Sonnet 17

Pablo Neruda is a master of love poetry. If you want to find the way to this girl's heart it is not through Shakespeare, but Neruda. There is such a passionate and yet a dark quality to his poetry. I don't often post poetry in other languages because I have to post the original and the translation. But there are so many beautiful poems that are not in English.  It seems a shame not to include them. Most of you might know this, but it's the last 2 lines that really get me.

Soneto XVII

No te amo como si fueras rosa de sal, topacio

o flecha de claveles que propagan el fuego:

te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras,

secretamente, entre la sombra y el alma.

Te amo como la planta que no florece y lleva

dentro de sí, escondida, la luz de aquellas flores,

y gracias a tu amor vive oscuro en mi cuerpo

el apretado aroma que ascendió de la tierra.

Te amo sin saber cómo, ni cuándo, ni de dónde,

te amo directamente sin problemas ni orgullo:

así te amo porque no sé amar de otra manera,

sino así de este modo en que no soy ni eres,

tan cerca que tu mano sobre mi pecho es mía,

tan cerca que se cierran tus ojos con mi sueño.

Sonnet XVII

I do not love you as if you were a rose made of salt or topaz

or an arrow of carnations spreading fire:

I love you the way certain dark things are loved,

secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you like the plant that never blooms,

but conceals within itself the light of those flowers;

and, thanks to your love, the darkness of my body

houses the suffocating aroma that arose from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, when, or where from;

I love you straightforwardly, with neither problems nor pride:

I love you thus, not knowing how to love you otherwise

than this way whereby neither ‘you’ nor ‘I’ exist…

so close that your hand on my chest is mine,

so close that your eyes grow heavy when I tire.

Where We Are

For someone that has moved four times, pretty soon five times in the past year, this poem really hit home for me.  Were I more eloquent, I would have written this exact poem myself. But I am not, so I have to settle for empathizing so completely with it, I will call it my anthem.

Where We Are

(For Edward Field)

i envy those

who live in two places:

new york, say, and london;

wales and spain;

l.a. and paris;

hawaii and switzerland.

There is always the anticipation

of the change, the chance that what is wrong

is the result of where you are. i have

always loved both the freshness of

arriving and the relief of leaving. with

two homes every move would be a homecoming.

i am not even considering the weather, hot

or cold, dry or wet: i am talking about hope.

--Gerland Locklin

I know I always feel a sense of relief when I leave a place and foolishly think all my problems are going to be solved once I arrive at my new place. Overly optimistic I suppose.

Bad Poetry

I unpacked one of my favorite books of poetry today, Bad Poetry by Pamela August Russell. Her poems are witty and wonderful. After re-reading the book I had to put tons of them into my poetry journal because they all made me laugh. I couldn't pick just one to share so I'll share two. Hope you like them as much as I do.

The Forgotten Art of Mincing Words

Oh good, you're back.

Did you get the sausage

like I asked?

The spicy, Polish kielbasa?

You forgot it?

How could you?

All I wanted was

some damn sausage

and I don't think i'm

asking much here!

I even gave you a note

it said, "don't forget the sausage,"

and you forgot the sausage!

This is so typical of you.

This is unforgivable.

This is...

What i'm trying to say is,

I'm in love with you.

Unfortunate Cookie

You will soon meet someone 

who will bring you much joy and love.

Eventually they will devour your soul

like it's a hot dog eating championship.

Lucky Numbers: 543, 8, 192, 78

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Go eat some food and spend time with people that love you.

Thanks

Listen 
with the night falling we are saying thank you 
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings 
we are running out of the glass rooms 
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky 
and say thank you 
we are standing by the water thanking it 
smiling by the windows looking out 
in our directions 

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging 
after funerals we are saying thank you 
after the news of the dead 
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you 
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators 
remembering wars and the police at the door 
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you 
in the banks we are saying thank you 
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us 
our lost feelings we are saying thank you 
with the forests falling faster than the minutes 
of our lives we are saying thank you 
with the words going out like cells of a brain 
with the cities growing over us 
we are saying thank you faster and faster 
with nobody listening we are saying thank you 
we are saying thank you and waving 
dark though it is

--W.S. Merwin

A Boy and A Girl

It's Thursday again and that means a new poem. There are many things in life that feed my soul. Art and music. And poetry. You can often find me in the poetry section of Barnes and Nobel, sitting on the floor, reading. Poetry goes straight to my heart and makes me smile, laugh, appreciate, cry, and reflect. It heals the parts of me that hurt the most. I can't help but share something that affects me so greatly. A Boy and a Girl is short and yet brings up so many wonderful images of love. And it uses one of my favorite words: savor. I hope that you savor this.

A Boy and a Girl

Stretched out on the grass,

a boy and a girl. 

Savoring their oranges,

giving their kisses like waves exchanging foam.

Stretched out on the beach,

a boy and a girl.

Savoring their limes,

giving their kisses like clouds exchanging foam.

Stretched out underground,

a boy and  a girl.

Saying nothing, never kissing,

giving silence for silence.

--Octavio Paz

Why I Am Not a Painter

Presently, many things are in the process for me; i'm looking for an apartment, another job, and trying to work on some art. So in celebration of the"getting there" stage, I thought I would post one of my favorite poems about the creative process and how art can take unexpected turns. 

Why I Am Not a Painter

I am not a painter, I am a poet.

Why? I think I would rather be

a painter, but I am not. Well,

for instance, Mike Goldberg

is starting a painting. I drop in.

"Sit down and have a drink" he

says. I drink; we drink. I look

up. "You have SARDINES in it."

"Yes, it needed something there."

"Oh." I go and the days go by

and I drop in again. The painting

is going on, and I go, and the days

go by. I drop in. The painting is

finished. "Where's SARDINES?"

All that's left is just 

letters, "It was too much," Mike says.

But me? One day I am thinking of 

a color: orange. I write a line

about orange. Pretty soon it is a

whole page of words, not lines.

Then another page. There should be

so much more, not of orange, of

words, of how terrible orange is

and life. Days go by. It is even in 

prose. I am a real poet. My poem

is finished and I haven't mentioned 

orange yet. It's twelve poems, I call

it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery

I see Mike's painting, called SARDINES.

This is Just to Say

I have a journal in which I write down poems that move me. Typically my journals are filled with art and doodles but I wanted the poems to speak for themselves. Recently I have been transferring the poetry into a different journal that I like better, which is a lot of fun because I get to read all of the poems that made me laugh and cry all over again. I thought I would share with you one of my favorite poems:

This is Just to Say

I have eaten

the plumbs

that were in

the ice box

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet 

and so cold.

-- William Carlos Williams

It's a simple poem which I find funny; I like to read it slowly so that I can really experience the line breaks and form he uses. It's simple enough that I even read it to the 5 year old I babysat last year and we had a whole conversation about it. He talked about it to other people for weeks. So cute.