Ennio Moltedo (1931-2011) is revered in his native Chile and among critics of 20th-century Spanish-language poetry. Moltedo has been compared with Cavafy for his allegiance to a city at once mythic and mundane; with Char, for the inventiveness of his political poems; with Saba for his mastery of extreme concision. The suite of prose poems published here are excerpted from Night [La Noche], written during and against the Pinochet dictatorship, but not published in Chile until the return of democracy in 1999. Among the many crimes of that regime, in addition to state terror against civilians, was violence against nature to promote mining, deforestation, and rampant development. Moltedo seized on this ecological aggression in many of his poems. Another of the poet’s obsessions was the regime’s glorification of consumer culture (an essential element of the regime anti-socialist campaign) — what the poet saw as a vulgar erosion of values, brutal repression of labor, and maniacal competition to “get ahead.” Some of his strongest poems (and the trickiest to translate) consist of only one line — 81, for example, with only six words but a triple pun. As a poet in prose, Moltedo has extraordinary — and challenging!) — range: surreal images based in political fact; fables such as we find here in 107; first-person vignettes as in 78; a commentary capped with an allusion to the national anthem and closing with a chilling second-person address. Moltedo is plain in his diction, subtle in his cadences, and crystalline in his images. All of which only adds to the depth and complexity of his poems.
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61
The model comes complete, sir (and all those who want to manage the future).
Not only has it meant a triumph for vision — the colors come to life — a showcase for new functions, display windows with new names and materials, the illusion of etiquette for newborns, the newly arrived and the fallen, but, sir (and all those who clamor to show their support), the model also expresses its contradiction or quota for extermination and we — fortunately? — are meeting our goals, our numbers are growing, spinning on the rollers, spangling the sanctified paper.
Sometimes the crime, sir, seems a blessing.
63
Let’s search for a bit of truth between the garbage dumps and mechanical shovels. Among the backpacks and strollers, the puppy-face ear muffs and kitty-cat pillows, monkeys and civilians on the warpath, and ladies running mad around the game board offering their teats — amid towers of corpses — to the king, excellent ladies distributing clothes when decrepit nags in harness and ribbons begin the pageant (eternal will be the pageant you gave me) among banners and bursts of color.
I search for truth in the books discarded in the square, in the dreams of sleeping cats and the intelligent gaze of dogs that roam through the gardens of Congress.
68
All along the coast we gaze, through a hollow, at the sea. A patch of blue. A sign of negligence.
There’s centralized authority over taxes and fumes, and smiles and assistance are disallowed and there are instructions (read them carefully) for filling gaps and there will always be one more prohibition, so there are more laws, laws, laws: blindfolding the country.
78
Simple: either you clear a path to fight on the front lines or you go down to the catacombs. What a waste of jumping then standing still for the snapshot, toothy as skeletons gathered round the piano, and of the musical scale stretched with cable and guitar to the infinite stars.
Below, on the floor, light in the crannies, through numbered cells we can enter and exit the sites of sacrifice, and share our thoughts with bones like our own, with remains — abandoned like ourselves — on the forces that un-live us until we die.
81
Ideal investment: Forget, forgive, entomb.
107
Once upon a time there was a crystal fish that navigated the waters of the estuary, all day long swimming round and round, up and down, no one taking note.
But don’t believe everything people say. There were those who applauded the fish and the repression—how else could it be—and at the same time silently prayed that with each day the latter would become softer and softer.
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61
El modelo viene completo, señor (y a cuantos pretendan liderar el futuro).
No sólo ha significado un triunfo para la visión–aviva los colores-, un muestrario de nuevas funciones, nombres ymateriales en vitrinas, una ilusión de hábitos para recién nacidos, llegados, caídos, sino, señor (y a todos los que deseencolgarse y dar prueba), el modelo también expresa su contrasentido o cuota de exterminio y nosotros -¿por fortuna?-recién vamos acercandonos a los niveles y las cifras giran y crecen sobre rodillos y papel copia-feliz.
A veces el crimen, señor, parece bendición.
63
Busquemos alguna verdad entre apilamientos y palas mecánicas. Entre mochilas y bombos terciados, entre perros orejeros y gato-cojines, entre monos y civiles en pie de guerra y damas que recorren el tablero como locas proponiendo tetas – torres de cadáveres — al rey, perfectas en altura y se reparten prendas cuando matalones con arreos y corbatas inician el desfile (eterno será el desfile que me diste) entre bandas y golpes de colores.
Busco la verdad en los libros que se ofrecen tirados en la plaza, bajo el sueño de los gatos y en la mirada inteligente de perros vagos que pasean por los jardines del Congreso.
68
A lo largo de la costa contemplamos, por un hueco, el mar. Una mancha azul. Un descuido. Se entera autoridad central de impuestos y humos y sus pende toda sonrisa y asistencia y dicta instrucciones (léase precisas) para tapiar la ranura y que se sancione con un prohibido más, conforme lo establecen las leyes, las leyes, las leyes: vendaje del país.
78
Sencillo: o te abres paso y entras a pelear en primera fila o bajas a las catacumbas. Derroche de saltos y suspensión para la instantánea y dentadura de indios formados alrededor del piano y de la escala musical sujeta con cable y guitarra hasta las estrellas infinitas.
Abaja, sobre el piso, lux en los recodos, celda y números nos permiten entrar y salir del sacrificio y compartir con huesos parecidos a los nuestros, con restos abandonados — como nosotros mismos — y pensamientos acerca de la razones que nos desviven hasta morir.
81
Ideal interesado: perdonar, olvidar y enterrar.
107
Hubo una vez un pez de cristal que navegaba en las aguas del estero y daba vueltas todo el día, arriba y abajo, sin importarle a nadie nada.
Pero no se crea todo lo que se dice. Hubo quienes aplaudieron la pesca y represión — de otra forma cómo — y al mismo tiempo rogaban en silencio para que ésta fuera, cada día, más suave y suave.
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Night by Ennio Moltedo is published by World Poetry Books, November 25, 2022. 104 pages, $20.00. To access the publisher’s page for this title, click here.