THE UNITED FRUIT CO.

--after Pablo Neruda

When the trumpets had sounded, and
all was prepared on the earth
and Jehovah divided the world
into Coca-Cola Inc., Anaconda, Bechtel,
Halliburton, Lockheed, Ford Motors, I.G. Farben,
and such entities: the United Fruit Inc.
reserved for itself the succulent,
central coast of my land,
the sweet waistline of America.
The executives baptized our lands
naming them "Banana Republics,"
and over the sleeping dead,
over the disquieted heroes,
who had conquered their greatness,
their liberty and flags,
established an opera bufa:
raped all industry,
awarded crowns like Caesar,
unleashed all greed, and created
the dictatorial "Reign of the Flies"--
flies Trujillos, flies Tachos,
flies Carias, flies Martinez,
flies Ubico, flies all of them
wet with the blood of their marmalade
extracts, drunken flies buzzing
over the tombs of the people,
flies circus flies, scholarly flies
trapped in tyranny.

Then the bloody kingdom of the flies,
The United Fruit Company Incorporated
unloaded coffee and fruits;
cargo boats overflowed, trays of spoils
floated away from our drowning dominions.

And all the time, somewhere, in the sugar factory,
purgatories of our seaports,
smothered by gases, a native
fainted away in the fumes of the morning
an anonymous corpse floating in marmalade,
a numberless thing,
a churning number,
a branch of dead fruit.