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#visitor
A breeze, a sea of pain, wave after wave, wave after wave. They end, crashing on the familiar shore. I've been here once before. Salt thickens the air, the sun yields to the deep, a crimson eye awakens in the sky, A breeze, a sea of pain, I begin to cry. Wave after wave, Time flies, Time wanes. Why am I here once again? Why is suffering habitual? Whimper I tuck into my shell, Emphatically I cry. I cry to wake myself from this rest, The sound of the waves rolling, The smell of the ocean call, The grains of sand underneath my sole, The day surrendering to the explosion of color. I begin to cry cause I am merely a visitor On this shore we call love. I am merely a visitor, in a world that seems so far.
0
Apr 27
Apr 27, 2026 at 10:25 PM UTC
A Visitor's Quarrel
I knock once softly, just hello, I hope it’s safe for me to go. I smile quick, I sit so straight, to see which me you’ll tolerate. I tiptoe round, I don’t complain, I follow rules, and hide the pain. And If you frown, I fix my face, all better now, I’m in my place. I sit up straight and speak just right, I try not to bother, try not to fight. I follow the rules I’ve always known, stay in the corners, stay alone. I don’t need chairs, I don’t need food, I don’t need comfort, rest, or mood. The floor is fine, I like it here, I’ll stay quite still, I’ll disappear. Outside has locks and empty space, inside has pain with a familiar face. I’ll thank you lots, I’ll clean your floors, I’ll stay real quiet behind these doors. So hurt me quick or hurt me slow, just please don’t tell me it’s time to go.
0
Jan 29
Jan 29, 2026 at 10:37 PM UTC
Visitor
the soft blue brown of your various poses this is my Cebu, my Manila, the soft new sounds of the streets and people though not my home it is my own, my special experience of a people so full of love and service to others that they often can't even see themselves. the soft view of boats offshores in their fishing their work is a joy for funding their leisure, their leisure is a joy, refueling their work. the soft hue of twilight as fiesta dies down... The sweetest blue brown of various poses.
0
Sep 12, 2024
Sep 12, 2024 at 7:42 AM UTC
Island
if you want to find me I am slightly left of centre at the back, a different colour more drab, grey even quite unnoticeable an extra in a street scene there to make the numbers up a voice in a choir drowned out by those around me probably mouthing the words half remembered a shadow on a sunlit street where everyone is having a good time, or on the beach sitting staring out to sea no small talk, not even hello my mind is shooting gathering experience like tracer fire target secured
0
May 29, 2023
May 29, 2023 at 8:50 AM UTC
visitor
Are we not all of us mere visitors upon this Earth, here but only for a few brief moments, awaiting an end to our exile, anticipating the return to our ancestral home, the Celestial Domicile, the Heavenly Abode from whence we came, the birthplace of our spirits, the sanctuary of our souls?
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Apr 21, 2020
Apr 21, 2020 at 3:56 PM UTC
Visiting Hours
Picturebook Princess for Keira We had a special visitor. Our world became suddenly brighter. She was such a charmer! Such a delighter! With her sparkly diamond slippers and the way her whole being glows, Keira’s a picturebook princess from the points of her crown to the tips of her toes! Keywords/Tags: Princess, visitor, charm, delight, sparkly, diamond, slippers, Cinderella, crown, glow, glowing, angel, fairy
0
Apr 1, 2020
Apr 1, 2020 at 5:09 AM UTC
Picturebook Princess
Every Day You Play by Pablo Neruda loose translation by Michael R. Burch Every day you play with Infinity’s rays. Exquisite visitor, you arrive with the flowers and the water. You are vastly more than this immaculate head I clasp tightly like a cornucopia, every day, between my hands ... Keywords/Tags: Neruda, translation, Spanish, day, play, infinity, infinity's, rays, exquisite, visitor, flowers, water, head, clasp, hands More Pablo Neruda translations ... These are English translations of Spanish poems by Pablo Neruda. There are also English translations of Pablo Neruda quotes and epigrams. Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) was a Chilean poet who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971 and is generally considered to be one of the world's best poets. Indeed, he was called "the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language" by Gabriel García Márquez. Neruda always wrote in green ink, the color of esperanza (hope). Love! Love until the night implodes!—Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch You can crop all the flowers but you cannot detain spring.—Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch As if you were set on fire from within, the moon whitens your skin. —Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch The Book of Questions by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Is the rose **** or is that just how she dresses? Why do trees conceal their spectacular roots? Who hears the confession of the getaway car? Is there anything sadder than a train standing motionless in the rain? While nothing can save us from death, still love can redeem each breath. —Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch In El Salvador, Death by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Death still surveils El Salvador. The blood of murdered peasants has never clotted; time cannot congeal it, nor does the rain erase it from the roads. Fifteen thousand were machine-gunned dead by Martinez, the murderer. To this day the coppery taste of blood still flavors the land, bread and wine of El Salvador. Please understand that when I awaken weeping it's because I dreamed I was a lost child searching