People who love themselves

Source: Pixabay

People who love themselves, don’t hurt other people. People who love themselves have no reason to ever judge another person on looks. There is simply no need. People who love themselves no longer look at beauty on a sliding scale or as a competition. There is nobody more beautiful or less beautiful than anyone else, including themselves. People who love themselves no longer see fat or skinny, tall or short, fair or dark skin, gay or straight, strong or weak. They only see people. Beautiful, beautiful people.

~ Dan Pearce

Things I Didn't Know I Loved

Source: Favim

it’s 1962 March 28th

I’m sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train 

night is falling

I never knew I liked

night descending like a tired bird on a smoky wet plain 

I don’t like

comparing nightfall to a tired bird

I didn’t know I loved the earth

can someone who hasn’t worked the earth love it 

I’ve never worked the earth

it must be my only Platonic love

and here I’ve loved rivers all this time

whether motionless like this they curl skirting the hills

European hills crowned with chateaus

or whether stretched out flat as far as the eye can see

I know you can’t wash in the same river even once

I know the river will bring new lights you’ll never see

I know we live slightly longer than a horse but not nearly as long as a crow

I know this has troubled people before

                         and will trouble those after me

I know all this has been said a thousand times before 

                         and will be said after me

I didn’t know I loved the sky 

cloudy or clear

the blue vault Andrei studied on his back at Borodino

in prison I translated both volumes of War and Peace into Turkish 

I hear voices

not from the blue vault but from the yard 

the guards are beating someone again

I didn’t know I loved trees

bare beeches near Moscow in Peredelkino

they come upon me in winter noble and modest 

beeches are Russian the way poplars are Turkish 

“the poplars of Izmir

losing their leaves. . .

they call me The Knife. . .

                         lover like a young tree. . .

I blow stately mansions sky-high”

in the Ilgaz woods in 1920 I tied an embroidered linen handkerchief 

                                        to a pine bough for luck

I never knew I loved roads 

even the asphalt kind

Vera’s behind the wheel we’re driving from Moscow to the Crimea 

                                                          Koktebele

                               formerly “Goktepé ili” in Turkish 

the two of us inside a closed box

the world flows past on both sides distant and mute 

I was never so close to anyone in my life

bandits stopped me on the red road between Bolu and Geredé

                                        when I was eighteen

apart from my life I didn’t have anything in the wagon they could take 

and at eighteen our lives are what we value least

I’ve written this somewhere before

wading through a dark muddy street I’m going to the shadow play 

Ramazan night

a paper lantern leading the way

maybe nothing like this ever happened

maybe I read it somewhere an eight-year-old boy

                                       going to the shadow play

Ramazan night in Istanbul holding his grandfather’s hand 

   his grandfather has on a fez and is wearing the fur coat

      with a sable collar over his robe

   and there’s a lantern in the servant’s hand

   and I can’t contain myself for joy

flowers come to mind for some reason 

poppies cactuses jonquils

in the jonquil garden in Kadikoy Istanbul I kissed Marika 

fresh almonds on her breath

I was seventeen

my heart on a swing touched the sky 

I didn’t know I loved flowers

friends sent me three red carnations in prison

I just remembered the stars 

I love them too

whether I’m floored watching them from below 

or whether I’m flying at their side

I have some questions for the cosmonauts 

were the stars much bigger

did they look like huge jewels on black velvet

                             or apricots on orange

did you feel proud to get closer to the stars

I saw color photos of the cosmos in Ogonek magazine now don’t 

   be upset comrades but nonfigurative shall we say or abstract 

   well some of them looked just like such paintings which is to 

   say they were terribly figurative and concrete

my heart was in my mouth looking at them 

they are our endless desire to grasp things

seeing them I could even think of death and not feel at all sad 

I never knew I loved the cosmos

snow flashes in front of my eyes

both heavy wet steady snow and the dry whirling kind 

I didn’t know I liked snow

I never knew I loved the sun

even when setting cherry-red as now

in Istanbul too it sometimes sets in postcard colors 

but you aren’t about to paint it that way

I didn’t know I loved the sea

                             except the Sea of Azov

or how much

I didn’t know I loved clouds

whether I’m under or up above them

whether they look like giants or shaggy white beasts

moonlight the falsest the most languid the most petit-bourgeois 

strikes me

I like it

I didn’t know I liked rain

whether it falls like a fine net or splatters against the glass my 

   heart leaves me tangled up in a net or trapped inside a drop 

   and takes off for uncharted countries I didn’t know I loved 

   rain but why did I suddenly discover all these passions sitting 

   by the window on the Prague-Berlin train

is it because I lit my sixth cigarette 

one alone could kill me

is it because I’m half dead from thinking about someone back in Moscow

her hair straw-blond eyelashes blue

the train plunges on through the pitch-black night

I never knew I liked the night pitch-black

sparks fly from the engine

I didn’t know I loved sparks

I didn’t know I loved so many things and I had to wait until sixty 

   to find it out sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train 

   watching the world disappear as if on a journey of no return

~ Nazim Hikmet

(Translated by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk)

