Thursday, July 17, 2008

Inspirational Poems

Desiderata


Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all people.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;and listen to all
even to the dull and ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive people, they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself to others you will become vain and bitter;
there will always be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery.
But let not this blind you to the virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have the right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

~ Max Ehrman



Please Hear What I'm Not Saying

Don't be fooled by me.
Don't be fooled by the face I wear for I wear a mask,
a thousand masks,
masks that I'm afraid to take off,
and none of them is me.

Pretending is an art that's second nature with me,
but don't be fooled, for God's sake don't be fooled.
I give you the impression that I'm secure,
that all is sunny and unruffled with me,
within as well as without,
that confidence is my name and coolness my game,
that the water's calm and I'm in command and that I need no one,
but don't believe me.
My surface may seem smooth but my surface is my mask,
ever-varying and ever-concealing.
Beneath lies no complacence.
Beneath lies confusion, and fear, and aloneness.
But I hide this.
I don't want anybody to know it.
I panic at the thought of my weakness exposed.
That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind,
a nonchalant sophisticated facade,
to help me pretend,
to shield me from the glance that knows.

But such a glance is precisely my salvation,
my only hope, and I know it.
That is, if it's followed by acceptance,
if it's followed by love.
It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself,
from my own self-built prison walls,
from the barriers I so painstakingly erect.
It's the only thing that will assure me of what I can't assure myself,
that I'm really worth something.
But I don't tell you this.
I don't dare to, I'm afraid to.
I'm afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance,
will not be followed by love.
I'm afraid you'll think less of me,
that you'll laugh, and your laugh would kill me.
I'm afraid that deep-down I'm nothing
and that you will see this and reject me.

So I play my game, my desperate pretending game,
with a facade of assurance without and a trembling child within.
So begins the glittering but empty parade of masks,
and my life becomes a front.
I tell you everything that's really nothing,
and nothing of what's everything,
of what's crying within me.
So when I'm going through my routine
do not be fooled by what I'm saying.
Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying,
what I'd like to be able to say,
what for survival I need to say,
but what I can't say.

I don't like hiding.
I don't like playing superficial phony games.
I want to stop playing them.
I want to be genuine and spontaneous and me
but you've got to help me.
You've got to hold out your hand
even when that's the last thing I seem to want.
Only you can wipe away from my eyes
the blank stare of the breathing dead.
Only you can call me into aliveness.
Each time you're kind, and gentle, and encouraging,
each time you try to understand because you really care,
my heart begins to grow wings--
very small wings,
very feeble wings,
but wings!

With your power to touch me into feeling
you can breathe life into me.
I want you to know that.
I want you to know how important you are to me,
how you can be a creator--an honest-to-God creator--
of the person that is me if you choose to.
You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble,
you alone can remove my mask,
you alone can release me from my shadow-world of panic,
from my lonely prison,
if you choose to.
Please choose to.

Do not pass me by.
It will not be easy for you.
A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.
The nearer you approach to me the blinder I may strike back.
It's irrational, but despite what the books say about man
often I am irrational.
I fight against the very thing I cry out for.
But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls
and in this lies my hope.
Please try to beat down those walls
with firm hands but with gentle hands
for a child is very sensitive.

Who am I, you may wonder?
I am someone you know very well.
For I am every man you meet
and I am every woman you meet.

~ Charles C. Finn, September 1966


Friendship Poems

The Happiness I Feel at Your Achievements

The happiness I feel at your achievements
Reflects the happiness you feel at mine.
Friends expand the pleasures of such moments,
As mine in yours, and yours in mine, combine.
The same when we look forward to our futures:
So much more unfolds when there are two!
Populating your proposed adventures
Gives me a joy that mine must give to you.
We've been through much, and will be through much more,
But traveling together is more fun.
Whatever life and love may have in store,
Two is always preferable to one.
Your graduation thus becomes my pleasure:
Your happiness is mine, a double treasure.

~ Nicholas Gordon

Friends

A friend is someone we turn to
when our spirits need a lift.
A friend is someone we treasure
for our friendship is a gift.
A friend is someone who fills our lives
with beauty, joy, and grace.
And makes the whole world we live in
a better and happier place.

~ Jean Kyler McManus

Many people will walk in
and out of your life,
but only true friends will leave
footprints in your heart.

~ Anonymous

Your Friendship Is the Sky Above My Home

Your friendship is the sky above my home,
The crystal air I breathe, through which I see.
I can't believe how much you mean to me.
Without you with me, time would turn to stone.

