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Pablo Neruda is our spotlight poet. His use of metaphor is outstanding.One of the primary themes of this site is to promote and understand the use of metaphor, and celebrate those who do use it in their poetry. Many poets are lead to believe that if they simply adhere to form and meter and make their work clear and understandable, they have achieved the aim of poetry ( not so, in my opinion )! Of all the poetic forms that have existed through time, it is my opinion that only when freeverse was born, did we really discover poetry! Up until that time it is my belief that poetry did not really exist. What they referred to as "poetry" ( again in my opinion ) were just confined ideas that should have burst forth, but rarely did!
Pablo Neruda is the epitome of metaphor and freeverse. You are asked to visit this page again and post your interpretaions of these poems in the "Serious Poets Forum". Once we have interpreted Pablo Neruda I intend to forward our interpretations to the University Of Texas, who holds the rights to the works of Pablo Neruda. We'll see what they have to say about our interpretations. View two of Pablo Nerudas' Poems on this page.
Mindbending Poetry
Every Day you Play
Every day you play with the light of the universe.
Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water.
You are more than this white head that I hold tightly
as a cluster of fruit, every day, between my hands.
You are like nobody since I love you.
Le me spread you out among yellow garlands.
Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south?
Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.
Suddenly the wind howls and bangs at my shut window.
The sky is a net crammed with shadowy fish.
Here all the winds let go sooner or later, all of them.
The rain takes off her clothes.
The birds go by, fleeing.
The wind. The wind.
I alone can contend against the power of men.
The storm whirls dark leaves
and turns loose all the boats that were moored last night to the sky.
You are here. Oh, you do not run away.
You will answer me to the last cry.
Cling to me as though you were frightened.
Even so, at one time a strange shadow ran through your eyes.
Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle,
and even your breasts smell of it.
While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies
I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth.
How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me,
my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running.
So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes,
and over our heads the grey light unwinds in turning fans.
My words rained over you, stroking you.
A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body.
I go so far as to think that you own the universe.
I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells,
dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses.
I want
to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.
By: Pablo Neruda
sp irational
SEA FEVER
I must go down to the seas again, to lonely the sea and the
sky.
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white
sails shaking,
And a gray mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking.
I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running
tide is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flyng,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls
crying.
I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gipsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's
like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's
over.
John Masefield (1878)
Saddest Poem
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."
The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.
She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her.
To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.
What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.
That's all. Far away, someone sings.
Far away.My soul is lost without her.
As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.
The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.
I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.
Someone else's. She will be someone else's.
As she once belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.
Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.
Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.
Pablo Neruda
Palisade
Love had a song, like the bird in a cage.
It sat waiting for it's one moment to fly.
It's beauty went unnoticed and it's heart wept.
The rains heavied it's lightness,
and it died.
The world kept spinning round,
and time closed it's wings around it's limp soul.
The song's echo carried to the treetops,
where it caught the wind,
and it's wail fluttered softly among the leaves,
it's keeper's tune fore'remore.
©Arlene Longson August 19/2001
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