Alone and empty of soul
it has been far too long
since flowers bloomed
in my heart.
the ache for love
excitement and romance.
has become a roar.
I have found you my love.
You were waiting
for all the same things
anď now in the spangled
starlight that pours down.
I face the heavens.
And my deflated soul
is filled to the brim
with stardust.

I am italicized*


We sing and we simmer
Our cosmic tumble tune
Hardly yet wholly
A place without room
Stardust dancing along side our gate
Black hole chancing just beyond our escape

If that gate can be an escape
An entrance to the unknown world
Fistful of stardust
Blow it to the wind
Let the wind be our guide
Beyond the canvas of our life
Our imagination captured beyond the horizon

Sunset washes the day clean
Brilliant peach orange blaze
Still left wondering what this all means
I am connected to you
As I am to this tree
Whole and in pieces
Full picture you see
The circle comes round
We dance to it's beat
Evolving masterpieces
Rarely repleat
Fingertips touching
Secrets yielded to soft sigh
Hoping with sore hearts
You'll always feel this high

In the circle of eternity
The known rhythm is back
In concentric circles
Frenzied steps
Spark that kindles two hearts
Blazing through the night sky
Touch of freedom
Paints the encircled world
Hearts healed with magic potion
Trust emboldens the souls
To soar higher and higher
It’s an eternity
Now, the saga shall continue

Get up and make a loop,
Cross your fingers,
And make a wish and dream...
Death offered the best escape.
Death,
Is painless for those who died,
And painful for those who felt.
Death,
Takes away!
Death,
Does not give!
Death,
He destroys.
Death,
He does not heal.
Let go...
Let go of those wishes and dreams.
Because Death came that night,
And turned my special shooting star,
Into Stardust.

Even a falling start...
                  Shines brightly.

You are just my fragile dream
My butterfly dream
My dandelion love
The elusive hummingbird among
Twigs and leaves
The illusive flower within the
Murano glass
That can only be reached when
Shattering

Not to be chased
Not to be touched
Not to be caught
Without escaping
Without breaking
Without losing

Still I tried to chase it
Tried to caress it
Tried to catch it
Tried to love it
All the while losing it
Losing myself
Running towards
This mirage of a love
As I get blown away
By the wind of impossible things
And storms of self-deceiving affections
Till I am merely a handful of stardust
Breaking
Escaping
Eventually blending in
Seamlessly
Within
The Desert of Lost Dreams

Her kind of lonely wasn't the kind you just feel
It was the kind of lonely she went searching to resolve

It wasn't out of the ordinary to find her roaming around
looking for traces of him in the dust on the china cabinet
or in inanimate objects around the house

it wouldn't be peculiar to hear the lull of his favorite love songs playing through the thin walls of her one room apartment.
or to see her wipe away a tear as she opened the door
and invited you inside

It wasn't a rare sight to see her folding up the clothes he had left behind
Or typing paragraphs upon paragraphs of things she wished she would've said
Unfolding his clothes
bunching them up
throwing them in the corner

I can still see her hiding that stuffed animal he won for her at the fair
stuffing it in her closet
burying it under a pile of clothes and her own broken promises
entombing it deep enough to forget

Similarly, I still see her hiding the guilt she had found
I see her shoving it under her pillow
burying it under stardust and her own nightmares
keeping it close enough to remember

It wouldn't be bizarre if you caught her refolding his clothes
just 'one more time'
Putting them back in their drawers
Texting him
deleting the text before it sent
debating throwing out his old toothbrush

I remember quite clearly a time when she drank twenty bottles of water
all in succession
just to feel full again
I remember her holding her breath
until she'd turn blue
claiming she missed the way he took her breath away

Her kind of lonely wasn't the kind you just feel
it was the kind of lonely that drove her to insanity.

And with a heavy heart it is that I have to say goodbye. Because I cant play this little game of yours, staring into one anothers eyes and pretending that everything is okay. When i lost you i lost everything because you were more than stardust to me.

stardust  in the snow
on christmas eve.
merry christmas my
love  as sing you
this song to you.
but
star dust
star dust
in the skies tonight
i wish upon shooting stars .
an make wish for you.
on this christmas day.
i'll bring gift of joy
an love .
on this holiday
share the love an hope .
on this christmas day.
but
star dust
stardust
in snow today.
i wish upon shooting stars an
make wish for you.
on christmas day.
to share my love
of joy an hope.
this holiday .

We’re a bit of the heavens,
we’re made of the stars,
of the Power beyond us,
the cosmos and Mars.

