Me gustas por tu sonrisa.
Me gustas por tu inteligencia.
Me gustas por tu sencilles.
Me gustas por la paz que transmites.
Me gustas por tu caracter.
Me gustas porque te gustas.
Me gustas porque eres libre.
Me gustas porque en mi cabeza eres mio.
Me gustas porque sineto que lo tengo permitido.
Me gustas porque te emociona lo que haces.
Me gustas porque si te gustara me lo dirias.
Y ya de eso ta tengo la respuesta.

Ya no me gustas, tu piel esta arrugada, llena de manchas de la edad

Ya no me gustas, tus ojos se ven cansados, tus pasos desolados

Tus sentimientos aislados

Tus ganas de llorar



Ya no me gustas, como antes me gustabas

La juventud de tus labios de tanto fuego se quemo

Ya no me gustas, tus caricias de noche no se sienten constantes

Ya no somos los de antes



Ya no me gustas

Me encantas, viejo amante.

Me gustas cuando callas porque estas como ausente,
y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te toca.
Parece que los ojos se te hubieran volado
y parece que un beso te cerrara la boca.

Como todas las cosas estan llenas de mi alma
emerges de las cosas, llena del alma mia.
Mariposa de sueno, te pareces a mi alma,
y te pareces a la palabra melancolia.

Me gustas cuando callas y estas como distante.
Y estas como quejandote, mariposa en arrullo.
Y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te alcanza:
dejame que me calle con el silencio tuyo.

Dejame que te hable tambien con tu silencio
claro como una lampara, simple como un anillo.
Eres como la noche, callada y constelada.
Tu silencio es de estrella, tan lejano y sencillo.

Me gustas cuando callas porque estas como ausente.
Distante y dolorosa como si hubieras muerto.
Una palabra entonces, una sonrisa bastan.
Y estoy alegre, alegre de que no sea cierto.


I like you when you are quiet because it is as though you are absent,
and you hear me from far away, and my voice does not touch you.
It looks as though your eyes had flown away
and it looks as if a kiss had sealed your mouth.

Like all things are full of my soul
You emerge from the things, full of my soul.
Dream butterfly, you look like my soul,
and you look like a melancoly word.

I like you when you are quiet and it is as though you are distant.
It is as though you are complaining, butterfly in lullaby.
And you hear me from far away, and my voice does not reach you:
let me fall quiet with your own silence.

Let me also speak to you with your silence
Clear like a lamp, simple like a ring.
You are like the night, quiet and constellated.
Your silence is of a star, so far away and solitary.

I like you when you are quiet because it is as though you are absent.
Distant and painful as if you had died.
A word then, a smile is enough.
And I am happy, happy that it is not true.

Me gustas con cada partícula de mi ser
Con cada fracción de mi alma
Me gustas como me gustan los días soleados
El mar
El campo
Me gustas como me gustan las flores en primavera
Me gustas como una noche de estrellas
Me gustas como una noche de verano con luna llena
Me gustas como me gustan las palabras lindas como melinfluo, etéreo y serendipia
Me gustas como me gustan las maravillas de la vida
O incluso más que a estas, por que vos podrías definir a cada una de ellas, pero ni aunque las use a todas puedo expresar lo que me hace sentir tu presencia

Me gustas cuando callas porque estás como ausente,
y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te toca.
Parece que los ojos se te hubieran volado
y parece que un beso te cerrara la boca.

Como todas las cosas están llenas de mi alma
emerges de las cosas, llena del alma mía.
Mariposa de sueño, te pareces a mi alma,
y te pareces a la palabra melancolía.

Me gustas cuando callas y estás como distante.
Y estás como quejándote, mariposa en arrullo.
Y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te alcanza:
déjame que me calle con el silencio tuyo.

Déjame que te hable también con tu silencio
claro como una lámpara, simple como un anillo.
Eres como la noche, callada y constelada.
Tu silencio es de estrella, tan lejano y sencillo.

Me gustas cuando callas porque estás como ausente.
Distante y dolorosa como si hubieras muerto.
Una palabra entonces, una sonrisa bastan.
Y estoy alegre, alegre de que no sea cierto.

Hace frio.
Llueve.
Me gusta
Cuando llueve.

El agua
Baila
En las casa.
Yo Miro.

Escucho
A el agua;
Yo estoy
Feliz.

Hoy es
Sábado.
Y llueve,
Siempre.

Pero,
Yo corro.
Yo corro y yo corro
Cuando llueve.




Llevo
Los pantalones cortes
Además llueve
En sábado.  

Yo descanso.
Yo estoy cansada.
“Yo no trabajo más,” yo hablo.
Pero yo aprendo,
Yo trabajo,  siempre.

