Editor’s Note: The text from which the excerpt below is taken was written in 1978, in the wake of the massive national strike in Peru against the right-wing government of Morales Bermudez, in power at the time. The poem, considered in its entirety, addresses an historical continuum that calls the reader, as the postscript puts it, to “support the struggle against the dictatorship and the tyranny of institutional cynicism”. At times sardonic, conversational, and deeply embittered, Five Pure Reasons (To Side With the Strike) makes clear the stakes of political commitment as poetics.

Tr. Judah Rubin

III. Where what the wind and rain say
in this country called Peru is heard

“We are a semi-colonial country”,
said the wind scrubbing soot from the factories.
“And a semi-feudal country”, cried the rain in the country
         of deep rivers
And a hail of machine guns cut into the silence.
“Looted, more than anything else”, I said to bring back the
         melody.

And I threw myself flying through these red streets to which my
         roving hands
confirmed the song with their own eyes.
And I saw that flocks of ravens passed through the sky
         their brilliant heads
curved toward here. I saw in Canta the pure, blue air,
         the clouds breaking out of the earth
illuminating my spirit.
I saw the valley of Mantaro, wide and clear, at that right-handed hour
in which a ripened sun
was ensnared among the brooms celebrating the campesino.
And everywhere, beloved Peru, I saw the rain.
I saw beautiful women bathing in that blue that the Andes, alone,
         can conjure
Passing through Moquegua the trees threw me their shadow
         a single red rose
burned for me from the vines of Tacna.
In Ayaviri I bought a fragrant basket of white prickly-pears
         gifts of another marvel
shone from my eternal Lake Patricia.
In Arequipa I didn’t want to think on the Misti but I carry it
in my heart.
And everywhere, beloved Peru, I saw disheveled women,
         with that incredible sorrow
that the Andes alone can conjure.
I walked among the marchers, pack on my shoulder.
I worked as I could to win the confidence of the grass
and the backing of the birds.
I walked through Tabaconas, land of giant chrysanthemums,
         where the mud presses into one’s mind.
I contemplated the oceans from Chan-Chan where
         I nearly touched the twilight.
And everywhere, beloved Peru, the little ones
         scraped the sky
with their wan look, and in the pit of their breasts misery
         brooded.
But the men of power are ignorant
         they kick the wind
and spit at the rain.
         They are spies and snitches
While their people chase us down to cut out our tongues
         shave our heads
and subject us to sitting nice and quietly, shitting out riches
         for them.
And so, in the middle of the day, when the truth shines
         as more than just a bubble
there are human beings that still dream of dialogue.
We don’t want discourse, men of power, we mean to avoid the
         suicide of our children.

Our country is shredded, its best inhabitants
         are crazy from impotence
watching destruction build its home
         among us.

Our country is no healthy body but a long sore
         that burns to the stars
Like all the people of America, like all the holes
         of this earth
where there is a tyrant who breathes
It is clear that the State sings another tune.
But okay. Let’s suppose that the wind is wrong; let’s assume
         that the rain is a drop hyperbolic.
But, then, how can you explain what is meridianly clear to me?
How seal my eyes and see as a somnambulist, flocks
         of white flags
flapping on high?
No, beloved Peru, much water has passed over the bridge.
Or as the rivers say, as the thunder thunders
         that they are more violent.
No, no and no. I have not betrayed my children, I will not fight
         against the sun.
I will quickly pass the flyers out that the wind places
         in my still living hands
intelligent, weavers’ hands of hope.
I will sing with the rain, in the country of deep rivers
         where the ancestors
speak with the rainbow.
I will travel like the thunder, carrying the news
         in my guitar case.

I will sleep less
My house is empty.
My head no longer smiles no longer resists no longer salutes.  
My salary will no longer cover half a morning and my debts
         grow wildly,
diabolically, like the price of air.
No, men of power, your decrees will not succeed
         in stripping away our skin.
And your periodicals tickle us, they inform us
         that there is social peace on the moon.

No, men of power,
We are the millions that lubricate the machine with human grease
         and we rake the earth
brought under an illusory system. Without air, without dreams
        without smelling La Punta on
Sunday to think on your thousands
         of prisoners.
While you enjoy yourselves, dress yourselves as aliens
         purchase wings,
singing:
How to enjoy life how to rip off the cash
         so quietly.

