Your love should never be offered

by Hafez

Love sometimes wants to do us a great favor: hold us upside down and shake all the nonsense out.

Your love
Should never be offered to the mouth of a stranger,
Only to someone who has the valor and daring
To cut pieces of their soul off with a knife
Then weave them into a blanket
To protect you.

Stay close to any sounds that make you glad you are alive.

Ever since happiness heard your name, it has been running through the streets trying to find you.
I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in the darkness, the astonishing light of your own being.

There are different wells within your heart.
Some fill with each good rain,
Others are far too deep for that

Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions.

Even after all this time the sun never says to the Earth, “You owe me”

There is no pleasure without a tincture of bitterness.

Restless

It is that perennial immateriality dwelling between living and dying
crouched in the corners and grappling by the hinges
only to remain unseen;
We weave our web of what we believe we understand
of the relationship of our acts and events
only to remain misunderstood;
From that odd wisp of steam of heated discussions
to the urgent hiss of a new page calling;
I teeter on that thin ice --
That single space of uncertainty --
And I ask
“What am I doing here?”.

-Cecilia Borromeo

Journey

Ah, could I lay me down in this long grass
And close my eyes, and let the quiet wind
Blow over me—I am so tired, so tired
Of passing pleasant places! All my life,
Following Care along the dusty road,
Have I looked back at loveliness and sighed;
Yet at my hand an unrelenting hand
Tugged ever, and I passed. All my life long
Over my shoulder have I looked at peace;
And now I fain would lie in this long grass
And close my eyes.
Yet onward!
Cat birds call
Through the long afternoon, and creeks at dusk
Are guttural. Whip-poor-wills wake and cry,
Drawing the twilight close about their throats.
Only my heart makes answer. Eager vines
Go up the rocks and wait; flushed apple-trees
Pause in their dance and break the ring for me;
And bayberry, that through sweet bevies thread
Of round-faced roses, pink and petulant,
Look back and beckon ere they disappear.
Only my heart, only my heart responds.
Yet, ah, my path is sweet on either side
All through the dragging day,—sharp underfoot
And hot, and like dead mist the dry dust hangs—
But far, oh, far as passionate eye can reach,
And long, ah, long as rapturous eye can cling,
The world is mine: blue hill, still silver lake,
Broad field, bright flower, and the long white road
A gateless garden, and an open path:
My feet to follow, and my heart to hold.

-by Edna St. Vincent Millay

After a While

After a while you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul.
And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning and company doesn’t mean security.
And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts and presents aren’t promises
And you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes open
With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child.
And you learn to build all your roads on today, because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.
After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much
So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers
And you learn that you really can endure…
That you really are strong
And that you really do have worth
And you learn and learn
With every goodbye you learn.

-Veronica Shoffstall

Dati pinagmamasdan ko lang ang paghalik ng tubig sa lupa
Pumipitik-pitik sa tenga ko ang lagatik ng
sabay-sabay na pag-indak ng mga mumunting butil
Nakakainggit ang tubig na sumasayaw-sayaw.

Sabi ng nanay, bawal ang magbasa sa ulan.
Hindi na malinis ang tubig ng langit
dala ng polusyon.

Hangin kang nagtulak sa aking lumabas
Tinuruan mo kong umawit sa gitna ng pagbuhos ng ulan.

From an Atlas of a Difficult World

I know you are reading this poem
late, before leaving your office
of the one intense yellow lamp-spot and the darkening window
in the lassitude of a building faded to quiet
long after rush-hour. I know you are reading this poem
standing up in a bookstore far from the ocean
on a grey day of early spring, faint flakes driven
across the plains’ enormous spaces around you.
I know you are reading this poem
in a room where too much has happened for you to bear
where the bedclothes lie in stagnant coils on the bed
and the open valise speaks of flight
but you cannot leave yet. I know you are reading this poem
as the underground train loses momentum and before running
up the stairs
toward a new kind of love
your life has never allowed.
I know you are reading this poem by the light
of the television screen where soundless images jerk and slide
while you wait for the newscast from the intifada.
I know you are reading this poem in a waiting-room
of eyes met and unmeeting, of identity with strangers.
I know you are reading this poem by fluorescent light
in the boredom and fatigue of the young who are counted out,
count themselves out, at too early an age. I know
you are reading this poem through your failing sight, the thick
lens enlarging these letters beyond all meaning yet you read on
because even the alphabet is precious.
I know you are reading this poem as you pace beside the stove
warming milk, a crying child on your shoulder, a book in your
hand
because life is short and you too are thirsty.
I know you are reading this poem which is not in your language
guessing at some words while others keep you reading
and I want to know which words they are.
I know you are reading this poem listening for something, torn
between bitterness and hope
turning back once again to the task you cannot refuse.
I know you are reading this poem because there is nothing else
left to read
there where you have landed, stripped as you are.

