<neruda's "walking around"> 2003-09-30.11:19 p.m. Walking Around Pablo Neruda It happens that I am tired of being a man. It happens that I go into the tailors' shops and the movies all shriveled up, impenetrable, like a felt swan navigating on a water of origin and ash. The smell of barber shops makes me sob out loud. I want nothing but the repose of stones or wool, I want to see no more establishments, no more gardens, no more merchandise, no glasses, no elevators. It happens that I am tired of my feet and my nails and my hair and my shadow. It happens that I am tired of being a man. Just the same it would be delicious to scare a notary with a cut lily or knock a nun stone dead with a blow on the ear. It would be beautiful to go through the streets with a green knife shouting until I died of cold. I do not want to go on being a root in the dark, hesitating, stretched out, shivering with dreams, downwards, in the wet tripe of the earth, soaking it up 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, as a solitary tunnel, a cellar of corpses, half frozen, dying of grief. For this reason Monday burns like oil at the sight of me arriving with my jail-face, and it howls in passing like a wounded wheel, and leaves tracks full of warm blood leading toward the night. And it shoves me into certain corners, into some damp house, 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 birds the colour of sulphur, and hideous intestines hanging over the doors of the houses that I hate, there are forgotten sets of false teeth in a coffee pot, there are mirrors that ought to have wept with shame and terror, there are umbrellas everywhere, and venoms, and umbilical cords. I stride along serenely, with my eyes, my shoes, my rage, forgetting everything, I walk by, crossing office buildings and orthopedic shops, and courtyards with washing hanging from the line: underwear, towels and shirts from which slow dirty tears are falling. back /& forth /& frosting names are often sad