I don't know why I need you so, or how
I know so absolutely I'll be there
In times your wounded heart can hardly bear.
I only know this truth is with me now.

Why is it in our lives that we need friends
To be awake and fully what we are?
Alone we dream but never cross the bar;
With you I share a grace that never ends.

~ Nicholas Gordon

Bereavement Poems

Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep

Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

~ Mary Elizabeth Frye

SAD POEMS

Everything I've Done, I've Done

Everything I've done, I've done
Only for your love.
Everything I am, I am
In hopes your heart will move.

I know that you love someone else,
But while you're away,
I'll love you just as though our love
Would last till you are grey.

Till you and I are grey, my love,
And all our days are done,
I'll love you just as I do now;
Your heart's my only home.

~ Nicholas Gordon

When Love Is an Affliction

When love is an affliction,
There's not much one can do.
Despite the way you've treated me,
I'm still in love with you.

I am the wave and you the rock
Against which I must break:
Again, again the crushing jolt,
The pain I can't forsake;

Again, again the long retreat
To safety, far from shore,
And then again, I don't know why,
The long trip back for more.

Perhaps it is nostalgia for
A long uncertain glow,
Or just some hope so beautiful
I cannot let it go.

Perhaps it is the need to try
For those who must depend
On who we are and what we do,
For whom this should not end.

What evil makes you hurt me so,
What defect of the heart?
What sense there is no greater whole
Of which you are a part?

What lonely choice that only you
Be served by what you choose?
What hard, hard fear of losing what
It is a gift to lose?

I dream sometimes my waiting love
Has made you turn again.
But you care only for yourself,
And I must love in vain.

~ Nicholas Gordon

Love Poems - Unrequited

I Wish This Poem Were Pixie Dust

I wish this poem were pixie dust
To throw into your eyes
And make you see the loveliness
Beneath my sad disguise.

And I would take you in my arms
And weave a magic spell
That I could utter anytime
To make you love me well.

But alas my simple words
Are like summer rain
That drums on hills and fields and hearts,
Then vanishes again.

And though my love might make you bloom,
You turn with fragile grace
To gaze in aching loneliness
At someone else's face.

We lust for what we cannot have,
A long, unbroken chain
Of lovers who remain unloved
And loved who love in vain.

While I'm near mad with wanting you
As trees must have the sun,
You cannot help but find a love
Who loves another one.

~ Nicholas Gordon

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Peter Stavropoulos (Best Love Poems)

...Love was, Love is, Love will be, Love eternally


Love was.....

When 'if' lay between you and I
And 'never' seemed forever
I fell to earth in surrender
And you became the centre of my eye

Love is.....

When I pass by you accidentally
I grab a sense of your smile
When between us is distance measured by the mile
I grab a sense of our love immeasurably

Love will be.....

When I can no longer see to see
When I can no longer hear to hear
I know you will be near
Simply just you and me

Love eternally.....

When God granted us our wish finally
He put in us a throbbing heart
When it stops from this earth we will depart
But our Love will live eternally

(For S.....)
By Peter Stavropoulos

Peter Stavropoulos (Best Love Poems)








..I have not forgotten you


I have not forgotten you
For you have given me
Each blessed memory

I have not forgotten you
For I hold your hand
Each step I stand

I have not forgotten you
For you have taught me well
Each lesson I spell

I have not forgotten you
For in truth you are rare
Each thought I have spare

By Peter Stavropoulos

Peter Stavropoulos (Best Love Poems)








..Wish upon


Wish upon
Another's heart
Let her be happy
Let her be strong
Let her Love right the wrong

Wish upon
Another's mind
Let it seek
Let it be free
Let it's knowledge find me

Wish upon
Another's soul
Let us journey
Let us travel far
Let our Love guide the star

By Peter Stavropoulos

Peter Stavropoulos (Best Love Poems)






..Within your eyes


Beauty lies
Within your eyes
I can't speak
Of what I seek
Its mystery
A majesty
No purpose seems
To fit dreams
Beneath the lid
Your eyes hid

By Peter Stavropoulos

Peter Stavropoulos (Best Love Poems)






..You are Life and Love and More


You are life and love and more.

You are earth and fire and more.

You are the sky above the sea below and more.

You are what encompasses life
What gives direction
What holds hope
What nurtures happiness
What feeds passion
And more.

You are to me
What I am to you
In my dreams.

