Love Sonnet

I do not love you as if you were a 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

than 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.

Pablo Neruda

La Valse

 

La Valse - Camille Laudel

 

"Andante, Andante"

Take it easy with me, please
Touch me gently like a summer evening breeze
Take your time, make it slow
Andante, Andante
Just let the feeling grow

Make your fingers soft and light
Let your body be the velvet of the night
Touch my soul, you know how
Andante, Andante
Go slowly with me now

I'm your music
(I am your music and I am your song)
I'm your song
(I am your music and I am your song)
Play me time and time again and make me strong
(Play me again 'cause you're making me strong)
Make me sing, make me sound
(You make me sing and you make me...)
Andante, Andante
Tread lightly on my ground
Andante, Andante
Oh please don't let me down

There's a shimmer in your eyes
Like the feeling of a thousand butterflies
Please don't talk, go on, play
Andante, Andante
And let me float away

I'm your music
(I am your music and I am your song)
I'm your song
(I am your music and I am your song)
Play me time and time again and make me strong
(Play me again 'cause you're making me strong)
Make me sing, make me sound
(You make me sing and you make me...)
Andante, Andante
Tread lightly on my ground
Andante, Andante
Oh please don't let me down

Make me sing, make me sound
(You make me sing and you make me...)
Andante, Andante
Tread lightly on my ground
Andante, Andante
Oh please don't let me down
Andante, Andante
Oh please don't let me down...

Cuerpo de mujer, blancas colinas ... Pablo Neruda

Cuerpo de mujer, blancas colinas, muslos blancos,

te pareces al mundo en tu actitud de entrega.

Mi cuerpo de labriego salvaje te socava

y hace saltar al hijo del fondo de la tierra.

Fui sólo como un túnel. De mí huían los pájaros,

y en mí la noche entraba en su invasión poderosa.

Para sobrevivirme te forjé como un arma,

como una flecha en mi arco, como una piedra en mi honda.

Pero cae la hora de la venganza, y te amo.

Cuerpo de piel, de musgo, de leche ávida y firme.

¡Ah los vasos del pecho! ¡Ah los ojos de ausencia!

¡Ah las rosas del pubis! ¡ Ah tu voz lenta y triste!

Cuerpo de mujer mía, persistiré en tu gracia.

Mi sed, mi ansia sin límite, mi camino indeciso!

Oscuros cauces donde la sed eterna sigue,

y la fatiga sigue y el dolor infinito

Pablo Neruda

Grazella Dorcas

Image: National Geographic

Grazella Dorcas

Verzauberte: wie kann der Einklang zweier
erwählter Worte je den Reim erreichen,
der in dir kommt und geht, wie auf ein Zeichen.
Aus deiner Stirne steigen Laub und Leier,

und alles Deine geht schon im Vergleich
durch Liebeslieder, deren Worte, weich
wie Rosenblätter, dem, der nicht mehr liest,
sich auf die Augen legen, die er schließt:

um dich zu sehen: hingetragen, als
wäre mit Sprüngen jeder Lauf geladen
und schösse nur nicht ab, solang der Hals

das Haupt im Horchen hält: wie wenn beim Baden
im Wald die Badende sich unterbricht:
den Waldsee im gewendeten Gesicht.

Rainer Maria Rilke

 

 

Gazella Dorcas

By Rainer Maria Rilke

Enchanted thing: how can two chosen words
ever attain the harmony of pure rhyme
that pulses through you as your body stirs?
Out of your forehead branch and lyre climb

and all your features pass in simile through
the songs of love whose words as light as rose-
petals rest on the face of someone who
has put his book away and shut his eyes:

to see you: tensed as if each leg were a gun
loaded with leaps but not fired while your neck
holds your head still listening: as when

while swimming in some isolated place
a girl hears leaves rustle and turns to look:
the forest pool reflected in her face.

Translation: Stephen Mitchell
 

 

The Cinnamon Peeler

The Cinnamon Peeler

If I were a cinnamon peeler

I would ride your bed

and leave the yellow bark dust

on your pillow.

Your breasts and shoulders would reek

you could never walk through markets

without the profession of my fingers

floating over you. The blind would

stumble certain of whom they approached

though you might bathe

under the rain gutters, monsoon.

Here on the upper thigh

at this smooth pasture

neighbour to your hair

or the crease

that cuts your back. This ankle.

You will be known among strangers

as the cinnamon peeler’s wife.

I could hardly glance at you

before marriage

never touch you

- your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers.

I buried my hands

in saffron, disguised them

over smoking tar,

helped the honey gatherers…

When we swam once

I touched you in the water

and our bodies remained free,

you could hold me and be blind of smell.

You climbed the bank and said

this is how you touch other women

the grass cutter’s wife, the lime burner’s daughter.

And you searched your arms

for the missing perfume

and knew

what good is it

to be the lime burner’s daughter

left with no trace

as if not spoken to in the act of love

as if wounded without the pleasure of a scar.

You touched

your belly to my hands

in the dry air and said

I am the cinnamon

peeler’s wife. Smell me.

- Michael Ondaatje

Dos Dias

The Flamengo

mirar a la gente 

Bajar el sol,

besar la luna 

tener tu amor, 

vivir la vida 

con ilusion.

gozar y disfrutar 

hay con pasion.

tocar la guitarra 

con el calor,

segir cantando 

esta cancion. 

y entre la flores mas bonitas,

tu eres la rosa que no marchita

que alegra mi casa y mi jardin.

eres la fuerza pa vivir 

hay flores rojas y amarillas,

escucha chiquilla no toy mintiendo 

que la vida son 2 dias,

y que uno ta lloviendo.

(Poet still unknown) 

With great gratitude to the Afrikaans poet, De Waal Venter, who does an excellent job translating Spanish poems into Afrikaans. I've posted the Afrikaans translation on my Afrikaans blog. 

Dance Me To The End Of Love - Leonard Cohen

 

Painting: RachelArts 

"Dance Me To The End Of Love"

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone
Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon
Show me slowly what I only know the limits of
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on
Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long
We're both of us beneath our love, we're both of us above
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the children who are asking to be born
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn
Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic till I'm gathered safely in
Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

I crave your mouth - Pablo Neruda

Image: "The hug" by Nan Goldin

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair,
Silent, starving I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disquiets me,
I search the liquid sound of your steps all day.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
For your hands the color of the wild grain,
I 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 loveliness,
The nose, sovereign of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

And I walk hungry, smelling the twilight
Looking for you, for your hot heart,
Like a puma in the barren wilderness.


Pablo Neruda

Your moon fills my sky

Your moon fills my sky.
Pale light filters
A soft wash
Over memories muted colors.
A night jar whispers
Its gentle call to the past
As the silk of your skin
Beneath my fingers
Lights fire.

Peter Hollard