it is so simple
yet not as simple as all that
for love is forgetting
all that happened before
letting new flowers grow
in what’s left of a heart
worn and fearful
of the light of day
and expecting nothing
in return
love poem
from Love, Poetry by Paul Eluard
She leans over me
the unknowing heart
to see if I love her
she is sure she forgets
under the clouds of her eyelids
her head falls asleep in my hands
where are we
together inseparable
living living
man and woman
my head rides in her dreams.
translated by Stuart Kendall
My Beloved by Paul Eluard
She is standing on my eyelids
And her hair is inside mine,
She is the shape of my hand,
She is the color of my eyes,
She is surrounded by my shadows
Like a rock by the sky.
Her eyes always opened
She never lets me sleep
Her dreams in broad daylight
Make sunlight evaporate,
Make me laugh, cry and laugh,
Speak without a thing to say.
4 line tanka by Fujiwara No Teika
I lifted her black hair
strand by strand–
the way she lay face down
rises in my mind
The Key by Ceyhun Atuf Kansu
Look! I am but a road to you
The road you tread every morning
I am a tree to you, the acacia
In whose shadow you wait for a bus.
Tell me who you are
Let me write at the corners of streets
I’ve lost myself in your town
Your name is my street.
Tell me where your house is
Do you like afternoons or evenings?
Let me knock on your door
Unlock and show me the secret garden.
Give me the padlock of your eyes
Let me close us off from the world
Look, this is my key
Unlock yourself, there is love about to emerge
Please do not hide it.
The Woman with a Pigeon in Her Soul by Tekin Gönenç
first came your voice
half-opening my doors
then you emerged leaving behind
a blind alley of puzzled clouds
o woman with a pigeon in her soul
your pitch-black hair streaming
you ran to and fro days on end
in the cross-currents of my being
shedding over me
the thousands of stars
concealed in your dimples
now tell me where your journey leads
should we all henceforth
each taking his own poem by the hand
enter from the opposite direction
the dead alley of butterflies
and yet you still abide with me
o woman with a pigeon in her soul
Your Hair Dried Last by Yehuda Amichai
Your hair dried last.
When we were already far from the sea,
when words and salt, which mixed on us,
separated from each other
with a sigh,
and your body no longer showed
signs of terrible antecedents.
In vain we forgot a few things on the beach,
as a pretext to return.
We did not return.
And these days I remember the days
on which your name was fixed like a name on a ship.
And how we saw, through two open doors,
a man thinking, and how we looked
at the clouds with the ancient look
we inherited from our fathers
waiting for rain,
and how at night, when the world had cooled,
your body held on to its heat a long time
like a sea.
On the Wall of a House by Yehuda Amichai
On the wall of a house on which
bricks were painted I saw
visions of God.
A sleepless night which makes others’ heads ache
made flowers open up in my brain.
And he who was lost like a dog
will be found like a man and come back.
Love is not the last room:
There are others along
the long corridor that has no end.
In the Morning you Always Come Back by Cesare Pavese
Dawn’s faint breath
breathes with your mouth
at the ends of empty streets.
Gray light your eyes,
sweet drops of dawn
on dark hills.
Your steps and breath
like the wind of dawn
smother houses.
The city shudders.
Stones exhale–
you are life, an awakening.
Star lost
in the light of dawn,
trill of the breeze,
warmth, breath–
the night is done.
You are light and morning.
Full Moon by Juan Ramon Jimenez
The door is open,
the cricket is singing.
Are you going around naked
in the fields?
Like an immortal water,
going in and out of everything.
Are you going around naked
in the air?
The basil is not asleep,
the ant is busy.
Are you going around naked
in the house?
translated by Robert Bly
Leonard Durso 