By Peter Stavropoulos

Peter Stavropoulos (Best Love Poems)




Chances


Each chance
A new belief
Something new
A heart's relief
Each romance
A lover's hue
Finding Love
Each in you

By Peter Stavropoulos

Peter Stavropoulos (Best Love Poems)





.Empty Without You


Emptiness means little without you
Words alone cannot equal two
You meant little to me before we met
The world alone closed every sunset
I had fought and lost again
What thought had found to gain
Its memory a frozen ocean
Without you Love's empty notion

(For S.D.)
By Peter Stavropoulos

Peter Stavropoulos (Best Love Poems)



Friendship of Lovers


What's a friendship? My Love.
It's when you promise me your company
And keep your promise.
It's when we joke about each other
And laugh at ourselves.
It's when we know we're not perfect
And accept each other as we are.
It's when we don't expect too much
And are happy with what we are given.
It's when we value each other's friendship
Above all else.

By Peter Stavropoulos

Peter Stavropoulos (Best Love Poems)




I Think of You and Miss You


How could fate have separated us?
I think of you and miss you.

I think of your warm and inviting smile
Of the laughter that now brings tears
And I miss you.

I think of your small body wrapped in my arms
Of the hands that caressed your hair
And I miss you.

I think of evenings in front of a fire
Of hot chicken soup now gone cold
And I miss you.

I think of you bravely waving good bye
Of the way you walked out of my sight
And I miss you.

I think of lessons you have taught me
Of the promises I keep
And I miss you.

By Peter Stavropoulos

Peter Stavropoulos (Best Love Poems)




I Thought about you


I Thought about you
And lost my memory
In time
I could not remember
The loss
And yet
In you
I have a memory
Of a happier time

By Peter Stavropoulos

Peter Stavropoulos (Best Love Poems)




If by knocking


The lake where we had swum
Naked under the eternal sun
Never was..... nor ever set
We were..... not yet met

Forests through memories of loss
Glisten in shades of emerald gloss
Fragrant branches reach the shore
Of where you and I are no more

We meander through wooded glens
Forgetful of past and future thens
We haven't and have seen
Were we have and haven't been

It is here we've waited for
Patiently at the door
If by knocking we do find
Eternity to be kind

By Peter Stavropoulos
Blessed Easter to all Poets

Peter Stavropoulos (Best Love Poems)




In my heart


In the everlasting fragrance
Of the sound
Of your love

I bathe and notice
Each winding minute
To your door.

To your door
The key to which
Unlocks each and every
Passage in my heart.

By Peter Stavropoulos

Peter Stavropoulos (Best Love Poems)



Kisses are Misses


Your dress is fluttering
In the wind
- Kiss

I like it when you lie
In the sun
- Kiss

I'd forgotten the perfume
You wore this morning
- Kiss

Yesterday we had so much
Fun
- Kiss

Kisses are misses
- Kiss
Come back again

By Peter Stavropoulos

Peter Stavropoulos (Best Love Poems)





Miracle


Rights of passage
Were a way of life for you
From innocence to post-pubescent age
Where your rights belonged to

Abuse and its cousin Neglect
Forgiveness and its twin Forgetfulness
The two brothers Hate and Disrespect
The mother of all evils Togetherness

You were a Loving child
A caring and dutiful daughter
Who married to come in from the wild
A wife led to the slaughter

By some miracle pain became prayer
Abandonment became a chance journey
Tears became a baptism into Christ's lair
A Holy Communion with sins washed away

My darling you came to me
When I thought I owned my life
Where no tear or prayer could be
And became the miracle that is my wife

By Peter Stavropoulos

Peter Stavropoulos (Best Love Poems)




No Rhythm No Rhyme


Pure Love knows no rhythm no rhyme
It will always be the curve of your back
How you look at me innocent and out of time
Full of Love for what I lack

Pure Love knows no rhyme no rhythm
It will always be the softness of your skin
How you sing in quiet moments an anthem a hymn
Full of knowledge you hold within

By Peter Stavropoulos

Peter Stavropoulos (Best Love Poems)




Pleasure for pleasure


Her hand is as soft as my touch
Her lips are as red as my heart
Nothing can compare as much
Pleasure for pleasure will surely start

Moments of madness end with Love
Kindness and compassion know not hypocrisy
In my mind's eye I see the Lord above
Pleasure for pleasure knows not jealousy

Solitude is made perfect together
Silence in each other's arms is sure
Escape from this world is a wish we share
Fantasy made real in pleasure for pleasure

For S.....
By Peter Stavropoulos
Written on Valentine's Day 2008

Peter Stavropoulos (Best Love Poems)



She


She
Existed before me
While I knew not her
I knew Love from her
While I could not feel
I could feel that she was real
While I could not believe
I believed what Love could achieve
While I existed on my own
I existed not alone

By Peter Stavropoulos

Peter Stavropoulos (Best Love Poems)




The certainty is you


Let us begin here
With a sentence
And the sentence is love.

