The Call of the Wild

by Robert William Service

Have you gazed on naked grandeur 

where there's nothing else to gaze on, 

Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore, 

Big mountains heaved to heaven, 

which the blinding sunsets blazon, 

Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar? 

Have you swept the visioned valley 

with the green stream streaking through it, 

Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost? 

Have you strung your soul to silence? 

Then for God's sake go and do it; 

Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost.
 

Have you wandered in the wilderness, 

the sagebrush desolation, 

The bunch-grass levels where the cattle graze? 

Have you whistled bits of rag-time 

at the end of all creation, 

And learned to know the desert's little ways? 

Have you camped upon the foothills, 

have you galloped o'er the ranges, 

Have you roamed the arid sun-lands through and through? 

Have you chummed up with the mesa? 

Do you know its moods and changes? 

Then listen to the Wild -- it's calling you.

Have you known the Great White Silence, 

not a snow-gemmed twig aquiver? 

(Eternal truths that shame our soothing lies.) 

Have you broken trail on snowshoes? 

mushed your huskies up the river, 

Dared the unknown, led the way, and clutched the prize? 

Have you marked the map's void spaces, 

mingled with the mongrel races, 

Felt the savage strength of brute in every thew? 

And though grim as hell the worst is, 

can you round it off with curses? 

Then hearken to the Wild -- it's wanting you.

Have you suffered, starved and triumphed, 

groveled down, yet grasped at glory, 

Grown bigger in the bigness of the whole? 

"Done things" just for the doing, 

letting babblers tell the story, 

Seeing through the nice veneer the naked soul? 

Have you seen God in His splendors, 

heard the text that nature renders? 

(You'll never hear it in the family pew.) 

The simple things, the true things,

 the silent men who do things -- 

Then listen to the Wild -- it's calling you.

They have cradled you in custom, 

they have primed you with their preaching, 

They have soaked you in convention through and through; 

They have put you in a showcase; 

you're a credit to their teaching -- 

But can't you hear the Wild? -- it's calling you.

Let us probe the silent places, 

let us seek what luck betide us; 

Let us journey to a lonely land I know.

There's a whisper on the night-wind, 

there's a star agleam to guide us, 

And the Wild is calling, calling...  

     let us go.

Far, Far away Soria Moria Palace 

Glimmered like Gold

-

Theodore Kettelsen

I like for you to be still...

The Joy of Little Things

It's good the great green earth to roam,
Where sights of awe the soul inspire;
But oh, it's best, the coming home,
The crackle of one's own hearth-fire!
You've hob-nobbed with the solemn Past;
You've seen the pageantry of kings;
Yet oh, how sweet to gain at last
The peace and rest of Little Things!

Perhaps you're counted with the Great;
You strain and strive with mighty men;
Your hand is on the helm of State;
Colossus-like you stride . . . and then
There comes a pause, a shining hour,
A dog that leaps, a hand that clings:
O Titan, turn from pomp and power;
Give all your heart to Little Things.

Go couch you childwise in the grass,
Believing it's some jungle strange,
Where mighty monsters peer and pass,
Where beetles roam and spiders range.
'Mid gloom and gleam of leaf and blade,
What dragons rasp their painted wings!
O magic world of shine and shade!
O beauty land of Little Things!

I sometimes wonder, after all,
Amid this tangled web of fate,
If what is great may not be small,
And what is small may not be great.
So wondering I go my way,
Yet in my heart contentment sings . . .
O may I ever see, I pray,
God's grace and love in Little Things.

So give to me, I only beg,
A little roof to call my own,
A little cider in the keg,
A little meat upon the bone;
A little garden by the sea,
A little boat that dips and swings . . .
Take wealth, take fame, but leave to me,
O Lord of Life, just Little Things.

by

Robert William Service

Una Mujer Desnuda y en lo Oscuro

Una Mujer Desnuda y en lo Oscuro

Mario Benedetti

Una mujer desnuda y en lo oscuro
tiene una claridad que nos alumbra
de modo que si ocurre un desconsuelo
un apagón o una noche sin luna
es conveniente y hasta imprescindible
tener a mano una mujer desnuda.

Una mujer desnuda y en lo oscuro
genera un resplandor que da confianza
entonces dominguea el almanaque
vibran en su rincón las telarañas
y los ojos felices y felinos
miran y de mirar nunca se cansan.

Una mujer desnuda y en lo oscuro
es una vocación para las manos
para los labios es casi un destino
y para el corazón un despilfarro
una mujer desnuda es un enigma
y siempre es una fiesta descifrarlo.

Una mujer desnuda y en lo oscuro
genera una luz propia y nos enciende
el cielo raso se convierte en cielo
y es una gloria no ser inocente
una mujer querida o vislumbrada
desbarata por una vez la muerte.

habrá poesía

Rima IV

 Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

No digáis que, agotado su tesoro,
de asuntos falta, enmudeció la lira;
podrá no haber poetas; pero siempre
habrá poesía.

