Sunday, June 30, 2013

Dreams Lost


 
In the Afternoon of My Life   
 
"Stone is a forehead where dreams grieve
without curving waters and frozen cypresses.
Stone is a shoulder on which to bear Time
with trees formed of tears and ribbons and planets."
Federico García Lorca “Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias”

Things do not occur without some special need for them;
Who will remember the gray that I’ve seen
Of winter’s misty streets at dusk
the lighted building windows against the darkness of the sky;
the rebirth of life and spirit that I felt
like Cherry blossoms during Spring;
the hot sultry nights of Summer
where two lovers chance fate’s decrees.
The reds, yellows and browns of Autumn’s rainbow,
that forecast Winter’s gray and white sheet.
Who will remember yesterday’s memories that
I strain to capture in these few lines for you.

"I sometimes think that never blows so red
The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled;
That every Hyacinth the Garden wears
Dropt in its Lap from some once lovely head "
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

What is the cause of things, why are they so?
Is it some heavenly master plan or
Fickle fate that prevented you and I from ever meeting?
Perhaps we would have not prevailed…
Or… our happiness too short lived.
But… perhaps… we would … we would…

For you, I would have: fought dragons,
conquered mountains,
written songs and poems,
collected flowers for your mornings,
sat by you in the afternoon
driving home from work;
brought you a blanket and my
burning body to keep you warm
during the cold nights;
loved you with all my being, for
only you have I loved, and
was honored to be loved by you.
This you must know.

Yet darkness comes to us all,
my heart’s wounds are too deep;
for I bared my soul; now the pain is
more than I can bear.
For a brief moment I wondered:
Do dreams come true after all
these years?
Alas, they remain but dreams.

"The child and the afternoon do not know you
because you have died forever.

The autumn will come with small white snails,
misty grapes and with clustered hills,
but no one will look into your eyes
because you have died forever.

Because you have died for ever,
like all the dead of the earth, like all the dead who are forgotten
in a heap of lifeless dogs.

Nobody knows you. No. "
Federico Garcia Lorca “Llanto por Ignacio Sanchez Mejias”

In the afternoon of my life, I sit on a rock 
which prevents me from seeing other rocks;
my thoughts about yesterday are buried in those rocks.
I do not remember my past,
I do not care about the “future”;
“past, present, future”; they are but
words that some philosopher made up;
they have no relevance for the dead
and the dying.
 
But "I sing of [her] elegance with words that groan,
and I remember a sad breeze through the olive trees."
Federico Garcia Lorca “Llanto por Ignacio Sanchez Mejias”

By: Homeless with a Laptop, That is my Name 


 

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

El Futuro es Espacio

EL futuro es espacio,
espacio color de tierra,
color de nube,
color de agua, de aire,
espacio negro para muchos sueños,
espacio blanco para toda la nieve,
para toda la música.

Atrás quedó el amor desesperado
que no tenía sitio para un beso,
hay lugar para todos en el bosque,
en la calle, en la casa,
hay sitio subterráneo y submarino,
qué placer es hallar por fin,
subiendo
un planeta vacío,
grandes estrellas claras como el vodka
tan transparentes y deshabitadas,
y allí llegar con el primer teléfono
para que hablen más tarde tantos hombres
de sus enfermedades.

Lo importante es apenas divisarse,
gritar desde una dura cordillera
y ver en la otra punta
los pies de una mujer recién llegada.

Adelante, salgamos
del río sofocante
en que con otros peces navegamos
desde el alba a la noche migratoria
y ahora en este espacio descubierto
volemos a la pura soledad.

Por:  Pablo Neruda
Copiado, pegado y vivido por:  Sin hogar y con computadora portátil, Ese es mi Nombre


Saturday, June 8, 2013

Shadows


Shadows cast by the street light
            under the stars,
                        the head is tilted back,
the long shadow of the legs
            presumes a world
                        taken for granted
on which the cricket trills.
            The hollows of the eyes
                        Are unpeopled.
Right and left
            climb the ladders of night
                        as dawn races
to put our the stars.
That
                        Is the poetic figure
But we know
            better: what is not now
                        will never
be.  Sleep secure,
            the little dog in the snapshot
                        keeps his shrewd eyes
pared.  Memory
            is liver than sight.
                        A man
looking out,
            seeing shadows—
                        it is himself
that can be painlessly amputated
            by a mere shifting
                        of the stars.
A comfort so easily not to be
            and to be at once one
                        with every man.
The night blossoms
            with a thousand shadows
                        so long
as there are stars,
            street lights
                        or a moon and
who shall say
            by their shadows
which is different
            from the other
                        fat or lean.

                        II

Ripped from the concept of our lives
            and from all concept
                        somehow, and plainly,
the sun will come up
            each morning
                        and sink again.
So that we experience
            Violently
                        every day
two worlds
            one of which we share with the
            rose in bloom
                        and one,
by far the greater,
            with the past,
                        the world of memory,
the silly world of history,
            the world
                        of the imagination.

Which leaves only the beasts and trees,
            crystals
                        with their refractive
                        surfaces
and rotting things
            to stir our wonder.

                        Save for the little
central hole
            of the eye itself
                        into which
we dare not stare too hard
            or we are lost.

                        The instant
trivial as it is
            is all we have
                        unless—unless
things the imagination feeds upon,
            the scent of the rose,
                        startle us anew.

By:  William Carlos Williams
Copied, pasted and loved by:  Homeless with a Laptop, That is my Name