Pablo Neruda Poems |
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The
Me Bird by Pablo Neruda
I am
the Pablo Bird, bird of a single feather, a flier in the clear
shadow and obscure clarity, my wings are unseen, my ears
resound when I walk among the trees or beneath the
tombstones like an unlucky umbrella or a naked
sword, stretched like a bow or round like a grape, I fly on
and on not knowing, wounded in the dark night, who is waiting
for me, who does not want my song, who desires my
death, who will not know I'm arriving and will not come to
subdue me, to bleed me, to twist me, or to kiss my
clothes, torn by the shrieking wind.
That's
why I come and go, fly and don't fly but sing: I am the
furious bird of the calm storm. |
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If
You Forget Me by Pablo Neruda
I want
you to know one thing.
You
know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red
branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near
the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you, as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals, were little boats that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
Well,
now, if little by little you stop loving me I shall stop
loving you little by little.
If
suddenly you forget me do not look for me, for I shall
already have forgotten you.
If you
think it long and mad, the wind of banners that passes
through my life, and you decide to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots, remember that on that
day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms and my roots
will set off to seek another land.
But
if each day, each hour, you feel that you are destined
for me with implacable sweetness, if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me, ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated, in me nothing is
extinguished or forgotten, my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms without
leaving mine. |
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In
the night we shall go in by Pablo Neruda
In the
night we shall go in, we shall go in to steal a flowering,
flowering branch.
We
shall climb over the wall in the darkness of the alien garden,
two shadows in the shadow.
Winter
is not yet gone, and the apple tree appears suddenly changed
into a fragment of cascade stars.
In the
night we shall go in up to its trembling firmament, and your
hands, your little hands and mine will steal the stars.
And
silently to our house in the night and the shadow, perfume's
silent step, and with starry feet, the clear body of
spring. |
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The
Weary One by Pablo Neruda
The
weary one, orphan of the masses, the self, the crushed one,
the one made of concrete, the one without a country in crowded
restaurants, he who wanted to go far away, always farther
away, didn't know what to do there, whether he wanted or
didn't want to leave or remain on the island, the hesitant one,
the hybrid, entangled in himself, had no place here: the
straight-angled stone, the infinite look of the granite
prism, the circular solitude all banished him: he went
somewhere else with his sorrows, he returned to the agony of his
native land, to his indecisions, of winter and
summer. |
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Tower of Light by Pablo Neruda
O tower
of light, sad beauty that magnified necklaces and statues in the
sea, calcareous eye, insignia of the vast waters, cry of the
mourning petrel, tooth of the sea, wife of the Oceanian wind, O
separate rose from the long stem of the trampled bush that the
depths, converted into archipelago, O natural star, green
diadem, alone in your lonesome dynasty, still unattainable,
elusive, desolate like one drop, like one grape, like the
sea. |
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The
Flight by Pablo Neruda
Hands
shading eyes, I follow the high flight: honoring heaven, the
bird traverses the transparency, without soiling the
day. Winging westward, it climbs each step up to the naked
blue: the entire sky is its tower, and the world is cleansed
by its movement.
Though
the violent bird seeks blood in the rose of space, its
structure is arrow and flower in flight and in the light its
wings are fused with air and purity.
O
feathers destined not to tree, meadow, or combat, or to the
atrocious ground or sweatshop, but to the conquest of a
transparent fruit!
I
celebrate the sky dance of gulls and petrels attired in
snow as though I had a standing invitation: I
participate in their velocity and repose, in the pause and
haste of snow.
What
flies in me is manifest in the errant equation of those
wings.
O wind
aside the black condor's iron flight in the mist! Whistling
wind that transposed the hero's murderous scimitar: you
receive the harsh flight's blow like a coat of armor
plate, repeat its menace in the sky until all becomes blue
again.
The
flight of a dart, every swallow's mission, flight of the
nightingale and its sonata, the cockatoo and its showy
crest.
Hummingbirds flying in a looking glass stir sparkling
emeralds, and flying through the dew the partridge
shakes the mint's green soul.
I, who
learned to fly with every flight of pure professors in the
woods, at sea, in the ravines, on my back in the sand, or in
dreams, remained here, tied to the roots, to the magnetic
mother, the earth, lying to myself and flying only
within, alone and in the dark.
A plant
dies and is buried again, man's feet return to the
terrain, only wings evade death.