Mientras las ondas de la luz al beso
palpiten encendidas,
mientras el sol las desgarradas nubes
de fuego y oro vista,
mientras el aire en su regazo lleve
perfumes y armonías,
mientras haya en el mundo primavera,
¡habrá poesía!

Mientras la ciencia a descubrir no alcance
las fuentes de la vida,
y en el mar o en el cielo haya un abismo
que al cálculo resista,
mientras la humanidad siempre avanzando
no sepa a dó camina,
mientras haya un misterio para el hombre,
¡habrá poesía!

Mientras se sienta que se ríe el alma,
sin que los labios rían;
mientras se llore, sin que el llanto acuda
a nublar la pupila;
mientras el corazón y la cabeza
batallando prosigan,
mientras haya esperanzas y recuerdos,
¡habrá poesía!

Mientras haya unos ojos que reflejen
los ojos que los miran,
mientras responda el labio suspirando
al labio que suspira,
mientras sentirse puedan en un beso
dos almas confundidas,
mientras exista una mujer hermosa,
¡habrá poesía!

The Seekers

John Masefield

FRIENDS and loves we have none, nor wealth nor blessed abode,

But the hope of the City of God at the other end of the road.

 

Not for us are content, and quiet, and peace of mind,

For we go seeking a city that we shall never find.

 

There is no solace on earth for us--for such as we--

Who search for a hidden city that we shall never see.

 

Only the road and the dawn, the sun, the wind, and the rain,

And the watch fire under stars, and sleep, and the road again.

 

We seek the City of God, and the haunt where beauty dwells,

And we find the noisy mart and the sound of burial bells.

 

Never the golden city, where radiant people meet,

But the dolorous town where mourners are going about the street.

 

We travel the dusty road till the light of the day is dim,

And sunset shows us spires away on the world's rim.

 

We travel from dawn to dusk, till the day is past and by,

Seeking the Holy City beyond the rim of the sky.

 

Friends and loves we have none, nor wealth nor blest abode,

But the hope of the City of God at the other end of the road. 

 

 

what we had it in us to accomplish

Sólo en sueños

by

Jaime Sabines

Sólo en sueños,
sólo en el otro mundo del sueño te consigo,
a ciertas horas, cuando cierro puertas
detrás de mí.
¡Con qué desprecio he visto a los que sueñan,
y ahora estoy preso en su sortilegio,
atrapado en su red!
¡Con qué morboso deleite te introduzco
en la casa abandonada, y te amo mil veces
de la misma manera distinta!
Esos sitios que tú y yo conocemos
nos esperan todas las noches
como una vieja cama
y hay cosas en lo oscuro que nos sonríen.
Me gusta decirte lo de siempre
y mis manos adoran tu pelo
y te estrecho, poco a poco, hasta mi sangre.
Pequeña y dulce, te abrazas a mi abrazo,
y con mi mano en tu boca, te busco y te busco.
A veces lo recuerdo. A veces
sólo el cuerpo cansado me lo dice.
Al duro amanecer estás desvaneciéndote
y entre mis brazos sólo queda tu sombra.

 and then there was Miyuki

pencil sketch

Victor Vogt

Me Enseñaste

RICARDO ARJONA 

"Me Enseñaste"

Me enseñaste a no fumar sin desayuno
Me enseñaste a dividir
Que la suma de uno y uno siempre es uno
Si se aprende a compartir

Me enseñaste que los celos son traviesos
Que es mitad falta de sesos y mitad inseguridad
Me enseñaste a ser pareja en libertad
Me enseñaste que el amor no es una reja
Y que es mentira la verdad

Me enseñaste que no es bueno el que te ayuda
Sino el que no te molesta
Me enseñaste que abrazado a tu cintura
Todo parece una fiesta

Me enseñaste muchas cosas de la cama
Que es mejor cuando se ama
Y que es también para dormir
Me enseñaste entre otras cosas a vivir

Me enseñaste que una duda puede más que la razón.
Pero fallaste mi gurú
Se te olvidó enseñarme que hago si no estás tú

***

Me enseñaste de todo excepto a olvidarte
Desde filosofía hasta como tocarte
A saber que el afrodisiaco más cumplidor
No son los mariscos sino el amor.
Pero no me enseñaste a olvidarte

Me enseñaste de todo excepto a olvidarte
A convertir una caricia en una obra de arte
A saber que los abogados saben poco de amor
Y que el amor se cohibe en los juzgados

Pero no me enseñaste a olvidarte
Pero no me enseñaste a olvidarte.

Donde se apaga el amor que quedó
No encuentro el interruptor
Si hay que aceptar que nuestra historia voló
De donde saco el valor.