The heavens we’re part of,
has given us birth,
we’re part of its royalty,
stardust, and earth.

Our body, a shell,
for what’s living inside;
our spirit, the power,
that’s waiting to fly.

This spirit, though royal,
our life is so brief,
we lose sight of our purpose,
while time acts like a thief.

Oft we take life for granted,
if we’d only see,
we’re a part of the stardust,
and of its majesty.

Essence below which I lay
on slowly drifting clouds
of stardust, waiting in hope
for my eclipse to pass me by
as you twinkle far above
plastered on my celestial ceiling,
wanting each and every night
to last forever...

i crave the universe; it's expanses, outer reaches.
i want to drink from the big dipper, have my fill,
be merry.
escape with me, from the wicked pull of gravity,
leave this *****, scarred earth.
i want to inhale these scattered constellations;
exhale galaxies, nebulas.
i want to leave these silly material things behind,
we can leave ourselves in this beautifully infinite silence,
let the stars tell the stories of the great orion and cassiopeia.

leave your own footprints on the moon, on mars,
wherever you wish, starchild,
there's too much to see when you live in an
u n f a t h o m a b l e    e x p a n s e
staring into stardust,
staring into the roots of you,
of your creation,
of your nebula-blood.
your star-bones.

You removed your delicate hand away
From your *****, and sprinkled
Stardust upon the moon tonight.

While the clouds obeyed her secret palms,
She parted them enough
For her borrowed light to shine through.

Her beams glittered cataract diamonds,
As any found within Leone’s chest;
Upon boulders centred within this field.

So I approached, aloft, pedestal-like,
And mimicking David’s marble form
Gleaming bright in the Florence midday heat,

With no less than a thousand eyes
Gazing upon his dreaming stare,
I perched and mused of my lady-fair.

While above, each star hummed
It’s distant faint tune, and twinkled
Their beat towards Earths gentle breath.

I inhaled the air freezing this night;
Into, not only my lungs,
But my heart reached over to lend her appetite.

Aided by the cool soft wind,
My voice was never the more raised
Above a lonely child’s whisper.

Thus I began: ‘I thought of how
This glorious globe, with her wondrous hue,
Is the envy of all these great spheres,

‘And to muse with the ebb
Of immeasurable times flow
Over the laments of my darling dove,

‘To relay through my mind,
All the moments I could
Have been with your willing body,

‘The many scenes I should
Have been with you. Those times
I should have said exactly

‘What I felt when you were with me,
When I possessed you
Within my gaze. I rue those chances,

‘And missed opportunities. Know that
You occupy my slumbered visions
From when sleep closes my eyes,

‘Till the birds of dawn awakens them.
And as the year closes,
Since first I kissed your smooth cheek,

‘Know humbly, within your breast,
That you were the shining beacon,
A light which guided me over stormy seas.

‘I pray, realise my words,
Softly spoken from the pages sent
To your hands, were meant for your heart,

‘And your smile, mixed with glances,
Were always a true delight
You bestowed on to me.

‘I let you bathe in my soul,
And I truly thank you,
And forever sing your name aloud.

‘I sit alone here under a chilly
Suffolk night and think
The heavens bright of you.

‘Months have fled, and ease of
My sorrow toward the sky
Is a gift I must offer for my changeless love.’

And ending, ‘Take what you wish, my dove,
But please, I beg on bended knees,
Please, do not take my memory of you.’

These words were cupped on the north wind,
While the moon spread a veiled
Duvet of polished silver over the field,

Spilling dew upon the grass
Bleeding from her sheen, moist,
Velvet sheets of liquid nectar.

Before my eyes, the grass stood to attention.
A million green-eyes begged
More from my heated pores.

Amazed; for rooted to the soil,
Adding immense weight to the ground;
They calmed their sway to my measures.

Clouds rushed over to hear, even
The rested sun-chariot peeped
Back over the forbidden western shores.

The birds of day appear, crying
A chattered song for the suns yearning.
Clouds began to weep uncontrollable tears.

As a ripple from a pond, speeds
Over the smooth surface towards
The shade of the blessed river bank,

As did a wave flow from one end
Of the field to these boulders,
And with fresh breath, these blades spoke,

And graced my ears with speech:
‘Oh soon to be spirit, we can sense
What is about to come on to you.

‘Your love, you love, with every
Drop of blood that beats
Within ones heart, we envy you.

‘Can there ever be a time,
Where eagles roar; when lions fly;
Lambs bite; or wolves graze on us?

‘Ever an instance, a time to come,
Where the moon becomes the sun,
In turn, the giver of life, the moon?