the leaf-heaps for your hands in the darkness. —Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Love Sonnet LXVI by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I love you only because I love you; I am torn between loving and not loving you, between apathy and desire. My heart vacillates between ice and fire. I love you only because you’re the one I love; I hate you deeply, but hatred makes me implore you all the more so that in my inconstancy I do not see you, but love you blindly. Perhaps January’s frigid light will consume my heart with its cruel rays, robbing me of the key to contentment. In this tragic plot, I ****** myself and I will die loveless because I love you, because I love you, my Love, in fire and in blood. I'm no longer in love with her, that's certain ... yet perhaps I love her still. Love is so short, forgetting so long! —Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Love Sonnet XI by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair. I stalk the streets, silent and starving. Bread does not satisfy me; dawn does not divert me from my relentless pursuit of your fluid spoor. I long for your liquid laughter, for your sunburned hands like savage harvests. I lust for your fingernails' pale marbles. I want to devour your ******* like almonds, whole. I want to ingest the sunbeams singed by your beauty, to eat the aquiline nose from your aloof face, to lick your eyelashes' flickering shade. I pursue you, snuffing the shadows, seeking your heart's scorching heat like a puma prowling the heights of Quitratue. I own my own darkness, alone.—Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I alone own my darkness.—Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Love Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I do not love you like coral or topaz, or the blazing hearth's incandescent white flame; I love you like phantoms embraced in the dark ... secretly, in shadows, unrevealed & unnamed. I love you like bushes that refuse to bloom while pregnant with the radiance of mysterious flowers; now, thanks to your love, an earthy fragrance lives dimly in my body's odors. I love you without knowing—how, when, why or where; I love you forthrightly, without complications or care; I love you this way because I know no other. Here, where "I" no longer exists ... so it seems ... so close that your hand on my chest is my own, so close that your eyes close gently on my dreams. I like for you to be still: it’s as if you were absent; then you hear me from far away, yet my voice fails to touch you. —Pablo Neruda “Me Gustas Cuando Callas” translation by Michael R. Burch If You Forget Me by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I need you to know one thing ... You know how it goes: if I gaze up at the glowing moon, if observe the blazing autumn’s reddening branches from my window, if I touch the impalpable ash of the charred log’s wrinkled body ... everything returns me to you, as if everything that exists —all aromas, sights, solids— were small boats sailing toward those isles of yours that await me. However ... if little by little you stop loving me then I shall stop loving you, little by little. And if you suddenly forget me, do not bother to investigate, for I shall have immediately forgotten you also. If you think my love strange and mad— this whirlwind of streaming banners gusting through me, so that you elect to leave me at the shore where my heart lacks roots, just remember that, on that very day, at that very hour, I shall raise my arms and my roots will sail off to find some more favorable land. But if each day and every hour, you feel destined to be with me, if you greet me with implacable sweetness, and if each day and every hour flowers blossom on your lips to entice me, ... then ah my love, oh my only, my own, all that fire will be reinfernoed in me and nothing within me will be extinguished or forgotten; my love will feed on your love, my beloved, and as long as you live it will be me in your arms ... as long as you never leave mine. Laughter is the soul's language.—Pablo Neruda Sonnet XLV by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Don't wander far away, not even for a day, because— how can I explain? A day is too long ... and I’ll be waiting for you, like a man in an empty station where the trains all stand motionless. Don't leave me, my dear, not even for an hour, because— then despair’s raindrops will all run blurrily together, and the smoke that drifts lazily in search of a home will descend hazily on me, suffocating my heart. Darling, may your lovely silhouette never dissolve in the surf; may your lashes never flutter at an indecipherable distance. Please don't leave me for a second, my dearest, because then you'll have gone far too far and I'll wander aimlessly, amazed, asking all the earth: Will she ever return? Will she spurn me, dying? I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.—Pablo Neruda My Dog Died by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch My dog died; so I buried him in the backyard garden next to some rusted machine. One day I'll rejoin him, over there, but for now he's gone with his shaggy mane, his crude manners and his cold, clammy nose, while I, the atheist who never believed in any heaven for human beings, now believe in a paradise I'm unfit to enter. Yes, I somehow now believe in a heavenly kennel where my dog awaits my arrival wagging his tail in furious friendship! But I'll not indulge in sadness here: why bewail a companion who was never servile? His friendship was more like that of a porcupine preserving its prickly autonomy. His was the friendship of a distant star with no more intimacy than true friendship called for and no false demonstrations: he never clambered over me coating my clothes with mange; he never assaulted my