***

Me enseñaste de todo excepto a olvidarte
Desde filosofía hasta como tocarte
A saber que el afrodisiaco más cumplidor
No son los mariscos sino el amor.
Pero no me enseñaste a olvidarte

Me enseñaste de todo excepto a olvidarte
A convertir una caricia en una obra de arte
A saber que los abogados saben poco de amor
Y que el amor se cohibe en los juzgados

Pero no me enseñaste a olvidarte
Pero no me enseñaste a olvidarte.

Alone

            by 

Edgar Allan Poe
        (1875)

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were -- I have not seen
As others saw -- I could not bring
My passions from a common spring --
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow -- I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone --
And all I lov'd -- I lov'd alone --
Then -- in my childhood -- in the dawn
Of a most stormy life -- was drawn
From ev'ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still --
From the torrent, or the fountain --
From the red cliff of the mountain --
From the sun that 'round me roll'd
In its autumn tint of gold --
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass'd me flying by --
From the thunder, and the storm --
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view --

tactica y estrategia

Mythopoeia

by J.R.R Tolkien

To  C.S. Lewis who said that myths were lies and therefore worthless, even though ‘breathed through silver’.

Philomythus to Misomythus

You look at trees and label them just so,
(for trees are ‘trees’, and growing is ‘to grow’);
you walk the earth and tread with solemn pace
one of the many minor globes of Space:
a star’s a star, some matter in a ball
compelled to courses mathematical
amid the regimented, cold, inane,
where destined atoms are each moment slain.

At bidding of a Will, to which we bend
(and must), but only dimly apprehend,
great processes march on, as Time unrolls
from dark beginnings to uncertain goals;
and as on page o’er-written without clue,
with script and limning packed of various hue,
an endless multitude of forms appear,
some grim, some frail, some beautiful, some queer,
each alien, except as kin from one
remote Origo, gnat, man, stone, and sun.
God made the petreous rocks, the arboreal trees,
tellurian earth, and stellar stars, and these
homuncular men, who walk upon the ground
with nerves that tingle touched by light and sound.
The movements of the sea, the wind in boughs,
green grass, the large slow oddity of cows,
thunder and lightning, birds that wheel and cry,
slime crawling up from mud to live and die,
these each are duly registered and print
the brain’s contortions with a separate dint.
Yet trees are not ‘trees’, until so named and seen
and never were so named, tifi those had been
who speech’s involuted breath unfurled,
faint echo and dim picture of the world,
but neither record nor a photograph,
being divination, judgement, and a laugh
response of those that felt astir within
by deep monition movements that were kin
to life and death of trees, of beasts, of stars:
free captives undermining shadowy bars,
digging the foreknown from experience
and panning the vein of spirit out of sense.
Great powers they slowly brought out of themselves
and looking backward they beheld the elves
that wrought on cunning forges in the mind,
and light and dark on secret looms entwined.

He sees no stars who does not see them first
of living silver made that sudden burst
to flame like flowers beneath an ancient song,
whose very echo after-music long
has since pursued. There is no firmament,
only a void, unless a jewelled tent
myth-woven and elf-pattemed; and no earth,
unless the mother’s womb whence all have birth.
The heart of Man is not compound of lies,
but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,
and still recalls him. Though now long estranged,
Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned,
and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned,
his world-dominion by creative act:
not his to worship the great Artefact,
Man, Sub-creator, the refracted light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.
Though all the crannies of the world we filled
with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build
Gods and their houses out of dark and light,
and sowed the seed of dragons, ’twas our right
(used or misused). The right has not decayed.
We make still by the law in which we’re made.

Yes! ‘wish-fulfilment dreams’ we spin to cheat
our timid hearts and ugly Fact defeat!
Whence came the wish, and whence the power to dream,
or some things fair and others ugly deem?
All wishes are not idle, nor in vain
fulfilment we devise — for pain is pain,
not for itself to be desired, but ill;
or else to strive or to subdue the will
alike were graceless; and of Evil this
alone is deadly certain: Evil is.

Blessed are the timid hearts that evil hate
that quail in its shadow, and yet shut the gate;
that seek no parley, and in guarded room,
though small and bate, upon a clumsy loom
weave tissues gilded by the far-off day
hoped and believed in under Shadow’s sway.

Blessed are the men of Noah’s race that build
their little arks, though frail and poorly filled,
and steer through winds contrary towards a wraith,
a rumour of a harbour guessed by faith.

Blessed are the legend-makers with their rhyme
of things not found within recorded time.
It is not they that have forgot the Night,
or bid us flee to organized delight,
in lotus-isles of economic bliss
forswearing souls to gain a Circe-kiss
(and counterfeit at that, machine-produced,
bogus seduction of the twice-seduced).
Such isles they saw afar, and ones more fair,
and those that hear them yet may yet beware.
They have seen Death and ultimate defeat,
and yet they would not in despair retreat,
but oft to victory have tuned the lyre
and kindled hearts with legendary fire,
illuminating Now and dark Hath-been
with light of suns as yet by no man seen.

