dumbfoundry

MADRID, March 23 (UPI) -- A series of crowded conferences marking the centenary of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda opened in Madrid as life in the city slowly returned to normal.

The conferences were the first important public events to be held in Madrid since the March 11 terrorist train bombings that claimed 202 lives and injured more than 1,500 people. [...]

I lived for a time in suburban
Madrid, with its bells
and its clocks and its trees

Till one morning everything blazed:
one morning bonfires
sprang out of earth
and devoured all the living

Come see the blood in the streets,
come see
the blood in the streets,
come see the blood
in the streets!

Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (Nobel Prize for Literature, 1971), "A Few Things Explained" ("Explico algunas cosas," ca. 1938, trans. Ben Belitt), on how a previous Spanish government's friendship with fascism brought blood to the streets of Madrid.

March 18, 2004

The chickens have come home to roost in Spain. Under heavy pressure from the U.S., the Spanish government agreed last year to participate in the war on Iraq opposed by the great majority of Spaniards, who believed the war was both unjustifiable and likely to increase rather than diminish terror threats. The terror bombings in Madrid May 11, apparently intended as punishment for the Spanish deployment, confirm the latter supposition. [...]

This entry was posted by eeksypeeksy on Wednesday, March 24, 2004 at 1:45 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.