TO PACHA

To your uneventful death, Pacha, the stones hurled at your demented name, and the doors closed on your life it is fitting that none mourn the face of your memory they slapped; from booze artist Pacha, to lunatic Pacha. There are no more tears to shed in this withered country where they kill pregnant women and children; its nipples have long gone dry, and leering death walks your homeland. And why should anyone weep for your lonely alcoholic end? Young boys and soldiers are butchering each other by the dozen, in the hills, the angry streets, day after day, and too many heroes and villains are not worth remembering at all. Death is callous, Pacha, in the land of your innocent birth. Consummate madman, unknown comrade, you were the best of them all; whether you mapped the geography of your stricken town, pen dipped in your drunken blood, or portrayed old men hard of hearing. Breaking heart of roots, savage lover no woman would tame, existential hero and fiercely proud pauper. You laughed yourself insane in the teeth of the gathering storm. Hovel-dweller amidst concrete and iron, anachronistic mendicant, and embracer of manuscripts in pounding rain, angry star which burned in our skies, what were your dreams? Reveal them a little for me, anonymous brother. Poetry in your homeland must die a natural death when one must "sew up his lips and clog his ears with mud," and to be a man, first of all, you must sell yourself to the highest bidder. Immaculate madling with resplendent dreams, you refused to sell them in your land where villains strut as the pure in streets. You only said: "One's homeland is dear. I have not seen all of this land. I have not been able to tread the grass that grows there." For a long time the tramps and lunatics beckoned you, and only they shall honour your name.