Let us begin here
With a word
And the word is forever.

Let us begin here
With a taste of certainty
And the certainty is you.

By Peter Stavropoulos.

Peter Stavropoulos (Best Love Poems)


The Love I have has no other name


The Love I have has no other name
It belongs to you
The loss imagined imagines me
It belongs to you

By Peter Stavropoulos

Peter Stavropoulos (Best Love Poems)




The temple


The temple
Of the heart
Is the knowledge
Thereof
Of time well spent
Of loss
And innocence

By Peter Stavropoulos

Peter Stavropoulos (Best Love Poems)




When I wasn't wasn't was


No yes then again maybe could have been wasn't so I thought. I did didn't might have forgotten remembered put aside inside outside together. She said word spoken I listened making not a sound. Isn't it I thought then I spoken made a gesture towards behind. I loved not hated her together listened she also me other nowhere but here.

How often I love her when then isn't she come isn't either neither neither forever.

Elephants make good wood I myself neither would either should I taken lighten onwards forever, I said.

By Peter Stavropoulos

Peter Stavropoulos (Best Love Poems)




While I was saving her


While I was saving her
She rescued me

She was my surrender
While I fought bureaucracy

While I was not to lose
She was my amour

She was my muse
While I was her saviour

By Peter Stavropoulos

Peter Stavropoulos (Best Love Poems)




Woman of my imagination's dreams


Wonderful Woman
Wonderous Woman
Woman of my imagination's dreams

How did you find me?
How do I know you?

Wonderful Woman
Wonderous Woman

It is you I have longed for
Yet still I long for you

Woman of my imagination's dreams
Wonderful Woman
Wonderous Woman

How you have loved me
Yet how I have loved you

Woman of my dreams

By Peter Stavropoulos
(For S.....)

Peter Stavropoulos (Best Love Poems)






Happiness is Happiness found


Jesus' joy in 'finding the lost sheep'
Alice's delight in seeing the rabbit
Middle Earth's astonishment in the Hobbit
Beauty's delight on rising from her sleep

........... As I have in you

Arthur's belief in drawing Excalibur sword
Cook's heroism in discovering uncharted land
Romeo's stolen kiss of Juliet's hand
Thomas' disbelief in finding the risen Lord

........... As I have in you

Homer's love requited in faithful Marge
Batman's trust in his sidekick Robin
Genie's obedience of mighty Aladdin
Ned Kelly's unbounded freedom at large

........... As I have in you

Odysseus' enchantment at the Siren's sound
Prometheus let loose of his ties
Penelope's final cries
Happiness is Happiness found

........... As I have in you

By Peter Stavropoulos
(Written with the help of L.F.Stavropoulos)

(For S....., A...., & L.....)

Peter Stavropoulos (Best Love Poems)



Hello


Since I'm here
I'll say, Hello
How are you?
Since I'm not going away
I'll stay here
And say
Hello
How are you?
If you wish
You can stay
There is no need
To go
Be my friend
If you wish
You can, you know
Hello

By Peter Stavropoulos

Peter Stavropoulos (Best Love Poems)






I didn't mean to say goodbye

I didn't mean to say goodbye
I only meant to go
To leave as quietly as I came
And to feign a hello.

By Peter Stavropoulos

Peter Stavropoulos (Best Love Poems)








Not waiting to be hurt again

Not waiting to be hurt again
I hurt myself
In the most unjust way.

Not wanting to be hurt again
I direct the pain
To strike me in the most painful way.

Never tired of grief
I grieve for what I've lost
Losing it one more time.

By Peter Stavropoulos

Peter Stavropoulos (Best Love Poems)







The education of the young mind

The education of the young mind
Took place
Behind closed doors
Because that mind -
Initially free -
Had to be
Taught
The value of freedom.

The education of the young mind
Took place
In an open space
Because that mind -
Once closed -
Had to be
Set free
To explore itself.

