TRAVERSING TEXT AND IMAGE-My paintings and poems by my favorite poets
"The Soul Of The Sea", Soft pastel, 20" X 25"
by: Adecastroan
Were I footed I'd traipse to where you are
Trundle to your side and claim a hug
But these waters hold me back
Were I winged I'd flap to where you are
Flutter around you and give you a kiss
But these waters hold me back
Unkind fate has sealed our lot
You on dry land, I on the surf
Never to hug, never to kiss
Never to hold
-Jaileen Jimeno
"If You Forget Me", oil on canvas, 30" X 40"
by: Adecastroan
If You Forget Me
I want you to know
one thing
You know how this is
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
Well, now,
If little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.
If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me
for I shall already have forgotten you.
If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.
But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.
-Pablo Neruda
"Captive Birds", oil on canvas, 20" X 30"
by: Adecastroan
We Have Not Come To Take Prisoners
We have not come here to take prisoners,
But to surrender ever more deeply
To freedom and joy.
We have not come into this exquisite world
To hold ourselves hostage from love.
Run my dear,
From anything
That may not strengthen
our precious budding wings.
Run like hell my dear,
From anyone likely
To put a sharp knife
Into the sacred, tender vision
Of your beautiful heart.
We have a duty to befriend
Those aspects of obedience
That stand outside of our house
And shout to our reason
"O please, o please,
Come out and play."
For we have not come here to take prisoners
Or to confine our wondrous spirits,
But to experience ever and ever more deeply
Our divine courage, freedom and light!
-Hafiz
"Transience", Oil on canvas, 20" X 30"
by: Adecastroan
Tonight I Can Write The Saddest Lines
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example, 'The night is shattered and
the blue stars shiver in the distance.'
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.
She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.
How could one not loved her great still eyes.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her.
To feel that I have lost her.
To hear the immense night,
still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.
What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.
This is all.
In the distance someone is singing.
In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
My night searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.
The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.
I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.
Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her voide. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.
-Pablo Neruda
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"My Dove", Oil on canvas, 20" X 30"
by: Adecastroan
Philosophy of Poetry
I have seen the highest duty of art,
emanating from the placid rebirth of instincts for preservation,
vast, and littered, painted from the details of a woman's right breast.
I have bathed with ecstasy in her theatrical mannerism
from down south, opening herself up
like the glorious wings of a butterfly: red, soft,
with moists nurtured only by the morning dew drops.
In summer, she blooms steadily, fondling the reincarnated
visions of the soul.
In the winter, she halts her odyssey, but mingles with pride
among the lost tribes of Israel.
Upon the winter's cold, her heart is imbued
with the spiritual truth of Sufi
while she speaks of the metaphysical tenets
of the Jewish prophets.
By day, she frees the slaves of political empires
who are lost of their purpose,
as she lays the lighted pathways
towards rediscovering
the most sacred essence of their existence.
Ah, yet by night, I own her,
and break down her moral compass,
provoking her utmost desires with rapture
as I thrust my worldly appetites
in her divine incurvate chamber.
Oh, sweet solicitude of the flesh,
written upon the parchment of her passion,
the portmanteau of the natural and the divine,
in my molten explosion,
a master piece is born!
-Jaypee Belarmino
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