http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> O Mundo de Claudia: Poetry Archive

November 01, 2007

The reason I like Edna St Vincent Millay
Is that her name
sounds like a basketball
falling down stairs.

The reason I like Walt Whitman
Is that his name
sounds like Edna St Vincent Millay
falling down stairs.

David Mamet

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August 23, 2007

Strange to know nothing, never to be sure
Of what is true or right or real,
But forced to qualify or so I feel,
Or Well, it does seem so:
Someone must know.

Strange to be ignorant of the way things work:
Their skill at finding what they need,
Their sense of shape, and punctual spread of seed,
And willingness to change;
Yes, it is strange,

Even to wear such knowledge - for our flesh
Surrounds us with its own decisions -
And yet spend all our life on imprecisions,
That when we start to die
Have no idea why.

---Philip Larkin, Ignorance

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September 28, 2006

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I realized Mother's Day was just two days
away, so I went into the florist and said, "I'd
like to send my mother a dozen long-stern red
roses." The guy looked at me and said, "My mother's
dead" I thought this was slightly unprofessional
of him, so I said, "How much would that be?"
--The Florist

Justine called on Christmas Day to say she
was thinking of killing herself. I said "We're
in the middle of opening presents, Justine. Could
you possibly call back later, that is, if you're
still alive?"
-- Making the Best of the Holidays


From "Return to the City of White Donkeys" by James Tate, a curious little book I've been reading at a slow pace, one poem every night before going to sleep.

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September 21, 2006

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"The astonishing reality of things
Is my discovery every day.
Each thing is what it is,
And it’s hard to explain to someone how much this makes me happy,
How much it’s enough for me.

It’s enough to exist to be whole."

From "Poemas Inconjuntos" by Alberto Caeiro (one of Pessoa's heteronyms), taken from a wonderful online project at the Portuguese National Library

(translation stolen from this wonderful blog which owes its existence to the fact that Pessoa's writings are now in the public domain)

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July 18, 2006

A rug was too tired to fly. --- James Tate

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July 12, 2004

Pablo Neruda

Today would be the 100th anniversary of one of my favourite poets: Pablo Neruda.

Photo: Fundación Pablo Neruda




Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada

XX

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Twenty Love Poems and a
Song of Despair

XX

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write for example, 'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to a pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. Like before my kisses.
Her voice. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

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