AHORA ES CUBA

Y luego fue la sangre y la ceniza.

Después quedaron las palmeras solas.

Cuba, mi amor, te amarraron al potro,
te cortaron la cara,
te apartaron las piernas de oro pálido,
te rompieron el sexo de granada,
te atravesaron con cuchillos,
te dividieron, te quemaron.

Por los valles de la dulzura
bajaron los exterminadores,
y en los altos mogotes la cimera
de tus hijos se perdió en la niebla,
pero allí fueron alcanzados
uno a uno hasta morir,
despedazados en el tormento
sin su tierra tibia de flores
que huía bajo sus plantas.

Cuba, mi amor, qué escalofrío
te sacudió de espuma la espuma,
hasta que te hiciste pureza,
soledad, silencio, espesura,
y los huesitos de tus hijos
se disputaron los cangrejos.

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(I can't find an English version on-line so I'll give it a go at my translation):

And now it's Cuba

and then it was the blood and the ash.

Then the palm trees were left standing alone.

Cuba, my love, they tied you to the rack,
they cut your face,
they spread your legs of pale gold,
they broke the pomegranate sex,
they pierced you with knives,
they divided you, they burned you.

Along the valleys of sweetness
the exterminators descended,
and in the high hills the crest
of your sons was lost in the fog,
but there they were caught
one by one until dying,
torn to pieces in the storm
without their warm flowered earth
that fled beneath its plants.*

Cuba, my love, what chill
shook you from foam to foam,
until you became purity,
solitude, silence, density,
and the little bones of your sons
were contested by the crabs.

*This line is kind of a double entendre in spanish. Given its context it can be translated as "that fled beneath its plants" or "that fled beneath the soles of their feet". Both senses fit. I went with the plants line, given the proximity to the flowers line above it.

In any case, I just put the first poem up that caught my eye. Plus, it's clearly political which is nice; always leaves room for fun RESPECTFUL conversation of differing views.

It's weird because based on the text of the poem I would have to guess that it was written before the Castro years, probably during the Batista years. I imagine Neruda, being a fairly outspoken communist, would have been delighted about Cuba going into Castro's hands and wouldn't have written this poem, which, to my ears sounds like a lament for the rape of natural resources and Cuban people from colonial times onwards, and particularly during the Batista years, which if I am not mistaken, were marked by a lot of Florida mafia presence, gambling, etc....

Any thoughts? Oh yeah, and the poem is, of course, beautiful! :)