Pero, yo estoy feliz
Cuando yo trabajo
Porque, me gusta sábado
Y llueve, siempre,
Y yo bailo con el agua.

Canta, el agua.
Canta a me.
En sábado frio,
Nosotros cantamos,
El agua y me.

Sábado es bueno.
Sábado es simpático.
Me gusta sábado
Cuando el agua y yo
Cantamos y bailamos.
Pero no me gusta lunes,
Martes, miércoles,
Jueves, viernes.
Porque yo estoy en la casa,
No en la escuela.

Mi madre, no, mi madrastra
Es mala y seria.
“No les gustas,” ella habla.
“Tú eres débil y pobre. No les gustas,”
Ella habla otra vez y otra vez.  

Pero, en sábado,
Yo corro.
Porque yo no trabajo
Para mi madrastra
En la casa mala.

Yo corro, cuando
Miro una la chica.
No ella baila en el agua.
No ella canta en el agua.
¿Por qué?





Ella mira me.
Ella habla, “Hi. My name is Basil.”
Yo hablo, “No hablo inglés.”
Ella habla, “Ok. Me llamo Basil.”
Basil. Un nombre bonito.  

Basil habla, “¿Cómo te llamas?”
Yo hablo, “Catrin.”
“Mucho gusto, Catrin” Basil habla.
“Igualmente, Basil” Yo hablo,
Pero no nosotros paseamos.

“¿Estas tu nuevo aquí?” Basil habla.
“No,” Yo hablo.
“¿Estoy yo tu amiga?”
“No.” Ella habla, “¿Por qué?”
“El agua es mi amigo uno,” y yo corro.

Yo estoy en la casa.
No me gusta la casa.
No mi madrastra está aquí.
Pero, el gato está aquí.
Me gusta el gato.




Nombre del gato es Licorice.
Nosotros descansamos.
Yo leo mi libro inglés.
Yo práctico mi inglés.
“Hello,” yo hablo, “es Hola.”

El gato habla, “¡Miau!”
Licorice gusta comer.
“Paseas con me,” Yo hablo.
Él come.
Yo miro.

Yo miro y yo dibujo.
Yo dibujo Licorice.
“¿Miau?” Licorice habla.
“Está bien, Licorice.”
Pero no está bien.

Adiós sábado noches.
Hoy es domingo y mañana.
Mi madrastra no está aquí.  
Mi madrastra no está aquí sábado noches.
Que es bueno.


Hoy, yo corro, otra vez.
Yo miro la chica otra vez.
Basil pasea a me.
“¡Tú estás ilegal!” Basil habla.
“¿Qué?” yo hablo.

Yo miro.
“¿Por qué?” yo hablo.
Yo estoy triste.
Pero el agua baila y canta.

Mi casa es en Dallas Texas,
Pero yo soy de Chihuahua, México.
¿Soy yo libre?
Sí y no
Yo soy libre en México.

Sí, en Dallas,
Yo soy ilegal.
Pero cuando yo canto y bailo con el agua,
Yo soy
Libre.

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 Macchu 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, Macchu Picchu

El mundo está velado en verde.
Lo no es verdad, pero como yo veo.
Y no puedo obligar a aclararse la vista.
Son muchos razones. Las sabes, yo creo.

La problema es que me gustas mucho.
Y para él, no tengo malevolencia.
La verdad es que son una pareja guapa
Pero él no es yo. Ergo no eres mía.

La bonita rosa, quien puede que nunca me quiera
Eres lista, divertida, interesante, y amable
Eres más linda de creía posible
Pero ninguna razón es, para esto, responsable

Me alegro de verte, por consiguiente
Quiero hacer mi papel, si solo como amigo
Pero es muy difícil hacer esto ahora
Porque me lastima aun ver él contigo

No sé que debo hacer, no sé que debo creer
No sé que debo decirte, no sé debo seguir

La hora he llegado cuando te necesito preguntar
¿Cómo piensas de mí?
¿Cómo piensas debo progresar?

¿Cómo quieres que yo progrese?

~D.B. Guy (October 25, 2009)

Un dia orando le dije a mi Señor
tu el alfarero y yo el barro soy
moldea mi vida a tu parecer haz como tu
quieras asme un nuevo ser.

Coro
Me dijo no me gustas te voy a quebrantar
y en un vaso nuevo te voy a transformar
pero en el proceso te voy hacer llorar
porque pr el fuego te voy hacer pasar

Quiero una sonrisa cuando todo va mal
quiero una alabanza en lugar de
tu quejar, quiero tu confianza en la tempestad
y quiero que aprendas tambien a perdonar

Hueles a playa, a lo familiar.

Hueles a casa, pero hueles a ti.

Hueles a que me gustas, a que me quiero acercar.

