i LOOK @

I look at a ship of stones,
I look at trees of bone marrow
bristling like mad cats,
I look at blood, daggers and women's stockings,
and men's hair,
I look at beds, I look at corridors where a virgin is sobbing,
I look at blankets and organs and hotels.

Neruda, Pablo, pseudonym of NEFTALI RICARDO REYES Y BASOALTO

(1904-1973), Chilean poet,
who is considered one of the major poets of the 20th century.

Quién escribe tu nombre con letras de humo entre las estrellas del sur?Ah déjame recordarte cómo eras entonces, cuando aún no existías.
Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south?Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.

Pablo

A man can sleep around, no questions asked; but if a woman makes nineteen or twenty mistakes she's a tramp.

Body of a Woman
Body of a woman, white hills, white thighs,
you look like a world, Iying in surrender.
My rough peasant's body digs in you
and makes the son leap from the depth of the earth.
I was alone like a tunnel. The birds fled from me,
and night swamped me with its crushing invasion.
To survive myself I forged you like a weapon,
like an arrow in my bow, a stone in my sling.
But the hour of vengeance falls, and I love you.
Body of skin, of moss, of eager and firm milk.
Oh the goblets of the breast ! Oh the eyes of absence !
Oh the roses of the pubis! Oh your voice, slow and sad !
Body of my woman, I will persist in your grace.
My thirst, my boundless desire, my shifting road!
Dark river-beds where the eternal thirst flows
and weariness follows, and the infinite ache.
[by Pablo Neruda]