Hey ho, one hour gone by with me trying to translate one of the most distressing and sad poems in the whole world. The poem called Estadio Chile that was written by the Chilean Poet and folk-singer Victor Jara as he was in detention in the Chile Stadium after the coup in 1973. The paper he wrote it on was smuggled out in the shoe of another prisoner. Victor Jara was beaten to death and dumped in a favela not far from the stadium four days after the coup..

Yes, I know. Rather sad. Sometimes you can get in a mood like that.

The poem is in Spanish

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We are five thousand here
in this small part of town.
We are five thousand.
How many in all
in the cities, in the whole country?
Only here,
ten thousand hand that could seed the fields
go work in the factories.
All this human life
with hunger, cold, panic, pain,
pressure, terror and madness.

Six of us is lost
in space amongst the stars.
One dead, one beaten like I had never belived
a human could be beaten.
The four left just want to flee
all the terror,
one jumps into the nothingness.
another beats his head against the wall
but all stare at death.
What horror the face of fascism creates!
They carry out their plans with cunning precision
nothing means anything to them,
To them Blood is medals,
Killing an act of heroism.
Is this the world you created, dear God?
Was it for this: your seven days of work and wonder?
Inside these four wall exists only a number
that will not progress.
That will slowly crave more death.

But then consciousness hit me
And I see this tide has no heartbeat
And I see the pulse of the machines
And the military show off their motherly face
filled with sweetness.
And Mexico, Cuba, and the world?
Scream out againt this atrocity!
We are ten thousand hand
that can do nothing.
How many in the whole country?
The blood of our comrade president
hits harder than bombs and guns.
That is how our fist will strike back anew.

Song, how bad I am selling this
when I must sing of horror.
Horror that I am living,
that I am dying - horror.
To see myself amongst so many, and so many
Infinite moments
where the silence and the screams
are the goal of this song.
What I have seen I never saw.
What I have felt and what I fell
will grow from this moment...

(1973)

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Maybe some of the Spanish speaker here can correct me. @gargamello maybe? I had difficulties with:

• menos que no producen.
• harán brotar el momento...

#poetry #translation #sad #sadder #VictorJara #stadium #Chile #1973