By Peter Stavropoulos

Peter Stavropoulos (Best Love Poems)





The Story of a Poem (Narrative Poem)

Prepared to ridicule himself, this fool
Is guarded against the jibes
Of those he thinks less inclined to self-criticism.
How then is he to gauge his faults
And turn them into something worthwhile?

How can he define his foolishness
If uncertain as to the extent of his limitations?
How can he begin to accept the advice of others -
'Go jump! ' 'Take a good hard look at yourself! ' 'Grow up! ' -
If he isn't prepared to be objective?

Unprepared to accept objectivity as objective
'I know what I know', he spouts
Ill-mannered, inconsiderate and obstinate.
How is he to assume the more demanding role
Of the one being spoken to?

No words, it seems,
Can convince him of his stupidity.
No words, that is,
Except his own.
Um.... ah.... um.... a poem takes form.

Ironically, loneliness is his theme
Nothing else can say what he wants to say.
Happiest is he, when miserable
Exposing his misery for all the world to see.
No one, it seems, is quite as miserable as he.

He takes care not to say too much
In case,
To make his point
He admits (in the mode of a tragic figure)
That there is nothing to say.

Logically, 'there is nothing to say' explains
His actions
Although failing to describe
What bothers him.
It seems that that can only be other people.

In them, real feelings express themselves
And a challenge presents itself for him to understand them
No matter
It is they not understanding him
That concerns me.

As querulous as it may sound
It is their obsession with 'reality'
That he objects to.
No amount of persuasion can convince them
That his feelings are real.

'Such as absurd notion demands an explanation'
He hears them say, but he is only prepared
To go on dreaming -
Observing others observing him
Observing them.

His sincerity
Isn't expressed in conventional terms.
Unbeknownst to them, he cares
And unknowingly they add to his suffering
As they refuse to acknowledge his feelings.

His suffering -
A product of a trivial pursuit
For universal meanings -
Is compounded by those who think him
Lacking.

***

Lacking in those human qualities
He most desires
He turns to someone, who,
Without her knowing,
Possesses them for him.

Kindly, she admits him -
Herself lacking the assurance
To comprehend the extent of his need.
She feels for him
As one would a child, an innocent, a poet.

His feelings exist in her eyes,
And his failings form
His 'uniqueness' -
A reason
For loving him.

Sufficent reason, in itself,
For him to love her.
Nevertheless he feels
An even greater need
To justify his feelings.

Their differences,
His reliance on her
And, equally,
Hers on him
Need explaining.

As others see it
Their differences contain the germs of disunity,
And in their interdependence, signs of submission.
Again they see things in 'real terms'
Neglecting to take into account the power of the imagination.

She isn't what she appears to be
Her beauty transcends experience
With all pain absorbed in her -
He shares in her happiness
And is privy to her sensitivity.

She instills in him a new faith,
Another reason to write -
A belief in humanity.
This is what he must explain
To those who think him foolish.

But he remains aloof
Barred by a certain quirk in his character -
Whenever he tries to be serious
He gives the impression
Of being insincere.

When he tries to explain his feelings
It's as if he is the one
Who needs to be convinced -
His new found faith seems void
Without someone else to believe it.

Yet people want to listen
And give him the chance he's been looking for -
The chance to prove himself to them.
They're not heartless,
And would rather not judge anyone unfairly.

The truth is, however,
That he is such a fool
That he needs to hear his own words
From someone else's mouth
Before he can believe them.

By Peter Stavropoulos

Peter Stavropoulos (Best Love Poems)

Your Laughter

Your Laughter


Take bread away from me, if you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter.

Do not take away the rose,
the lance flower that you pluck,
the water that suddenly
bursts forth in joy,
the sudden wave
of silver born in you.

My struggle is harsh and I come back
with eyes tired
at times from having seen
the unchanging earth,
but when your laughter enters
it rises to the sky seeking me
and it opens for me all
the doors of life.

My love, in the darkest
hour your laughter
opens, and if suddenly
you see my blood staining
the stones of the street,
laugh, because your laughter
will be for my hands
like a fresh sword.

Next to the sea in the autumn,
your laughter must raise
its foamy cascade,
and in the spring, love,
I want your laughter like
the flower I was waiting for,
the blue flower, the rose
of my echoing country.

Laugh at the night,
at the day, at the moon,
laugh at the twisted
streets of the island,
laugh at this clumsy
boy who loves you,
but when I open
my eyes and close them,
when my steps go,
when my steps return,
deny me bread, air,
light, spring,
but never your laughter
for I would die.

