Tag: #PabloNeruda

Hello Darkness

Meet the bar positively through negation

thanks Bjorn for an interesting challenge here @ #dversepoetspub.

The line you shared from Pablo Neruda’s Sonnet 17 ” I love you as certain dark things are to be loved.” it truly intrigued me. it also got me thinking of a version of The Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkle by the rock group Disturbed. with the line “Hello Darkness my old friend.”

Darkness negated.

Hello darkness my old friend,+
Your embrace my home for so long,
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,*
Watching those who dwell in the light of love.

Every Monday the blues beckon,
Tedium’s embrace my home for so long,
I love the comfort of the home tedium supplied,
Never trying to keep up with the Joneses.

Cliché expectations always grate,
Chaos’s embrace greats my mind daily,
Loving the calm after storms chaos,
Watching the storms power from within.

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,*
Cliché expectations always grate,
Every Monday the blues beckon,
Hello darkness my old friend.+

Never trying to keep up with the Joneses,
Watching those who dwell in the light of love.

© 23/01/2025 rog leach
*Credit to Pablo Neruda 
+Credit to Paul Simon and Art Garfunckle.

Lost and Found

Tonight at #dverse we have been shown some wonderful poems about being lost. and given two options. 1) write a response to one of the poems shared, or

2) re write a lost poem as a found poem.

i have attempted the second option. as one of the examples given reminded me of my chilhood.

https://dversepoets.com/2021/10/19/poetics-lost-poems-and-found-poetry/

”Lost in the Forest”

“Lost in the forest, I broke off a dark twig
and lifted its whisper to my thirsty lips:
maybe it was the voice of the rain crying,
a cracked bell, or a torn heart.

Something from far off it seemed
deep and secret to me, hidden by the earth,
a shout muffled by huge autumns,
by the moist half-open darkness of the leaves.

Wakening from the dreaming forest there, the hazel-sprig
sang under my tongue, its drifting fragrance
climbed up through my conscious mind

as if suddenly the roots I had left behind
cried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood—
and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent.”

scent of pine

 childhood forest revisited

(Based on the above poem “lost in the forest” by Pablo Neruda)

 lost in my childhood’s forest

Where I got lost in play,

I would escape the crying rain,

Of my parents torn hearts,

As their marriage failed.

A happy future

Something far off it seemed,

A deep secret hidden from my child self.

The shout of pine scent suddenly

Revives the roots I left behind

As I climb through my sentient mind

To teach me the way to behave

For my children. As I find the memories

Of lost in the forest as the rain cries.

And sing this for all to hear.

© 19/10/2021 rog leach