Bitter love, a violet with it's crown of thorns in a thicet of spiky passions, spear of sorrow, corolla of rage: how did you come to conquer my soul? What brought you?

And I watch my words from a long way off. They are more yours than mine. They climb on my old suffering like ivy.

Under your skin the moon is alive.

Hay algo más tonto en la vida Que llamarse Pablo Neruda? (is there anything more insane in this life than being called Pablo Neruda?)

From sorrow to sorrow love crosses its islands and establishes roots that are watered by weeping.

Bitter love, a violet with it's crown of thorns in a thicet of spiky passions, spear of sorrow, corolla of rage: how did you come to conquer my soul? What brought you?

I stalk certain words... I catch them in mid-flight, as they buzz past, I trap them, clean them, peel them, I set myself in front of the dish, they have a crystalline texture to me, vibrant, ivory, vegetable, oily, like fruit, like algae, like agates, like olives... I stir them, I shake them, I drink them, I gulp them down, I mash them, I garnish them... I leave them in my poem like stalactites, like slivers of polished wood, like coals, like pickings from a shipwreck, gifts from the waves... Everything exists in the word.