Pablo Neruda

Your Feet

Your Feet


When I cannot look at your face
I look at your feet.
Your feet of arched bone,
your hard little feet.
I know that they support you,
and that your sweet weight
rises upon them.
Your waist and your breasts,
the doubled purple
of your nipples,
the sockets of your eyes
that have just flown away,
your wide fruit mouth,
your red tresses,
my little tower.
But I love your feet
only because they walked
upon the earth and upon
the wind and upon the waters,
until they found me.

Pablo Neruda

XVII (I do not love you...)



XVII (I do not love you...)

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.


Translated by Stephen Tapscott

Anonymous Submission

Pablo Neruda

We Are Many

We Are Many

Of the many men whom I am, whom we are,
I cannot settle on a single one.
They are lost to me under the cover of clothing
They have departed for another city.

When everything seems to be set
to show me off as a man of intelligence,
the fool I keep concealed on my person
takes over my talk and occupies my mouth.

On other occasions, I am dozing in the midst
of people of some distinction,
and when I summon my courageous self,
a coward completely unknown to me
swaddles my poor skeleton
in a thousand tiny reservations.

When a stately home bursts into flames,
instead of the fireman I summon,
an arsonist bursts on the scene,
and he is I. There is nothing I can do.
What must I do to distinguish myself?
How can I put myself together?

All the books I read
lionize dazzling hero figures,
brimming with self-assurance.
I die with envy of them;
and, in films where bullets fly on the wind,
I am left in envy of the cowboys,
left admiring even the horses.

But when I call upon my DASHING BEING,
out comes the same OLD LAZY SELF,
and so I never know just WHO I AM,
nor how many I am, nor WHO WE WILL BE BEING.
I would like to be able to touch a bell
and call up my real self, the truly me,
because if I really need my proper self,
I must not allow myself to disappear.

While I am writing, I am far away;
and when I come back, I have already left.
I should like to see if the same thing happens
to other people as it does to me,
to see if as many people are as I am,
and if they seem the same way to themselves.
When this problem has been thoroughly explored,
I am going to school myself so well in things
that, when I try to explain my problems,
I shall speak, not of self, but of geography.

Pablo Neruda

Water



Water

Everything on the earth bristled, the bramble
pricked and the green thread
nibbled away, the petal fell, falling
until the only flower was the falling itself.
Water is another matter,
has no direction but its own bright grace,
runs through all imaginable colors,
takes limpid lessons
from stone,
and in those functionings plays out
the unrealized ambitions of the foam.

Pablo Neruda

Walking Around



Walking Around

It so happens I am sick of being a man.
And it happens that I walk into tailorshops and movie
houses
dried up, waterproof, like a swan made of felt
steering my way in a water of wombs and ashes.

The smell of barbershops makes me break into hoarse
sobs.
The only thing I want is to lie still like stones or wool.
The only thing I want is to see no more stores, no gardens,
no more goods, no spectacles, no elevators.

It so happens that I am sick of my feet and my nails
and my hair and my shadow.
It so happens I am sick of being a man.

Still it would be marvelous
to terrify a law clerk with a cut lily,
or kill a nun with a blow on the ear.
It would be great
to go through the streets with a green knife
letting out yells until I died of the cold.

I don't want to go on being a root in the dark,
insecure, stretched out, shivering with sleep,
going on down, into the moist guts of the earth,
taking in and thinking, eating every day.

I don't want so much misery.
I don't want to go on as a root and a tomb,
alone under the ground, a warehouse with corpses,
half frozen, dying of grief.

That's why Monday, when it sees me coming
with my convict face, blazes up like gasoline,
and it howls on its way like a wounded wheel,
and leaves tracks full of warm blood leading toward the
night.

And it pushes me into certain corners, into some moist
houses,
into hospitals where the bones fly out the window,
into shoeshops that smell like vinegar,
and certain streets hideous as cracks in the skin.

There are sulphur-colored birds, and hideous intestines
hanging over the doors of houses that I hate,
and there are false teeth forgotten in a coffeepot,
there are mirrors
that ought to have wept from shame and terror,
there are umbrellas everywhere, and venoms, and umbilical
cords.

I stroll along serenely, with my eyes, my shoes,
my rage, forgetting everything,
I walk by, going through office buildings and orthopedic
shops,
and courtyards with washing hanging from the line:
underwear, towels and shirts from which slow
dirty tears are falling.


