La noche no puede/The night cannot

La noche no puede

ser más oscura.

Está frente 

a una ventana.

El sol, 

próximo a salir.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

The night cannot

grow any darker.

She stands

before a window.

The sun,

about to rise.

Este poema no tiene memoria/This poem has no memory

 Este poema no tiene memoria,

está escrito en presente.

No saldrá de la noche

que lo piensa y escribe.

Un poema presente,

sin pasado ni futuro.

Asume con todas 

sus palabras el hoy.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

This poem has no memory.

It is written in the present tense.

It will never leave

the night that imagines it

and writes it.

A poem wholly present,

with neither past nor future.

Every one of its words

belongs to today.

Que las palabras/May the words

 Que las palabras

no te enmudezcan,

amigo lector,

sean el viento

para tus alas nuevas,

una pequeña luz

dentro del pozo,

en un mundo

lleno de oscuridad.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

May these words

never render you silent,

dear reader,

but be the wind

beneath your newfound wings,

a small light

deep within the well,

in a world

shrouded in darkness.

Of Poets and Poetry/De los poetas y la poesía

 

https://letralia.com/ciudad-letralia/fechado-en-panama/2026/07/04/poesia-poetas/

https://muckrack.com/rolando-gabrielli

Of Poets and Poetry

By Rolando Gabrielli

The city I inhabited was inhabited by poets. We drifted through bars, the university, and the chance encounters the day would occasionally place in our path. No one went around trying to write poetry. Poems were born in the solitude of private rooms and in those moments each of us reserved for ourselves. Without ever intending it, we became a kind of brotherhood. Chance brought us together, and those idle hours—so indispensable to art—were woven into the fabric of our daily lives. Stories became experience; they were part of the quiet grace of those singular gatherings.

Poetry has its own unmistakable breathing. It creates its own stage as it unfolds. Sometimes it was enough simply to listen, to follow the echo of words. In the end, poetry and life reveal themselves to be one and the same adventure.

And yet, in striking contrast to this way of living, I vividly remember Nicanor Parra as a tireless poetic engine. His weapons were an ordinary notebook and a humble Bic pen. Then the performance would begin. He wrote in large letters—half childlike, half unruly—covering the page with lines, crossings-out, and relentless revisions. Anything that failed to convince him disappeared without mercy. I have never seen anyone engage the blank page with such ferocity. He gave it no respite. His method was to conduct his search in full view of whoever happened to witness it, pursuing each breath of language until exhaustion, even suffocation, if necessary.

A shadow accompanied that endless Parrian quest to wring every last possibility from language, stripping words of their adjectives, reducing them to bare bone, freeing them from every ornament. That shadow was Neruda. The obsession deserves a book of its own, one capable of revealing both the true significance of antipoetry and the hidden struggle that unfolded behind the curtains of Chilean poetry.

The other way—perhaps the bohemian way—was to embrace carpe diem: to read, to absorb the atmosphere of the world, and then to face the blank page alone. That is not to say that Parra did not have his own version of carpe diem. He did, while maintaining at home the rigorous discipline of the physicist and mathematician he also was.

Neruda, by his own account and by the testimony of those who knew him, worked with the punctuality of an office clerk. He kept regular hours, filled notebook after notebook in his various homes—above all at Isla Negra—and wrote throughout his long sea voyages. Yet he also left us the unforgettable line: "Out of loving so much, books are born."

Poets are far more disciplined than they appear. Even the most bohemian among them labor over every line, every poem. Gonzalo Millán sometimes produced as many as nine versions of a single poem, polishing each one like a jeweler cutting a precious stone.

One evening, as twilight settled, I watched Enrique Lihn quietly excuse himself from the conversation in his own home and retreat to a small room at the back of the garden, where he could continue indulging his incurable vice: poetry. In a poem addressed to Rimbaud, Lihn confronts his own demons as a poet: "He threw this rubbish away; I envy his refusal of this exercise." Rimbaud left for Africa and abandoned poetry. By the age of nineteen, he had already accomplished what he came to accomplish—a genius. Lihn, on the other hand, accepted his sentence: to keep writing, to continue writing poems and whatever else his imagination demanded. Fortunately for poetry.

