Today's Poet - Pablo Neruda
Before we dive in to the poetry, I have a couple of shout outs. First, thank you brandil for liking my Willow/Jenny fic. I was getting a bit paranoid about it. :) Second, big love to ladycat777 and _green_. You two are killing me with the hotness that of fragment_rpg.
::smooches to everyone:: (for I am in a fine mood today despite pms)
Now on to the poetry. I had a hard time finding something to post today. Apparently, I'm feeling a bit finicky. I had planned to post something by Louise Gluck, but nothing was working for me. Perhaps she'll join us tomorrow.
Instead I bring you the amazing Pablo Neruda. To quote the back of Pablo Neruda: Selected Poems (ed. by Nathaniel Tarn [Boston: Houghton Mifflin/Seymour Lawrence, 1970]):
Born in 1904 in the rainy south of Chile, [Neruda] enjoyed from an early age the luck of attention. One of his first books, Twenty Love Poems, became a bible for lovers in the Spanish language, and confirmed him in his poet's vocation. At the same time he pursued a lifelong career as a diplomat, serving in a series of consular posts in the Far East and Europe. In 1971, while serving as Chilean ambassador to France, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.
III Ah Vastness of Pines . . .
Ah vastness of pines, murmur of waves breaking,
slow play of lights, solitary bell,
twilight falling in your eyes, toy doll,
snail of the earth, the earth sings in you!
In you the rivers sing and my soul flees in them
as you desire, and you send it where you will.
Aim my road on your bow of hope
and in a frenzy I will free my flock of arrows.
On all sides I see your waist of fog,
and your silence hunts down my afflicted hours;
my kisses anchor, and my moist desire nests
in you with your arms of transparent stone.
Ah your mysterious voice that love tolls and darkens
in the resonant and dying evening!
Thus in deep hours I have seen, over the fields,
the ears of wheat tolling in the mouth of the wind.
--From Veinte Poemas de Amor (1924), translation by W. S. Merwin
And now for my work of the day. I've stolen the first line here from myself. It's a line that I adore; it continues to be one of the only lines I've ever written that I truly feel good about. Maybe one day I'll write a poem with this line that I like in it's entirety. Anyway...
My pen flows passion--
words that take me to places
never before seen.
My pen defies logic and
reason--plain yet fanciful
images run across
the page, dancing to music
laid out in my verse.
::smooches to everyone:: (for I am in a fine mood today despite pms)
Now on to the poetry. I had a hard time finding something to post today. Apparently, I'm feeling a bit finicky. I had planned to post something by Louise Gluck, but nothing was working for me. Perhaps she'll join us tomorrow.
Instead I bring you the amazing Pablo Neruda. To quote the back of Pablo Neruda: Selected Poems (ed. by Nathaniel Tarn [Boston: Houghton Mifflin/Seymour Lawrence, 1970]):
Born in 1904 in the rainy south of Chile, [Neruda] enjoyed from an early age the luck of attention. One of his first books, Twenty Love Poems, became a bible for lovers in the Spanish language, and confirmed him in his poet's vocation. At the same time he pursued a lifelong career as a diplomat, serving in a series of consular posts in the Far East and Europe. In 1971, while serving as Chilean ambassador to France, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.
III Ah Vastness of Pines . . .
Ah vastness of pines, murmur of waves breaking,
slow play of lights, solitary bell,
twilight falling in your eyes, toy doll,
snail of the earth, the earth sings in you!
In you the rivers sing and my soul flees in them
as you desire, and you send it where you will.
Aim my road on your bow of hope
and in a frenzy I will free my flock of arrows.
On all sides I see your waist of fog,
and your silence hunts down my afflicted hours;
my kisses anchor, and my moist desire nests
in you with your arms of transparent stone.
Ah your mysterious voice that love tolls and darkens
in the resonant and dying evening!
Thus in deep hours I have seen, over the fields,
the ears of wheat tolling in the mouth of the wind.
--From Veinte Poemas de Amor (1924), translation by W. S. Merwin
And now for my work of the day. I've stolen the first line here from myself. It's a line that I adore; it continues to be one of the only lines I've ever written that I truly feel good about. Maybe one day I'll write a poem with this line that I like in it's entirety. Anyway...
My pen flows passion--
words that take me to places
never before seen.
My pen defies logic and
reason--plain yet fanciful
images run across
the page, dancing to music
laid out in my verse.