Pablo Neruda: Oda a las nubes (Ode to clouds)
you are the celestial girls,
silk in the sun, white blooms,
the sky’s youth
Pablo Neruda: Ode to the Book (II) translated by Wally Swist
stone by stone
the castle of humanity rising
Pablo Neruda: Ode to Summer | translated by Wally Swist
Summer, red violin,
clear cloud,
a buzz
saw
or cicada
Video: Astronaut Leland Melvin Reads Pablo Neruda’s Love Letter to Earth’s Forests
Anyone who hasn’t been in the Chilean forest doesn’t know this planet. I have come out of that landscape, that mud, that silence, to roam, to go singing through the world.
Meg Pokrass & Jeff Friedman: Wig
The wig arrived in a pretty pink box. I’d ordered it online from a wig shop. Silky, blonde and long, it felt as if I were entertaining a movie star in my hallway. Grace Kelly in a box on my couch. So nice to meet you, I said, slipping it on.
Althea Romeo Mark: Sunrise in the Afternoon
I wonder if the crying is one of pain, of boredom or of frustration from being imprisoned in a body that no longer works or obeys her will.
Jorge Guillén: Death in the Distance
What’s urgent is the ripe
Fruit. The hand already peels it.
José Emilio Pacheco: High Treason
I’d die
for ten places,
a few folks,
ports, forests, deserts, forts,
a broken city, gray, monstrous
Pablo Neruda: The Riddles
You have asked me what the crustacean spins between its limbs of gold
and I answer: the sea knows it.
Federico García Lorca: Weeping for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías
García Lorca’s “Weeping for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías” is by far his best known poem in the Spanish speaking world. Why is it not better known in the United States?
Paul Celan: Death Fugue
Black milk of dawn we drink it in the evening
we drink it at noon and in the morning we drink it at night
Eva-Maria Simms, Michael Simms: Translating Rilke
Every thing is protected
by a grace ready for flight,
every stone and flower
every child at night.
Choman Hardi: Homeland, what shall I do with you?
What shall I do with you, homeland?
What shall I do with all this blood?
Where shall I put you
to prevent you from filling my days
with damage and grief?
John Samuel Tieman: Francisco Franco and Chagrin Falls, Ohio
It would be nice if we could convert fascists to democratic republicans. If that fails, it then is absolutely necessary to utterly defeat them.
Vox Populi 