knee like dogs obsessed with *** But he used to gaze up at me, giving me the attention my ego demanded, while helping this vainglorious man understand my concerns were none of his. Aye, and with those bright eyes so much purer than mine, he'd gaze up at me contentedly; it was a look he reserved for me alone all his entire sweet, gentle life, always merely there, never troubling me, never demanding anything. Aye, and often I envied his energetic tail as we strode the shores of Isla Negra together, in winter weather, wild birds swarming skyward as my golden-maned friend leapt about, supercharged by the sea's electric surges, sniffing away wildly, his tail held ***** his face suffused with the salt spray. Joy! Joy! Joy! As only dogs experience joy in the shameless exuberance of their guiltless spirits. Thus there are no sad good-byes for my dog who died; we never once lied to each other. He died, he's gone, I buried him; that's all there is to it. Let us forget with generosity those who cannot love us.—Pablo Neruda Tonight I will write the saddest lines by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Tonight I will write the saddest lines. I will write, for example, “The night is less bright and a few stars shiver in the distance as I remember her unwarranted light ...” Tonight I will write her the saddest lines: that I loved her as she loved me too, sometimes, all those long, lonely nights when I held her tight and filled her ears with indecipherable rhymes ... Then she loved me too, as I also loved her, compelled by the spell of her enormous eyes. Tonight I will write her the saddest lines as I ponder love’s death and our mutual crimes. Outside I hear night—silent, cold, dark, immense— as these delicate words fall, useless as dew. Oh, what does it matter that love came to naught if love was false, or perhaps even true? And yet I hear songs being sung in the distance. How can I forget her, so soon since I lost her? I seek to regain her, somehow bring her closer. But my heart has been blinded; she will not appear! Now moonlight and starlight whiten dark trees. We also are ghosts, by love’s failing light. My love has failed me, but how I once loved her! My voice ... this cursed wind ... what use to recite? Another’s. She will soon be another’s. Her body, her voice, her infinite eyes. I no longer love her! And why should I love her when love is sad, short, mad, fickle, unwise? Because of cold nights we clung through so closely, I’m not satisfied to know she is gone. And while I must end this hell I now suffer, It’s sad to remember all love left undone. The moon lives in the lining of your skin.—Pablo Neruda Religión en el Este (“Religion in the East”) by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch for Tom Merrill I realized in Rangoon: the gods were our enemies as much as God; alabaster gods elongated like white whales; gilded gods gleaming like golden ears of corn; serpentine gods coiling around the crime of being born; naked detached buddhas smiling enigmatically at cocktail parties, contemplating pointless eternity like Christ on his grotesque cross; all of them capable of any atrocity, of imposing their heaven upon us; all armed with implements of torture, or death; all demanding piety or, better yet, our blood; avaricious gods imagined by men to excuse their cowardice, or to conceal it; gods everywhere, inescapable; and the whole earth reeking of heaven, for sale, like merchandise. In all the languages of men only the poor will know your name.—Pablo Neruda The Heights of Machu Picchu, Canto VIII by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch for Martin Mc Carthy, who put me up to it Ascend with me, my American love! Let’s kiss these mysterious stones together! The Urubamba’s torrential silver lures pollen to fly from its golden chalice while above this canyon’s unbroken silence everything soars: the climbing grapevines’ fruitless branches, the shopworn plants, each inflexible garland. Come, elfin life, test your wings above the earth, test the cold, crystalline air, ****** the embrittled emeralds aside, test even these frigid waters, cascading from the icepacks. Test love, lambent Love itself, until the night's sudden implosion over the Andes' atlean peaks, when, reeling on the reddening knees of dawn, you feast your startled eyes on its snowblind offspring. Oh Wilkamayu of the sonorous looms, when you unleash your thunderbursts, when you crazily rend your thunder’s skeins leaving gauzy white clouds to bind wounded snow, when your wild winds whip sheer cliffs into avalanches, roaring as if to arouse the sky from its sleep, what language will you awaken at last in the ear, thus lately freed from your Andean inundations? Who imprisoned the frigid lightning bolt, left it chained to these Promethean heights, scattered its glacial tears, brandished its mercurial swords, hammered out the threads of its war-torn stamens, led it to this warrior's bower then left it to lie in a rocky fissure? What do your harried illuminations reveal, your rebellious lightnings signal? Must we travel inhibited by words? Impeded by frozen syllables, these dark languages, gold-brocaded banners, fathomless mouths and conquered cries arising from your silver arterial waters? Who decapitates lily-like eyelids from those come to observe the earth’s occupants? Who scatters dead seeds flung from your waterfall hands only to atrophy here into fossilized coal? Who flings branches over precipices only to bury our banal farewells? On love, Love!, do not approach the boundaries; avoid idle adoration of sunken heads; nor let time exhaust all possibilities in this strange abode of broken overtures; nor think, between these cascading waters and sheer cliff walls, to reclaim high mountains’ elevated airs, nor the wind’s white laminations, nor the blind canal’s guidance toward high cordilleras, nor the dew’s brilliant solicitations; but ascend, blossom by blossom, through the thickets, clambering up the coiling serpent flung from the crags above. From this escarpment zone of flint and forest, from this emerald stardust broken by jungle clearings, Mantur, the valley, emerges like a living creature save for its eerie silence. Ascend to my very being, to my own individual dawn, even to this higher crown of solitudes. This fallen kingdom survives in us nonetheless. While racing across the Andes' sundial the condor's shadow passes black as a marauder. For now, I ask no more than the justice of eating.