Saturday, August 6, 2011

My Confession to FreeThinke

He sits at the table and writes.
with this poem you will not take power, he says
you will not make revolution, he says
nor with thousands of verses will you make revolution, he says

and what more, these verses wont make peons, teachers, or carpenters live better, eat better, or he himself eat, live better.
Not even for wooing a woman can they be used.

He wont make money with them
he wont get into the movies free with them
they wont give him clothes for them
He wont get tobacco or wine with them

nor parrots, nor scarves, nor boats, nor bulls, nor umbrellas will he get from them.
if it were up to them the rain would get him wet.
He wont reach forgiveness nor grace because of them

with this poem you will not take power, he says
you will not make revolution, he says
nor with thousands of verses will you make revolution, he says
He sits at the table and writes.
- Juan Gelman

8 comments:

  1. Wow. Tango set to rap.

    I need to get out more...

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  2. Cool Stuff. I lived in Latin America a few different times. I haven't kept up with the music...

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  3. Really? Where? I did four years in Caracas and three and a half in Madrid as an "Air Force brat". I also did a stint in the Merchant Marine... but spent most of that time in between Asian ports of call.

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  4. So you can probably surmise that I'm a bit more partial to salsa than tango.

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  5. Puerto Rico, Panama, Honduras, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, among other places.

    Salsa and merengue are much more ubiquitous than Tango, which hasn't really made it out of South America.

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  6. Definitely more African-Caribbean than "Spanish-Portuguese"... no doubt.

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  7. I suppose there's a bit more "universality" in that (Afro-Caribbean).

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