Poems

Dreams conquer the wrecked world

Solemn whispers of thought

Love is draped over shivering people

Blanket to expressions of hopes

Veinte poemas de amor y una 
canción desesperada
Twenty Love Poems and a  
Song of Despair

XX


Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.

Escribir, por ejemplo: "La noche está estrellada,  
y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos".

El viento de la noche gira en el cielo y canta.

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.  
Yo la quise, y a veces ella también me quiso.

En las noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos.  
La besé tantas veces bajo el cielo infinito.

Ella me quiso, a veces yo también la quería.  
Cómo no haber amado sus grandes ojos fijos.

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.  
Pensar que no la tengo. Sentir que la he perdido.

Oir la noche inmensa, más inmensa sin ella.  
Y el verso cae al alma como al pasto el rocío.

Qué importa que mi amor no pudiera guardarla.  
La noche está estrellada y ella no está conmigo.

Eso es todo. A lo lejos alguien canta. A lo lejos.  
Mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.

Como para acercarla mi mirada la busca.  
Mi corazón la busca, y ella no está conmigo.

La misma noche que hace blanquear los mismos árboles.  
Nosotros, los de entonces, ya no somos los mismos.

Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero cuánto la quise.  
Mi voz buscaba el viento para tocar su oído.

De otro. Será de otro. Como antes de mis besos.  
Su voz, su cuerpo claro. Sus ojos infinitos.

Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero.  
Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.

Porque en noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos,  
mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.

Aunque éste sea el último dolor que ella me causa,  
y éstos sean los últimos versos que yo le escribo.  
   
XX

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 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 immense night, still more immense without her. 
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to a 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 voice. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes. 
 
I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. 
Love is 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

Ode to Wine

by Pablo Neruda

Day-colored wine, 
night-colored wine, 
wine with purple feet 
or wine with topaz blood, 
wine, 
starry child 
of earth, 
wine, smooth 
as a golden sword, 
soft 
as lascivious velvet, 
wine, spiral-seashelled 
and full of wonder, 
amorous, 
marine; 
never has one goblet contained you, 
one song, one man, 
you are choral, gregarious, 
at the least, you must be shared. 
At times 
you feed on mortal 
memories; 
your wave carries us 
from tomb to tomb, 
stonecutter of icy sepulchers, 
and we weep 
transitory tears; 
your 
glorious 
spring dress 
is different, 
blood rises through the shoots, 
wind incites the day, 
nothing is left 
of your immutable soul. 
Wine 
stirs the spring, happiness 
bursts through the earth like a plant, 
walls crumble, 
and rocky cliffs, 
chasms close, 
as song is born. 
A jug of wine, and thou beside me 
in the wilderness, 
sang the ancient poet. 
Let the wine pitcher 
add to the kiss of love its own. 
 
My darling, suddenly 
the line of your hip 
becomes the brimming curve 
of the wine goblet, 
your breast is the grape cluster, 
your nipples are the grapes, 
the gleam of spirits lights your hair, 
and your navel is a chaste seal 
stamped on the vessel of your belly, 
your love an inexhaustible 
cascade of wine, 
light that illuminates my senses, 
the earthly splendor of life. 
 
But you are more than love, 
the fiery kiss, 
the heat of fire, 
more than the wine of life; 
you are 
the community of man, 
translucency, 
chorus of discipline, 
abundance of flowers. 
I like on the table, 
when we're speaking, 
the light of a bottle 
of intelligent wine. 
Drink it, 
and remember in every 
drop of gold, 
in every topaz glass, 
in every purple ladle, 
that autumn labored 
to fill the vessel with wine; 
and in the ritual of his office, 
let the simple man remember 
to think of the soil and of his duty, 
to propagate the canticle of the wine. 

TeLL Me, IS THe RoSe NaKeD...?

Tell me, is the rose naked  
Or is that her only dress?.

Why do trees conceal 
The splendor of their roots?.

Who hears the regrets 
Of the thieving automobile?.

Is there anything in the world sadder 
Than a train standing in the rain?. 

THe FiCKLe ONe...

My eyes went away from me 
Following a dark girl who went by.

She was made of black mother-of-pearl 
Made of dark-purple grapes, 
And she lashed my blood 
With her tail of fire.

After them all I go.

A pale blonde went by 
Like a golden plant 
Swaying her gifts. 
And my mouth went 
Like a wave 
Discharging on her breast 
Lightningbolts of blood.

After them all I go.

But to you, without my moving, 
Without seeing you, distant you, 
Go my blood and my kisses, 
My dark one and my fair one, 
My broad one and my slender one, 
My ugly one, my beauty, 
Made of all the gold 
And of all the silver, 
Made of all the wheat 
And of all the earth, 
Made of all the water 
Of sea waves, 
Made for my arms 
Made for my kisses, 
Made for my soul.

The Flight

by Pablo Neruda

Hands shading eyes, 
I follow the high flight: 
honoring heaven, the bird 
traverses 
the transparency, without soiling the day.

Winging westward, it climbs 
each step up to the naked blue: 
the entire sky is its tower, 
and the world is cleansed by its movement.

Though the violent bird 
seeks blood in the rose of space, 
its structure is 
arrow and flower in flight 
and in the light its wings 
are fused with air and purity.

O feathers destined 
not to tree, meadow, or combat, 
or to the atrocious ground 
or sweatshop, 
but to the conquest 
of a transparent fruit!

I celebrate the sky dance 
of gulls and petrels 
attired in snow 
as though I had 
a standing invitation: 
I participate 
in their velocity and repose, 
in the pause and haste of snow.

What flies in me is manifest 
in the errant equation of those wings.

O wind aside the black condor's 
iron flight in the mist! 
Whistling wind that transposed 
the hero's murderous scimitar: 
you receive the harsh flight's blow 
like a coat of armor plate, 
repeat its menace in the sky 
until all becomes blue again.

The flight of a dart, 
every swallow's mission, 
flight of the nightingale and its sonata, 
the cockatoo and its showy crest.

Hummingbirds flying in a looking glass 
stir sparkling emeralds, 
and flying through the dew 
the partridge shakes 
the mint's green soul.

I, who learned to fly with every flight 
of pure professors 
in the woods, at sea, in the ravines, 
on my back in the sand, 
or in dreams, 
remained here, tied 
to the roots, 
to the magnetic mother, the earth, 
lying to myself 
and flying 
only within, 
alone and in the dark.

A plant dies and is buried again, 
man's feet return to the terrain, 
only wings evade death.

The world is a crystal sphere, 
if he does not fly man loses his way--- 
cannot understand transparency. 
That is why I profess 
unconfined clarity 
and from the birds I learned 
passionate hope, 
the certainity and truth of flight

THe LiGHT WRaPS YoU In ITS MoRTaL FLaMe...

The light wraps you in its mortal flame.  
Abstracted pale mourner, standing that way 
Against the old propellers of the twilight 
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 pallid 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.

The Me Bird

by Pablo Neruda

I am the Pablo Bird, 
bird of a single feather, 
a flier in the clear shadow 
and obscure clarity, 
my wings are unseen, 
my ears resound 
when I walk among the trees 
or beneath the tombstones 
like an unlucky umbrella 
or a naked sword, 
stretched like a bow 
or round like a grape, 
I fly on and on not knowing, 
wounded in the dark night, 
who is waiting for me, 
who does not want my song, 
who desires my death, 
who will not know I'm arriving 
and will not come to subdue me, 
to bleed me, to twist me, 
or to kiss my clothes, 
torn by the shrieking wind. 
 
That's why I come and go, 
fly and don't fly but sing: 
I am the furious bird 
of the calm storm.