IV. Where the way the Peruvian people spoke
on the 19th of July 1977 is heard

July 19th?
Hello, the 19th of July?
Hello, god dammit. On this fiery horse
the Peruvian people answered.
And this beautiful people shook the frost from its head,
         took one step forward
looked to the cloudless skies and left, shirt open
         to look into the face
of the powerful. They told us, they let us know,
         that we would be
cowardly grass trod under foot, a mosquito-ridden bog,
         little Peruvians with democracy.
But when the day shone through, thawing hope
         we bolted toward the South
and met the wind lifting the birds.
We flew toward the River,
we crossed the stormclouds of hate, leaving
         our wives
who were counting the final grains of rice.
And there was a great crash of light in these streets
         moved by the sun
and bad luck, for millennia.

Tanks / Beauty / Gas / Silence / Stars
         / Cynicism / Howls / The howl of gorillas
deliberately fattened.  
Our comrades were lucid arrows
         Unharnessed hares
that cut down the sooty sold-off air
And there was terror in the houses of the powerful, terror in the Palace
         and terror in the cloaca of this kingdom.
There were no cowards but many defectors, yes, huddled
         among the few trees
of the burnt out parks.

They went out to war.
They went out to the war and froth spouted from their eyes.
         From their mouths, froth
and froth from their assholes.
They had gone out to war I say, which is not to say they went out
         drilled to the teeth.
Seeing us fenced in, on the brink of being lynched, a comrade
said: Long live the fifth of February! And may life forgive us
         under his breath.
In prison they told us that we would never smoke again
nor play cards
with our comrades.

V. Where the voices of the comrades
on hunger strike are heard

Marcelino Montes, do you hear me?
What’s that large stain on the window?
Something sinister pressing itself from outside.
Maybe the sun has pulled itself to setting
         Or maybe it’s the beating wings of death.
Go, look, throw off those shadows, and bring on the trumpets.
Nothing of silence!
Nobody has to die here. Though they sever our dreams
Like they slit our veins,
Like they froze the light.
Look, Mashico, bind up your confidence among those most puma-like,
         gather up your balls
and fire among the mad and indifferent
         so that those in power do not reconcile themselves to sleep.
Sing curative dreams, those most nourishing.
Because song enlivens the nerves
on the difficult days.
Nothing of cracking!
Do you hear me, Carlota, Carlota del Rio?
We begin as 200 but I know that we are millions.
(The entire country, our country, is on strike. Except
         those in power,
their running dogs and those that have yet to be born.).
I listen to the tras-tras-tras of the multitude lighting up
         the streets and plazas
and my heart skips for joy like one in love.
Get up, comrade, and tell them that we won’t succumb.
         We do it
         for our children
         and for the children of our children.

How many days already? I think 32.
Outside, the days of the week are longer,
         Saturday unreachable,
the bullshit incalculable, before the final sacking.
Later things get worse. My kids shivering as orphans.
My woman taking my place (You know well, comrade,
what that signifies for a working man).
And me fucking over the nightwatchmen. And me in some shitty situation
Scrubbing the floors of the Assembly.
Don’t look at me that way, Carlota, the repressors sought
         to swindle us with the sound of our bones.
The repression and treachery committed under our noses
My life, don’t go, tell them we won’t falter and hand me a glass of water
like that, a glass of water healthy and blue, Peruvian water, that we will drain
         tomorrow.

Peruvian Drumroll With Romualdo as Backdrop

They will throw sand with rocoto in our eyes
         and they will not defeat us.
They will pull the air from our lungs and pockets
         and they will not defeat us.
They will burn our houses and, in their fury, the National Bank
         and they will not defeat us.
They will offer us the kingdom of heaven and the hills
         and they will not defeat us.
They will try to seal our eyes and our ears
         and they will not defeat us.
They will want to transplant our hearts, heads and livers
         and they will not defeat us.
They will try to pull off our nails and burn our tongues
         and they will not defeat us.
They will spit fire, they will yank at our legs
         and they will not defeat us.
They will pull our people into the abyss
         and they will not defeat us.
They will rescue our people from those abysses
         and they will not defeat us.
They will whip us with well-educated snakes 
         and they will not defeat us.
They will offer us on the market like a curious species
         and they will not defeat us.
They will want to buy us with our own money
         and they will not defeat us.
They will perform their pirouettes, they will dance for us
         and they will not defeat us.
They will have Peru win in soccer and smirks
         and they will not defeat us.
They will threaten us with hell, with Yanamayo
         and they will not defeat us.
They will threaten us with beatings and thrashings
         and they will not defeat us.
         They will not defeat us,
         they will not defeat us
         and they will not defeat us.
Because we defend our lives with our lives.