Mario Benedetti’s name is known as that of one of the most well-known Uruguayan writers, playwrights and poets of recent times, being the author of both literary works such as “The Truce” and beautiful poetry about love and multiple other themes, including something as mundane as middle class life.

Deceased in 2009, this author who is part of the generation of 45 and who enjoys international recognition has left us a great quantity of works that can make us reflect and look at his way of seeing and feeling in the world. Specifically, in this article we will see a brief selection of poems by Mario Benedetti to see the best of this author.

A selection of poems by Mario Benedetti

Below we will see a total of ten of Mario Benedetti’s poems, on themes such as love, not giving up, melancholy, politics and human nature.

1. Let’s make a deal

Partner you know you can count
with me not to two or ten but to count on me.

If you ever notice that I look at you in the eyes and a vein of love you recognize in mine, don’t alert your guns or think what I’m delirious about despite the vein or maybe because it exists, you can count on me.

If you find me sullen for no reason at other times, don’t think about how lazy you can still count on me.

But let’s make a deal, I’d like to count
with you. It is so nice to know that you exist, one feels alive and when I say this I mean to count even two even five not to come to my aid but to know for sure that you know
you can count on me.

One of the author’s best known and most popular love poems, expresses in a few lines that the appreciation for the loved one is unconditional and that whatever happens, the loved one can always count on us.

2. Practical semantics

We know that the soul as a principle of life is an outdated religious and idealistic conception, but that it is valid in its second meaning, that is, hollow in the barrel of the firearms.

It must be acknowledged, however, that popular language is not rigorously up to date and that when the same student who read in Konstantinov that the idea of the soul is fantastic and naive kisses the naive and fantastic lips of the little companion who does not know the second meaning and yet tells her I love you with all my soul, it is obvious that he is not trying to suggest that he loves her with all his heart.

This short poem makes a small reflection on the soul and its meaning, focusing on its romantic and spiritual use .

3. Moods

Sometimes I feel like a poor hill and sometimes like a mountain of repeated peaks. Sometimes I feel like a cliff and sometimes like a blue but distant sky. Sometimes one is a spring between rocks and other times a tree with the last leaves.

But today I feel just like a sleepless lagoon with a jetty now without boats; a green lagoon immobile and patient with its algae, its mosses and its fish, serene in my confidence.

Trusting that one evening you will come and look at yourself, look at yourself as you look at me.

A poem that tells us how the author’s state of mind varies over time, oscillating through time and hoping to find love.

4. When we were children

When we were children the old people had about thirty a puddle was an ocean death plain and simple did not exist.

Then when boys were forty a pond was an ocean death was only a word.

Even when we got married the elders were in their fifties a lake was an ocean death was death
of the others.

Now we veterans have reached the truth the ocean is finally the ocean but death is beginning to be ours.

This poem makes a brief reflection on how things change, our knowledge, life positions, opinions and expectations, as we age .

5. Don’t Save Yourself

Don’t stand still at the side of the road don’t freeze the joy don’t want to be reluctant don’t save yourself now or ever.

Do not save yourself do not fill with calm do not reserve the world just a quiet corner do not drop your eyelids heavy as judgments do not stay without lips do not sleep without sleep do not think without blood do not judge yourself without time.

But if despite everything you can not help it and you freeze the joy and want with reluctance and you save yourself now and you fill with calm and reserves of the world only a quiet corner and you drop your eyelids heavy as judgments and you dry without lips and you sleep without sleep and you think without blood and you judge yourself without time and you stay motionless on the edge of the road and you save yourself then do not stay with me.

This poem expresses the need not to run away, to stop escaping and look for a place to merely survive. The poem asks us to fight, to face what life has done to us and to live as we want to, with enthusiasm and seeking to achieve our goals.

6. Man looking at his country from exile

A green and wounded country, a truly poor country. A hoarse and empty country, where a girl is lying in blood upon blood.

Country far and near occasion of the executioner the best to the trap. Country violin in a bag or silence hospital or poor artigas.

Country shaken by dungeon and meadows. Country you’ll be armed piece by piece my people.

This poem refers to the moment in his life when a coup d’état broke out in Uruguay , something that would end up causing the author to go into exile.

7. Caress Report

Caress is a language if your caresses speak to me I would not want them to be silent.

The caress is not the copy of another distant caress is a new version almost always improved.

It is the feast of the skin caressing while it lasts and when it leaves without protection to lust.

The caresses of dreams that are prodigy and charm suffer from a defect is tactless.

As an adventure and enigma the caress begins before it becomes a caress.

It is clear that the best thing is not the caress itself but its continuation.

These verses speak to us of the power of caresses in love as well as in sex.

8. All green

All greenery shall perish, said the voice of the writing as ever implacable.

But it is also true that any new greenery could not exist if the perished greenery had not completed its cycle.

Hence, our greenery, that slightly strange conjunction of your spring and my autumn, surely has repercussions on others, teaches others to help others rescue their greenery.

That is why even though the scriptures do not say so, all green will be reborn.

This poem tells us about the past and about the future, about what there was and what there will be. It tells us about the important role of our predecessors as guides so that we could emerge, and also about our future role towards future generations. It also shows that nothing dies forever , because what has to end will come back to life again.

9. Still

I don’t believe you’re still coming to my side and the night is a handful of stars and joy

I feel like listening to and seeing your face, your long walk, your hands and yet I still don’t believe it.

Your return has so much to do with you and me that I say it out of kabbalah and just in case.

Nobody ever replaces you and the most trivial things become crucial because you are coming home.

However I still doubt this good luck because the heaven of having you seems like a fantasy to me.

But you come and it is safe and you come with your eyes and that is why your arrival makes the future magical.

And although I have not always understood my faults and failures I know instead that in your arms the world makes sense.

And if I kiss the boldness and the mystery of your lips there will be no doubt and I will love you even more.

The longing and the illusion of seeing the loved one again is what the author expresses in this beautiful poem.

10. I love you

Your hands are my caress my daily chords I love you because your hands work for justice

If I love you it’s because you are my love my accomplice and everything and on the street side by side we are much more than two

Your eyes are my spell against the bad day I love you for your gaze that looks and sows future.

Your mouth that is yours and mine your mouth is not wrong I love you because your mouth knows how to scream defiance.

If I love you it’s because you are my love, my accomplice and everything, and in the street side by side we are much more than two.

And for your sincere face and your wandering and your crying in the world because you are a people I love you.

And because love is not a halo nor a candid moral and because we are a couple that knows it is not alone.

I love you in my paradise is to say that in my country people live happily even if they don’t have permission.

If I love you it’s because you are my love, my accomplice and everything, and in the street side by side we are much more than two.

Let’s finish this small selection of poems with a beautiful love poem in which the author expresses what the loved one means to him .