El mundo es un espectáculo/The World Is a Spectacle

 El mundo es un espectáculo,

en el amplio sentido de la palabra

y nadie puede negarlo.

En estos momentos cumbres,

de grandes festejos nos muestra

en 180 grados a la redonda,

la miseria humana como un espejo rabioso,

que gira sin sentido y expulsa toda imagen,

sin importar hacia donde apunta su enloquecida

brújula y destino.

Ante unas privilegiadas multitudes,

 que disfrutan sus 90 minutos de pasión y gloria,

se oscurece la humanidad toda,

 empujada al vacío como si no hubiera mañana.

Imposible olvidar frente al espectáculo,

el día a día, con semejante fiesta y derroche,

escuchar el resonar de sus ruidosas voces

y ver que la historia será memoria,

solo memoria.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

The World Is a Spectacle

The world is a spectacle,

in every sense of the word,

and no one can deny it.

At this very hour,

amid the highest celebrations,

it unveils,

across the full horizon,

the misery of humankind—

a furious mirror

whirling without reason,

flinging back every image,

heedless of where

its deranged compass

or its blind destiny may lead.

Before the privileged crowds,

lost in their ninety minutes

of passion and glory,

the whole of humanity

is swallowed by darkness,

hurled toward the abyss

as though tomorrow

had already been erased.

Impossible,

before such a spectacle,

to forget the ordinary days,

while this immense festival

of excess and splendor unfolds;

to ignore the thunder

of its clamorous voices,

or fail to see

that history,

in the end,

will become memory—

nothing but memory.

Nueva York habla español/New York Speaks Spanish

Nueva York habla español,

Ni Mr., ni yes Sir,

España – Argentina,

au revoir Francia,

good bye England,

esto es Niu York-

New Jersey,

donde la libertad

es más que una estatua

y todos son bienvenidos,

con sus cantos y banderas

en cualquier idioma,

en cualquier plaza,

a la fiesta del fútbol,

un idioma universal

que no tiene fronteras.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

New York Speaks Spanish

Not Mister,

not Yes, Sir.

Spain—Argentina,

au revoir, France,

goodbye, England.

This is New York—

New Jersey,

where freedom

is more than a statue,

and everyone is welcome,

with their songs and flags,

in every language,

in every square,

to the celebration of football,

a universal language

that knows no borders.

El fútbol es un deporte colectivo y popular. En la infancia bastaba una pelota de trapo, de goma o una de cuero para jugar en las canchas de tierra y piedras del barrio. Estas imágenes están grabadas a lo largo de la historia de este juego que convoca multitudes en el mundo y desata pasiones inimaginables. De allí surgieron grandes estrellas, Pelé y Maradona, tantos otros que ya son leyenda.

Recuerdo que  en los patios del Liceo José Victorino Lastarria jugábamos en los recreos sobre las baldosas con una tapa de alguna bebida o una pelota de trapo. De esas prácticas salimos los jugadores de la selección que ganó el campeonato a todos los colegios de la capital, de 3 millones de habitantes. En ese equipo jugó Alberto Quintano, la futura estrella de la Universidad de Chile y de la selección chilena. Una época gloriosa.

 La cúspide del juego se alcanza en el campeonato mundial cada cuatro años que se disputan los países seleccionados por puntajes obtenidos en cada región. El fútbol mueve las masas y mucho dinero, es un espectáculo sin fronteras, sigue creciendo como la espuma y las cifras que se mueven son millonarias.

Hasta ahora las copas mundiales, la Jules Rimet, hasta 1970, ahora, Copa Mundial de la FIFA,  están en manos de un puñado de países, (8) Uruguay, Italia, Brasil, Alemania, Argentina,  Francia, Inglaterra y España. Cinco europeos y tres latinoamericanos, que han animado muchos mundiales y en el 2026 vuelven a disputarse una copa más. Solo el 10 por ciento de los 80 países participantes han obtenido un trofeo. La participación de África en las copas mundiales ha sido históricamente muy limitada y llena de obstáculos, mejorando sustancialmente en los últimos años y sus selecciones prometen mayores logros en los años venideros. Muchos jugadores africanos juegan actualmente en Europa.

Esta copa, confieso, no ha sido de mi agrado. He visto pocos juegos y me he enterado de muchos reclamos a los árbitros y al famoso VAR. Es un campeonato con luces y sombras. La FIFA tendrá que ser más diligente para la próxima copa, el interés y la magia de un campeonato de esta magnitud, está en que las cartas deben estar sobre la mesa a la vista de todos, porque el éxito está en jugar con igual transparencia para todos. El interés de una competencia de esta magnitud y de cualquier otro tamaño, está en jugar limpio. No deben quedar dudas, ahora que se cuenta con tanta tecnología, ojos mágicos por todas partes. Alzar una copa con la virtud del juego limpio, no tiene precio, es, o debiera ser, lo más cercano a la gloria, al éxtasis.