—Pablo Neruda La Barcarola Termina (“The Watersong Ends”) by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch It is time, love, to sever the somber rose, to shut off the stars, to re-bury the ashes in earth; and then, in the insurrection of light, to awake with those who awoke, lest we continue this dream of reaching the far shore of a sea without shores. One Pillar by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch One pillar props up consolations, so please don’t bother telling me anything! Does the pale metalloid heal you, really? I have a terrible fear of re-becoming an animal, of the terrible anger that devolves men to boys. And after so many words? Soliloquio en Tinieblas (“Soliloquy at Twilight”) from Estravagario, 1958 by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Don’t you know there’s no one in the streets and no one inside the houses either? Only eyes in the windows. If you lack someplace to sleep, knock on a door and they’ll open it, but only to a certain point, and you’ll see that it’s cold inside, that the house is empty and wants nothing to do with you, because your stories are worthless. And if you suggest tenderness the dog and cat will bite you. Poesía (“Poetry”) from Memorial de Isla Negra, 1964 by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Something transpired in my soul, a fit of fever or a flurry of wings, after which I made my way, deciphering that fire; finally I wrote the first faint line, pale, insubstantial, pure nonsense, or perhaps the pure wisdom of someone who knows nothing; then suddenly I saw the heavens revealed, gates flung wide open. Keywords/Tags: Pablo Neruda English Translations, Spanish Poems, Love Sonnets, Quotes, Epigrams, Machu Picchu
0
Mar 29, 2020
Mar 29, 2020 at 5:04 AM UTC
Pablo Neruda "Every Day You Play" translation
Every Day You Play by Pablo Neruda loose translation by Michael R. Burch Every day you play with Infinity’s rays. Exquisite visitor, you arrive with the flowers and the water. You are vastly more than this immaculate head I clasp tightly like a cornucopia, every day, between my hands ... Keywords/Tags: Neruda, translation, Spanish, day, play, infinity, infinity's, rays, exquisite, visitor, flowers, water, head, clasp, hands More Pablo Neruda translations ... These are English translations of Spanish poems by Pablo Neruda. There are also English translations of Pablo Neruda quotes and epigrams. Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) was a Chilean poet who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971 and is generally considered to be one of the world's best poets. Indeed, he was called "the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language" by Gabriel García Márquez. Neruda always wrote in green ink, the color of esperanza (hope). Love! Love until the night implodes!—Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch You can crop all the flowers but you cannot detain spring.—Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch As if you were set on fire from within, the moon whitens your skin. —Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch The Book of Questions by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Is the rose **** or is that just how she dresses? Why do trees conceal their spectacular roots? Who hears the confession of the getaway car? Is there anything sadder than a train standing motionless in the rain? While nothing can save us from death, still love can redeem each breath. —Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch In El Salvador, Death by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Death still surveils El Salvador. The blood of murdered peasants has never clotted; time cannot congeal it, nor does the rain erase it from the roads. Fifteen thousand were machine-gunned dead by Martinez, the murderer. To this day the coppery taste of blood still flavors the land, bread and wine of El Salvador. Please understand that when I awaken weeping it's because I dreamed I was a lost child searching the leaf-heaps for your hands in the darkness. —Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Love Sonnet LXVI by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I love you only because I love you; I am torn between loving and not loving you, between apathy and desire. My heart vacillates between ice and fire. I love you only because you’re the one I love; I hate you deeply, but hatred makes me implore you all the more so that in my inconstancy I do not see you, but love you blindly. Perhaps January’s frigid light will consume my heart with its cruel rays, robbing me of the key to contentment. In this tragic plot, I ****** myself and I will die loveless because I love you, because I love you, my Love, in fire and in blood. I'm no longer in love with her, that's certain ... yet perhaps I love her still. Love is so short, forgetting so long! —Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Love Sonnet XI by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair. I stalk the streets, silent and starving. Bread does not satisfy me; dawn does not divert me from my relentless pursuit of your fluid spoor. I long for your liquid laughter, for your sunburned hands like savage harvests. I lust for your fingernails' pale marbles. I want to devour your ******* like almonds, whole. I want to ingest the sunbeams singed by your beauty, to eat the aquiline nose from your aloof face, to lick your eyelashes' flickering shade. I pursue you, snuffing the shadows, seeking your heart's scorching heat like a puma prowling the heights of Quitratue. I own my own darkness, alone.—Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I alone own my darkness.—Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Love Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I do not love you like coral or topaz, or the blazing hearth's incandescent white flame; I love you like phantoms embraced in the dark ... secretly, in shadows, unrevealed & unnamed. I love you like bushes that refuse to bloom while pregnant with the radiance of mysterious flowers; now, thanks to your love, an earthy fragrance lives dimly in my body's odors. I love you without knowing—how, when, why or where; I love you forthrightly, without complications or care; I love you this way because I know no other. Here, where "I" no longer exists ... so it seems ... so close that your hand on my chest is my own, so close that your eyes close gently on my dreams. I like for you to be still: it’s as if you were absent; then you hear me from far away, yet my voice fails to touch you. —Pablo Neruda “Me Gustas Cuando Callas” translation by Michael R. Burch If You Forget Me by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I need you to know one thing ... You know how it goes: if I gaze up at the glowing moon, if observe the blazing autumn’s reddening branches from my window, if I touch the impalpable ash of the charred log’s wrinkled body ... everything returns me to you, as if everything that exists —all aromas, sights, solids— were small boats sailing toward those isles of yours that await me. However ... if little by little you stop loving me then I shall stop loving you, little by little. And if you suddenly forget me, do not bother to investigate, for I shall have immediately forgotten you also. If you think my love strange and mad— this whirlwind of streaming banners gusting through me, so that you elect to leave me at the shore where my heart lacks roots, just remember that, on that very day, at that very hour, I shall raise my arms and my roots will sail off to find some more favorable land. But if each day and every hour, you feel destined to be with me, if you greet me with implacable sweetness, and if each day and every hour flowers blossom on your lips to entice me, ... then ah my love, oh my only, my own, all that fire will be reinfernoed in me and nothing within me will be extinguished or forgotten; my love will feed on your love, my beloved, and as long as you live it will be me in your arms ... as long as you never leave mine. Laughter is the soul's language.—Pablo Neruda Sonnet XLV by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Don't wander far away, not even for a day, because— how can I explain? A day is too long ... and I’ll be waiting for you, like a man in an empty station where the trains all stand motionless. Don't leave me, my dear, not even for an hour, because— then despair’s raindrops will all run blurrily together, and the smoke that drifts lazily in search of a home will descend hazily on me, suffocating my heart. Darling, may your lovely silhouette never dissolve in the surf; may your lashes never flutter at an indecipherable distance. Please don't leave me for a second, my dearest, because then you'll have gone far too far and I'll wander aimlessly, amazed, asking all the earth: Will she ever return? Will she spurn me, dying? I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.—Pablo Neruda My Dog Died by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch My dog died; so I buried him in the backyard garden next to some rusted machine. One day I'll rejoin him, over there, but for now he's gone with his shaggy mane, his crude manners and his cold, clammy nose, while I, the atheist who never believed in any heaven for human beings, now believe in a paradise I'm unfit to enter. Yes, I somehow now believe in a heavenly kennel where my dog awaits my arrival wagging his tail in furious friendship! But I'll not indulge in sadness here: why bewail a companion who was never servile? His friendship was more like that of a porcupine preserving its prickly autonomy. His was the friendship of a distant star with no more intimacy than true friendship called for and no false demonstrations: he never clambered over me coating my clothes with mange; he never assaulted my knee like dogs obsessed with *** But he used to gaze up at me, giving me the attention my ego demanded, while helping this vainglorious man understand my concerns were none of his. Aye, and with those bright eyes so much purer than mine, he'd gaze up at me contentedly; it was a look he reserved for me alone all his entire sweet, gentle life, always merely there, never troubling me, never demanding anything. Aye, and often I envied his energetic tail as we strode the shores of Isla Negra together, in winter weather, wild birds swarming skyward as my golden-maned friend leapt about, supercharged by the sea's electric surges, sniffing away wildly, his tail held ***** his face suffused with the salt spray. Joy! Joy! Joy! As only dogs experience joy in the shameless exuberance of their guiltless spirits. Thus there are no sad good-byes for my dog who died; we never once lied to each other. He died, he's gone, I buried him; that's all there is to it. Let us forget with generosity those who cannot love us.