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

 "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