Dos mundos en tu rostro, cada uno con una historia

Y cada una me habla de ti.

Llenas la habitación con belleza, y al viento le das una infusión de deseo.

Vivir tu sonrisa cuando me miras es ganar.

Quedar sin otra alternativa mas que sonreír sin saber que me pasa es perder.

Pierdo lo mundano, me vuelve a gustar la vida.

No eres lo que busco, fuiste lo que ya encontré.

Hueles a estar bien, a estar completo.

Hueles cuando estás, y hoy no hueles.

Hoy los mundos en tu rostro no me cuentan nada,

Pues no están aquí.

El viento sólo es aire, sin perfume ni emoción.

Y esta habitación muere insípida, sola, gris.

Hasta que vuelva a mirarte mañana.

Y huelas a playa, a lo familiar, a ti.

Hasta que vuelva a mirarte de lejos,

Y viva en mi la esperanza de conquistarte con mis versos.

aveces te siento mas cerca cuando simplemente deslizo mis dedos sobre tu piel.
por lo menos, te siento mas humano, como si te pudiera alcanzar
el rinconcito de ti que conoce de la ternura.
aveces me gustas tosco, feroz, hambriento, porque así comprendo que me necesitas,
aunque sea solo en ese momento que nos conocemos de esa forma,
de esa manera ansiosa y desesperada.
aveces me conformo con solo besar ese lunar, y acomodarme en tus brazos,
piel con piel, y huesos enredados, descansando un poco,
peleando los dos perezosamente el sueño.
(interesante que sin falla después de llorar me de sueño, y después de quererte también)
aveces me calma simplemente estar así, tranquilos y respirando igual,
tus dedos trazando figuras en mi cintura,
sin decir una palabra y dejando escapar aquel o otro suspiro.
aveces estoy bien, imaginando que me quieres.

Sí me gustas, pero me gustas poquito.

Me gustas por la boca
Por el acto guerrero
De liberar de la sombra
De aquel claustro o sendero
A tu ágil pensar

Besarte es el alimento
Escucharte el agua
Sin la cual pronto
Muy pronto
Se deja de vivir.

Cuando escuche la noticia, me dio un retorcijon en el estomago, entre en un pequeño shock. Quería verte, quería escucharte, quería que nuestros ojos se cruzaran nuevamente. La noticia de que no habría razón para vernos me dejo desesperanzado, te había prometido un día antes que nos veríamos y aunque tu no sepas que me gustas se que sientes algo por mi.

Tus ojos se iluminan hasta con la cantidad mas pequeña de luz. Verte un día a la semana no es suficiente para mi, quiero cruzarnos 24/7 o al menos 5 días a la semana.

No pude cumplir esa pequeña promesa que te hice y se me rompe el alma al saber que no te veré por 2 semanas, o bueno eso es lo que pienso, quien sabe de pronto el universo nos reúna nuevamente y podamos decir adiós por poco tiempo, aunque no del todo triste porque te veré en mis sueños siempre recordando tus ojos negros y cabello largo.

Mi mayor anelo es que podamos vernos, que podamos sentirnos pero mas importante, que podamos ser.

A veces pienso que no me gustas
               pero te amo como quiera.
     La verdad es que ya no te conozco,
                        ni tu a mi.
            Recordamos quienes eramos y
                    quienes fuimos.
        
           Pero no sabemos quienes somos.

Esta manera de esparcir su aroma
de azahar silencioso en mi tiniebla;
esta manera de envolver en luto
su marfil y su nácar; esta única
manera con que porta la golilla
de encaje; esta manera de tornar
su mutismo en venero de palabras
y su boca en ahorro...
                                              Esta manera
que es reservada y que es acogedora,
con que viene a encontrar mis panegíricos;
esta manera de decir mi nombre
con mofa y mimo, en homenaje y burla,
como que sabe que mi interno drama
es, a la vez, sentimental y cómico;
esta manera con que en la honda noche,
de sobremesa en vagos parlamentos,
se abate su sonrisa desmayada
sobre el mantel; esta feliz manera
con que niega su brazo y con que otorga
la emoción, cuando vamos de paseo
por la alameda colonial y adusta...
Por este suspitante y sobrio estilo
de amor, te reverencio, estrella fiel
que gustas de enlutarte; generoso
y escondido azahar; caritativa
madurez que presides mis treinta años
con la abnegada castidad de un búcaro
cuyas rosas adultas embalsaman
la cebecera de un convaleciente;
enfermera medrosa; cohibida
escanciadora; amiga que te turbas
con turbación de niña al repasar
nuestra común lectura; asustadizo
comensal de mi fiesta; aliada tímida;
torcaz humilde que zureas al alba,
en un tono menor, para ti sola.
¡Bien hayas, creatura pequeñita
y suprema; adueñada de la cumbre
del corazón; artista a un mismo tiempo
mínima y prócer; que en las manos llevas
mi vida como objeto de tu arte!
Estrella y azahar: que te marchites
mecida en una paz celibataria
y que agonices como un lucero
que se extinguiese en el verdor de un prado
o como flor que se transfigurase
en el ocaso azul, como en un lecho.