—Pablo Neruda Tonight I will write the saddest lines by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Tonight I will write the saddest lines. I will write, for example, “The night is less bright and a few stars shiver in the distance as I remember her unwarranted light ...” Tonight I will write her the saddest lines: that I loved her as she loved me too, sometimes, all those long, lonely nights when I held her tight and filled her ears with indecipherable rhymes ... Then she loved me too, as I also loved her, compelled by the spell of her enormous eyes. Tonight I will write her the saddest lines as I ponder love’s death and our mutual crimes. Outside I hear night—silent, cold, dark, immense— as these delicate words fall, useless as dew. Oh, what does it matter that love came to naught if love was false, or perhaps even true? And yet I hear songs being sung in the distance. How can I forget her, so soon since I lost her? I seek to regain her, somehow bring her closer. But my heart has been blinded; she will not appear! Now moonlight and starlight whiten dark trees. We also are ghosts, by love’s failing light. My love has failed me, but how I once loved her! My voice ... this cursed wind ... what use to recite? Another’s. She will soon be another’s. Her body, her voice, her infinite eyes. I no longer love her! And why should I love her when love is sad, short, mad, fickle, unwise? Because of cold nights we clung through so closely, I’m not satisfied to know she is gone. And while I must end this hell I now suffer, It’s sad to remember all love left undone. The moon lives in the lining of your skin.—Pablo Neruda Religión en el Este (“Religion in the East”) by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch for Tom Merrill I realized in Rangoon: the gods were our enemies as much as God; alabaster gods elongated like white whales; gilded gods gleaming like golden ears of corn; serpentine gods coiling around the crime of being born; naked detached buddhas smiling enigmatically at cocktail parties, contemplating pointless eternity like Christ on his grotesque cross; all of them capable of any atrocity, of imposing their heaven upon us; all armed with implements of torture, or death; all demanding piety or, better yet, our blood; avaricious gods imagined by men to excuse their cowardice, or to conceal it; gods everywhere, inescapable; and the whole earth reeking of heaven, for sale, like merchandise. In all the languages of men only the poor will know your name.—Pablo Neruda The Heights of Machu Picchu, Canto VIII by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch for Martin Mc Carthy, who put me up to it Ascend with me, my American love! Let’s kiss these mysterious stones together! The Urubamba’s torrential silver lures pollen to fly from its golden chalice while above this canyon’s unbroken silence everything soars: the climbing grapevines’ fruitless branches, the shopworn plants, each inflexible garland. Come, elfin life, test your wings above the earth, test the cold, crystalline air, ****** the embrittled emeralds aside, test even these frigid waters, cascading from the icepacks. Test love, lambent Love itself, until the night's sudden implosion over the Andes' atlean peaks, when, reeling on the reddening knees of dawn, you feast your startled eyes on its snowblind offspring. Oh Wilkamayu of the sonorous looms, when you unleash your thunderbursts, when you crazily rend your thunder’s skeins leaving gauzy white clouds to bind wounded snow, when your wild winds whip sheer cliffs into avalanches, roaring as if to arouse the sky from its sleep, what language will you awaken at last in the ear, thus lately freed from your Andean inundations? Who imprisoned the frigid lightning bolt, left it chained to these Promethean heights, scattered its glacial tears, brandished its mercurial swords, hammered out the threads of its war-torn stamens, led it to this warrior's bower then left it to lie in a rocky fissure? What do your harried illuminations reveal, your rebellious lightnings signal? Must we travel inhibited by words? Impeded by frozen syllables, these dark languages, gold-brocaded banners, fathomless mouths and conquered cries arising from your silver arterial waters? Who decapitates lily-like eyelids from those come to observe the earth’s occupants? Who scatters dead seeds flung from your waterfall hands only to atrophy here into fossilized coal? Who flings branches over precipices only to bury our banal farewells? On love, Love!, do not approach the boundaries; avoid idle adoration of sunken heads; nor let time exhaust all possibilities in this strange abode of broken overtures; nor think, between these cascading waters and sheer cliff walls, to reclaim high mountains’ elevated airs, nor the wind’s white laminations, nor the blind canal’s guidance toward high cordilleras, nor the dew’s brilliant solicitations; but ascend, blossom by blossom, through the thickets, clambering up the coiling serpent flung from the crags above. From this escarpment zone of flint and forest, from this emerald stardust broken by jungle clearings, Mantur, the valley, emerges like a living creature save for its eerie silence. Ascend to my very being, to my own individual dawn, even to this higher crown of solitudes. This fallen kingdom survives in us nonetheless. While racing across the Andes' sundial the condor's shadow passes black as a marauder. For now, I ask no more than the justice of eating.