We Are Many by Pablo Neruda

Of the many men whom I am, whom we are,

I cannot settle on a single one.

They are lost to me under the cover of clothing

They have departed for another city.

When everything seems to be set

to show me off as a man of intelligence,

the fool I keep concealed on my person

takes over my talk and occupies my mouth.

On other occasions, I am dozing in the midst

of people of some distinction,

and when I summon my courageous self,

a coward completely unknown to me

swaddles my poor skeleton

in a thousand tiny reservations.

When a stately home bursts into flames,

instead of the fireman I summon,

an arsonist bursts on the scene,

and he is I. There is nothing I can do.

What must I do to distinguish myself?

How can I put myself together?

All the books I read

lionize dazzling hero figures,

brimming with self-assurance.

I die with envy of them;

and, in films where bullets fly on the wind,

I am left in envy of the cowboys,

left admiring even the horses.

But when I call upon my DASHING BEING,

out comes the same OLD LAZY SELF,

and so I never know just WHO I AM,

nor how many I am, nor WHO WE WILL BE BEING.

I would like to be able to touch a bell

and call up my real self, the truly me,

because if I really need my proper self,

I must not allow myself to disappear.

While I am writing, I am far away;

and when I come back, I have already left.

I should like to see if the same thing happens

to other people as it does to me,

to see if as many people are as I am,

and if they seem the same way to themselves.

When this problem has been thoroughly explored,

I am going to school myself so well in things

that, when I try to explain my problems,

I shall speak, not of self, but of geography. 

The Heavenly Poets by Pablo Neruda

 What have you done  

  you intellectualists?  

  you mystifiers?  

  you false existentialist sorcerers?  

  you surrealistic poppies shining on a tomb?  

  you pale grubs in the capitalist cheese?  

  What did you do  

  about the kingdom of anguish?  

  about this dark human being  

  kicked into submission?  

  about this head  

  submerged in manure?  

  about this essence  

  of harsh, trampled lives?  

  You didn't do anything but escape  

  you sold piles of debris  

  you looked for heavenly hairs  

  cowardly plants, broken fingernails  

  "pure beauty" "magic".  

  Your works were those of poor frightened folk  

  trying to keep your eyes from looking  

  trying to protect their delicate pupils  

  so you could make for your living  

  a plate of dirty scraps  

  which the masters flung to you.  

  Without seeing that the stones are in agony,  

  without defending, without conquering,  

  blinder than the wreaths  

  in the cemetery when the rain  

  falls on the motionless  

  rotten flowers on the tomb. 

Perhaps Not To Be Is To Be Without Your Being by Pablo Neruda

Perhaps not to be is to be without your being,

without your going, that cuts noon light

like a blue flower, without your passing

later through fog and stones,

without the torch you lift in your hand

that others may not see as golden,

that perhaps no one believed blossomed

the glowing origin of the rose,

without, in the end, your being, your coming

suddenly, inspiringly, to know my life,

blaze of the rose-tree, wheat of the breeze:

and it follows that I am, because you are:

it follows from ‘you are’, that I am, and we:

and, because of love, you will, I will,

We will, come to be. 

Ode to Broken Things by Pablo Neruda

Things get broken  

at home  

like they were pushed  

by an invisible, deliberate smasher.  

It's not my hands  

or yours  

It wasn't the girls  

with their hard fingernails  

or the motion of the planet.  

It wasn't anything or anybody  

It wasn't the wind  

It wasn't the orange-colored noontime  

Or night over the earth  

It wasn't even the nose or the elbow  

Or the hips getting bigger  

or the ankle  

or the air.  

The plate broke, the lamp fell  

All the flower pots tumbled over  

one by one. That pot  

which overflowed with scarlet  

in the middle of October,  

it got tired from all the violets  

and another empty one  

rolled round and round and round  

all through winter  

until it was only the powder  

of a flowerpot,  

a broken memory, shining dust. 

And that clock 
whose sound 
was 
the voice of our lives, 
the secret 
thread of our weeks, 
which released 
one by one, so many hours 
for honey and silence 
for so many births and jobs, 
that clock also 
fell 
and its delicate blue guts 
vibrated 
among the broken glass 
its wide heart 
unsprung. 