ya te guardé en un lugar seguro 
en los bolsillos junto a monedas 
en los pies, no es metáfora 
se cuando estás cerca
lo saben mis pupilas 
me delatan, se dilatan 
al encontrarse con la imágen tuya
con las manos nos entendemos
nos saludamos de lejos

-Hey 
-Hey
-¿Estás bien? 
-Aha 
(No estaba bien) 
-¿A dónde van? 
-A comprar dulces
-¿Quieres un tambor? 
-Okay 
- Tengo que irme, tengo clase. 
  Mi maestro se parece a Milhouse

Al despedirnos, 
me abrazas como si supieras 
que algo se está deshaciendo 
como una bola de estambre en mi interior
se hace pedazos al ritmo del reloj 
hay agua en algún lugar cálido de tus ojos
me quedo quieta para no arruinarlo 
y dejar que se arruine solo 
es una causa perdida 
esto de sentir 
he decidido regalarte 
otro pedazo de papel
ésta vez con tinta negra y palabras mías
la vez pasada te dibuje con el sol en los ojos
una ofrenda a la nébula de tus mejillas
que tanto me gusta
que veas cuanto me gustas
y que es una causa perdida
esto de escribir
no iré a la escuela mañana 
es miercoles, 
el peor día de la semana 
ombligo odioso 
me da miedo entregarte esto 

Los dias, los meses 
copias fotoestáticas 
deja te describo un jueves
que es como todos los jueves
mes tras mes
días malos 
independientes a ti 
implícitos en ti
y tu mirada
cuando hablamos y me siento contenta
cuando te veo y me siento peor
porque es una causa perdida 
esto de existir
el otro día había música
y supe por alguna razón 
que iba a voltear y estarías ahi 
y sí estabas ahí
de hecho estabas ahí
como si me esperaras 
aunque se que no me esperabas 

al despedirnos 
me das un beso de esos que son al aire
que se dan a nadie 
se cae al suelo sin recibirse 
al rozar mi mejilla con tu barba

Tan enojada, tan agresiva
mira que linda
así loca
me gustas mas

Pelo marrón como la tierra, ojos verdes como el pasto, labios rosas como las flores del jardín. Un corazón del tamaño del universo; para hablarte de esto, no me basta un solo verso. Me gustas, solo pienso en eso. A veces intento convencerme de que no será posible por tu irrealidad. Pero te amo, esa es mi verdad.

¡Mi soledad sin descanso!
Ojos chicos de mi cuerpo
y grandes de mi caballo,
no se cierran por la noche
ni miran al otro lado,
donde se aleja tranquilo
un sueño de trece barcos.
Sino que, limpios y duros
escuderos desvelados,
mis ojos miran un norte
de metales y peñascos,
donde mi cuerpo sin venas
consulta naipes helados.Los densos bueyes del agua
embisten a los muchachos
que se bañan en las lunas
de sus cuernos ondulados.
Y los martillos cantaban
sobre los yunques sonámbulos,
el insomnio del jinete
y el insomnio del caballo.El veinticinco de junio
le dijeron a el Amargo:
Ya puedes cortar si gustas
las adelfas de tu patio.
Pinta una cruz en la puerta
y pon tu nombre debajo,
porque cicutas y ortigas
nacerán en tu costado,
y agujas de cal mojada
te morderán los zapatos.Será de noche, en lo oscuro,
por los montes imantados,
donde los bueyes del agua
beben los juncos soñando.
Pide luces y campanas.
Aprende a cruzar las manos,
y gusta los aires fríos
de metales y peñascos.
Porque dentro de dos meses
yacerás amortajado.Espadón de nebulosa
mueve en el aire Santiago.
Grave silencio, de espalda,
manaba el cielo combado.El veinticinco de junio
abrió sus ojos Amargo,
y el veinticinco de agosto
se tendió para cerrarlos.
Hombres bajaban la calle
para ver al emplazado,
que fijaba sobre el muro
su soledad con descanso.
Y la sábana impecable,
de duro acento romano,
daba equilibrio a la muerte
con las rectas de sus paños.

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



Every Day You Play (Excerpt)
by Pablo Neruda
loose translation/interpretation 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 lovingly
like a cornucopia, every day, with ecstatic hands ...



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 Macchu 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, Macchu Picchu