The
world is a crystal sphere, if he does not fly man loses his
way--- cannot understand transparency. That is why I
profess unconfined clarity and from the birds I
learned passionate hope, the certainity and truth of
flight. |
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Magellanic Penguin by Pablo Neruda
Neither
clown nor child nor black nor white but verticle and a
questioning innocence dressed in night and snow: The mother
smiles at the sailor, the fisherman at the astronaunt, but the
child child does not smile when he looks at the bird
child, and from the disorderly ocean the immaculate
passenger emerges in snowy mourning.
I was
without doubt the child bird there in the cold
archipelagoes when it looked at me with its eyes, with its
ancient ocean eyes: it had neither arms nor wings but hard
little oars on its sides: it was as old as the salt; the
age of moving water, and it looked at me from its age: since
then I know I do not exist; I am a worm in the sand.
the
reasons for my respect remained in the sand: the religious
bird did not need to fly, did not need to sing, and through
its form was visible its wild soul bled salt: as if a vein
from the bitter sea had been broken.
Penguin, static traveler, deliberate priest of the
cold, I salute your vertical salt and envy your plumed
pride. |
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The
She Bird by Pablo Neruda
With my
little terrestrial bird, my rustic earthen jug, I break out
singing the guitar's rain: alleged autumn arrives like a
load of firewood, decanting the aroma that flew through the
mountains, and grape by grape my kisses were joined to her
bunch.
This
proves that the afternoon accumulated sweetness like the
amber process or the order of violets.
Come
flying, passanger, let's fly with the coals, live or
cold, with the disorderly darkness of the obscure and the
ardent.
Let's
enter the ash, let's move with the smoke, let's live by the
fire.
In mid
autumn we'll set the table over the grassy
hillside, flying over Chillan with your guitar in your
wings. |
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We
are the clumsy passersby by Pablo Neruda
We are
the clumsy passersby, we push past each other with elbows, with
feet, with trousers, with suitcases, we get off the train, the
jet plane, the ship, we step down in our wrinkled suits and
sinister hats. We are all guilty, we are all sinners, we come
from dead-end hotels or industrial peace, this might be our last
clean shirt, we have misplaced our tie, yet even so, on the
edge of panic, pompous, sons of bitches who move in the highest
circles or quiet types who don't owe anything to anybody, we
are one and the same, the same in time's eyes, or in solitude's:
we are the poor devils who earn a living and a death
working bureautragically or in the usual ways, sitting down or
packed together in subway stations, boats, mines, research
centers, jails, universities, breweries, (under our clothes
the same thirsty skin), (the hair, the same hair, only in
different colors). |
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I do
not love you... by Pablo Neruda
I do
not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz, or the arrow of
carnations the fire shoots off. I love you as certain dark things
are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the
soul.
I love
you as the plant that never blooms but carries in itself the
light of hidden flowers; thanks to your love a certain solid
fragrance, risen from the earth, lives darkly in my
body.
I love
you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you
straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you
because I know no other way
that
this: where I does not exist, nor you, so close that your hand on
my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall
asleep. |
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In
the center of the earth... by Pablo Neruda
In the
center of the earth I will push aside the emeralds so that I can
see you--- you like an amanuensis, with a pen of water,
copying the green sprigs of plants. What a world! What deep
parsley! What a ship sailing through the sweetness! And you,
maybe---and me, maybe---a topaz. There'll be no more dissensions
in the bells.
There
won't be anything but all the fresh air, apples carried on the
wind, the succulent book in the woods:
and
there where the carnations breathe, we will begin to make
ourselves a clothing, something to last through the eternity of a
victorious kiss. |
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Lost
in the forest... by Pablo Neruda
Lost in
the forest, I broke off a dark twig and lifted its whisper to my
thirsty lips: maybe it was the voice of the rain crying, a
cracked bell, or a torn heart. Something from far off it
seemed deep and secret to me, hidden by the earth, a shout
muffled by huge autumns, by the moist half-open darkness of the
leaves.
Wakening from the dreaming forest there, the
hazel-sprig sang under my tongue, its drifting
fragrance climbed up through my conscious mind
as if
suddenly the roots I had left behind cried out to me, the land I
had lost with my childhood--- and I stopped, wounded by the
wandering scent. |
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This
beauty is soft... by Pablo Neruda
This
beauty is soft -- as if music and wood, agate, cloth, wheat,
peaches the light shines through had made an ephemeral statue.
And now she sends her freshness out, against the waves.
The sea
dabbles at those tanned feet, repeating their shape, just
imprinted in the sand. And now she is the womanly fire of a
rose, the only bubble the sun and the sea contend against.