Life goes on grinding up 
glass, wearing out clothes 
making fragments 
breaking down 
forms 
and what lasts through time 
is like an island on a ship in the sea, 
perishable 
surrounded by dangerous fragility 
by merciless waters and threats. 

Let's put all our treasures together 
-- the clocks, plates, cups cracked by the cold -- 
into a sack and carry them 
to the sea 
and let our possessions sink 
into one alarming breaker 
that sounds like a river. 
May whatever breaks 
be reconstructed by the sea 
with the long labor of its tides. 
So many useless things 
which nobody broke 
but which got broken anyway. 

Love, Forgive Me by Sierra Demulder

My sister told me a soul mate is not the person 
who makes you the happiest but the one who 
makes you feel the most, who conducts your heart

to bang the loudest, who can drag you giggling 
with forgiveness from the cellar they locked you in. 
It has always been you. You are the first

person I was afraid to sleep next to,
not because of the fear you would leave 
in the night but because I didn’t want to wake up

ungracefully. In the morning, I crawled over 
your lumbering chest to wash my face and pinch 
my cheeks and lay myself out like a still-life

beside you. Your new girlfriend is pretty 
like the cover of a cookbook. I have said her name 
into the empty belly of my apartment. Forgive me.

When I feel myself falling out of love with you, 
I turn the record of your laughter over, reposition 
the needle. I dust the dirty living room of your affection.

I have imagined our children. Forgive me. I made up 
the best parts of you. Forgive me. When you told me 
to look for you on my wedding day, to pause

on the alter for the sound of your voice 
before sinking myself into the pond of another 
love, forgive me. I mistook it for a promise.

Games by Jack Gilbert

Imagine if suffering were real.
Imagine if those old people were afraid of death.
What if the midget or the girl with one arm
really felt pain? Imagine how impossible it would be
to live if some people were
alone and afraid all their lives. 

What Kind of Times are These by Adrienne Rich

There's a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill
and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows
near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted
who disappeared into those shadows.

I've walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don't be fooled
this isn't a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,
our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
its own ways of making people disappear.

I won't tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods
meeting the unmarked strip of light—
ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:
I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.

And I won't tell you where it is, so why do I tell you
anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these
to have you listen at all, it's necessary
to talk about trees. 

Choices by Nikki Giovanni

if i can't do 
what i want to do 
then my job is to not 
do what i don't want 
to do 

it's not the same thing 
but it's the best i can 
do 

if i can't have 
what i want    then 
my job is to want 
what i've got 
and be satisfied 
that at least there 
is something more 
to want 

since i can't go 
where i need 
to go    then i must    go 
where the signs point 
though always understanding 
parallel movement 
isn't lateral 

when i can't express 
what i really feel 
i practice feeling 
what i can express 
and none of it is equal 
i know 
but that's why mankind 
alone among the animals 
learns to cry

Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda

I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving

but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

The Rider by Naomi Shihab Nye

A boy told me

if he roller-skated fast enough

his loneliness couldn’t catch up to him,

the best reason I ever heard

for trying to be a champion.

A Poem for Swingers by Pablo Neruda

a poem for swingers, a poem for the playgirls of the universe

I like women who haven’t lived with too many men.
I don’t expect virginity but I simply prefer women
who haven’t been rubbed raw by experience.

there is a quality about women who choose
men sparingly;
it appears in their walk
in their eyes
in their laughter and in their
gentle hearts.

women who have had too many men
seem to choose the next one
out of revenge rather than with
feeling.

when you play the field selfishly everything
works against you:
one can’t insist on love or
demand affection.
you’re finally left with whatever
you have been willing to give
which often is:
nothing.

some women are delicate things
some women are delicious and
wondrous.

if you want to piss on the sun
go ahead
but please leave them
alone.

A Brief for the Defense by Jack Gilbert

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come. 

Animals by Frank O'Hara

       Have you forgotten what we were like then
       when we were still first rate
       and the day came fat with an apple in its mouth
      
       it's no use worrying about Time
       but we did have a few tricks up our sleeves
       and turned some sharp corners
      
       the whole pasture looked like our meal
       we didn't need speedometers
       we could manage cocktails out of ice and water
      
       I wouldn't want to be faster
       or greener than now if you were with me O you
       were the best of all my days