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.

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.

The Dream: a translation

I am on the side of the road -- suburban highway at night with banks swelling up, high, waves pierced with green grass and telephone poles. I am cowering there, in a circle of light, waiting for the action to come. And I see it -- run! The Jeep approaches, drawing nearer, wheels hissing serpentine on the wet tarmac, headlights muffled by some internal anguish. And I fled then, desperate to cross at that very moment when it seemed most imminent, driven by the horrible animal urge to- I collapsed on the opposite bank, chest heaving as I pushed my face further and further into the ground. My ears whistled and rang, echoing cries of an underworld that I had so narrowly escaped. And I lay there for a while, rested safe in the shadow of a pine bush -- safe out of the light, filling my nostrils with the grass.

And so I lay until, slowly, I rose, sensing something on the night wind. I looked across the yawning chasm of road to the faint and artificial sunspot which gleamed like limelight. Its clarity was marred by a dark figure who both shone and consumed all light, like obsidian. A black leopard. But then, o horrors -- it glanced at me and within its face I saw human eyes and then -- a human nose and mouth as well. And it began to stalk.

Quivering and frozen like a useless animal I shrank back into the hillside, desperately hoping to be enveloped as though some mystery lay beneath the dark earth. But there was only time, and dead things, and it seemed no magic could spare me from the beast. And then I remembered the bush -- muffling a scream, I dove behind it as the animal began its graceful ascent from tarmac to hill, my hill, and I realized with horrible astonishment that I was not behind the bush. I looked in all directions in terror -- the bush was suddenly to my left. But I could make out a figure behind the bush -- and in my confusion I slowly understood that it was I. But the beast ignored me, ignored the plain me, ignored the me that was out-of-hiding and exposed, and instead slowly crept up upon the form who was cowering like a hare there among the roots. And I closed my eyes, the silence unbearable, waiting hopelessly to die. But I did not! and slowly I saw it emerge. The man-leopard was no more; emerging from the bush were I, clearly enamored, wrapped in the arms of a man, an Indian, while his brother trailed close behind, almost brushing their backs with his long fingertips as the three strode, moving like ghosts. And the brother stared at me, finger crooked, and I knew he was beckoning for me to follow, to join my half-self and to join him, the half-brother. But I knew, from old stories, that this could not be so. She was not me, and they were not man but demons, come to drag an innocent soul down to hell in an attempt to light their world. They were the demon who is many, they were Legion, they were tricksters that preyed upon the human instincts to abstain from solitude, to move in packs, to trust. They were Legion: they were the tide that turned against you, jealous of all, jealous most specifically of the innocence.

So I did not go with them, but instead sat there, motionless, and watched their bodies fade into the mist as the sky grew slowly lighter.


Fín.

El Sueño

Estoy al lado del camino -- una carretera suburbana a noche con riberas hinchándose, alto, ondas perferaron para césped verde y astas telefónicas. Estoy encojado allí, en un circulo de la luz, esperando que la acción venir. Y verlo -- ¡corra! El Jeep acercame, más cercano, las ruedas silbando como serpientes en el asfaltado mojado, los faros amortiguados por alguna angustia interna. Y huí entonces, desesperado cruzar en que momento cuando pareció más inminente, conducido por el impulso horrible y animal a -- Desplomé en la ribera contrario, el pecho tirado como empujé mi cara aún más y más adentro del suelo. Mis orejas silbado y llamó, resonando con los gritos de un mundo abajo que había escapado tan por poco. Y me acosté allí un rato, descansé seguro a la sombra de un arbusto de pino -- seguro fuera de la luz, llenando mis narices con el césped.

Y así me acosté hasta que, lentamente, subí, presentiendo algo en el viento de la noche. Miré a través de la sima abierta del camino a la mancha solar débil y artificial que brilló como un candelero. Su claridad estuve estropeado por una figura oscura, que brillado y también consumido toda luz como la obsidiana. Un leopardo negro. Pero entonces, que horror -- miró a mí y dentro de su cara yo ví ojos humanos y entonces -- la nariz y la boca humanas también. Y comenzó a cazar al acecho.

Temblando y congelado como un animal inútil me encogí atrás en la ladera, desesperadamente esperando para ser envuelto como si algun misterio se acostó bajo la tierra oscura. Pero solo fue el tiempo, y cosas muertas, y pareció que ninguna magia me podría guardar de la bestia. Y entonces recordé al arbusto -- amortiguando un chillido, zambullé detrás de lo como el animal empezó su subida elegante del asfaltado a la colina, mi colina, y me di cuenta de con el asombro horrible que no estuve detrás del arbusto. Miré en todas direcciónes con terror -- el arbusto fue de repente a mi izquierda. Pero pude entender una figura detrás del arbusto -- y a mi confusión creciente comprendí que fui yo. Pero la bestia me ignoró, ignoró la mí llanura, la mí que no fui ocultado y fui expusó, y en lugar lentamente arrastrado arriba sobre la forma que se encogía como una liebre entre las raíces. Y cerré mis ojos, la silencia intolerable, esperando sin espera para el muerte. ¡Pero no hice! y lentamente lo ví surge. El hombre-leopardo no fue más; surgiendo del arbusto estuvieron yo, claramente enamorado, envuelté en los brazos de un hombre, un indio, mientras su hermano arrastró cierra atrás, casi cepillando nuestras espaldas con sus puntas de los dedos largos como el tres anduvieron a zancadas, moviendo como fantasmas. El hermano miró fijamente a mí, el dedo torcido, y supe que él atraía para mí seguir, unir con mi medio-ser y para encontrarlo, el hermanastro. Pero conocí, de las cuentas viejas, que no podría así. Ella no me fue, y ustedes no fueron hombres pero demonios, quién había venido para arrastrar un alma inocente hacia abajo al infierno en una tentativa para encender su mundo. Fueron el demonio quien es muchos, fueron Legión, fueron embusteros que atacaron sobre el instinto humano para abstenerse de la soledad, para mover en paquetes, para fiarse. Fueron la Legión: fueron la marea que giró contra usted, celoso de todo, celoso más específicamente de las sociedades armoniosas, los grupos comunales que nunca dominarán, nunca crearán dentro de sí mismo. Estuvieron celosos de la inocencia.

Así no fui con ellos pero en lugar me senté allí, sin movimiento, y miré sus cuerpos destiñiendo en la niebla como el cielo lentamente creció más ligero.



Fín.