The first, by Pablo Neruda:
Brace yourself for this one. I LOVE this poem, but it’s a little disturbing:
Man and Wife
by Robert Lowell
Tamed by Miltown, we lie on Mother’s bed;
the rising sun in war paint dyes us red;
in broad daylight her gilded bed-posts shine,
abandoned, almost Dionysian.
At last the trees are green on Marlborough Street,
blossoms on our magnolia ignite
the morning with their murderous five days’ white.
All night I’ve held your hand,
as if you had
a fourth time faced the kingdom of the mad—
its hackneyed speech, its homicidal eye—
and dragged me home alive. . . Oh my Petite,
clearest of all God’s creatures, still all air and nerve:
you were in your twenties, and I,
once hand on glass
and heart in mouth,
outdrank the Rahvs in the heat
of Greenwich Village, fainting at your feet—
too boiled and shy
and poker-faced to make a pass,
while the shrill verve
of your invective scorched the traditional South.
Now twelve years later, you turn your back.
Sleepless, you hold
your pillow to your hollows like a child;
your old-fashioned tirade—
loving, rapid, merciless—
breaks like the Atlantic Ocean on my head
And finally a very sweet love poem by Emily Dickinson:
Heart, We Will Forget Him
by Emily Dickinson
Heart, we will forget him,
You and I, tonight!
You must forget the warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.
When you have done pray tell me,
Then I, my thoughts, will dim.
Haste! ‘lest while you’re lagging
I may remember him!
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The ‘thing’ about Neruda is that he did not seem to understand that we are organisms with a finite life span, bro, that is all. But nooooo,
he goes on and on, and some more of the same.
There is another piece of his work whereby he ‘chants’ to youth going away {and apparently without any intentions of coming back},and the reader (on the YouTube video) makes it sound like a tragedy. Whatever.
Had two good experiences yesterday. In one, a tiny little boy approached me at this busy grocery store.
“Hi!”
“Hi!”
“Do you know where my mommy went”
“Oh, she is right over there!”
{By then, his dad, who has been behind him all the while was on stitches and corrected my wrong directions.. as the mom was not ‘over there’ but ‘over somewhere other aile”}. Was a good experience.
Then, I hailed a cab to move hotels in good old San Francisco. This driver, sticks his head out the window ~ we were in opposite sides of a busy four way intersection ~(Kearny and Colombus) and yells:
“what do you want me to do?” (good attitude) so I motion to wait and take the time it requires to wait for two lites, cross the streets and tell him that I need to drop off two large suitcases into storage and then a ride into the Mission. He agrees. During the ride, he is chatty, georgeous lamps, black american, and during the chatting mode, he tells me he is bi-racial, he is out of San Quentin two years, bank robbery, and cocaine use for 30 years, wife passed away in 2003, he is a born again, continues to look back at me and he is georgeous, so I volunteer, in between the questions-answers, how long I have been in this country and how old I was when I got here, so that the concept that the hip replacement is a’coming stops him just like the San Quentin little bit did me back while on Second Street…
He brought my many bags to my room, I gave him a good tip for it, and we even hugged. His name was Don he told me. I had said mine was Lupe, and he walked down the hallway saying:”Oh, Guadalupe…”.
Just so long as he does not show up in my room, we will be on the clear.
It is raining!
well, well…what amazing confused feelings Neruda stirs up in us..I spent my 21st birthday in Madrid, immersed in Neruda, and was reminded of it tonight when I celebrated my daughter’s 22nd here..the horse loving Emersonian and poet..my baby girl, all grown up and experiencing those feelings for the first time. How I wish I could take on the heartbreak for her and leave her with only the joy.
Reading this was like being in high humidity/fog and sun trying to stream. Hard to breathe. Just so much. Its so amazing what words can do.
Disturbing yes……….but oh so human. This is Andy Garcia isnt it?