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.

Ballin'

I wrote these all in the F train from Manhattan to Brooklyn on 6/11/2007, I was pretty upset but I like how they turned out. Except the first one actually, i wrote that in some church near grace church but that isn't it.

000-000-0000

Silverdress churchpoem
sunglass blue koan
look at the dead saints
I like them because they’re static
but elbaorate, so pretty
text message cathedral!
Anachronism’s pen
self importance napping
in the pews
I won’t take them off
it can’t be checked
straws & eagle brains
train-quake shaking catacombs
how many dead people are there?
Look at him
his watercolour wash
embroidered bug
to the gloury of God
and in loving memory
Marie Hodges Bald
1924-1986
the shimmer on me is wearing off.

Madame Tossedsalad

Spectacle spectacle
daisy chain women
depression unfolding
oligarchy broccoli, spin
till you’re whipped and
fly free over mekons
rainbow gumdrops neon
cherry acid. Ray Richie
Rishy Ruma
Rumour
brat pack pick ice pick
eskimo sealgirl cobalt
aqua world how will I
tell it when you’re gone?

Z. Web

My brain buzzing all the
time so many words
they quest for rhymes over
and over intuition prohibits it exhibits
a brain writing about its “I”
monologuing in a cramped
dark glitter-free shed in the rain
and lightning crashes all around
you but you’re cool
and avoidant
this nightstalk cliché is
safe from documentation your upper
arms glisten & your crown
is the moon.

Caribou Nerve Net

Werewolves pine zone
ignominy bite-marking
everywhere all your pencils you love
to spit and twist
growlybark tail-chase
be still my heart
with a golden magic silver
bullet twinkle sky
wound seeping red blood
carnelian neck-ruff
howl-eyes moaning
in the crawl.

VIP

POV point of vance earl
bagger-baldy circumcized
strap-on in my bag
rainbow hidden toad
glisten pencils forest
fish toad pond crane
myth crab sparkle
bamboo?

Chanel No. 5

Drippyhead canary yellow
first cross scrawl
illegal ledge heart
falling and twist trapped
gravity g force limbo
tarmac down there
yellow lines parrot
fly order order perfect
always eyeliner order smile.

le.m.n.o.p.portunity

Hell city dolce sweet
time bomb tick clock
racing lucidarian F
garble ugh click talk
no spanish intelligence
indian europe tapestry
degree cash cow
krsňa club clap hands
writing mess odd
realtime feature
flick the loss of my
marbles put it back in the bag hope
dick cunt smiles at us
fame and fortune
queens & dreams
HIV killed me I
sleep on my left-
hand crayon box.

for sarah

In the dream
I got a bluebird
and
I can see myself in your eyes
tinkling, words are flowing out
as tablas gambol
cymbals meandering
to flute twitter
so I wonder where you go with your broken heart
nodding along to whispering guitars
falling
to their deaths

mouth:
take my hand, I changed
my mind again so sing me
to sleep

I say
"This one's called Stella Was A Diver And She Was Always Down."
but you wonder, say
"You sure about that?" to my reply:

I found a road and off I sped
thinking last night it was so good,
learning to say the same thing.
This is not a love song
a lazy confession
distorted droning --
since I met you
inhaling crushed bones just to
stand up, I said
you've got to manage brothers
and sisters, barking dogs

oh my, naked eyes

this is why events unnerve me.
Girl I am afraid, where do his intentions lay?
Because your wine,
it
tastes
too sweet
but it's a motherfucker being here without you,,,


If you walk away I'll
walk away at the music heist

do you want to be free?
(because)
You're just the girl of my dreams
who knows alone the reasons
why you choose to be with me.

I know you're antiseptic

but...

Reality's a dream
how can we make you understand?