Friday, December 23, 2005

Love is ...
- by Susan Polis Schutz

Love is...
being happy for the other person
when they are happy
being sad for the other person when they are sad
being together in good times
and being together in bad times
Love is the source of strength

Love is...
being honest with yourself at all times
being honest with the other person at all times
telling, listening, respecting the truth
and never pretending
Love is the source of reality

Love is...
an understanding that is so complete that
you feel as if you are a part of the other person
accepting the other person just the way they are
and not trying to change them to be something else
Love is the source of unity

Love is...
the freedom to pursue your own desires
while sharing your experiences with the other person
the growth of one individual alongside of
and together with the growth of another individual
Love is the source of success

Love is...
the excitement of planning things together
the excitement of doing things together
Love is the source of the future

Love is...
the fury of the storm
the calm of the rainbow
Love is the source of passion

Love is...
giving and taking in a daily situation
being patient with each other's needs and desires
Love is the source of sharing

Love is...
knowing that the other person
will always be with you regardless of what happens
missing the other person when they are away
but remaining near in heart at all times
Love is the source of security

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Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Tonight I Can Write by Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda
He was a prolific writer, his output ranging from erotically charged love poems, surrealist poems, historical epics, and overtly political poems, to poems on common things, like nature and the sea. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. Pablo Neruda died two years later.

The poem appeals to me very much simply because it speaks the truth. The speaker is very honest about how he feels, and for me, that makes this poem special. I feel the pain, the loneliness, and the sadness and that is probably why I find this poem fascinating. It is because few poems have spoken to me with such candor, that this one effectively elicits from me the same feelings I share with the speaker.


Tonight I Can Write by Pablo Neruda, translated by W.S. Merwin

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

submitted by:
Francis Monfort
052275

Posted by Block R08 :: 6:24 PM :: 0 comments

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---------------oOo--------------- Tonight I Can Write by Pablo Neruda

TONIGHT I CAN WRITE
Pablo Neruda

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

translated by W.S. Merwin

Submitted by Joana Tirados

Posted by Block R08 :: 6:14 AM :: 0 comments

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---------------oOo--------------- The River-Merchant's Wife

Li Po believed in neo Taoism, a religion that believes in hsien (old wise hermits who isolate themselves in the mountains) behavior. Contrary to his religion, Li Po signs of being a wanderlust, even at an early age. True enough, his life was full of color, wine, women, song, and intrigue. This was reflected in his poetry. An interesting fact is that Li Po was a very good friend of a Tu Fu, another supreme master of Chinese poetry. Tu Fu, on the other hand, was frail and sickly, and very serious.

It’s not the typical coming of age, growing up poem that comes up in Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul. It’s not preachy. It does not have the typical Hallmark quality of other poems on growing up.

And yet, it is a story about a young girl who goes through the common tribulations of growing up; and these tribulations are universal. People from the Tang dynasty and teenagers from the 21st century can all relate. I can relate to the girl’s pain—the pain of being forced to do something against one’s will, the pain of losing love, the pain of waiting. I love how this poem can relate to any girl—a girl who is still growing up, or a woman who has already experienced the pains of womanhood.

A beautiful story set behind imagination captivating Chinese scenery. The poem is filled with emotion, depth, universality, history, and well chosen words which all depict the beauty of Chinese poetry.

- Mika Margolles

The River-Merchant's Wife
by Li Po

While my hair was still cut straight across my
forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.
At forteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-en, by the river of swirling
eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different
mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the
river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Cho-fu-Sa.

Posted by Block R08 :: 5:09 AM :: 0 comments

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---------------oOo--------------- William Shakespeare's Sonnet XVIII

William Shakepeare (1564-1616)
Renowned worldwide and through the ages for his countless masterpieces, William Shakespeare was a literary genius whose only recorded schooling was that at the Stratford Grammar School. Recognized as an actor, poet, and playwright, Shakespeare was a member of “The Lord Chamberlain’s men,” later designated the “King’s Men,” one of the most successful acting troupes in London. When the troupe was wealthy enough, they built their own theatre, “The Globe,” whish is where they performed many of their plays for King James I. In terms of his own works, Shakespeare has achieved everything from Tragedies, Histories, Comedies and of course, his numerous celebrated sonnets.

One of Shakespeare’s most famous sonnets, Sonnet 18 is impressive in terms of its ability to address multiple themes, two of the most important/dominant being loved and the power of poetry. This sonnet, like many of Shakespeare’s others, is presumed to be a tribute to his loved one, a fair, young boy. While it sounds incredibly romantic at first, closer inspection of the poem reveals that the persona is actually expressing his admiration for his beloved through dispraise and comparison. For example, a summer’s day can be seen as too hot, but not in comparing his beloved to such, the object of the persona’s love is seen as even better than a summer’s day at its best – warm and sunny. In addition, the persona immortalizes his love for the ‘boy’ through the poem, and explicitly states this in the couplet, saying, “so long as men breathe… this [poem] gives life to thee.” I enjoy the sonnet for it’s ability to convey both a romantic, meaningful, and timeless message through the use of simple diction.

Sonnet XVIII

SHALL I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.


Submitted by: Regina Arcilla

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Monday, December 19, 2005

It's The Sweater

This is the poetry page (appropriately named The Fuzzy Sweater of Love) of poems about love--- whether finding it or losing it. Representatives, just log-in and post the poems, pictures and reactions. If you're having a hard time, contact me.

Please use the standard font size and font type so as not to break tables and alignments. Thank you.

--- Cha-Cha

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