‘When the earth, herself, slows,
And rotates back along her axis?
Men born old; death at birth?

‘Hills, majestic sloping hills, iron flat?
Rivers become grain; ocean freeze over;
Skies, and air, turn to solid?

‘Science; vain in being,
Predicts too much; and beauty
Is lost forever in her words.

‘May some farm boy look through
A hole in that there fence,
And sneak a peak at me,

‘May he run to his herd and tell
The leader of the flock the sight
His eyes just bore in witness.

‘For your cries; may a sudden
Rush of blush greet your lady’s cheeks;
May her legs tremble; her hips grow weak.

‘Let the once ferocious deep blue
Calm his waves, and in his face,
Mirror the skies glorious expanse.

‘The moon; may the moon, believe
That she is not eternally alone,
Swimming in the inky black;

‘Let her study her reflection;
And fall in love with her new mate.
May the stars, count not all, shrink

‘The distance between themselves,
Place tender arms around one another,
In a much longed-for embrace.

‘Finally; may Orion, when touching
Western waters; let him relinquish his sword,
And stem the rains from the bellowing east.

‘We feel your pain!’ And they ceased.
They too, felt my joy.
For my wonderful words spun;

Mingled with undiluted wine placed in a
Golden goblet from a heart-stricken tongue;
Which lapped the chilly air while I spoke freely.

‘I knew once a sweet tender maid,’ I began,
‘And without diminishing
The daughters of this night away from you,

‘I will swiftly say she became my voice.
And as the buds burst free
From winters icy hold; and as around

‘Earths eternal prisioned orbit
Spans another of her quarters,
When the sun strikes intense onto Saharan sands;

‘I was with her, and she with me too.
She graced my songs with galloping mane
And eagle striking ***** of wind.

‘She tenderly flowed through my veins,
As any stream from high sacred fountains;
Any river that deposits into sea;

‘Any artists stroke from his brush
To canvas, that paints oil drenching
Figures of unrivalled beauty.’

I paused my strain, and glanced
At our moon, hung high; hung also;
On my every word, halting her route.

‘And with this’, I continued, ‘and your tones
You gifted to me upon these boulders,
I take this poisoned flower from out my pocket.

‘My young blood presented this to me,
Long ago; for the sun has yoked
His steeds passed four full moons since.

‘He too, my brother, calls aloft
To the tunes of music; he too,
Guides his hand to the strums of natures beats.

‘Against that aged oak, with acorns
Spread at its feet, my brother, leaning
His back to its wrinkled trunk,

‘Plucking in harmony strings which,
In his blonde presence never lay slack;
And flinging away his melodies on the breeze,

‘Spoke thus; “If any time on your travels,
A day presents itself, when you find
Yourself sitting upon those boulders there;

‘“And the moon in her glory,
Glows a frosty crystal white, and the voices
In their millions sway to your laments,

‘“Eat this; for your time has come.
One night waits for all of us and all must
Walk the path of death, and walk it only once.

‘“Look to your moon, and bade it goodbye.
Glance at the grass, and bid it adieu.
And say, above all, farewell to your lady.”
So I eat, and sing farewell my love, with a kiss.’

Wanderer. Gypsy. Warrior.
A coalition of stardust children
On a hunt for home
I've laid out my welcome mat before
Lit the candles
Not for long
Whispering, the wind picks up
Moving across the tundra
To howl through my iced cavities
My edges are sandy shores
Muspelheim soaked with sea salt love letters
Loki resides on the interior
Playing tricks
Searching for a völva who will guide his way
Perhaps I am she
Who shall never rest
Until I reach Valhalla

we met two years earlier
on a night when my makeup
was smudged against
the tears. i jumped in front of
your car with aching
sobs burning in the rear
of my throat, knocked
backwards into traffic
with blood seeping out
of the crack in my wrist. i

screamed and cried as
my lungs caved into
this pointless oxygen
addiction but you called
an ambulance anyway, holding
my hand despite the ******
fingertips all the way through. you

visit the hospital each day
till i'm released, whisper "it's
going to be all right, love, stay
golden for me please" into my
hair when you believe me
to be asleep. i fell for you

as hard as the stars would
fall for the moon and our
love story as beautiful
as a flower blooms in the
winter despite the cold.

you were diagnosed
later that year and i watched
the sickness eat at your
heart. i clutched your pallid
hand as you shake, and you'd
never stop trembling for months
on end. you heaved stardust
all over the floor and drenched
your clothes in perspiration
and i could taste the champagne
tainted on your lips

but at night i
whisper "it's going to be all
right love, stay golden for me
please" in your ear, knowing you
aren't sleep.

i held you so close to my
heartbeat but dear god,
when yours stopped
i died with you.

stardust in a hot cup
moves like wind in water
i drink it like a stupid child
and dream that i die this way

This word called love—
let’s dig deep
into the soil of it
and plant a seed,
of trust.

