What We Write

I think people write the love they cannot possibly feel.
Here's an example of flaming great spittoons of hyperbole from Pablo Neruda. This is like an encyclopedia of feelings I doubt I will ever feel:
Every day you play with the light of the universe.
Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water.
You are more than this white head that I hold tightly
as a cluster of fruit, every day, between my hands.

You are like nobody since I love you.
Let me spread you out among yellow garlands.
Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south?
Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.

Suddenly the wind howls and bangs at my shut window.
The sky is a net crammed with shadowy fish.
Here all the winds let go sooner or later, all of them.
The rain takes off her clothes.

The birds go by, fleeing.
The wind. The wind.
I can contend only against the power of men.
The storm whirls dark leaves
and turns loose all the boats that were moored last night to the sky.

You are here. Oh, you do not run away.
You will answer me to the last cry.
Cling to me as though you were frightened.
Even so, at one time a strange shadow ran through your eyes.

Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle,
and even your breasts smell of it.
While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies
I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth.

How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me,
my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running.
So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes,
and over our heads the gray light unwind in turning fans.

My words rained over you, stroking you.
A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body.
I go so far as to think that you own the universe.
I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells,
dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses.

I want
to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

I find Shakespeare got it far more right here:
Sonnet 130
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.


I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.


This, on the other hand, is probably my favourite love song (obviously, tinged with a healthy dollop of 'what the fuck, Anthony?! Stop talking about your male band-mates'):
This Velvet Glove
Close to my skin
Im falling in
Someone whos been

Sittin by the phone
Im left alone
In another zone

John says to live above hell and
My will is well

No one is waiting
For me to fail and
My will could sail, yeah

Its such a waste to be wasted
In the first place
I want to taste the taste of
Being face to face with common grace
To meditate on the warmest dream
And when I walk alone I listen
To our secret theme

Your solar eyes are like
Nothing I have ever seen
Somebody close
That can see right through
Ill take a fall and you know
That Ill do anything
I will for you

Sailin for the sun
cause there is one
Knows where Im from
I care for you
I really do, I really do

Come closer now
So you can lie
Right by my side

Sittin alone in the sun
I wrote a letter to you
Gettin over myself, yeah

Your solar eyes are like
Nothing I have ever seen
Somebody close
That can see right through
Ill take a fall and you know
That Ill do anything
I will for you
Your solar eyes are like
Nothing I have ever seen
Somebody close
That was made for you
Ill take a fall and you know
That Ill do anything
I will for you

Close to my skin
Someone whos been
Im falling in

Disasters are
Just another star
Fallin in my yard

John says to live above hell
My will is well

Long to be with
Someone to tell
I love your smell

And finally, feelings we can all probably relate to, thanks to Steve Albini:
Prayer to God
To the one true God above;
here is my prayer -
not the first you've heard, but the first I wrote.
(not the first, but the others were a long time ago).
There are two people here, and I want you to kill them.
Her - she can go quietly, by disease or a blow
to the base of her neck,
where her necklaces close,
where her garments come together,
where I used to lay my face...
That's where you oughta kill her,
in that particular place.
Him - just fucking kill him, I don't care if it hurts.
Yes I do, I want it to,
fucking kill him but first
make him cry like a woman,
(no particular woman),
let him hold out, hold back
(someone or other might come and fucking kill him).
Fucking kill him.
Kill him already, kill him.
Fucking kill him, fucking kill him,
Kill him already, kill him,
Just fucking kill him!
Kill him, fucking kill him, kill him already kill him, kill him, fucking kill him, kill him already, amen.