Things I Didn't Know I Loved

Source: Favim

it’s 1962 March 28th

I’m sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train 

night is falling

I never knew I liked

night descending like a tired bird on a smoky wet plain 

I don’t like

comparing nightfall to a tired bird

I didn’t know I loved the earth

can someone who hasn’t worked the earth love it 

I’ve never worked the earth

it must be my only Platonic love

and here I’ve loved rivers all this time

whether motionless like this they curl skirting the hills

European hills crowned with chateaus

or whether stretched out flat as far as the eye can see

I know you can’t wash in the same river even once

I know the river will bring new lights you’ll never see

I know we live slightly longer than a horse but not nearly as long as a crow

I know this has troubled people before

                         and will trouble those after me

I know all this has been said a thousand times before 

                         and will be said after me

I didn’t know I loved the sky 

cloudy or clear

the blue vault Andrei studied on his back at Borodino

in prison I translated both volumes of War and Peace into Turkish 

I hear voices

not from the blue vault but from the yard 

the guards are beating someone again

I didn’t know I loved trees

bare beeches near Moscow in Peredelkino

they come upon me in winter noble and modest 

beeches are Russian the way poplars are Turkish 

“the poplars of Izmir

losing their leaves. . .

they call me The Knife. . .

                         lover like a young tree. . .

I blow stately mansions sky-high”

in the Ilgaz woods in 1920 I tied an embroidered linen handkerchief 

                                        to a pine bough for luck

I never knew I loved roads 

even the asphalt kind

Vera’s behind the wheel we’re driving from Moscow to the Crimea 

                                                          Koktebele

                               formerly “Goktepé ili” in Turkish 

the two of us inside a closed box

the world flows past on both sides distant and mute 

I was never so close to anyone in my life

bandits stopped me on the red road between Bolu and Geredé

                                        when I was eighteen

apart from my life I didn’t have anything in the wagon they could take 

and at eighteen our lives are what we value least

I’ve written this somewhere before

wading through a dark muddy street I’m going to the shadow play 

Ramazan night

a paper lantern leading the way

maybe nothing like this ever happened

maybe I read it somewhere an eight-year-old boy

                                       going to the shadow play

Ramazan night in Istanbul holding his grandfather’s hand 

   his grandfather has on a fez and is wearing the fur coat

      with a sable collar over his robe

   and there’s a lantern in the servant’s hand

   and I can’t contain myself for joy

flowers come to mind for some reason 

poppies cactuses jonquils

in the jonquil garden in Kadikoy Istanbul I kissed Marika 

fresh almonds on her breath

I was seventeen

my heart on a swing touched the sky 

I didn’t know I loved flowers

friends sent me three red carnations in prison

I just remembered the stars 

I love them too

whether I’m floored watching them from below 

or whether I’m flying at their side

I have some questions for the cosmonauts 

were the stars much bigger

did they look like huge jewels on black velvet

                             or apricots on orange

did you feel proud to get closer to the stars

I saw color photos of the cosmos in Ogonek magazine now don’t 

   be upset comrades but nonfigurative shall we say or abstract 

   well some of them looked just like such paintings which is to 

   say they were terribly figurative and concrete

my heart was in my mouth looking at them 

they are our endless desire to grasp things

seeing them I could even think of death and not feel at all sad 

I never knew I loved the cosmos

snow flashes in front of my eyes

both heavy wet steady snow and the dry whirling kind 

I didn’t know I liked snow

I never knew I loved the sun

even when setting cherry-red as now

in Istanbul too it sometimes sets in postcard colors 

but you aren’t about to paint it that way

I didn’t know I loved the sea

                             except the Sea of Azov

or how much

I didn’t know I loved clouds

whether I’m under or up above them

whether they look like giants or shaggy white beasts

moonlight the falsest the most languid the most petit-bourgeois 

strikes me

I like it

I didn’t know I liked rain

whether it falls like a fine net or splatters against the glass my 

   heart leaves me tangled up in a net or trapped inside a drop 

   and takes off for uncharted countries I didn’t know I loved 

   rain but why did I suddenly discover all these passions sitting 

   by the window on the Prague-Berlin train

is it because I lit my sixth cigarette 

one alone could kill me

is it because I’m half dead from thinking about someone back in Moscow

her hair straw-blond eyelashes blue

the train plunges on through the pitch-black night

I never knew I liked the night pitch-black

sparks fly from the engine

I didn’t know I loved sparks

I didn’t know I loved so many things and I had to wait until sixty 

   to find it out sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train 

   watching the world disappear as if on a journey of no return

~ Nazim Hikmet

(Translated by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk)

I Am Offering this Poem

Credit: Tarja Ryhannen Mitrovic

I am offering this poem to you,

since I have nothing else to give.