Translated by Robert Bly

Pablo Neruda

Tower Of Light

Tower Of Light

O tower of light, sad beauty
that magnified necklaces and statues in the sea,
calcareous eye, insignia of the vast waters, cry
of the mourning petrel, tooth of the sea, wife
of the Oceanian wind, O separate rose
from the long stem of the trampled bush
that the depths, converted into archipelago,
O natural star, green diadem,
alone in your lonesome dynasty,
still unattainable, elusive, desolate
like one drop, like one grape, like the sea.

Pablo Neruda

Tonight I can write the saddest lines



Tonight I can write the saddest lines

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example,'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her voide. Her bright body. Her inifinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my sould is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

Pablo Neruda


Tonight I Can Write



Tonight I Can Write

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.


translated by W.S. Merwin

Pablo Neruda

The White Mans Burden



The White Mans Burden

Lost in the forest, I broke off a dark twig
and lifted its whisper to my thirsty lips:
maybe it was the voice of the rain crying,
a cracked bell, or a torn heart.

Something from far off it seemed
deep and secret to me, hidden by the earth,
a shout muffled by huge autumns,
by the moist half-open darkness of the leaves.

Wakening from the dreaming forest there, the hazel-sprig
sang under my tongue, its drifting fragrance
climbed up through my conscious mind

as if suddenly the roots I had left behind
cried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood---
and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent

Pablo Neruda

The Weary One



The Weary One

The weary one, orphan
of the masses, the self,
the crushed one, the one made of concrete,
the one without a country in crowded restaurants,
he who wanted to go far away, always farther away,
didn't know what to do there, whether he wanted
or didn't want to leave or remain on the island,
the hesitant one, the hybrid, entangled in himself,
had no place here: the straight-angled stone,
the infinite look of the granite prism,
the circular solitude all banished him:
he went somewhere else with his sorrows,
he returned to the agony of his native land,
to his indecisions, of winter and summer.

Pablo Neruda

The Song of Despair

The Song of Despair

You swallowed everything, like distance.
Like the sea, like time.
In you everything sank!
It was the happy hour of assault and the kiss.
The hour of the spell that blazed like a lighthouse.
Pilot's dread, fury of a blind diver,
turbulent drunkenness of love,
in you everything sank!

Pablo Neruda

The Saddest Poem

The Saddest Poem

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."

The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.

What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.

That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.

As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.

The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.

I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.

Someone else's. She will be someone else's. As she once
belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.

Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.

Pablo Neruda


The Question

The Question

Love, a question
has destroyed you.

I have come back to you
from thorny uncertainty.

I want you straight as
the sword or the road.

But you insist
on keeping a nook
of shadow that I do not want.

My love,
understand me,
I love all of you,
from eyes to feet, to toenails,
inside,
all the brightness, which you kept.

It is I, my love,
who knocks at your door.
It is not the ghost, it is not
the one who once stopped
at your window.
I knock down the door:
I enter your life:
I come to live in your soul:
you cannot cope with me.

You must open door to door,
you must obey me,
you must open your eyes
so that I may search in them,
you must see how I walk
with heavy steps
along all the roads
that, blind, were waiting for me.

Do not fear,
I am yours,
but
I am not the passenger or the beggar,
I am your master,
the one you were waiting for,
and now I enter
your life,
no more to leave it,
love, love, love,
but to stay.

Pablo Neruda

The Light Wraps You

The Light Wraps You

The light wraps you in its mortal flame.
Abstracted pale mourner, standing that way
against the old propellers of the twighlight
that revolves around you.

Speechless, my friend,
alone in the loneliness of this hour of the dead
and filled with the lives of fire,
pure heir of the ruined day.

A bough of fruit falls from the sun on your dark garment.
The great roots of night
grow suddenly from your soul,
and the things that hide in you come out again
so that a blue and palled people
your newly born, takes nourishment.

Oh magnificent and fecund and magnetic slave
of the circle that moves in turn through black and gold:
rise, lead and possess a creation
so rich in life that its flowers perish
and it is full of sadness.

Pablo Neruda

The Dictators

The Dictators

An odor has remained among the sugarcane:
a mixture of blood and body, a penetrating
petal that brings nausea.
Between the coconut palms the graves are full
of ruined bones, of speechless death-rattles.
The delicate dictator is talking
with top hats, gold braid, and collars.
The tiny palace gleams like a watch
and the rapid laughs with gloves on
cross the corridors at times
and join the dead voices
and the blue mouths freshly buried.
The weeping cannot be seen, like a plant
whose seeds fall endlessly on the earth,
whose large blind leaves grow even without light.
Hatred has grown scale on scale,
blow on blow, in the ghastly water of the swamp,
with a snout full of ooze and silence

Pablo Neruda

The Dead Woman

The Dead Woman

If suddenly you do not exist,
if suddenly you are not living,
I shall go on living.

