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Statues
By: Pablo Neruda

In this poem, "Statues", Pablo Neruda describes the life of a statue during the day. He also describes the complexity of the statues form. I choose this poem because of the imagery and metaphorical phrases Pablo Neruda uses to describe the statue.

The pigeons visited Pushkin 
   And pecked at his melancholy 
   The gray bronze statue talks to the pigeons 
   With all the patience of bronze. 

   The modern pigeons 
   Don't understand him 
   The language of birds now 
   Is different. 
   They make droppings on Pushkin 
   Then fly to Mayakovsky. 
   His statue seems to be of lead. 
   He seems to have been 
   Made of bullets. 
   They didn't sculpt his tenderness - 
   Just his beautiful arrogance. 
   If he is a wrecker 
   Of tender things 
   How can he live among violets 
   In the moonlight 
   In love? 

   Something is always missing in these statues 
   Which are fixed rigidly in the direction of their times. 
   Either they are slashed 
   Into the air with a combat knife 
   Or they are left seated 
   Transformed into a tourist in a garden. 
   And other people, tired of riding horseback 
   No longer can dismount and eat there. 
   Statues are really bitter things 
   Because time piles up 
   In deposits on them, oxidizing them 
   And even the flowers come to cover 
   Their cold feet. The flowers aren't kisses. 
   They've also come there to die. 

   White birds in the daytime 
   And poets at night 
   And a great ring of shoes surrounding 
   The iron Mayakovosky 
   And his frightful bronze jacket 
   And his iron unsmiling mouth. 

   One time when it was late and I was almost asleep 
   On the edge of the river, far off in the city 
   I could hear the verses rising, the psalms 
   Of the reciters in succession. 
   Was Mayakovsky listening? 
   Do statues listen? 

Triangle
By: Pablo Neruda

In this poem, Pablo Neruda talks about three flocks of geese flying overhead. I choose this poem because I enjoyed the precise description of the birds. I could really picture the flock of birds flying above me. 
 

Three triangles of birds crossed 
Over the enormous ocean which extended 
In winter like a green beast. 
Everything just lay there, the silence, 
The unfolding gray, the heavy light 
Of space, some land now and then. 
Over everything there was passing 
A flight 
And another flight 
Of dark birds, winter bodies 
Trembling triangles 
Whose wings, 
Frantically flapping, hardly 
Can carry the gray cold, the desolate days 
From one place to another 
Along the coast of Chile. 

I am here while from one sky to another 
The trembling of the migratory birds 
Leaves me sunk inside myself, inside my own matter 
Like an everlasting well 
Dug by an immovable spiral. 
Now they have disappeared 
Black feathers of the sea 
Iron birds 
From steep slopes and rock piles 
Now at noon 
I am in front of emptiness. It’s a winter 
Space stretched out 
And the sea has put 
Over its blue face 
A bitter mask. 

Wind on the Island
By Pablo Neruda

The wind is a horse:
hear how he runs
through the sea, through the sky.

He wants to take me: listen
how he roves the world
to take me far away.

Hide me in your arms
just for this night,
while the rain breaks
against sea and earth
its innumerable mouth.

Listen how the wind
calls to me galloping
to take me far away.

With your brow on my brow,
with your mouth on my mouth,
our bodies tied
to the love that consumes us,
let the wind pass
and not take me away.

Let the wind rush
crowned with foam,
let it call to me and seek me
galloping in the shadow,
while I, sunk
beneath your big eyes,
just for this night
shall rest, my love.

Analysis of  “Wind on the Island” by Pablo Neruda

In “Wind on the Island,” Pablo Neruda is alone on and island metaphorically blends the characteristics of the wind to those of a graceful horse. Standing by himself, Neruda stays still listening carefully to the wind. As he is listening to the breeze of the wind he pictures the breeze take form of a horse, galloping through the sky. In the beginning of the poem, Neruda, tells us that “The wind is a horse/ hear how he runs,/ through the sea, through the sky.” Neruda also talks about the wind as if it were alive: “Listen how the wind,/ calls to me galloping/ to take me away.” Neruda uses strong metaphors such as these to bring out the characteristics of the wind. As Neruda says “Listen how the wind,/ calls to me galloping” his words describe the breeze’s delicate, repetitive sound like that of a galloping horse. Near the end, Neruda’s line, “Let the wind rush, crowned with foam,” brings the reader back to remember that he is still writing about the wind. Neruda uses descriptive metaphorical phrases in the poem to make the reader realize that the wind is just as alive as an elegant horse, and that if you listen carefully, you can hear the steady galloping in the sky.