Inklings of Surrealism

On ponderous nights, the clock never dies.
it ticks, it tocks, in silent watch of twilight -
if you tell me your dreams, I'll tell you mine,
when I find them - I fear I've lost
the road between the folds of the skies,
the clouds, and starlight.
Flee the path... come, dear,
until you dance in the trees, you'll never feel
the
  brush
    of
      falling
leaves, imbibe the scents of pine and be
one with the wolves and the wind, again,
drink in the freedom of the springs,
leaping, running, flying -
if even the woods understand,
can love really be so hard?



I've started drawing. If you know the first thing about me, it's that I'm the worst artist in the history of everything. My stick figures look like they were hit by a stick-truck, and then were stick-mauled, and stick-mugged. But I purchased a book from Powells on drawing for idiots, and I'm sketching a couple of hours every day (during lunch hour and breaks).
Yes. After two days, I am still at least as lousy as before.
I'm finishing up the Prophet (Kahlil Gibran) tonight - it's a thirty minute read - and reading some more Neruda. The translations of Pablo Neruda were written and edited by James Wright and Robert Bly, both famous modern poets in their own right (wright, aha!), and at least one other poet whose name I do not recognize.
Discovery of the night: Neruda is a fascinating surrealist writer. (though I already knew this)

March days return with their covert light,
and huge fish swim through the sky,
vague earthly vapours progress in secret,
things slip to silence one by one.
Through fortuity, at this crisis of errant skies,
you reunite the lives of the sea to that of fire,
grey lurchings of the ship of winter
to the form that love carved in the guitar.
O love, O rose soaked by mermaids and spume,
dancing flame that climbs the invisible stairway,
to waken the blood in insomnia’s labyrinth,
so that the waves can complete themselves in the sky,
the sea forget its cargoes and rages,
and the world fall into darkness’s nets.
- Pablo Neruda


He translates so seamlessly the intangible into the picturesque, so we see, clearly, a galvanic image of reality through the lens of poetry. It's a beautiful writing that I can only imagine being all the more exquisite in its native tongue. One of the great parts about this Bly-edited book of poems is that it leaves the spanish translation on the left side, and shows the translation on the right. Unfortunately, I cannot speak spanish well (or at all), and even reading it, I know I skewer the pronunciation. Still, I feel so close to the original beauty, how can I not try reaching out with shaky, greedy hands?

You're lost in the cities of anthill life
searching the clouds, you eagerly sought to fly
and found no one in the skies -
is it lonely, seeing the world as the stars?
is their vision blurry with tears, or just mine?
come home
i'll love you ever, still