Gonzalo Rojas wrote according to the rhythm of his breathing. That was the measure he trusted, as he often said. Rolando Cárdenas was present at nearly all our gatherings. There was something rain-soaked in his gaze. He came from southern Chile, and his poetry carried that southern landscape within it—intimate, everyday, deeply austral. He himself embodied extraordinary simplicity and generosity. He was a close friend of Jorge Teillier, the poet of Araucanía, of nostalgia, of the lar, of the lost paradise. Jorge also rewrote his poems, however spontaneous they seemed when read.

It was an extraordinarily fertile period for poetry in that far southern province. Poets breathed freely, and I have often thought that Neruda's immense international prestige served as a protective canopy over Chilean poets and over poetry itself. There was a dignity then that has all but disappeared in today's digital world—and in everything surrounding it.

Outstanding literary journals flourished: Norte, Tebaida, Centro Sur, Arúspice, and Trilce. Groups of gifted young poets published their work, organized readings, and sustained the living tradition of poetry. What united us was more than official fellowship; it was a genuine community of spirit.

When the publishing house Quimantú—"Sun of Knowledge"—was founded in February 1971, it unleashed a remarkable cultural awakening and nothing less than a revolution in books. Poetry, forever living close to the edge, shared in those generous years. It was a golden age, crowned by Neruda's Nobel Prize, and from then on Chile became known throughout the world as a country of poets. Gabriela Mistral had opened that path in 1945.

Huidobro, De Rokha, Díaz Casanueva, Rosamel del Valle, Arteche, Alberto Rubio, Anguita, Uribe, Barquero, Óscar Hahn, Waldo Rojas, Omar Lara, Oliver Welden, Manuel Silva Acevedo, Floridor Pérez, Zurita, José Ángel Cuevas, Hernán Miranda, and many others belong to the living geography of Chilean poetry. I have written of them often. Some reflected deeply on the nature of poetry itself—Huidobro, Teillier, Parra, De Rokha, each from a different perspective. Some spoke from public platforms; others from the margins. All left enduring traces. They plowed their furrows across the length of Chile.

Behind each of them stands an entire lineage of reading that cannot be overlooked, for poetry never exists in isolation from literature. No poem is orphaned. The family tree of poetry is vast, reaching back thousands of years, beyond writing itself to the age of oral tradition. In many respects, poetry is the childhood of all literature.

Tradition remains tradition. Poetry follows paths of its own; it never springs from nothing. Borges understood this perfectly. Few remember that he loved going to the cinema, driven by an inexhaustible curiosity. Above all, he was an inexhaustible reader, and I suspect he regarded that as his finest introduction to the world.

Poets speak through the adventure of language. More often than not, they are better read than heard.

These poems, entrusted to the sovereignty of words, are children of our own age of diaspora—fragile and elusive as Alice's looking glass.

Todo el silencio para la casa/All the Silence for the House

 Todo el silencio para la casa

y quien la habita,

muros inmóviles atentos

a los pasos y al silencio

que los reúne y convoca.

El día son las sombras

y la tenue luz que las cortinas

filtran sobre los cansados espacios.

No vuela una mosca

y solo alguien respira

por todos los que alguna vez

habitaron la casa.

La noche aprende

de la vieja oscuridad

y permanece en silencio.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

All the silence belongs to the house

and to the one who dwells within,

its motionless walls attentive

to footsteps and to the silence

that gathers and summons them.

The day is made of shadows

and the faint light that curtains

filter across the weary rooms.

Not even a fly takes flight,

and only one person breathes

for all those who once

lived in the house.

Night learns

from the old darkness

and remains in silence.

¿Se puede saber cómo pasa el tiempo?Can One Ever Know How Time Passes?

¿Se puede saber cómo pasa el tiempo

sin que uno se entere?

¿O si se entera sigue sin entenderlo?

Nadie debiera desestimar a quien

nos despedirá tarde o temprano

y nos ve nacer alegres, inmortales,

pero no nos advierte que todo

principio tiene su fin

Leo la dedicatoria de un libro

y la fecha señala que han pasado

veinte años y yo lo leí, al parecer, ayer,

según mi memoria que guardó

este inmenso secreto sin que yo

supiera o alcanzara a vislumbrar

un tiempo no registrado ante la evidencia.

