#sonnet xi

[mournfulroses]

Pablo Neruda, from a poem titled "Sonnet XI," featured in Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

[victormalonso]

Love Sonnet XI by Pablo Neruda

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair. Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets. Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh, your hands the color of a savage harvest, hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails, I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body, the sovereign nose of your arrogant face, I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight, hunting for you, for your hot heart, like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

versión original >

Cien Sonetos de amor (Pablo Neruda)

[knell-guapo]

Soneto XI

​

Tengo hambre de tu boca, de tu voz, de tu pelo

y por las calles voy sin nutrirme, callado,

no me sostiene el pan, el alba me desquicia,

busco el sonido líquido de tus pies en el día.

​

Estoy hambriento de tu risa resbalada,

de tus manos color de furioso granero,

tengo hambre de la pálida piedra de tus uñas,

quiero comer tu piel como una intacta almendra.

​

Quiero comer el rayo quemado en tu hermosura,

la nariz soberana del arrogante rostro,

quiero comer la sombra fugaz de tus pestañas

​

y hambriento vengo y voy olfateando el crepúsculo

buscándote, buscando tu corazón caliente

como un puma en la soledad de Quitratúe.

- Pablo Neruda

[the-poetic-mathematician]

--and suddenly, from the caves, the darkness would fling out a handful of pale doves into the day...                                        But even that is all right.

Rainer Maria Rilke, The Sonnets to Orpheus, translated by Stephen Mitchell, Second Part, Sonnet XI

[the-poetic-mathematician]

Path and turningpoint. Just a touch possesses. New expanses. And the two are one.   Or are they really? Don't both signify the path they ride together now? But table and pasture keep them separate, utterly.   Even the starry union is a fraud.

Rainer Maria Rilke, The Sonnets to Orpheus, translated by Stephen Mitchell, Sonnet XI

[llvnos]

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair. Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets. Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps. I hunger for your sleek laugh, your hands the color of a savage harvest, hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails, I want to eat your skin like a whole almond. I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body, the sovereign nose of your arrogant face, I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes, and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight, hunting for you, for your hot heart, like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

Pablo Neruda, Sonnet XI

[davidlavieri]

I shall forget you presently, my dear, So make the most of this, your little day, Your little month, your little half a year, Ere I forget, or die, or move away, And we are done forever; by and by I shall forget you, as I said, but now, If you entreat me with your loveliest lie I will protest you with my favorite vow. I would indeed that love were longer-lived, And vows were not so brittle as they are, But so it is, and nature has contrived To struggle on without a break thus far, — Whether or not we find what we are seeking Is idle, biologically speaking.

Edna St. Vincent-Millay, “Sonnet XI”

[naardevuurtoren]

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair. Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets. Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps. I hunger for your sleek laugh, your hands the color of a savage harvest, hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails, I want to eat your skin like a whole almond. I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body, the sovereign nose of your arrogant face, I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes, and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight, hunting for you, for your hot heart, Like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

Pablo Neruda, Sonnet XI