Oh, may
nothing touch you but the chilly salt! May not even love disturb
that unbroken springtime! Beautiful woman, echo of the endless
foam,
may
your statuesque hips in the water make a new measure -- a swan,
a lily -- as you float your form through that eternal
crystal. |
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I
crave your mouth... by Pablo Neruda
I crave
your mouth, your voice, your hair. Silent and starving, I prowl
through the streets. Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts
me, all day I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.
I
hunger for your sleek laugh, your hands the color of a savage
harvest, hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails, I
want to eat your skin like a whole almond.
I want
to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body, the sovereign
nose of your arrogant face, I want to eat the fleeting shade of
your lashes,
and I
pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight, hunting for you, for
your hot heart, Like a puma in the barrens of
Quitratue. |
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Don't go far off... by Pablo Neruda
Don't
go far off, not even for a day, because -- because -- I don't
know how to say it: a day is long and I will be waiting for you,
as in an empty station when the trains are parked off somewhere
else, asleep.
Don't
leave me, even for an hour, because then the little drops of
anguish will all run together, the smoke that roams looking for
a home will drift into me, choking my lost heart.
Oh, may
your silhouette never dissolve on the beach; may your eyelids
never flutter into the empty distance. Don't leave me for a
second, my dearest,
because
in that moment you'll have gone so far I'll wander mazily over
all the earth, asking, Will you come back? Will you leave me
here, dying? |
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Two
happy lovers... by Pablo Neruda
Two
happy lovers make one bread, a single moon drop in the grass.
Walking, they cast two shadows that flow together; waking,
they leave one sun empty in their bed.
Of all
the possible truths, they chose the day; they held it, not with
ropes but with an aroma. They did not shred the peace; they did
not shatter words; their happiness is a transparent tower.
The air
and wine accompany the lovers. The night delights them with its
joyous petals. They have a right to all the carnations.
Two
happy lovers, without an ending, with no death, they are born,
they die, many times while they live: they have the eternal life
of the Natural. |
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You
sing, and your voice peels... by Pablo Neruda
You
sing, and your voice peels the husk of the day's grain, your
song with the sun and sky, the pine trees speak with their green
tongue: all the birds of the winter whistle.
The sea
fills its cellar with footfalls, with bells, chains, whimpers,
the tools and the metals jangle, wheels of the caravan
creak.
But I
hear only your voice, your voice soars with the zing and
precision of an arrow, it drops with the gravity of rain,
your
voice scatters the highest swords and returns with its cargo of
violets: it accompanies me through the sky. |
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Maybe you'll remember... by Pablo Neruda
Maybe
you'll remember that razor-faced man who slipped out from the
dark like a blade and -- before we realized -- knew what was
there: he saw the smoke and concluded fire.
The
pallid woman with black hair rose like a fish from the abyss,
and the two of them built up a contraption, armed to the
teeth, against love.
Man and
woman, they felled mountains and gardens, they went down to the
river, they scaled the walls, they hoisted their atrocious
artillery up the hill.
Then
love knew it was called love. And when I lifted my eyes to your
name, suddenly your heart showed me my way. |
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You
will remember... by Pablo Neruda
You
will remember that leaping stream where sweet aromas rose and
trembled, and sometimes a bird, wearing water and slowness,
its winter feathers.
You
will remember those gifts from the earth: indelible scents, gold
clay, weeds in the thicket and crazy roots, magical thorns
like swords.
You'll
remember the bouquet you picked, shadows and silent water,
bouquet like a foam-covered stone.
That
time was like never, and like always. So we go there, where
nothing is waiting; we find everything waiting
there. |
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Ode
to a Lemon by Pablo Neruda
Out of
lemon flowers loosed on the moonlight, love's lashed and
insatiable essences, sodden with fragrance, the lemon
tree's yellow emerges, the lemons move down from the
tree's planetarium
Delicate merchandise! the harbors are big with
it- bazaars for the light and the barbarous gold. We
open the halves of a miracle, and a clotting of
acids brims into the
starry divisions: creation's original
juices, irreducible, changeless, alive: so the freshness
lives on in a lemon, in the sweet-smelling house of the
rind, the proportions, arcane and acerb.
Cutting
the lemon the knife leaves a little cathedral: alcoves
unguessed by the eye that open acidulous glass to the light;
topazes riding the droplets, altars, aromatic
facades. So, while the hand holds the cut of the
lemon, half a world on a trencher, the gold of the
universe wells to your touch: a cup yellow with
miracles, a breast and a nipple perfuming the earth; a
flashing made fruitage, the diminutive fire of a
planet. |
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Ode
to Salt by Pablo Neruda
This
salt in the saltcellar I once saw in the salt mines. I
know you won't believe me, but it sings, salt sings,
the skin of the salt mines sings with a mouth
smothered by the earth. I shivered in those solitudes when
I heard the voice of the salt in the desert. Near
Antofagasta the nitrous pampa resounds: a
broken voice, a mournful song.
