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Walking Around by Pablo Neruda

In this poem, the speaker expresses a deep dissatisfaction and discomfort with being a man. He feels dried up and sick of his physical body - his feet, nails, hair and shadow. He longs to escape his human form and responsibilities, instead wanting to lie still like stones or wool. The speaker dreams of terrifying others and committing violent acts as a way to relieve his misery, but continues walking stoically through the world, observing all the signs of suffering around him.

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Carolina Malfettano
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844 views2 pages

Walking Around by Pablo Neruda

In this poem, the speaker expresses a deep dissatisfaction and discomfort with being a man. He feels dried up and sick of his physical body - his feet, nails, hair and shadow. He longs to escape his human form and responsibilities, instead wanting to lie still like stones or wool. The speaker dreams of terrifying others and committing violent acts as a way to relieve his misery, but continues walking stoically through the world, observing all the signs of suffering around him.

Uploaded by

Carolina Malfettano
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Walking Around by Pablo Neruda

It so happens I am sick of being a man.


And it happens that I walk into tailorshops and movie
houses
dried up, waterproof, like a swan made of felt
steering my way in a water of wombs and ashes.

The smell of barbershops makes me break into hoarse


sobs.
The only thing I want is to lie still like stones or wool.
The only thing I want is to see no more stores, no gardens,
no more goods, no spectacles, no elevators.

It so happens that I am sick of my feet and my nails


and my hair and my shadow.
It so happens I am sick of being a man.

Still it would be marvelous


to terrify a law clerk with a cut lily,
or kill a nun with a blow on the ear.
It would be great
to go through the streets with a green knife
letting out yells until I died of the cold.

I don't want to go on being a root in the dark,


insecure, stretched out, shivering with sleep,
going on down, into the moist guts of the earth,
taking in and thinking, eating every day.

I don't want so much misery.


I don't want to go on as a root and a tomb,
alone under the ground, a warehouse with corpses,
half frozen, dying of grief.

That's why Monday, when it sees me coming


with my convict face, blazes up like gasoline,
and it howls on its way like a wounded wheel,
and leaves tracks full of warm blood leading toward the
night.

And it pushes me into certain corners, into some moist


houses,
into hospitals where the bones fly out the window,
into shoeshops that smell like vinegar,
and certain streets hideous as cracks in the skin.

There are sulphur-colored birds, and hideous intestines


hanging over the doors of houses that I hate,
and there are false teeth forgotten in a coffeepot,
there are mirrors
that ought to have wept from shame and terror,
there are umbrellas everywhere, and venoms, and umbilical
cords.

I stroll along serenely, with my eyes, my shoes,


my rage, forgetting everything,
I walk by, going through office buildings and orthopedic
shops,
and courtyards with washing hanging from the line:
underwear, towels and shirts from which slow
dirty tears are falling.

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