(no subject)

[silverflurry.livejournal.com]

Swan Song


Gloria in your opera gloves

Among these ruins see
not the glory that was

but that it is.

Hollowed of purpose
behold

Light falling
withstand

Its song hums you & leads
to leas of morning.

Elizabeth Scanlon
Ploughshares
Volume 28, Number 4
Winter 2002-2003
C. D. Wright, Guest Editor

In my opinion...Pablo Neruda's best sonnet

[ebuddhalicious.livejournal.com]

Sonnet 17


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

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

...because I just vacationed in Mexico

[katminnaar.livejournal.com]

The Street

A long silent street.
I walk in blackness and I stumble and fall
and rise, and I walk blind, my feet
stepping on silent stones and dry leaves.
Someone behind me also stepping on stones, leaves:
if I slow down, he slows;
if I run, he runs. I turn: nobody.
Everything dark and doorless.
Turning and turning among these corners
which lead forever to the street
where nobody waits for, nobody follows me,
where I pursue a man who stumbles
and rises and says when he sees me: nobody.

--Octavio Paz