In its
caves the salt moans, mountain of buried light, translucent
cathedral, crystal of the sea, oblivion of the
waves.
And
then on every table in the world, salt, we see your
piquant powder sprinkling vital light upon our food.
Preserver of the ancient holds of
ships, discoverer on the high
seas, earliest sailor of the unknown, shifting byways of
the foam. Dust of the sea, in you the tongue receives a
kiss from ocean night: taste imparts to every seasoned dish
your ocean essence; the smallest, miniature wave from the
saltcellar reveals to us more than domestic whiteness; in
it, we taste infinitude. |
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(I love
this poem!)
Ode
to Wine by Pablo Neruda
Day-colored wine, night-colored wine, wine with purple
feet or wine with topaz blood, wine, starry child of
earth, wine, smooth as a golden sword, soft as
lascivious velvet, wine, spiral-seashelled and full of
wonder, amorous, marine; never has one goblet contained
you, one song, one man, you are choral, gregarious, at the
least, you must be shared. At times you feed on
mortal memories; your wave carries us from tomb to
tomb, stonecutter of icy sepulchers, and we weep transitory
tears; your glorious spring dress is different, blood
rises through the shoots, wind incites the day, nothing is
left of your immutable soul. Wine stirs the spring,
happiness bursts through the earth like a plant, walls
crumble, and rocky cliffs, chasms close, as song is
born. A jug of wine, and thou beside me in the
wilderness, sang the ancient poet. Let the wine pitcher add
to the kiss of love its own.
My
darling, suddenly the line of your hip becomes the brimming
curve of the wine goblet, your breast is the grape
cluster, your nipples are the grapes, the gleam of spirits
lights your hair, and your navel is a chaste seal stamped on
the vessel of your belly, your love an inexhaustible cascade
of wine, light that illuminates my senses, the earthly
splendor of life.
But you
are more than love, the fiery kiss, the heat of fire, more
than the wine of life; you are the community of
man, translucency, chorus of discipline, abundance of
flowers. I like on the table, when we're speaking, the
light of a bottle of intelligent wine. Drink it, and
remember in every drop of gold, in every topaz glass, in
every purple ladle, that autumn labored to fill the vessel
with wine; and in the ritual of his office, let the simple man
remember to think of the soil and of his duty, to propagate
the canticle of the wine. |
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House of Odes by Pablo Neruda
Writing
these odes in this year nineteen hundred and
fifty-five, readying and tuning my demanding, murmuring
lyre, I know who I am and where my song is going. I
understand that the shopper for myths and mysteries may
enter my wood and adobe house of odes, may despise
the utensils, the portraits of father and mother and
country on the walls, the simplicity of the bread
and the saltcellar. But that's how it is in my house of
odes. I deposed the dark monarchy, the useless flowing hair
of dreams, I trod on the tail of the cerebral reptile,
and set things -- water and fire - in harmony with man
and earth. I want everything to have a handle, I
want everything to be a cup or a tool, I want people to
enter a hardware store through the door of my odes. I work
at cutting newly hewn boards, storing casks of
honey, arranging horseshoes, harness, forks: I want
everyone to enter here, let them ask questions, ask for
anything they want. I am from the South, a Chilean, a sailor
returned from the seas. I did not stay in the islands,
a king. I did not stay ensconced in the land of dreams.
I returned to labor simply beside others, for everyone.
So that everyone may live here, I build my house
with transparent odes. |
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Ode
to Sadness by Pablo Neruda
Sadness, scarab with seven crippled feet, spiderweb
egg, scramble-brained rat, bitch's skeleton: No entry
here. Don't come in. Go away. Go back south with your
umbrella, go back north with your serpent's teeth. A poet
lives here. No sadness may cross this threshold. Through
these windows comes the breath of the world, fresh red
roses, flags embroidered with the victories of the
people. No. No entry. Flap your bat's wings, I will
trample the feathers that fall from your mantle, I will sweep
the bits and pieces of your carcass to the four corners of the
wind, I will wring your neck, I will stitch your eyelids
shut, I will sew your shroud, sadness, and bury your rodent
bones beneath the springtime of an apple tree. |
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Acknowledgment: Nielle'e Homepage
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