Keep it like a warm coat

when winter comes to cover you,

or like a pair of thick socks

the cold cannot bite through,

                         I love you,

I have nothing else to give you,

so it is a pot full of yellow corn

to warm your belly in winter,

it is a scarf for your head, to wear

over your hair, to tie up around your face,

                         I love you,

Keep it, treasure this as you would

if you were lost, needing direction,

in the wilderness life becomes when mature;

and in the corner of your drawer,

tucked away like a cabin or hogan

in dense trees, come knocking,

and I will answer, give you directions,

and let you warm yourself by this fire,

rest by this fire, and make you feel safe

                         I love you,

It’s all I have to give,

and all anyone needs to live,

and to go on living inside,

when the world outside

no longer cares if you live or die;

remember,

                         I love you.

~ Jimmy Santiago Baca

I Am Offering this Poem

Credit: Tarja Ryhannen Mitrovic

I am offering this poem to you,

since I have nothing else to give.

Keep it like a warm coat

when winter comes to cover you,

or like a pair of thick socks

the cold cannot bite through,

                         I love you,

I have nothing else to give you,

so it is a pot full of yellow corn

to warm your belly in winter,

it is a scarf for your head, to wear

over your hair, to tie up around your face,

                         I love you,

Keep it, treasure this as you would

if you were lost, needing direction,

in the wilderness life becomes when mature;

and in the corner of your drawer,

tucked away like a cabin or hogan

in dense trees, come knocking,

and I will answer, give you directions,

and let you warm yourself by this fire,

rest by this fire, and make you feel safe

                         I love you,

It’s all I have to give,

and all anyone needs to live,

and to go on living inside,

when the world outside

no longer cares if you live or die;

remember,

                         I love you.

~ Jimmy Santiago Baca

What the Light Teaches

Source: Favim 

Language is the house with lamplight in its windows,
visible across fields. Approaching, you can hear
music; closer, smell
soup, bay leaves, bread - a meal for anyone
who has only his tongue left.

It's a country; home, family;
abandoned, burned down; whole lines dead, unmarried.
For those who can't read their way in the streets,
or in the gestures and faces of strangers,
language is the house to run to;
in wild nights, chased by dogs and other sounds,
when you've been lost a long time,
when you have no other place.

There are nights in the forest of words
when I panic, every step into thicker darkness,
the only way out to write myself into a clearing,
which is silence.

Nights in the forest of words
when I'm afraid we won't hear each other
over clattering branches, over
both our voices calling.

In winter, in the hour
when the sun runs liquid then freezes,
caught in the mantilla of empty trees;
when my heart listens
through the cold stethoscope of fear,
your voice in my head reminds me
what the light teaches.
Slowly you translate fear into love,
the way the moon's blood is the sea.

~ Anne Michaels

What the Light Teaches

Source: Favim 

Language is the house with lamplight in its windows,
visible across fields. Approaching, you can hear
music; closer, smell
soup, bay leaves, bread - a meal for anyone
who has only his tongue left.

It's a country; home, family;
abandoned, burned down; whole lines dead, unmarried.
For those who can't read their way in the streets,
or in the gestures and faces of strangers,
language is the house to run to;
in wild nights, chased by dogs and other sounds,
when you've been lost a long time,
when you have no other place.

There are nights in the forest of words
when I panic, every step into thicker darkness,
the only way out to write myself into a clearing,
which is silence.

Nights in the forest of words
when I'm afraid we won't hear each other
over clattering branches, over
both our voices calling.

In winter, in the hour
when the sun runs liquid then freezes,
caught in the mantilla of empty trees;
when my heart listens
through the cold stethoscope of fear,
your voice in my head reminds me
what the light teaches.
Slowly you translate fear into love,
the way the moon's blood is the sea.

~ Anne Michaels

Promises

Source: Unknown

"Sometimes people don’t understand the promises they’re making when they make them,” I said. 

Isaac shot me a look. “Right, of course. But you keep the promise anyway. That’s what love is. Love is keeping the promise anyway. Don’t you believe in true love?” 

I didn’t answer. I didn’t have an answer. But I thought that if true love did exist, that was a pretty good definition of it.

~ John Green 

Promises

Source: Unknown

"Sometimes people don’t understand the promises they’re making when they make them,” I said. 