El tiempo podría ser una obsesión

de relojes y calendarios, pero no lo creo,

demasiado simple ver pasar cada día

este río incesante que somos nosotros mismos

y que en algún momento va hacia la mar

que es el morir.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

Can One Ever Know How Time Passes?

Can one ever know how time passes
without even noticing?
Or, if one does notice,
still fail to understand it?

No one should dismiss the one
who will bid us farewell, sooner or later,
who watches us arrive joyful, immortal,
yet never warns us
that every beginning
has its end.

I read the dedication in a book,
and the date tells me
that twenty years have passed,
though I seem to have read it only yesterday,
according to my memory, which kept
this immense secret without my knowing,
without my ever glimpsing
a span of time left unrecorded,
despite all the evidence.

Time may be an obsession
of clocks and calendars,
but I do not believe it.
It is far too simple to watch each day go by,
this unceasing river that is ourselves,
flowing, at some moment, toward the sea,
which is death.

Un poema/ A Poem

 Un poema,

por más independencia

que tenga,

su existencia,

dependerá siempre,

de un lector.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

 A Poem

A poem,

no matter

how independent

it may be,

will always

owe its existence

to a reader.

Rolando Gabrielli2026 

La palabra se resiste/The word refuses

 La palabra

se resiste

 abandonar

el silencio.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

The word
refuses
to leave
the silence.

La poesía es graciosa/Poetry Is Playful

 La poesía

es graciosa,

divertida, diría,

a veces,

ni me saluda,

indiferente,

despreocupada,

sabia, me obliga

a descubrirla

através

de la palabra.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

Poetry Is Playful

Poetry

is playful,

delightful, I would say,

at times,

it does not even

greet me—

indifferent,

carefree,

yet wise,

it urges me

to discover it

through

the word.

No te tientes/Don't be tempted

 No te tientes,

la página

en blanco,

sabe guardar

sus secretos,

para el lector

que no se queda

con el reflejo

de las palabras.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

Do not give in

to temptation.

The blank page

knows how

to keep

its secrets

for the reader

who looks

beyond

the reflection

of words.

¿Qué sabe el poema del poema?/What Does the Poem Know of the Poem?

¿Qué sabe el poema del poema?,

balbuceo, nacimiento de la palabra,

 descubrimiento y reencuentro,

un mismo poema siempre.

Ser y saber, palabras son únicas,

 tan nuevas  como viejas conocidas

agitan el tablero de la poesía.

El inicio es solo especulación,

ensayo, error, búsqueda, descubrimiento

de su forma y contenido en una unidad.

¿Qué sabe el poema que desconoce el poeta?

La palabra tiene la última palabra,

el poema y el poeta lo saben y suscriben.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

What Does the Poem Know of the Poem?

What does the poem know of the poem?

Babble, the birth of the word,

it seeks to find itself again,

to be, and to know

that its words are unique,

even at the beginning,

which is still only speculation—

trial, error, searching, discovery—

of its form

and its substance,

joined as one.

Tus huellas dejas/You leave your footprints

 Hermosa,

tus huellas dejas,

al partir vas,

en cuerpo y alma.

Vuelas, solo vuelas.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

Beautiful,

you leave your footprints

as you depart,

in body and soul.

You fly—only fly.

Trópico/Tropics

 Te has quedado solo

con tu bastón

bajo un portal

que te protege

de la intensa lluvia

que no te deja ver la calle

a unos cuantos metros.

Vagas luces de automóviles,

destellos intermitentes

convierten el mediodía

en un confuso paisaje,

que solo puedes contemplar,

inmóvil.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

Tropics

You have been left alone,

with your cane,

beneath a doorway

that shelters you

from the heavy rain

that keeps you

from seeing the street

just a few meters away.

Faint headlights,

their intermittent flashes,

turn midday

into a blurred landscape

that you can only watch,

motionless.

La palabra adquiere/The word gains

 La palabra,

adquiere fuerza

y sentido,

cuando es justa,

verdadera, única

y comprometida,

sorprendente.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

The Word

A word

gains strength

and meaning

when it is just,

true, unique,

committed,

and unexpected.

