Pablo Neruda

He left some houses and a tomb
facing black rocks and the Pacific Ocean,
also an unseaworthy boat
beached on the veranda, but forgot
to take his books, the smell
of his herring bone jacket
and the sound of his name Neftali.

He left a hundred shells, marked
with dates and the places he’d found them in,
together with the Medusa, figurehead of a whaling ship
baring her breasts in a long lasting message,
but he forgot the spirits
still in the multi-coloured English tumblers.

He left many songs and to others a great longing for him
pulling the hearts and minds of strangers
who feel they have always known him
and borrow his eyes for the view from his windows.
Yet he forgot to take his memories,
his scandals, his love stories and pictures
of his women scattered all over his life.

He left, you’ll find him not only in his poems,
but still laughing at the erotica on the toilet seat,
or pulling himself up in the roped staircase,
or retching from pain in the hollow of his mattress
overshadowed by the crucifix next to his sleep.