Chile - Pablo Neruda, 69, Nobel laureate, Santiago, 23 Sept 1973

The exhumed body of the Chilean Nobel Prize-winning poet was originally planned to be reburied this week, but there has been a change in plans. Two years ago, Neruda’s remains were exhumed because there were questions about the way he died...

As reported by The Associated Press, the office of Chile's judiciary announced yesterday that, after members of the poet's family along with other groups had asked the courts to block the burial so that more tests could be carried out, the plans to rebury Neruda in his home in the coastal town of Isla Negra were suspended...

He planned to go into exile and become a voice against the new dictatorship. A day before he was set to leave, Neruda was taken by ambulance to the Santa Maria clinic where he was being treated for cancer and other ailments. Neruda died at the clinic on Sept. 23, 1973, officially from natural causes.

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SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Chile's government is acknowledging that Nobel-prize winning poet Pablo Neruda might have been killed after the 1973 coup that brought Gen. Augusto Pinochet to power.

The Interior Ministry released a statement Thursday amid press reports that Neruda might not have died of cancer. The statement acknowledged a ministry document dated March of this year, which was published by the newspaper El Pais in Spain.

"It's clearly possible and highly probable that a third party" was responsible for Neruda's death, the document said.
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Soneto XI

Tengo hambre de tu boca, de tu voz, de tu pelo
y por las calles voy sin nutrirme, callado,
no me sostiene el pan, el alba me desquicia,
busco el sonido líquido de tus pies en el día.

Estoy hambriento de tu risa resbalada,
de tus manos color de furioso granero,
tengo hambre de la pálida piedra de tus uñas,
quiero comer tu piel como una intacta almendra.

Quiero comer el rayo quemado en tu hermosura,
la nariz soberana del arrogante rostro,
quiero comer la sombra fugaz de tus pestañas

y hambriento vengo y voy olfateando el crepúsculo
buscándote, buscando tu corazón caliente
como un puma en la soledad de Quitratúe.

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Sonnet XI

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
Like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

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