Devilkins

I have seen how the opportunist

was preparing his condition,

the arriviste his alibi,

the wealthy skinflint his nets,

the poet his inclusions.

I played with clean paper

facing the light every day.

I am a working fisherman

of verses alive and wet

that go on leaping in my veins.

I never knew how to do anything else

nor how to arrange the affairs

of the intrinsic braggart

or the perverse intriguer,

and it’s not propaganda of the good

that which I am saying in my song:

but I didn’t know how to do it,

and ask forgiveness for it of everybody:

leave me alone with the sea:

I was born for few fish.

Pablo Neruda