This woman fits in my hands. She is fair and blond, and I wouldcarry her in my hands like a basket of magnolias. This woman fits in my eyes. My gaze enfolds her, my gaze that seesnothing as it enfolds her. This woman fits in my desires. She is naked before the yearningflame of my… Continue reading Pablo Neruda
I Am Afraid I’m afraid. The evening is gray and the sadnessof the sky opens like the mouth of a corpse.My heart has a weeping of princessforgotten at the bottom of a deserted palace. I’m afraid. And I feel so tired and smallthat I reflect the evening without meditating on her.(In my sick head a… Continue reading Pablo Neruda
Ode to SadnessSadness, scarabwith seven crippled feet,spiderweb egg,scramble-brained rat,bitch’s skeleton:No entry here.Don’t come in.Go away.Go backsouth with your umbrella,go backnorth with your serpent’s teeth.A poet lives here.No sadness maycross this threshold.Through these windowscomes the breath of the world,fresh red roses,flags embroidered withthe victories of the people.No.No entry.Flapyour bat’s wings,I will trample the feathersthat fall from… Continue reading Pablo Neruda
To feel you in my veins like God in the rivers — Pablo Neruda, first line to “Love,” Book of Twilight, trans. William O’Daly (Copper Canyon Press, 2017)
A poet lives here.No sadness maycross this threshold. — Pablo Neruda, from “Ode to Sadness,” Neruda’s Garden: An Anthology of Odes ( Latin American Literary Review Press; First Edition, February 1, 1995)
I will never forget that absencethat entered me like a man enters his own house,and I was satisfied with nonbeing:an emptiness open to everything. — Pablo Neruda, from “It Happens,” The Sea and the Bells ( Copper Canyon Press, 2002)
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. — Pablo Neruda, from “Sonnet XI,” 100 Love Sonnets (University of Texas Press; Reissue edition, June 1, 1986) Originally published… Continue reading Pablo Neruda
Lovely One Lovely one,just as on the cool stoneof the spring, the wateropens a wide flash of foam,so is the smile of your face,lovely one. Lovely one,with delicate hands and slender feetlike a silver pony,walking, flower of the world,thus I see you,lovely one. Lovely one,with a nest of copper entangledon your head, a nestthe color… Continue reading Pablo Neruda
Kiss by kiss I cover your tiny infinity,your margins, your rivers, your diminutive villages,and a genital fire, transformed by delight, slips through the narrow channels of bloodto precipitate a nocturnal carnation,to be, and be nothing but light in the dark. — Pablo Neruda, from “Sonnet XII,” 100 Love Sonnets. (University of Texas Press; Reissue edition… Continue reading Pablo Neruda
despite the mute coldness of the teeth and the hatred of the eyes,and the battle of dying beasts that watch over oblivion,in some summer place we are togetherwatching with lips invaded by thirst. — Pablo Neruda, from “II: FURIES AND SORROWS,” The Poetry of Pablo Neruda (Farrar Straus Giroux, 2005)
The Vale of Soul-Making 