Saturday, March 26, 2011

Inténtame

Por dos semanas,
no preguntes a nada.
Por dos semanas, les da
al amor animál y la proximidad caliente.
Por catorce días, me revela
desnudo y vacío,
sus costillos arcados y extendidos
sobre un piso de lodo.

Permíteme entrarte
por un momento, por un verano.
Permíteme lécher a las gotas que constelan sus caderas
como una fauna extracta el agua de los helchos oscuros
con su lengua húmeda.

Permíteme cantar alrededor de sus hundos
como el viento, permíteme saltar
los diezmil oídos de sus labios separados.

Permíteme nadar hasta que me cego en sus cavernas--
permite mis ojos (que el mar ha blanqueada)
terminar buscando,
rodeado de su oscuridad y su piel.

Finalmente, permíteme quemar en éxtasis temporaria
y permite que mis llamas léchen a su suavidad.
Permíteme espirar como una pluma de humo desanimado.

En todas maneras elementales, te quería.
En todas las maneras que pasan las tormentas, pasaría eso.
Permite que nuestra estación termina--solo
no preventes su empieza.

Por un momento, por un verano
permíteme entrarte,
sus costillos arcados y extendidos
sobre un piso de lodo.
Desnudo y vacío, por cuarenta días,
me revela en el amor animál y la proximidad caliente.
Por dos semanas, da--no preguntes nada.
Por dos semanas,
inténtame.

Monday, March 14, 2011

Neruda Translation Project

I've been translating a lot of Neruda lately, in my free time. It's wonderful. Here are a few of the better results:

Poem Twenty

I am able to write the saddest verses tonight.

Write, for example: “The night is starry, and
they shiver, blue, the stars, far away.”

The night wind turns and moans in the sky.

I am able to write the saddest verses tonight.
I desired her, and sometimes she also desired me.

In such nights as this I held her in my arms.
I kissed her endlessly beneath the infinite sky.

She desired me, and sometimes I’d desire her.
How could I not have loved her large, staring eyes.

I am able to write the saddest verses tonight.
To think that I don’t have her. To think that I have lost her.

Listening to the immensity of the night, so much vaster without her,
verse falls from my soul like dew falls on the pasture.

What was so important that my love couldn’t chasten herself?
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is everything. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul cannot contend with having lost her.

In order to draw nearer to her, my gaze searches for her.
My heart searches for her, and she is not with me.

The same night blots out the same trees.
We are no longer who we were before.

Now I don’t have her, it’s certain, but I desire her so much.
My voice searches the air hoping to reach her ears.

Another. There shall be another. As there was before my kisses.
Your voice, your radiant body. Your infinite eyes.

Now I don’t have her, it is certain, but still I desire her.
Love is so short, and forgetting boundless.

Because, during nights like this, I had her in my arms,
My soul cannot contend with having lost her.

Although this will be the last pain she causes me,
And these will be the last words I write for her.

Naked

Naked, you are as simple as one of your hands,
Smooth, earthy, minimal, rounded, transparent,
You have lines like the moon, fissures like an apple,
Naked, you are slender as a bare stalk of wheat.

Naked, you are blue as the night sky in Cuba,
You have vines and stars in your hair,
Naked, you are enormous and yellow
As summer in a gilded church.

Naked, you are small as one of your fingernails,
Curved, subtle, and rosy until day breaks
And you lay yourself in the vault under the earth

As you lay yourself in a large tunnel of suits and tasks:
Your clarity exposes itself, dresses, and expires
And yet, later on, it shall return to being your bare hand.

I like when you are quiet

I like when you are quiet because it’s as though you’re absent,
and you sound as though you’re far away, and my voice cannot touch you.
It looks as though your eyes flown elsewhere
and it seems as though a kiss sealed your mouth.

Like all the things that are full of my soul
you emerge from those things, filled with my soul.
Butterfly of dreams, you look like my soul,
and you look like a melancholy word.

I like it when you are quiet and seem distant.
And it’s as though you’re complaining, whispering butterfly.
And you hear me from far away, and my voice can’t touch you:
Make me such that I can be quieted me by your silence.

Make me such that I can also talk with you in silence
clear as a lamp, simple as a ring.
You are like the night, quiet and constellated.
Your silence is like the stars, so distant and solitary.

I like when you are quiet because it’s as though you’re absent.
Distant and painful as though you had died.
A word then, a smile suffices.
And I am filled with joy, joy from somewhere I do not know.