El fútbol, un juego humilde, noble, que brinda entretenimiento, alegría a las multitudes, con tan poco, a tantos, pone en su balanza: pasión y honor. (Rolando Gabrielli2026)

Football is a collective sport and the world's most popular game. In childhood, all it took was a rag ball, a rubber ball, or a worn leather one to play on the dirt-and-stone pitches of the neighborhood. These images are etched into the history of a game that brings together vast crowds across the globe and unleashes unimaginable passions. From those humble fields emerged great stars—Pelé and Maradona, among many others who have become legends.

I remember that during recess, in the courtyards of José Victorino Lastarria High School, we played on the tiled ground using a bottle cap or a rag ball. From those informal matches came the players who would form the school team that won the championship against every other high school in Santiago, then a city of three million inhabitants. That team included Alberto Quintano, who would later become one of the great stars of Universidad de Chile and the Chilean national team. It was a glorious era.

The summit of the game is reached every four years at the FIFA World Cup, where the nations that have earned qualification through their regional competitions compete for football's greatest prize. Football moves the masses and generates enormous wealth. It is a spectacle without borders, one that continues to grow at an astonishing pace, with financial figures that reach into the billions.

So far, the World Cup trophies—first the Jules Rimet Trophy until 1970, and since then the FIFA World Cup Trophy—have remained in the hands of only a handful of nations: Uruguay, Italy, Brazil, Germany, Argentina, France, England, and Spain. Five European countries and three from Latin America have dominated the tournament's history and, in 2026, another chapter was added to that enduring rivalry. Only about ten percent of the nations that have participated in the World Cup have ever lifted the trophy. Africa's presence in the tournament has historically been limited and marked by many obstacles, but in recent decades its progress has been remarkable. African national teams promise even greater achievements in the years ahead, while many of the continent's finest players now shine in Europe's leading leagues.

I must confess that this World Cup has not been one of my favorites. I have watched only a handful of matches and have heard countless complaints about refereeing and the now-famous VAR. It has been a tournament of both light and shadow. FIFA will have to be more diligent before the next World Cup. The fascination and magic of a competition of this magnitude depend on everyone knowing that the cards are on the table, visible to all, because true success lies in playing with complete transparency. The value of a competition—whether global or local—rests on fair play. There should be no room for doubt, especially now that technology provides so many tools and so many "all-seeing eyes." To lift the trophy with the honor of having won fairly is beyond price. It is, or at least should be, the closest thing to glory—to ecstasy.

Football is a humble and noble game. With so little, it gives so much to so many. It offers entertainment, joy, and hope to millions. And on its enduring scales, it balances two timeless virtues: passion and honor.

Amor, no me leas/Love, don't read me

 Amor,

no me leas

como un algoritmo,

mis palabras

son tus palabras.

Tú y yo somos

la fuente de todo

principio.

En nada cambiará

el día,

como la luz

a la oscuridad.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

Love,

don't read me

like an algorithm;

my words

are your words.

You and I

are the source

of every

beginning.

Nothing will change

the day,

any more than light

can become

darkness.

Somos agua/We Are Water

 Somos agua

y tiempo vivido

y por vivir.

Un río siento

que nos recorre

de pies a acabeza,

memoria construida

por nuetra vida.

Somos aire,

la respiración

que nos queda

para seguir viviendo.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

We Are Water

We are water,

and time lived,

and time yet to be lived.

I feel a river

flowing through us

from foot to head,

a memory shaped

by the lives we have lived.

We are air,

the breath

that still remains,

allowing us

to go on living.

Carta viajera/A Traveling Letter

 En la soledad de mi casa,

que naufraga a orillas de la selva, el trópico,

su flora y fauna, son mis guías

cuando la Tierra pareciera perder oxígeno

y vigencia para los seres humanos,

que más que habitarla,

sueñan con un amanecer en Marte

 o algún otro planeta

que tenga una posibilidad de sobrevivencia

 o un paisaje semejante

quizás al mejor recuerdo vivido en la Tierra.

 Desde mi pequeña casa

 visitada por ocasionales agutíes,

bandadas de pájaros que viven volando

 alrededor del viento y de sus nidos

 que son el futuro de su especie,

 me detengo a observar el cielo inmutable

con sus estrellas detrás de las lluvias torrenciales

que dejan espacio para pequeños actos solitarios

en la oscuridad de la noche

que pone un poco de calma a estos días agitados

que dan vuelta el mundo.

El tiempo —me digo-. nos atravesará algún día

la vida a todos.

¿Qué habrá al otro lado de lo desconocido?,

siempre surge esa pregunta en alguna hora del tiempo

y de la vida, que puedes ser tú

o algún desconocido.

