poems

"I believe that poetry is an action, ephemeral or solemn, in which there enter as equal partners solitude and solidarity, emotion and action, the nearness to oneself, the nearness to mankind and to the secret manifestations of nature." -- Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)

july 12, 2004 was the centennial of the birth of my favorite poet, the 1971 nobel prize winner for literature and chilean statesman, pablo neruda. so, what made him great? to quote the boston globe, "Neruda was a literary champion of stuff. Nothing was off limits. He wrote odes to his socks, to a lemon, to a girl gardening, to ironing, to bees and bicycles, to a stamp album." i say, for celebrating even the very simple things in life through passionate words and lines, he's one incomparable being. how i wish i could write as well as he did (*sighs*). here is one of his poems:

Because of you, in gardens of blossoming flowers I ache from the perfumes of spring.

I have forgotten your face, I no longer remember your hands; how did your lips feel on mine?

Because of you, I love the white statues drowsing in the parks, the white statues that have neither voice nor sight.

I have forgotten your voice, your happy voice; I have forgotten your eyes.

Like a flower to its perfume, I am bound to my vague memory of you. I live with pain that is like a wound; if you touch me, you will do me irreparable harm.

Your caresses enfold me, like climbing vines on melancholy walls. I have forgotten your love, yet I seem to glimpse you in every window.

Because of you, the heady perfumes of summer pain me; because of you, I again seek out the signs that precipitate desires: shooting stars, falling objects.

for more neruda poems, click here.

and here is an FYI (for your information):
if you've noticed, i stick to using the lowercase (unless when i'm quoting) in all my entries. i got that habit after rewriting the following poem by the american poet, e.e. cummings, in my notebook (*winks*):

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

click here to read more about e.e. cummings and his works.