If only for a little while,
bear witness.
Give no fear.
Smell the dirt.
Feel all of it,
the gritty,
and the grand.
Hear the earth’s confession.

Take the pain inside
and grab its hand.
Gather up every piece—
the chaos and the stardust,
and smile.

The sun rises again.

icarus—
curiosity is a fire,
roaring inside your ribcage.
you wonder, and you want,
and the tips of your fingers
stretch themselves
towards the sun—
warm, then hot,
then scorching,
and finally, you plummet.
icarus—
they call you a tragedy,
but tell me,
did your blood not run
liquid gold,
in that moment
the sun’s heat
embraced you?
didn’t the touch
of pure, pure opulence
leave stardust
and embers
embedded in
your skin,
a heavenly dust
adorning your burns?
icarus—
in the sky, as you
dive towards earth,
you glimmer
like glory.
icarus—
charred angel,
did you not feel divine
in the seconds before
you fell?
icarus—
wasn’t the warmth
worth what followed?

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

In my mind, as infinite as the heavens,
I am but a starry eyed stranger

Wandering through her shimmering realms
Beneath an ebony sky, laced with crimson,
Beclouded with spiraling sprays of stardust

A child, a warrior, a saint full of sin,
I pass through the vapour of my shadowselves

Layers falling away like rotten tree bark
Exposing the rings within, like fingerprints,
Looping coils of time, bending but unbroken

Somewhere in the distance a dragonfly dances on the surface of the water,
Unknowingly admired by a sharp toothed Chinook

As another lost soul pulls back on a well worn syringe,
Seated on a broken toilet, slowly leaking across the scarred, yellow linoleum.

While a mother in Africa nurses a starving baby from her malnourished breast,
A stomach ravaged by dysentery,
Lips cracked and bleeding beneath the relentless heat of the sun,

And a pimple faced pop star sips champagne from a crystal goblet,
Wearing eight hundred dollar sunglasses and basking on a beach in Barbados,

Where they will spend more on hotels and liquor for a week than most families will earn in wages all year.

I close my eyes to imagine a world where only dragonflies sip champagne,

and people ACTUALLY care about one another.

But the former seems more likely than the latter...
So I return to my inner sanctuary of dreams...
And once again, I am infinite.

leaves sculpted
statues in silvery
stardust

a solitary moon
half winks
peeks  through

its mocking gaze
a crest, on little trophies
erected within us

their ghostly shadows
a field of ruins
of fragile dreams.



© Malintha Perera 2014

i am not an it.
i am not an object.
i have a pulse.
i have a beating heart.
i am made of stardust.
i am made up of skin and bones.
and you still call me an **it.
your mind can't grasp the idea that
i am a strong woman one day
and a strong male the next.

Poets DO have issues!
Poets are insane!
We have a different record groove,  
We have a different grain!

We have a different wiring
Don't respond to "normal" tests
We are the fish who climb up trees
Of this I can attest!


(chorus)
Poets hear their colors,
Poets see their songs,
Poets touch the music notes
They taste to sing along!


We wear t-shirts in 10 feet of snow
Coats in sunny climes!
We have no sense of timing
'Cept when we write our rhymes!

We go out in stormy weather
When it's clement we stay in!
We eat pizza in the morning
Write limericks on a whim!

(chorus)

We are calm when life gets frustrating
Mad when things go well!
Write rants when times are blissful
And sonnets when it's hell!

We travel to the Moon and back
Wear Stardust in our hair
We sail the very Cosmos
Sitting in our chair!

Our pens they scratch a tympany
Our pages plumb the depths
Of profound Pacific trenches
Or drown in puddles wept...


We have a different wiring
Don't respond to "normal" tests
We are the fish who climb up trees
Of this I can attest!

Poets hear their colors!
Poets see their songs!
Is that so ridiculous?
Folks, is that so wrong?

Poets hear their colors
The colors of the heart!
Come and see this song with us

Let your mind fall apart!