—Pablo Neruda La Barcarola Termina (“The Watersong Ends”) by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch It is time, love, to sever the somber rose, to shut off the stars, to re-bury the ashes in earth; and then, in the insurrection of light, to awake with those who awoke, lest we continue this dream of reaching the far shore of a sea without shores. One Pillar by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch One pillar props up consolations, so please don’t bother telling me anything! Does the pale metalloid heal you, really? I have a terrible fear of re-becoming an animal, of the terrible anger that devolves men to boys. And after so many words? Soliloquio en Tinieblas (“Soliloquy at Twilight”) from Estravagario, 1958 by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Don’t you know there’s no one in the streets and no one inside the houses either? Only eyes in the windows. If you lack someplace to sleep, knock on a door and they’ll open it, but only to a certain point, and you’ll see that it’s cold inside, that the house is empty and wants nothing to do with you, because your stories are worthless. And if you suggest tenderness the dog and cat will bite you. Poesía (“Poetry”) from Memorial de Isla Negra, 1964 by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Something transpired in my soul, a fit of fever or a flurry of wings, after which I made my way, deciphering that fire; finally I wrote the first faint line, pale, insubstantial, pure nonsense, or perhaps the pure wisdom of someone who knows nothing; then suddenly I saw the heavens revealed, gates flung wide open. Keywords/Tags: Pablo Neruda English Translations, Spanish Poems, Love Sonnets, Quotes, Epigrams, Machu Picchu
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It’s a quiet town just waiting to be Infatuated with you
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Aug 26, 2019
Aug 26, 2019 at 4:01 PM UTC
Here
Friday the 1st of August,2019 started with a Little drizzle of rain but by one o'clock pm Of that day -huge sheet of rain was falling On everything in my sight, this Droplets as little as they are, began to increase In number and in no time began to carry everything Not tied to the ground those tied down, they destroy And carry the pieces, I could have sworn I heard their voice Until the lapping of water drowns the voices. Giving orders to each other as they go on doing what they do best Under the sky finding their way back home to the ocean, Sea or river of their choice. This August visitors have Taking many lives and things worth millions in less than 24 hours.
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Aug 17, 2019
Aug 17, 2019 at 4:16 PM UTC
August visitor
Open doorway and there you stand, backlit. Only feet away yet too many steps too far. A heavy veil of shadow draped over your face. Stand there, forever, as I try to discern who you are. .
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Aug 2, 2019
Aug 2, 2019 at 6:29 AM UTC
Visitor
Feelings that were once lost Knocking again at my door Indeed a risk I crossed But missing an opportunity, I abhor Felt like I was in cloud nine Not caring about anything But the moment I blinked appeared a vine That pulled me away from everything Darkness everywhere nothing I see The place reeks of despair and pain The farther I was pulled the more it desecrates me It never stopped, my sanity slain
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Jul 2, 2019
Jul 2, 2019 at 8:03 AM UTC
Unexpected Visitor
As fog covered my outside landscape I sat, relaxing and aligning with poetic ideas to scribe at later date. The air was warm, as a faint scent of lavender entered nostrils. My human eyes couldn't make out anything more than a shadow but; my inner senses knew I wasn’t alone. The being whispered adding fog to the room. With deepen breath it now made sense of my visitor recalling my art background. Remembering, my prayer just days earlier how I longed for a great maters of art to flow through me. As moments passed, the blur became more distinct. There he stood before me adorned with painters hat and smock. With a smile as he held up a brush and made like he was painting my form. I giggled with air of breeze. My third eye exploded with an image of Monet. He began to fill my mind with picturesque visions. Flowers entered my eyes as I felt a creative power serge. Fields of afternoon strollers adorned with paroles entered mind. And birds rustled in trees, as a flowing brook traveled within. More scenes manifested. I could almost taste the sweet air running down my throat. When I was filled to capacity, he stopped and I understood. He was providing me with fuel for thought. Scenes to transcribe into poetic jargon. As he bowed, and I whispered gratitude, he disappeared. I was again alone with my keyboard, dancing hands and vivid imagination tweaked with his talented light. I now was ready to create on canvas screen and of course my new curator of verse, Monet.
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Apr 14, 2019
Apr 14, 2019 at 7:44 PM UTC
A Visitor
Altar of false reassurance, symbolizing return, of the hat bearer “Home is where you hang your hat.” How many of you have the hat bearer hung on temporary walls? During intermittent crawls from house to home
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Oct 19, 2011
Oct 19, 2011 at 5:30 PM UTC
HAT ON A WALL
there you are sleeping in my mind again second-guessing your presence still hurts every now and then a long-term visitor overstaying your welcome my heart was your home now that feeling is seldom the blame is on me it's my fault in the end there's no disguising that i'm the one who invited you in
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Oct 12, 2018
Oct 12, 2018 at 2:57 PM UTC
invitation
Death comes knocking at my door, My footsteps echo on the floor. Because of time, I know it's him; Who else would knock at 4 AM? Opportunity comes a'knocking, Watching, waiting, sulking, stalking. The clock is ticking, ticking, ticking, Time's conniving, tricking, tricking. I tilt my head and listen near, His breaths outside still reach my ear. He's come to taunt me, nothing more, To flirt with me behind my door. I want to run, to back away, but fear has frozen me in place. Fear and footsteps, time and lore; Death comes knocking at my door.
