Zero Hour

Tropical nights in Central America,

with moonlit lagoons and volcanoes

and lights from presidential palaces,

barracks and sad curfew warnings.

"Often while smoking a cigarette

I've decided that a man should die,"

says Ubico smoking a cigarette . . .

In his pink-wedding-cake palace

Ubico has a head cold. Outside, the people

were dispersed with phosphorous bombs.

San Salvador laden with night and espionage,

with whispers in homes and boardinghouses

and screams in police stations.

Carías' palace stoned by the people.

A window of his office has been smashed,

and the police have fired upon the people.

And Managua the target of machine guns

from the chocolate-cookie palace

and steel helmets patrolling the streets.

Watchman! What hour is it of the night?

The campesinos of Honduras used to carry their money in their hats

when the campesinos sowed their seed

and the Hondurans were masters of their land.

When there was money

and there were no foreign loans

or taxes for J.P. Morgan & Co.,

and the fruit company wasn't competing with the little dirt farmer.

But the United Fruit Company arrived

with its subsidiaries the Tela Railroad Company

and the Trujillo Railroad Company

allied with the Cuyamel Fruit Company

and Vaccaro Brothers & Company

later Standard Fruit & Steamship Company

of the Standard Fruit & Steamship Corporation:

the United Fruit Company

with its revolutions for the acquisition of concessions

and exemptions of millions in import duties

and export duties, revisions of old concessions

and grants for new exploitations,

violations of contracts, violations

of the Constitution . . .

And all the conditions are dictated by the Company

with liabilities in case of confiscation

(liabilities of the nation, not of the Company)

and the conditions composed by the latter (the Company)

for the return of the plantations to the nation

(given free by the nation to the Company)

at the end of 99 years . . .

"and all the other plantations belonging

to any other persons or companies or enterprises

which may be dependents of the contractors and in which

this latter has or may have in the future

any interest of any kind will be as a consequence

included in the previous terms and conditions . . ."

(Because the Company also corrupted prose.)

The condition was that the Company build the Railroad,

but the Company wasn't building it,

because in Honduras mules were cheaper than the Railroad,

and "a Gongressman was chipper than a mule,"

as Zemurray used to say,

even though he continued to enjoy tax exemptions

and a grant of 175,000 acres of the Company,

with the obligation to pay the nation for each mile

that he didn't build, but he didn't pay anything to the nation

even though he didn't build a single mile (Carías is the dictator

who didn't build the greatest number of miles of railroad)

and after all, that shitty railroad was

of no use to the nation

because it was a railroad between two plantations

and not between the cities of Trujillo and Tegucigalpa.

They corrupt the prose and they corrupt the Congress.

The banana is left to rot on the plantations,

or to rot in the cars along the railroad tracks

or it's cut overripe so it can be rejected

when it reaches the wharf or be thrown into the sea;

the bunches of bananas declared bruised, or too skinny,

or withered, or green, or overripe, or diseased:

so there'll be no cheap bananas,

or so as to buy bananas cheap.

Until there's hunger along the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua.

And the farmers are put in jail for not selling at 30 cents

and their bananas are slashed with bayonets

and the Mexican Trader Steamship sinks with their barges on them

and the strikers are cowed with bullets.

(And the Nicaraguan congressmen are invited to a garden party.)

But the black worker has seven children.

And what can you do? You've got to eat,

And you've got to accept what they offer to pay.

24 cents a bunch.

While the Tropical Radio Subsidiary was cabling Boston:

"We assume that Boston will give its approval to

the payment made to the Nicaraguan congressmen of the majority

party

because of the incalculable benefits that it represents for

the Company."

And from Boston to Galveston by telegraph

and from Galveston by cable and telegraph to Mexico

and from Mexico by cable to San Juan del Sur

and from San Juan del Sur by telegraph to Puerto Limón

and from Puerto Limón by canoe way into the mountains

arrives the order of the United Fruit Company:

"United is buying no more bananas."

And workers are laid off in Puerto Limón.

And the little workshops close.

Nobody can pay his debts.

And the bananas rotting in the railroad cars.

So there'll be no cheap bananas

And so that there'll be bananas cheap,

19 cents a bunch.

The workers get IOUs instead of wages.

Instead of payment, debts,

And the plantations are abandoned, for they're useless now,

and given to colonies of unemployed.

And the United Fruit Company in Costa Rica

with its subsidiaries the Costa Rica Banana Company

and the Northern Railway Company and

the International Radio Telegraph Company

and the Costa Rica Supply Company

are fighting in court against an orphan.

The cost of derailment is $25 in damages

(but it would have cost more to repair the track).

And congressmen, cheaper than mules, Zemurray used to say.

Sam Zemurray, the Turkish banana peddler

in Mobile, Alabama, who one day took a trip to New Orleans

and on the wharves saw United throwing bananas into the sea

and he offered to buy all the fruit to make vinegar,

he bought it, and he sold it right there in New Orleans

and United had to give him land in Honduras

to get him to break his contract in New Orleans,

and that's how Sam Zemurray abbointed bresidents in Jonduras.

He provoked border disputes between Guatemala and Honduras

(which meant between the United Fruit Company and his company)

proclaiming that Honduras (his company) must not lose

"one inch of land not only in the disputed strip

but also in any other zone of Honduras

(of his company) not in dispute . . ."

(while United was defeating the rights of Honduras

in its lawsuit with Nicaragua Lumber Company)

until the suit ended because he merged with United

and afterward he sold all his shares to United

and with the proceed of the sale he bought shares in United

and with the shares he captured the presidency of Boston

(together with its employees the various presidents of Honduras)

and he was now the owner of both Honduras and Guatemala

and that was the end of the lawsuit over the exhausted lands

that were now of no use either to Guatemala or Honduras.

Copyright Credit: “Zero Hour” (excerpt) by Ernesto Cardenal, translated by Donald D. Walsh, from Pluriverse: New and Selected Poems (New York: New Directions, 2009). Used by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

Source: Zero Hour and Other Documentary Poems (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1980)