The Saddest Lines Written

    
It was from an open balcony,    
where I saw,    
surrounded by    
war-torn deserted streets    
circling the (ruins of an) arena,    
and muffled by a    
winter dusting falling    
where there was no sky,    
muting the    
approach of horses.    
    
Black crows perch    
on a gentle sway of    
each horse’s back, to their    
synchronized lockstep,    
as mesmerizing    
as the brown shirts, who    
trot next to a solemn truck    
in its slow percussion.    
     
A frail boy with a rabbit,    
comes out of hiding    
from behind    
an overturned sedan    
that still smolders    
from when it was torched    
since before    
the snow had come.    
     
A shrill voice cracks the ice.    
“Halt! Schnell    
den Weg frei machen!”    
     
The boy with onyx eyes    
raises the    
limp rabbit in offering.    
It was dead.    
     
A soldier jumps from the    
truck, fixing a    
bayonet to his rifle,    
then runs up to the boy    
as he lunges.    
     
The horses, with their    
Grecian necks of amber,    
toss long manes,    
flaming.
 

We are not naturally afraid of darkness;
we gestate within it, our eyes unclear  
thriving in gelatinous sockets of growth—  
it is birth that dilates pupils to fear.  
  
Abuse, its steel toe boot cracking the teeth  
of our solar plexus in times of innocence;  
adolescence demands our participation—  
microscopically studies each breath.  
   
Breaking the spine of nonconformity  
fear wills one into a submissive participant;  
dominant peers lord over the weak  
and life is not lived, but tolerated.  
   
We sit on the rim of the well of darkness  
and fish for fallen light with patience.  
We seek havens of peaceful confinement—  
ultimately concluding ourself the safest.  
 
~        
          
#PabloNeruda

That tunnel seemed so dark    
the curved ball stoped you in your tracks
   
Quicksand being where the ground was easily tread
 any chinks of light in that dim place;
    
The candle flickers but won't be doused
small steps of faith come as increments of closure now
    
The die that is cast of inconsolable malaise    
times steadies the hand to find the dawn again
    
To lift a spirit from its cellar dwelling    
the full of disconnected question marks
    
You somehow brave the incline to the top    
and having scaled the blackness stood aloft
    
The compass point with its point so bright    
draws you through eclipse to that resting place
 
# Pablo Neruda

‘I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,  
in secret, between the shadow and the soul  

I love you as the plant that never blooms  
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers.’  
 
                                    -Pablo Neruda  
 
 
Deep in the hollow heart  
a flame tries to be born;
it sparks and flickers,
it only thinks of you.  
It knows it must be born  
for you require its warmth.  
It is as a star to those who gaze  
at the sky, milky and wide.  
It knows its life will be short  
compared to the eternity of most things.  
It knows itself to be a shooting star  
that dies in spite of itself  
after the brightest blaze it can effect;  
it burns itself for love, only love, its taste  
lingers on the night air.  
 
What was that flame I felt,  
what was your name, love, love,  
I always knew you cared;  
when I closed my eyes you were always there  
and still you were singed by my longing for you.  
You were frozen in my lacking, needing.  
Still, I only knew you by your name, love, love  
and it was I alone who lit the flame.  
 
It was you burning in those embers  
glowing in the dark,  
it was you rising; a ghost in the fire,
a resurrection of my heart.  
You were the scent of all the  
unbloomed flowers which  
permeated my soul darkly,  
solidly and straightforwardly.  
 
I knew no other way to love you  
so your arms became mine.  
The light of your embrace  
became mine for you.  
The dark of your heart  
became my heart  
and somewhere  
between my soul and my shadow  
my love for you was born.
 
          .....  
 
#Pablo Neruda

So many things    
about you, nothing,      
you who are often      
in philosophy and theology.      
I close      
my eyes and see you.      
I wave      
my hands      
behind my head and unsee you.      
Unfeeling. I move      
through you,      
my frame framing you. Out      
of you, all things begin.      
The anticipation is great      
at this cusp.      
The astronomers      
love you, they bang on      
and on      
about nothing,      
the mathematicians      
go further than zero      
and call you null, some      
null thing.      
Love exists but goes away      
with you, I feel      
nothing      
for former lovers. It's      
an absence      
that flat-lines.      
In no time, no space,      
no radiation, no particles-      
you were a field      
of lines or one,      
sheeted and somehow      
you noticed other      
lines, another      
and another, bump      
in and in existence      
against the other.      
Something      
was born. A pair      
into a quad.      
Our shapes. Our universes.      
One verse, indeed,      
expands      
into geometry, sides, boxes,      
blobs, desires and cries.      
You are the before      
of a fire      
from the dried moss      
of morass and a flint.      
I know you well,      
a fever burned      
out my ears,      
now there is no sound.      
I know how you feel,      
to be repelled by or to be      
attracted by
those dreamers.      
I exist with some      
absence      
of something, that one      
nothing.      
It is a marvel      
to make art out of you,      
the ideas      
that cohere      
in the here and after,      
proof in the concrete,      
by our creations      
into our hands.    
A duende, the infinitesimal    
poof, the spark,    
pops in and in    
and makes new. We all see      
how the energy flows      
from our head to canvas      
to paper to stone.      
It is nothing to imagine      
what you are, mystery.      
Easy, that is- by a loss.      
Fill it up      
with leaving, write no      
letters back, cut    
the connected      
string to friends,  
old lovers, the shore.  
Stay landlocked  
and live  
a phantasm of an ocean.  
One day I’ll be unmade by you,  
meanwhile, sleep  
brings us  
closer together.  
         
#PabloNeruda