Bestia dorada/Golden Beast

 Bestia dorada,

animal perverso,

magnífico, adorable,

ejemplar único,

monstruo idolatrado,

eres irrepetible,

te representas fielmente

como la pesadilla más extraordinaria

de nuestro y cualquier tiempo

frente a los ciegos espejos

de la historia, y aún así,

 no pierdes la esencia,

 frescura en el mercado

de las ilusiones,

el don inobjetable

de tu infinita, hermosa

egolatría.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

Golden Beast,

malevolent creature,

magnificent, beloved,

one of a kind,

idolized monster,

you are without equal.

You remain faithful to yourself,

the most extraordinary nightmare

of our age—and of any age—

before the blind mirrors

of history. And still,

you never lose your essence,

your freshness in the marketplace

of illusions,

the undeniable gift

of your boundless, beautiful

self-idolatry.

El gol, la cereza del pastel/"A goal is the cherry on top of the cake

Un fútbol sin goles, es el espectáculo de la derrota. La pasión del fútbol llega a su climax en la celebración del gol. Los héroes  suelen ser los goleadores. La ausencia del gol, garantiza una derrota del entretenimiento. La gente quiere ver goles y demostrar su pasión. La tensión de los 90 minutos está puesta en el arco que custodia el único jugador que juega con las manos. El fútbol es el más grande espectáculo deportivo del mundo-un negocio sin límites, aparentemente-, cuya magia radica en el gol.

Los 20 jugadores de la cancha, trazan sus jugadas, arman su juego, corren detrás de la pelota, con un solo objetivo: convertir uno o más goles. Se ha dicho, con razón  que el fútbol es pasión de multitudes y los cientos de miles de espectadores llegan a ese climax, euforia, cuando la pelota se introduce en el arco contrario. Ahí  asoma la verdadera  intensidad del espectáculo y el espectador da rienda suelta a sus más secretas pasiones, que muchas veces adquieren dimensiones épicas fuera de los estadios. Para el fútbol no existen fronteras. Las multitudes se identifican con un himno,  la bandera, cánticos, la camiseta que los jugadores sudan en la cancha y los representa.

El fútbol tiene la gracia de la sorpresa, el suspenso, pero todo gira en torno a la búsqueda del, a veces, inefable, gol, porque es el rey, la cereza del pastel.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

A football match without goals is a spectacle of defeat. The passion of football reaches its climax in the celebration of a goal. Heroes are usually the scorers. The absence of goals guarantees the defeat of entertainment. People want to see goals and express their passion. The tension of the ninety minutes is focused on the goal defended by the only player allowed to use his hands. Football is the greatest sporting spectacle in the world—an apparently limitless business—whose magic lies in the goal.

The twenty outfield players weave their moves, build their game, and chase the ball with a single objective: to score one or more goals. It has rightly been said that football is the passion of the masses, and hundreds of thousands of spectators reach that moment of climax and euphoria when the ball enters the opposing net. There emerges the true intensity of the spectacle, and the spectator unleashes his most secret passions, which often assume epic dimensions beyond the stadiums themselves. Football knows no borders. The crowds identify with an anthem, a flag, chants, and the jersey that the players sweat in on the pitch and that represents them.

Football possesses the grace of surprise and suspense, yet everything revolves around the pursuit of the sometimes ineffable goal, because it is king—the crowning jewel, the cherry on the cake.

Se quedó solo/The poet was left alone

 Se quedó solo

el poeta,

solo con su poesía

y una cuantas

palabras

por conocer.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

The poet was left alone,

alone with his poetry

and a handful

of words

still waiting

to be known.

Cuando no eres/When You Are No Longer

 Cuando no eres

asunto de nadie,

sigue remando,

tú eres el río.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

When you are no one’s concern,
keep rowing on;
you are the river.

Lázaro, discreto, servicial/Lazarus, discreet and helpful

 Lázaro,

discreto, servicial,

regularmente cae

al suelo,

es culpa mía.

Nunca he probado

con decirle:

Lázaro, levántate,

porque  sin mayor

aspaviento, lo hago,

cuando  lo olvido

y él, sabiamente,

siempre dispuesto

responde erguido.

Un bastón siempre 

es humilde,

silencioso y te va

a tender una mano

para salir del paso.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

Lazarus,

discreet, helpful,

regularly falls

to the ground—

it is my fault.

I have never tried

saying to him:

“Lazarus, arise,”

because, without

any great fuss,

I simply pick him up

whenever I forget him there,

and he, with quiet wisdom,

always ready,

returns upright.