-Adrienne Rich

Isang kahong lihim

Isang kahong liham 

na nakatambak sa isang gilid

ng buhay

Mga liham na isinulat

sa mga pasikdo-sikdong panahon

ng katapangang

hanggang papel lang

Kung mahanap ko man ang mga 

padadalhan

Hindi magkakaroon ng sariling paa

ang mga liham

patungo sa kanila

At ako

hindi maglalakas-loob

Aanhin pa ang katotohanang

Naiwan na ng panahon?

-h

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son! 

Rudyard Kipling 

Dream deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

by Langston Hughes

Words could be overstated
and understated
at the same time they are uttered.
Like Love.

Why Wislawa Szymborska?

Because I feel at home with her words
Not just because she prefers Dickens over Dostoyevsky

Because she says love plays its tricks on us
laughing on the sidewalk
letting lovers roam around
barely touching each other
yet almost there.

Because she says we have a soul at times
Oftentimes it wanders away
leaving us to contend with
the pushing of furniture
or cooking
and that in most times
we cannot count on it.

A Certain Lady

Oh, I can smile for you, and tilt my head,
And drink your rushing words with eager lips,
And paint my mouth for you a fragrant red,
And trace your brows with tutored finger-tips.
When you rehearse your list of loves to me,
Oh, I can laugh and marvel, rapturous-eyed.
And you laugh back, nor can you ever see
The thousand little deaths my heart has died.
And you believe, so well I know my part,
That I am gay as morning, light as snow,
And all the straining things within my heart
You'll never know.

Oh, I can laugh and listen, when we meet,
And you bring tales of fresh adventurings, --
Of ladies delicately indiscreet,
Of lingering hands, and gently whispered things.
And you are pleased with me, and strive anew
To sing me sagas of your late delights.
Thus do you want me -- marveling, gay, and true,
Nor do you see my staring eyes of nights.
And when, in search of novelty, you stray,
Oh, I can kiss you blithely as you go ....
And what goes on, my love, while you're away,
You'll never know.

Dorothy Parker

Midweek

Last night, my Bible's sharp carton edge

cut through the thin skin on my wrist

I waited for blood to squirt out

Nothing came.

Can a woman be dead

even as she breathes?

Beautiful letters

When I come across
beautiful letters
strung together,
a phrase,
a poem,
a story,
my heart stops.


-h

Hild

Oh, when I flung my heart away,
The year was at its fall.
I saw my dear, the other day,
Beside a flowering wall;
And this was all I had to say:
"I thought that he was tall!"

Healed by Dorothy Parker

My name shortened, "Hild", in a way that would enrage my speech communication professor, sounds like "Healed". In the same way does the above poem written by my new-found friend, seems to reflect my current predisposition relating to how I saw certain people in my past. Always, nature has its way of claiming that sometimes love can be blinding. Perhaps, perhaps, only true love can unveil a blinded pair of sights.

While awaiting the truth behind that assumption, I'll drink all the coffee I could leisurely gulp. :)

Ipinakikilala, ang bago kong kaibigan

Kakakilala ko lang kay Dorothy Parker. Nang mabasa ko ang ilan sa mga tula niya, naalala ko ang sinabi ni San Agustin: "Too late have I known thee."

Charles Dickens

Who call him spurious and shoddy
Shall do it o'er my lifeless body.
I heartily invite such birds
To come outside and say those words!

Dorothy Parker


Sa tingin ko, magkakasundo kami ni Dorothy.

Li(o)ving

Live, laugh, love
Look, lure, love
Look, leap, love
Live, love, lie
Love, laugh, leave
Live, love, long

At la(o)st, li(o)ve. Again.

-h

Blank

At a corner in the coffee shop
I stared blankly on the glass wall
looking through the raindrops falling
carelessly on the roofs of cars
coming and going

Random raindrops trickling down
on the pavement
making tepid pools
cupping waters of memories
melting down
the wall of oblivion.

Your Feet

When I cannot look at your face
I look at your feet.
Your feet of arched bone,
your hard little feet.
I know that they support you,
and that your sweet weight
rises upon them.
Your waist and your breasts,
the doubled purple
of your nipples,
the sockets of your eyes
that have just flown away,
your wide fruit mouth,
your red tresses,
my little tower.
But I love your feet
only because they walked
upon the earth and upon
the wind and upon the waters,
until they found me.

-Pablo Neruda

Damit

Ang pag-asa

ay patuloy na pagtatagni ng mga napunit na tela ng damit

na mahabang nakatiwangwang sa araw at ulan

Ang pag-asa 

ay pagtatahi ng mga piraso ng tela ng damit 

na di panalampas ng matalim na ngipin ni Tagpi

Ang pag-asa 

ay pagkukumpuni ng tela ng damit

na pinagdugtong ng sinulid ngunit

pinunit ng paulit-ulit na paggupit.

Ang pag-asa 

ay pagtatahi-tahi, pagtagpi-tagpi, at pagtupi-tupi

ng mga dulo ng damit

na di na magdikit.