[juno jones]

2. That is one hell of a poem

I couldn't reply earlier because I was at work, but I am K&R ing now!

[democrank]

3. Very gripping poem.

~PEACE~

[Usrename]

4. .

[malaise]

5. Super post

R.I.P. Harold Pinter

[ConsAreLiars]

6. Thank you.

I hope people take the time to watch those two segments of his Nobel acceptance speech. He was too ill at the time to travel, and so recorded it, but his voice and his conviction are strong and clear.

R.I.P. Harold Pinter, indeed.
and R.I.P Pablo Neruda.