For Those in Need of Poetry
Poetry does not belong to those who write it, but to those who need it.~Pablo Neruda
A blank page is the bane of all writers.
Examples that are written are blighters.
Frustration would stay.
A word that escapes you for the moment
to capture a perception, you lament.
You should step away.
It has been said that good poetry heal;
it expresses how
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Categories:
pablo, poems, poetry, poets,
Form: Tail-rhyme
BLUE NUDE : Pablo Picasso: 1902
she rose from depths of his despair
followed an artistic youthful
D
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Categories:
pablo, allegory, allusion, art, bereavement,
Form: Ekphrasis
Pablo Neruda in English Translations including 'Religion in the East'
These are English translations of Spanish poems by Pablo Neruda.
Religión en el Este (“Religion in the East”)
by Pablo Neruda
translation by Michael R. Burch
for Tom Merrill
I realized in Rangoon:
the gods were our enemies
as much as God;
alabaster gods elongated like white whales;
gilded gods gleaming like golden ears of corn;
serpentine gods coiling around the crime of being
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Categories:
pablo, death, earth, god, heaven,
Form: Free verse
Pablo Neruda: English translation of 'Machu Picchu'
The Heights of Machu Picchu, Canto VIII
by Pablo Neruda
translation by Michael R. Burch
Ascend with me, my American love!
Let’s kiss these mysterious stones together!
The Urubamba’s torrential silver
lures pollen to fly from its golden chalice
while above this canyon’s unbroken silence
everything soars: the climbing grapevines,
the shopworn plants, each inflexible garland.
Come, elfin life, test your wings above the earth,
test
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Categories:
pablo, america, earth, kiss, life,
Form: Free verse
Composition in D Minor
Withered fingers
Cannot play anymore;
I drown in nuanced shades of blue,
Not seeing, in my plight,
My strings, wound tight,
Suspending me
Like a puppet,
Tethered to life.
I in my tattered clothes,
Blue like sorrow,
Torn like the heart that hopes,
Unable to keep out the cold
Or cover the secrets I hold—
I am the man who mopes,
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Categories:
pablo, art, music, suicide,
Form: Free verse
A Picnic With Pablo Neruda
Four legs quiver
like clumsy cabrioles
striking smooth gray rivers
of zig-zag sidewalk barrios
in rhythm with happy shivers
syncopated on a muffled drum
as we talk and stroll
On our way
hand-in-hand
we persuade and pretend
this day away
taunting and cajoling to demand
laughing “hide and seeking”
chasing and skedaddling
poking and peeking
like cuddly pandas
or canoodling otters
splashing and clambering
We roll and meander
impetuously twiddling all the way
atop gregarious
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Categories:
pablo, i love you, love,
Form: Rhyme
Poem To Pablo Neruda
Captain of the Farthest Islands
living poem between my prose
that each one was exchanged for roses
with moonlight and roving mornings
You loved as few have loved
with the madness of sea and clear lyrics
the greatest poet that will remain in us
like him in the calm portrayed...
The island was light and your horizon
was a witness to your fate, luck
let
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Categories:
pablo, allegory, allusion, analogy, appreciation,
Form: Free verse
Bard Pablo Birthday's Song
What, in your own mind, you do think you lack,
Within thy sensational loneliness--
Truly energize luck and got your back,
To promote thy risk in times, coziness.
Then each and every of your lovely fear,
Creates the globe with an enormous home.
Surely, of a great deal, becomes so dear
A lorry pen drives where shining
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Categories:
pablo, 1st grade, africa, age,
Form: Sonnet
Hola Pablo
Life is creation
not a discovery
Distant horizons
the palette we choose
Painting and singing
loving and dreaming
Memory a servant
—time but a ruse
(Dreamsleep: July, 2022)
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Categories:
pablo, life,
Form: Rhyme
Poem Pablo Neruda
Captain of the most distant islands
living poem among my proses
that each one was exchanging for roses
with moonlight and wandering mornings
II
You loved as few have loved
with sea madness and clear lyrics
the greatest poet that will remain in us
as he in the calm portrayed...
III
The island was your light and your horizon
was a witness to your fate, luck
let
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Categories:
pablo, allegory, allusion, analogy, appreciation,
Form: Free verse
Nicanor Parra Sandoval Translation: Advice To Young Poets
Advice to Young Poets
by Nicanor Parra Sandoval
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Youngsters,
write however you will
in your preferred style.
Too much blood flowed under the bridge
for me to believe
there’s just one acceptable path.
In poetry everything’s permitted.
Originally published by Setu
Ivy
by Michael R. Burch
“Van trepando en mi viejo dolor como las yedras.” – Pablo Neruda
“They climb on my old
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Categories:
pablo, mentor, poems, poetry, poets,
Form: Free verse
Pablo Neruda Translation: Every Day You Play
Every Day You Play
by Pablo Neruda
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
Every day you play with Infinity’s rays.
Exquisite visitor, you arrive with the flowers and the water.
You are vastly more than this immaculate head I clasp tightly
like a cornucopia, every day, between my hands ...
My Dog Died
by Pablo Neruda
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
My dog died;
so
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Categories:
pablo, aubade, beauty, dog, for
Form: Free verse
Pablo Neruda Translations
I love you only because I love you
by Pablo Neruda
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
I love you only because I love you;
I am torn between loving and not loving you,
Between apathy and desire.
My heart vacillates between ice and fire.
I love you only because you’re the one I love;
I hate you deeply, but hatred
Bends me all
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Categories:
pablo, love, romance, romantic, romantic
Form: Sonnet
Pablo Self Portrait
Picasso, oval face and olive eyes,
always solemn and searching.
Pushing boundaries, challenging authority,
his artistic torch cut through the fog of life.
At times his scrutiny turned inwards.
Self-critique of the physical and the psychological took hold.
Could it be self-doubt or ego which drove him on?
Or was it simply a visual diary of moments in his life?
1901, subdued
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Categories:
pablo, art, self,
Form: Free verse
Translation of Pablo Neruda's In You the Earth By T Wignesan
Si de pronto no existes, (If of a sudden you were no more,)
si de pronto no vives,(if of a sudden you live no more,)
yo seguiré viviendo. (I'll continue to live.)
No me atrevo,(I do not dare,)
no me atrevo a escribirlo, (hardly will I find the courage to write this)
si te mueres.(if
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Categories:
pablo, anti bullying, humanity, identity,
Form: Free verse
Related Poems