Isaac shot me a look. “Right, of course. But you keep the promise anyway. That’s what love is. Love is keeping the promise anyway. Don’t you believe in true love?” 

I didn’t answer. I didn’t have an answer. But I thought that if true love did exist, that was a pretty good definition of it.

~ John Green 

Moving on

Source: Favim 

Every widow wakes one morning, perhaps after years of pure and unwavering grieving, to realize she slept a good night's sleep, and will be able to eat breakfast, and doesn't hear her husband's ghost all the time, but only some of the time. Her grief is replaced with a useful sadness. Every parent who loses a child finds a way to laugh again. The timbre begins to fade. The edge dulls. The hurt lessens. Every love is carved from loss. Mine was. Yours is. Your great-great-great-grandchildren's will be. But we learn to live in that love.

~  Jonathan Safran Foer

Moving on

Source: Favim 

Every widow wakes one morning, perhaps after years of pure and unwavering grieving, to realize she slept a good night's sleep, and will be able to eat breakfast, and doesn't hear her husband's ghost all the time, but only some of the time. Her grief is replaced with a useful sadness. Every parent who loses a child finds a way to laugh again. The timbre begins to fade. The edge dulls. The hurt lessens. Every love is carved from loss. Mine was. Yours is. Your great-great-great-grandchildren's will be. But we learn to live in that love.

~  Jonathan Safran Foer

When You Are Old

Source: The Book Potato

When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced among the mountains overhead
And hid his face among a crowd of stars.

~ William Butler Yeats

When You Are Old

Source: The Book Potato

When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced among the mountains overhead
And hid his face among a crowd of stars.

~ William Butler Yeats

Failing and Flying

Source: Astrology King

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It's the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.

~ Jack Gilbert

Failing and Flying

Source: Astrology King

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It's the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.

~ Jack Gilbert

Poem: A Book Of Music

Credit: Inga Veilande

Coming at an end, the lovers
Are exhausted like two swimmers. Where
Did it end? There is no telling. No love is
Like an ocean with the dizzy procession of the waves' boundaries
From which two can emerge exhausted, nor long goodbye
Like death.
Coming at an end. Rather, I would say, like a length
Of coiled rope
Which does not disguise in the final twists of its lengths
Its endings.
But, you will say, we loved
And some parts of us loved
And the rest of us will remain
Two persons. Yes,
Poetry ends like a rope.

~ Jack Spicer

Poem: A Book Of Music

Credit: Inga Veilande

Coming at an end, the lovers
Are exhausted like two swimmers. Where
Did it end? There is no telling. No love is
Like an ocean with the dizzy procession of the waves' boundaries
From which two can emerge exhausted, nor long goodbye
Like death.
Coming at an end. Rather, I would say, like a length
Of coiled rope
Which does not disguise in the final twists of its lengths
Its endings.
But, you will say, we loved
And some parts of us loved
And the rest of us will remain
Two persons. Yes,
Poetry ends like a rope.

~ Jack Spicer

The Fist

Source: Wallpaper Passion

The fist clenched round my heart
loosens a little, and I gasp
brightness; but it tightens
again. When have I ever not loved
the pain of love? But this has moved

past love to mania. This has the strong
clench of the madman, this is
gripping the ledge of unreason, before
plunging howling into the abyss.

Hold hard then, heart. This way at least you live.

~ Derek Walcott

The Fist

Source: Wallpaper Passion

The fist clenched round my heart
loosens a little, and I gasp
brightness; but it tightens
again. When have I ever not loved
the pain of love? But this has moved

past love to mania. This has the strong
clench of the madman, this is
gripping the ledge of unreason, before
plunging howling into the abyss.

Hold hard then, heart. This way at least you live.

~ Derek Walcott

Poem: The Confession of An Apricot

Apricot by Ben Briand

I love incorrectly.

There is a solemnity in hands,
the way a palm will curve
in accordance with a contour of skin,
the way it will release a story.

This should be a pilgrimage.
The touching of a source.
This is what sanctifies.

This pleading. This mercy.
I want to be a pilgrim to everyone,
close to the inaccuracies, the astringent
dislikes, the wayward peace, the private
words. I want to be close to the telling.
I want to feel everyone whisper.

After the blossoming I hang.
The encyclical that has come
through the branches
instructs us to root, to become
the design encapsulated within.

Flesh helping stone turn tree.

I do not want to hold life
at my extremities, see it prepare
itself for my own perpetuation.
I want to touch and be touched
by things similar in the world.

I want to know a few secular days
of perfection. Late in this one great season
the diffused morning light
hides the horizon of sea. Everything
the color of slate, a soft tablet
to press a philosophy to.

~ Carl Adamshick