I do not dare,
I do not dare to write it,
if you die.

I shall go on living.

Because where a man has no voice,
there, my voice

Where blacks are beaten,
I can not be dead.
When my brothers go to jail
I shall go with them.

When victory,
not my victory,
but the great victory
arrives,
even though I am mute I must speak:
I shall see it come even though I am blind.

No, forgive me,
if you are not living,
ifd you, beloved, my love,
if you
have died.

(Original poem in spanish/translator?)

Pablo Neruda


Sonnet XXXIV (You are the daughter of the sea)

Sonnet XXXIV (You are the daughter of the sea)

You are the daughter of the sea, oregano's first cousin.
Swimmer, your body is pure as the water;
cook, your blood is quick as the soil.
Everything you do is full of flowers, rich with the earth.

Your eyes go out toward the water, and the waves rise;
your hands go out to the earth and the seeds swell;
you know the deep essence of water and the earth,
conjoined in you like a formula for clay.

Naiad: cut your body into turquoise pieces,
they will bloom resurrected in the kitchen.
This is how you become everything that lives.

And so at last, you sleep, in the circle of my arms
that push back the shadows so that you can rest--
vegetables, seaweed, herbs: the foam of your dreams.



Translated by Stephen Tapscott

Pablo Neruda

Sonnet XXV

Sonnet XXV

Before I loved you, love, nothing was my own:
I wavered through the streets, among
Objects:
Nothing mattered or had a name:
The world was made of air, which waited.

I knew rooms full of ashes,
Tunnels where the moon lived,
Rough warehouses that growled 'get lost',
Questions that insisted in the sand.

Everything was empty, dead, mute,
Fallen abandoned, and decayed:
Inconceivably alien, it all

Belonged to someone else - to no one:
Till your beauty and your poverty
Filled the autumn plentiful with gifts.

Pablo Neruda

Sonnet XVII

Sonnet XVII

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Pablo Neruda

Sonnet XI

Sonnet XI

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

Pablo Neruda

Sonnet VIII

Sonnet VIII

If your eyes were not the color of the moon,
of a day full [here, interrupted by the baby waking -- continued about 26
hours later ]
of a day full of clay, and work, and fire,
if even held-in you did not move in agile grace like the air,
if you were not an amber week,

not the yellow moment
when autumn climbs up through the vines;
if you were not that bread the fragrant moon
kneads, sprinkling its flour across the sky,

oh, my dearest, I could not love you so!
But when I hold you I hold everything that is --
sand, time, the tree of the rain,

everything is alive so that I can be alive:
without moving I can see it all:
in your life I see everything that lives.

Pablo Neruda


Sonnet LXXXI

Sonnet LXXXI

And now you're mine. Rest with your dream in my dream.
Love and pain and work should all sleep, now.
The night turns on its invisible wheels,
and you are pure beside me as a sleeping amber.

No one else, Love, will sleep in my dreams. You will go,
we will go together, over the waters of time.
No one else will travel through the shadows with me,
only you, evergreen, ever sun, ever moon.

Your hands have already opened their delicate fists
and let their soft drifting signs drop away; your eyes closed like two gray
wings, and I move

after, following the folding water you carry, that carries
me away. The night, the world, the wind spin out their destiny.
Without you, I am your dream, only that, and that is all.

Pablo Neruda

Sonata

Sonata

Neither the heart cut by a piece of glass
in a wasteland of thorns
nor the atrocious waters seen in the corners
of certain houses, waters like eyelids and eyes
can capture your waist in my hands
when my heart lifts its oaks
towards your unbreakable thread of snow.

Nocturnal sugar, spirit
of the crowns,
ransomed
human blood, your kisses
send into exile
and a stroke of water, with remnants of the sea,
neats on the silences that wait for you
surrounding the worn chairs, wearing out doors.

Nights with bright spindles,
divided, material, nothing
but voice, nothing but
naked every day.

Over your breasts of motionless current,
over your legs of firmness and water,
over the permanence and the pride
of your naked hair
I want to be, my love, now that the tears are
thrown
into the raucous baskets where they accumulate,
I want to be, my love, alone with a syllable
of mangled silver, alone with a tip
of your breast of snow.

Pablo Neruda