Walking Around - Pablo Neruda

[ignom]

This is not the translation I have, but I couldn't find it. For some reason, I've been digging on Pablo Neruda lately.

Walking Around

It so happens I am sick of being a man.
And it happens that I walk into tailorshops and movie houses
dried up, waterproof, like a swan made of felt
steering my way in a water of wombs and ashes.

The smell of barbershops makes me break into hoarse sobs.
The only thing I want is to lie still like stones or wool.
The only thing I want is to see no more stores, no gardens,
no more goods, no spectacles, no elevators.

It so happens that I am sick of my feet and my nails
and my hair and my shadow.
It so happens I am sick of being a man.

Still it would be marvelous
to terrify a law clerk with a cut lily,
or kill a nun with a blow on the ear.
It would be great
to go through the streets with a green knife
letting out yells until I died of the cold.

I don't want to go on being a root in the dark,
insecure, stretched out, shivering with sleep,
going on down, into the moist guts of the earth,
taking in and thinking, eating every day.

I don't want so much misery.
I don't want to go on as a root and a tomb,
alone under the ground, a warehouse with corpses,
half frozen, dying of grief.

That's why Monday, when it sees me coming
with my convict face, blazes up like gasoline,
and it howls on its way like a wounded wheel,
and leaves tracks full of warm blood leading toward the night.

And it pushes me into certain corners, into some moist houses,
into hospitals where the bones fly out the window,
into shoeshops that smell like vinegar,
and certain streets hideous as cracks in the skin.

There are sulphur-colored birds, and hideous intestines
hanging over the doors of houses that I hate,
and there are false teeth forgotten in a coffeepot,
there are mirrors
that ought to have wept from shame and terror,
there are umbrellas everywhere, and venoms, and umbilical cords.

I stroll along serenely, with my eyes, my shoes,
my rage, forgetting everything,
I walk by, going through office buildings and orthopedic shops,
and courtyards with washing hanging from the line:
underwear, towels and shirts from which slow
dirty tears are falling.

Pablo Neruda

[dazie]

Jeezus Ig- are you ok?  That's pretty hard stuff.

[ignom]

Jeezus Ig- are you ok?  That's pretty hard stuff.

All his other poems are love poems. I just liked that one.

[ignom]

Morning XXVII

Naked you are simple as one of your hands;
Smooth, earthy, small, transparent, round.
You've moon-lines, apple pathways
Naked you are slender as a naked grain of wheat.

Naked you are blue as a night in Cuba;
You've vines and stars in your hair.
Naked you are spacious and yellow
As summer in a golden church.

Naked you are tiny as one of your nails;
Curved, subtle, rosy, till the day is born
And you withdraw to the underground world.

As if down a long tunnel of clothing and of chores;
Your clear light dims, gets dressed, drops its leaves,
And becomes a naked hand again.

[dazie]

Morning XXVII

Naked you are simple as one of your hands;
Smooth, earthy, small, transparent, round.
You've moon-lines, apple pathways
Naked you are slender as a naked grain of wheat.

Naked you are blue as a night in Cuba;
You've vines and stars in your hair.
Naked you are spacious and yellow
As summer in a golden church.

Naked you are tiny as one of your nails;
Curved, subtle, rosy, till the day is born
And you withdraw to the underground world.

As if down a long tunnel of clothing and of chores;
Your clear light dims, gets dressed, drops its leaves,
And becomes a naked hand again.

OK- I like that.

[ignom]

I used to have this one in my TotalFark profile

We Are Many
 
Of the many men whom I am, whom we are,
I cannot settle on a single one.
They are lost to me under the cover of clothing
They have departed for another city.

When everything seems to be set
to show me off as a man of intelligence,
the fool I keep concealed on my person
takes over my talk and occupies my mouth.

On other occasions, I am dozing in the midst
of people of some distinction,
and when I summon my courageous self,
a coward completely unknown to me
swaddles my poor skeleton
in a thousand tiny reservations.

When a stately home bursts into flames,
instead of the fireman I summon,
an arsonist bursts on the scene,
and he is I. There is nothing I can do.
What must I do to distinguish myself?
How can I put myself together?

All the books I read
lionize dazzling hero figures,
brimming with self-assurance.
I die with envy of them;
and, in films where bullets fly on the wind,
I am left in envy of the cowboys,
left admiring even the horses.

But when I call upon my DASHING BEING,
out comes the same OLD LAZY SELF,
and so I never know just WHO I AM,
nor how many I am, nor WHO WE WILL BE BEING.
I would like to be able to touch a bell
and call up my real self, the truly me,
because if I really need my proper self,
I must not allow myself to disappear.

While I am writing, I am far away;
and when I come back, I have already left.
I should like to see if the same thing happens
to other people as it does to me,
to see if as many people are as I am,
and if they seem the same way to themselves.
When this problem has been thoroughly explored,
I am going to school myself so well in things
that, when I try to explain my problems,
I shall speak, not of self, but of geography.

Pablo Neruda

[Beefy]

Those are way too long to read.  Have any erotic haikus?

[Alice]

Those are way too long to read.  Have any erotic haikus?

hard flesh meets soft flesh
electric arcs of pleasure
in the dark, a cry

[Beefy]

in the dark, a cry

"Is it in yet?"

[ReBurn]

Those are way too long to read.  Have any erotic haikus?

hard flesh meets soft flesh
electric arcs of pleasure
in the dark, a cry

sounds like eo's avatar.

[dazie]

Those are way too long to read.  Have any erotic haikus?

hard flesh meets soft flesh
electric arcs of pleasure
in the dark, a cry

Isn't it supposed to last longer?

[Alice]

Those are way too long to read.  Have any erotic haikus?

hard flesh meets soft flesh
electric arcs of pleasure
in the dark, a cry

Isn't it supposed to last longer?

Not according to my exes.

[ignom]

Those are way too long to read.  Have any erotic haikus?

hard flesh meets soft flesh
electric arcs of pleasure
in the dark, a cry

Isn't it supposed to last longer?

Not for a haiku.

[dazie]

Those are way too long to read.  Have any erotic haikus?

hard flesh meets soft flesh
electric arcs of pleasure
in the dark, a cry

Isn't it supposed to last longer?

Not according to my exes.

[ursus]

Those are way too long to read. Have any erotic haikus?

hard flesh meets soft flesh
electric arcs of pleasure
in the dark, a cry

Isn't it supposed to last longer?

Not according to my exes.

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