SoulSurvivor aka
Write of Passage aka
Invisible inc
(C) 7/10/2016

Orangey so tangy loosely
her words flowery so
rustic fun  ******  
the panic straight
jacket going ginger
snaps her ticket
Pocketful of sunshine
in your pocket
****** the maestro
In the stars of the cosmos

On the edge but earthly
Let's go slow
Did we miss the
whole entire glow
"So Tickle me Pink"
The stardust funds
of the trust
Having a light fuse
The picturesque
Fields so mystique personality
Lights up unique

Your word against mine
In a matter of fact were in
It's your cue waves pull me in

If so the sky does it remain
always blue such a variety
Of cookies no outrageous
Time for Oreos
What's inside its outside
Cleopatra's eyes snap away
Like a masquerade
Don't rain on my parade
Love of Virginia innocently
Love is the drug
insanely

Scrapes on her knees
The western front
Ginger Snaps
Those bottle caps and buzzing
honey bees Tangerine trees
Galavant like General Lee
Ginger the gunslinger
She's the singer
eating Saralees

Whats to boot
But getting closer
To the naked eye
to the surface be wise
"Owl Hoot"
So lovely genuinely
He's husky and ruly
Apps Gingersnaps
Exchanging cat naps

Her lips in higher
states of trips

Trying to get there
Bohemian Rapsody
The Queen of the
economy
Photo editing Unicorn pony
Another brainless wedding
We are the champions
What a snitch like a witch
Bad luck switch the lion's den
Topiary timeless good luck Zen
Loud sirens
Drug trafficker morons
The plastic Surgeons
Backstabber persons

Blue jeans snap taking a
Sniff Shiba Uni howls
To be loved in beauty
My Mom Judy good
earth bounty

Tall and sleek every week
Smells of Ginger
no danger
The earth on her cheeks
Can love be any truer  
Into the Gala the apple
of her eye never goodbye

Come Glastonbury, demand your suitors
Eliminate the negatives of their days
Show the signs of cheer and promise
Crystal clear and sun bright
The walkways between the tiny shops
Where escaping through to back doors and out
Inside spirits claim your soul
Wrestle your pathetic reliance on consumerism
Your slavish concern for fashion
And your unhelpful TV dinners
There in Glastonbury only truth is spoken
Revealing the weaknesses of our human frame
Our minds that suffer from prejudices and bigotry
Cleanse your soul, become yourself
Give up the senseless living that has dominated
And driven our daily chores and lifestyle
Discard them all and believe that man
Is just a tiny part of this cosmos
A spirit and energy of the completeness
Not the embodiment
Not the utmost but a small part
Perhaps a much lesser being than any other...
Despite everything we are special
You are special in your individual capabilities
Each soul a grain of stardust
Waiting to be reunited in the cosmos
With the rest of the wonderful plethora
Be calm in the knowledge that you
Your heart and soul
Are one and only
Unique
Even today in Glastonbury

They say a  l o s t  soul should navigate with the stars

Well I bet they would, if they wondered what they are

Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky

Little, clump of stardust, you

The milky way has saw you through

Traveled distances real far

Shooting from exploding stars

Teeny, tiny, star spec, you

Came from old life to start a new

Elements across the sky

That gave birth to the gift of life

Little, spec of stardust you

You are so small, but look how you grew

scraped knees and busted knuckles-
nine summers spent running with the boys.

precious gift-
stardust and curls.
my devotion to you was silently sworn,
my sister.

watching you grow-
the magical years.
barefoot ballerina,
wild daisy soul.

passing years
have narrowed the space between
my world and yours.

navigating the rivers
of motherhood
together.

still dancing
wherever we go.

freckles clung
like manic-pixie stardust,
spackled whispers
an unfolding fractal
of brimming dresser drawers
old pictures and mix cds,
we could only ever do
what teenagers were supposed to.

smushed crabapple handholds,
moxy and sadism hard-won,
no crash course in platonicness,
our stained glass eroded
into a beach
frozen in unsummer,
opiates dull senses,
a synesthetic void
exchanging echoes of echoes,
a cacophony of empty
distilling as it leaves
in whisks of 2 a.m.s,
honey-laced whiskey,

if the sky murmurs one
last love poem, it isn't
to us but our
moment of infinity,
of blind faith
irredeemably lost,

that forever of apex
where the line between
falling and flying
blurs.

It's time to tune in!
I write with a grin,
Let's look at the Universe,
For what it's worth,
Big picture a must,
Humans-atoms of stardust,
Each one a fragment of time,
Don't have to walk the line,
Easier to smile, and be kind,
Make your own sunshine!
Ban the boring, negativity
No good for society,
In beer, you can trust,
New exes down the pub!
Each day a fragment of time,
Must make your own sunshine!