Pablo Neruda
(1904 - 1973)


Don't go far off, not even for a day, because --
because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.

Don't leave me, even for an hour, because
then the little drops of anguish will all run together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my lost heart.

Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;
may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance.
Don't leave me for a second, my dearest,

because in that moment you'll have gone so far
I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?


http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/don-t-go-far-off/
(very good reader)

It was more like alabaster, but I could only be sure
of one thing; it was an exquisite lesson in anatomy
cold ancient, pale Roman stone, the arm half gone
strongly curved, the rippling of muscle, hair and bones
a man held by pillar, marble like legs of smoothest stone
his eyes deep set that wended near, then waywardly away
the kind that strangely follow sometimes linger into the next day
broad faced, cheekbones perfectly amid the shadows
and I don't mind saying while on my museum trip
though he was a statue, I thought to kiss
those divinely sculpted lips.

....And you became like water
That slipped between my fingers,
       there is no then,
Only a haunted now,
I move in the stillness of compacted time
     In the great masses of peoples
With the landscape unmoving
      Under dome of sky
Where regret crushes a tiny star,
      A memorial of light within light,
I am lost in your memory;

           Luminous woman,
          Golden haired woman
          Stretches herself over skies

We crossed the nocturnal
In a final dialogue of our bodies,
     We spoke fire like poetry
Enlaced in the verbiage of lovers,
     But words take final breaths,
    They distance themselves into echoes,
         we named new words
     And constellated sonnets
       Into the night sky;

      The living wound
      Cuts through my life,
       Be it your knife, my sacrifice

And in the kingdom of us
Where we crowned ourselves
In the momentary truth,
       All became our perception;
We created new worlds for our selves,
    We put the sun upon the sea
And set it to sail into our night,
       Everyday was a resurrection
as we governed our lives
     In an ecstatic harmony;

       To see your lovely forms,
            The sun throbs
       In the shadow of your living hour

     In forever I cast myself
        Unto gravitous time,
      Memories embody your form
     And the moment fulfills itself,
         Though the life is gone from me,
         The poem embodies forever,
             Immense as the look of your love.

Into a bow, I folded
paper wakame
and ate it.
Intentionally.

Compulsive behaviors include :
Ingredients such as :
relativity ,
perspective

taught me how to turn
something flat
three-dimensional
and visa-versa.
The Unfamilliar, not-yet-integrated
uncertain if it could be capitalized on,
forms of existing
somehow gathered shame
exposure
sexuality
erasure
childhood memory
determination
in tasting.
I would like my appetite back
when you are finished evaluating

Above the water horizon,
where none of us can see,
everything is different.
:
I can't believe I keep forgetting.

Whenever I fall out of harmony with the uni-verse, I cloister at my mother's home. It's full of three things; books, paintings, and kids, yet the walls have more to offer..
I can hear her opening doors

I still remember how she shortened every single one of her galabeyas, and how the space between her ankles and her feet is exactly what infinity looks like.

I still remember the six gold ghawayesh that turned into four then turned into two, and I still remember thinking maybe one day they covered her whole arm like a shiny armor but she kept on falling defenseless because time is a cruel thief. I also remember how she robbed time of its powers by keeping her ancient wise soul an adventurous young one until the very last day; the skill she wanted to learn at the age of seventy was driving, because knitting is obviously for the young.

I still remember her taking pride in her roots, like a baobab tree, and I still remember how it was this that taught to stand my ground, balanced and rooted.

I still remember how people called her house "the mother of Egyptians' house" because that's the name of the neighborhood where it was. I still remember learning at the age of nine that the neighborhood was named so in the honor of the revolutionary Safia Zaghloul, and I still remember thinking that they named Safia Zaghloul so in the honor of her, because she was 'the mother', the source, the one more push, the spring, the lens, the revolution and beyond.

I still remember how her hair looked like moonlight, and how her skin felt like flower petals.

She wasn't an angel; she wasn't made out of light. She was made of water and fertile soil; she was a complete human being in all its glory, molded by the hands of Atum, and Minerva.

And if she was not only in my memories, I'd make a pilgrimage to her; kneel under her feet so she can braid my hair, and offer warmth and bedtime stories in treasure boxes adorned with her favorite poetry lines. And I remind myself instead to take a good look at the night sky; those who follow the stars can never be lost.