I would that I might with the minstrels sing
and stir the unseen with a throbbing string.
I would be with the mariners of the deep
that cut their slender planks on mountains steep
and voyage upon a vague and wandering quest,
for some have passed beyond the fabled West.
I would with the beleaguered fools be told,
that keep an inner fastness where their gold,
impure and scanty, yet they loyally bring
to mint in image blurred of distant king,
or in fantastic banners weave the sheen
heraldic emblems of a lord unseen.

I will not walk with your progressive apes,
erect and sapient. Before them gapes
the dark abyss to which their progress tends
if by God’s mercy progress ever ends,
and does not ceaselessly revolve the same
unfruitful course with changing of a name.
I will not treat your dusty path and flat,
denoting this and that by this and that,
your world immutable wherein no part
the little maker has with maker’s art.
I bow not yet before the Iron Crown,
nor cast my own small golden sceptre down.

In Paradise perchance the eye may stray
from gazing upon everlasting Day
to see the day illumined, and renew
from mirrored truth the likeness of the True.
Then looking on the Blessed Land ’twill see
that all is as it is, and yet made free:
Salvation changes not, nor yet destroys,
garden nor gardener, children nor their toys.
Evil it will not see, for evil lies
not in God’s picture but in crooked eyes,
not in the source but in malicious choice,
and not in sound but in the tuneless voice.
In Paradise they look no more awry;
and though they make anew, they make no lie.
Be sure they still will make, not being dead,
and poets shall have flames upon their head,
and harps whereon their faultless fingers fall:
there each shall choose for ever from the All.

The Whittling Boy

by

Winlsow Homer

Corazón coraza

poema de 

Mario Benedetti

Te quiero a las diez de la mañana

Amor de tarde

Mario Benedetti

Es una lástima que no estés conmigo
cuando miro el reloj y son las cuatro
y acabo la planilla y pienso diez minutos
y estiro las piernas como todas las tardes
y hago así con los hombros para aflojar la espalda
y me doblo los dedos y les saco mentiras.

Es una lástima que no estés conmigo
cuando miro el reloj y son las cinco
y soy una manija que calcula intereses
o dos manos que saltan sobre cuarenta teclas
o un oído que escucha como ladra el teléfono
o un tipo que hace números y les saca verdades.

Es una lástima que no estés conmigo
cuando miro el reloj y son las seis.
Podrías acercarte de sorpresa
y decirme "¿Qué tal?" y quedaríamos
yo con la mancha roja de tus labios
tú con el tizne azul de mi carbónico.

WHO WOULD SAVE THE WORLD?

by 

Amanda Vasquez

I’d lock you up in my heart’s cage
Protect you from the flames that rage
inside your mind, from age to age...
But who would save the world?...

I’d keep you in my arms to hold
Give you my tears to turn to gold
and never let you ever grow old...
But who would save the world?...

I gave you my sadness, you gave me your smile
For this I’ve crossed hundreds of miles
Loving you silently all the while
Because you’ve saved MY world.

And when you think of your splendid muse
know that although her love you can’t lose
she has to go on and sadly refuse...
For who would save the world?

received: 3/31/2001

The only poem a women has ever written me

and to this day, the best damn rejection I have ever 

been given from any woman...

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 

Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) 

"Wanderer above the Sea of Fog"

I have gone Marking

Pablo Neruda

I have gone marking the atlas of your body
with crosses of fire.
My mouth went across: a spider, trying to hide.
In you, behind you, timid, driven by thirst.

Stories to tell you on the shore of evening,
sad and gentle doll, so that you should not be sad.
A swan, a tree, something far away and happy.
The season of grapes, the ripe and fruitful season.

I who lived in a harbor from which I loved you.
The solitude crossed with dream and with silence.
Penned up between the sea and sadness.
Soundless, delirious, between two motionless gondoliers.

Between the lips and the voice something goes dying.
Something with the wings of a bird, something of anguish and oblivion.
The way nets cannot hold water.
My toy doll, only a few drops are left trembling.
Even so, something sings in these fugitive words.
Something sings, something climbs to my ravenous mouth.
Oh to be able to celebrate you with all the words of joy.

Sing, burn, flee, like a belfry at the hands of a madman.
My sad tenderness, what comes over you all at once?
When I have reached the most awesome and the coldest summit
my heart closes like a nocturnal flower.

there you are...

Inevitable...

Brad Pitt for No5

I do believe this is the first time any man plays the role of the face of Chanel...

"Be..." another friendly stalker video

She said... "we'll shoot it over the internet

and I said... "o-kay..."

what you don't here are the silly instructions which she was giving...

and four months later...