11 December 2012

When you chose me ... Finale ...


Pedro Salinas is a Spanish poet who I discovered recently ... His life story is fascinating but his fate is so different from Pablo Neruda; politically and romantically  ... A road not taken is always something you wonder and I sincerely hope that "Finale" will be true for my last words on earth. At least it will be for this blog.  Tumblr is the new venture for being spontaneously combusted ... 

http://beingspontaneouslycombusted.tumblr.com/

When you chose me—
love chose—
I came out of the great anonymity
from everyone, from nothing.
Till then
I was never taller than
the sierras of the world.
I never sank deeper
than the maximum
depths marked out
on maritime charts.
And my gladness was
sad, as small watches are
without a wrist to fasten to,
without a winding crown, stopped.
But when you said: you,
to me, yes, to me singled out,
I was higher than stars,
deeper than coral.
And my joy
began to spin, caught
in your being, in your pulse.
You gave me possession of myself
when you gave your self to me.
I lived. I live. How long?
I know you will back out.
When you go
I will go back to a deaf
world that does not distinguish
gram or drop
in weight or water.
I'll be one more—like the rest—
when you are lost.
I'll lose my name,
my age, my gestures, all
lost in me, from me.
Gone back to the immense bone heap
of those who have not died
and now have nothing
to die for in life.
Pedro Salinas


Matilde, years or days   
sleeping, feverish,   
here or there,
gazing off,
twisting my spine,   
bleeding true blood,   
perhaps I awaken   
or am lost, sleeping:
hospital beds, foreign windows,
white uniforms of the silent walkers,
the clumsiness of feet.

And then, these journeys   
and my sea of renewal:   
your head on the pillow,   
your hands floating
in the light, in my light,   
over my earth.

It was beautiful to live   
when you lived!

The world is bluer and of the earth   
at night, when I sleep
enormous, within your small hands.
- Pablo Neurda




01 December 2012

Sleeping head ...

... by Tom Otterness at the MOMA once reminded me of someone 



... and the following from  "The book of disquiet" by Fernando Pessoa made me realise why ...

I had the same sensation as when we watch someone sleep.  When asleep we all become children again.  Perhaps because in the state of slumber we can do no wrong and are unconscious of life, the greatest criminal and the most self-absorbed egotist are holy, by a natural magic, as long as they're sleeping ...

... he's dreaming.  He's attentive to what doesn't exist.  Perhaps he still hopes.  If there's any justice in the God's injustice, then may they let us keep our dreams, even when they're impossible, and may our dreams be happy, even when they're trivial.  



...

A list of books ...


... which has affected me in some ways ...

November 2012
The year of magical thinking by Joan Didion
By Grand Central Station I sat down and wept by Elizabeth Smart
An unquiet mind by Kay Redfield Jamison
The unbearable lightness of being by Milan Kundera
Never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro 
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 
The power and the glory by Graham Greene
The bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
The heart is a lonely hunter by Carson McCullers
The book of disquiet by Fernando Pessoa