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Apr 15, 2018
Apr 15, 2018 at 4:04 PM UTC
Visitor
Thirty-six hours passed with no rest but I am now deep within a dream of strange substance and color my emotions strained and stretched my body turned inside-out by floating lights this is the price paid when one denies sleep I blink from a nightmare of glistening silver probes to see in my awakened state the blank stare of almond sized black eyes a gray silhoetted against the vanilla ice cream colored shades of my living room window the contrast visible even in this monicum of light he leans a bit to my right as I jump into consciousness and I know he is surprised before sending me back When the morning Sun brings me around my body head to toe feels worn with fever my daily aches routine with age are maximized and accentuated the gray is fresh in my mind the first clear thought the clarity of his presence undeniable A quick check testicles intact coffee to chase the headache a shower to wash away the abuse
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Mar 24, 2018
Mar 24, 2018 at 1:11 PM UTC
Mr Ali N Gray
A visitor, not a resident once again. You walk in and out as though it was a revolving door. You visit me as though I am a sovoneour shop, just to see how much one would miss you. My heart has become exhausted of the constant switch between the void and the presence. For you make a vacation out of me, when I ought to be a sanctuary. You turn me into a hotel room, when I ought to be home. My name was not the one that was to be traced on sand and washed away by the waves but the one you would engrave with ink on your skin. I am oxygen I am water Not momentary or unncessary like the label of the presence of expiry you labeled me with Or your temporary devotion.
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Mar 21, 2018
Mar 21, 2018 at 3:02 AM UTC
Visitor not a resident
6am His face was too familiar The unwanted and out of date A real gentleman Someone who cares Despite that prevailing optimisim What’s he here to do * I appreciate you coming That deep burning brow Handing it to a shocked friend Whose schedule don’t allow I’ll learn to compromise Despite significant disruption I still won’t show any reaction
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Feb 27, 2018
Feb 27, 2018 at 3:26 AM UTC
tHE vISIT
In a new avenues Under the radiant skies With unknown identity Like a wonder of a visitor On closing those eyes So far, I was lost Spending time in circle Ultimately, I found my way, beyond Calm silence, everywhere Colored reflection of breaths Echoes within memories, and Chorus of forgiveness.
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Feb 16, 2018
Feb 16, 2018 at 9:25 PM UTC
A Day Out
I hate migraines. They don’t tell you when they are coming, and they never knock. Instead you get an unwanted visitor who is rude, loud, and causes pain. It’s not fair Who’d want that kind of visitor coming again? Stupid migraine! © 2017 Amanda D Shelton
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Jul 23, 2017
Jul 23, 2017 at 11:51 PM UTC
The Unfair Visitor (Migraine)
Someone from my past was on my mind tonight, while i layed in bed. Past twilight, which I will call midnight, I seen a figure, like a dream dip before you fade to sleep, followed by the obvious and unexplainable; The image of two visible, yet dim eyes appearing on the inside of my closed eyelids, and vanishing. I've been wide awake ever since. Apparitions aren't scary. Although, this is the first confirmed case of one choosing to Look at me..
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Jul 10, 2017
Jul 10, 2017 at 1:31 AM UTC
didnt scare me
I'm letting the past rest in peace. I won't try to repair it anymore. That which has been broken Can never be perfectly flawless Ever again anyway. He was simply a visitor who Came through the door of my life, Peeked into the room of my heart, And then abandoned both. A part of me only hopes that, Although now complete strangers, He will remember the shelter He once considered home.
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Mar 9, 2017
Mar 9, 2017 at 1:33 PM UTC
The Temporary Visitor, 3/9/15
*I’ve created a world Of my own, It’s in my mind Safe and sound. I’m the only Citizen of it, I live happily By my own rules. I’m inviting you As a guest, To peek inside Because I like you. But you know It's not a glimpse, It's much more It’s a journey. You will start Loving it, As the time Passes by. (It will happen, trust me!) Don’t forget That you are, But a traveler On exploration. Don’t Demand Citizenship one day, As I will Definitely decline. (You needed to ask and that’s not right.) It’s not that You can’t be, A part of My world. If you Are a part You’d fit in Perfectly. (I hope so, I Sincerely do) It will be Something magical, That will happen Naturally, unknowingly. You wouldn’t feel The need to ask, And I wouldn’t feel The need to answer. We’d only Feel our worlds, Expand and Become infinite. All my dreams Will be yours, And all yours Will be mine. As even I Am a visitor, To your world For this while. Loving is 2 people, completing A puzzle. Each one Missing dearly, A few Critical Pieces. Each one Having just, The perfect Partial view.*
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Oct 6, 2016
Oct 6, 2016 at 2:50 AM UTC
Partial