A walking stick

is always humble,

silent,

and will offer you

a helping hand

to see you through.

¿Nunca escuchas la voz silenciosa del espejo?/Have you never heard the mirror's silent voice?

 ¿Nunca escuchas

la voz silenciosa

del espejo,

cuando va cambiando,

paulatinamente,

tu rostro como 

un viejo diario

de provincia,

ignorado

en una estación

de un pueblo

ignorado,

como un hombre

viejo ignorado?

Rolando Gabrielli2026

Do you never hear
the silent voice
of the mirror,
as it slowly
changes your face,
like an old provincial
newspaper,
forgotten
at a station
in a forgotten town,
like an old man
left unnoticed?

No olvide/Don't forget

 No olvide,

con los años,

usted,

pasa a ser,

un cero

a la izquierda.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

Don't forget:

as the years go by,

you, too,

may become

a nobody,

a zero on the left.

Ignorar a un poeta/To ignore a poet

 Ignorar a un poeta,

apostar por su olvido,

puede ser un truco maestro

de estos tiempos banales,

perversos, diría, sin  riesgo

de equivocarme y lo dejaría

por escrito, como si certificara

el derecho a la poesía,

a la vida.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

To ignore a poet,

to wager on his oblivion,

may be a masterstroke

of these banal times—

perverse, I would say,

without fear of being mistaken.

And I would set it down

in writing,

as though certifying

the right to poetry,

the right to life.

No hay nombre/There is no name

No hay nombre

que no te nombre

de alguna manera

y solo eres tú.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

There is no name
that does not name you
in some way,
and yet you are only yourself.

Ninguna voz/No voice

 Ninguna voz

es más potente

que el silencio

que le acompaña.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

No voice
is more powerful
than the silence
that accompanies it.

Esta es mi historia/This Is My Story

Esta es mi historia,

robada al tiempo

y las horas perdidas,

muertas y vacías

de los días

que pasan si cesar

y no dejan de pasar.

Al final de esta historia,

un espejo te mira,

sin saber quén eres.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

This Is My Story

This is my story,

stolen from time

and from the lost hours,

dead and empty,

from the days

that pass without ceasing

and never stop passing.

At the end of this story,

a mirror looks at you,

without knowing

who you are.

El silencio/Silence

 El silencio,

aparentemente,

no ocupa espacio,

pero está presente,

se escucha, se siente.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

Silence,

apparently,

takes up no space,

yet it is present,

it can be heard,

it can be felt.

El paraguas/The Umbrella

 La clásica pérdida

del pasado,

era el paraguas

olvidado en el taxi,

una tienda,

en algún lugar,

donde pareciera

que el propio paraguas

deseaba ocultarse

de la lluvia o del sol.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

The classic loss

of the past

was the umbrella

left behind in a taxi,

in a shop,

somewhere,

as though

the umbrella itself

longed to hide

from the rain

or from the sun.

Toda belleza/Every beauty

 Toda belleza

es susceptible

de derrumbarse,

a no ser que sea

de mármol.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

Every beauty

is vulnerable

to collapse,

unless it is

carved in marble.

Te vas quedando/You are left with

 Te vas quedando

con unos pocos poetas

que han superado

el olvido.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

You are left with
a handful of poets
who have outlived
oblivion

Con los años/With the Passing Years

 Con los años,

aprendes a dejar

las cosas de uso diario,

en un mismo lugar.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

With the Passing Years

With the passing years,

you learn to set aside

the everyday things of life

in their accustomed place

Hay días/There Are Days

Hay días

en que los días

se descomponen,

avinagran

de solo verlos,

si acaso nombrarlos,

son incapaces de encender

una vela en el camino.

Están ciegos, sordos y mudos,

no tienen pies ni cabeza,

viven la desgracia,

sin proponérselo.

Si se miraran al espejo,

digo,

no saldrían a la calle.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

There Are Days

There are days

when days themselves

fall apart,

turn sour,

simply at the sight of them,

or even at their mention;

they are incapable of lighting

a candle along the way.

They are blind, deaf, and mute,

they have neither feet nor head,

they live in misfortune

without intending to.

If they looked at themselves in the mirror,

I say,

they would not go out into the street.