The Colonel by Carolyn Forché (1981)

This is not a happy poem, and I’m truly sorry for what you are about to go through.

The context here is important: late 1970s El Salvador, just before their civil war which left over 75,000 people dead, many at the hands of U.S.-trained and funded “death squads.” Fraudulent elections had installed military regimes in the government, which led to mass protests that were met with threats, repression, and all-out massacres. A cycle of resistance and murder repeated itself until the 1979 coup that is largely regarded as the beginning of the civil war. Fears of the spread of Communism led the United States to back the El Salvadoran military regime, despite its atrocious violations of human rights, considered “among the worst rights record in the hemisphere.” The death toll was borne mostly by the poor, union leaders, teachers, civil rights activists, journalists, and priests.

Through a fascinating turn of events, Carolyn Forché found herself traveling through El Salvador with a poet’s sensibilities but a journalist’s purpose. Her memoir of this time, What You Have Heard is True, details her experience. This prose poem recounts an evening she spent with one of the members of the military regime.

As for the craft, I think it speaks for itself.

Short Stuff:

• Forché coined the term “Poetry of Witness.”
• Her body of work largely centers around political consciousness.

Topics

war; violence; language & communication; power; human rights

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The Colonel

WHAT YOU HAVE HEARD is true. I was in his house. His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar. His daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol on the cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on its black cord over the house. On the television was a cop show. It was in English. Broken bottles were embedded in the walls around the house to scoop the kneecaps from a man’s legs or cut his hands to lace. On the windows there were gratings like those in liquor stores. We had dinner, rack of lamb, good wine, a gold bell was on the table for calling the maid. The maid brought green mangoes, salt, a type of bread. I was asked how I enjoyed the country. There was a brief commercial in Spanish. His wife took everything away. There was some talk then of how difficult it had become to govern. The parrot said hello on the terrace. The colonel told it to shut up, and pushed himself from the table. My friend said to me with his eyes: say nothing. The colonel returned with a sack used to bring groceries home. He spilled many human ears on the table. They were like dried peach halves. There is no other way to say this. He took one of them in his hands, shook it in our faces, dropped it into a water glass. It came alive there. I am tired of fooling around he said. As for the rights of anyone, tell your people they can go fuck themselves. He swept the ears to the floor with his arm and held the last of his wine in the air. Something for your poetry, no? he said. Some of the ears on the floor caught this scrap of his voice. Some of the ears on the floor were pressed to the ground.

May 1978

–Carolyn Forché