En las horas muertas que dispone el atardecer

en nuestras vidas,

sigo el recorrido curioso, veloz y artístico

de una ardilla que comparte conmigo el ocio

y la calma que nos brinda el paisaje,

que sigo disfrutando más allá de los viajes espaciales

y las muestras que nos traen los astronautas

y cosmonautas de sitios

en los que jamás alcanzaremos

a poner un pie,

como si fuera nuestra nueva Tierra.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

A Traveling Letter

In the solitude of my house, adrift on the edge of the jungle,

the tropics, with their flora and fauna, are my guides whenever the Earth

seems to be losing both oxygen and meaning for humankind—

who, rather than truly inhabiting it, dream instead of awakening

on Mars or on some other planet,

one that might offer a chance of survival, or a landscape

resembling the finest memory ever lived on Earth.

From my small house, visited now and then by wandering agoutis,

and by flocks of birds forever circling the wind,

their nests carrying the future of their species,

I pause to watch the changeless sky and its stars

hidden behind torrential rains, which leave brief intervals

for solitary gestures in the darkness of night,

bringing a measure of calm to these restless days

that seem to turn the whole world upside down.

Time, I tell myself, will one day pass through every one of our lives.

What lies beyond the unknown?

That question always returns at some hour of time

and of life—whether it is asked by you

or by someone whose name we will never know.

In the idle hours that twilight lays upon our lives,

I follow the curious, swift, almost artistic path of a squirrel,

sharing with it the leisure and the quiet the landscape offers us.

I continue to delight in this world, far beyond the voyages into space

and the samples astronauts and cosmonauts bring back

from places where we shall never set foot,

as though they were becoming our new Earth.

 

Aquí estás/Here you stand

 Aquí estás en medio de la nada,

a la intemperie de la poesía,

la palabra es lo único que permanece

y queda frente así misma,

muda, sin palabras.

En el orden de cada una de las cosas

el tiempo es solo tiempo y fluye

alrededor de las cosas

que permanecen inmutables.

Los días se escurren entre los dedos,

van tan rápidos y tú corrías

al mismo tiempo por esa carreteras

frías, sin alma, sin sol, desoladas.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

Here you are, in the middle of nowhere,

exposed to the elements of poetry.

The word is the only thing that endures,

remaining before itself,

silent, without words.

In the order of all things,

time is only time, and it flows

around the things

that remain unchanged.

The days slip through your fingers;

they pass so quickly,

while you were running

along those cold highways,

without a soul,

without the sun,

desolate.

Amenaza extraordinaria/Extraordinary Threat

 Amor, tú eres,

en este tiempo

y en cualquier época,

una amenaza inusual,

extraordinaria.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

Extraordinary Threat

Love, you are,

in these times

and in any age,

an uncommon,

extraordinary threat.

Oda al celular/Ode to the Cell Phone

 Pequeño duende luminoso,

estás en el centro de todas las cosas,

diminuto ángel, piensas, vives por mí,

a donde vaya estarás presente

y respiraremos juntos el aire,

la atmósfera que irradia tu luz infinita,

cautivadora, deslumbrante, fascinante

de todos mis sentidos.

¿Que sería de nosotros si tu pantalla

mágica  nos abandonara y dejara 

en la absoluta oscuridad del mediodía?

Dueño de nuestro tiempo, imaginación,

perdónanos si te hemos apagado

antes de tiempo, olvidado por un instante,

no haberte atendido las 24 horas del día,

tenerte presente siempre presente,

como el agua, el oxígeno, la vida.

Gracias por existir,

por sobre todas las cosas.

Piensa, objeto del deseo,

todo lo demás es la realidad.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

Ode to the Cell Phone

Little luminous sprite,

you stand at the center of all things.

Tiny angel,

you think for me,

you live for me.

Wherever I go,

you are there,

and together we breathe

the same air,

the atmosphere

lit by your infinite glow—

captivating,

dazzling,

bewitching

all my senses.

What would become of us

if your enchanted screen

were to abandon us,

leaving us

in the absolute darkness

of high noon?

Master of our time,

of our imagination,

forgive us

if we have switched you off

before your time,

forgotten you

for a fleeting instant,

failed to answer your call

twenty-four hours a day.

May we always keep you near,

ever present,

like water,

like oxygen,

like life itself.

Thank you

for existing

above all else.

Think,

object of our desire:

everything else

is merely reality.

La página en blanco/The Blank Page

La página en blanco

siempre está abierta,

dispuesta, comprometida,

a recibir, corregir, aceptar,

el poema como algo nuevo,

único, irrepetible,

siempre y cuando diga

algo más que palabras

dispuestas al azar.

Rolando Gabrielli2026

The Blank Page

The blank page

is always open,

ready, committed,

to receive, revise, embrace

the poem as something new,

unique,

unrepeatable,

provided it speaks

something beyond

words

arranged at random.

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.