Poetical Quill Souls

Poetical Quill Souls

This blog contains a collection of renowned and young authors from around the world poems in the languages in which they were originally written. Each file includes author’s photo or portrait and brief biography. We offer news and announcements of interest to professional and amateur writers (writing competitions, poetry press, etc) too.

Este blog recoge una selección de poemas de reputados autores y jóvenes promesas de todo el mundo en las lenguas en las que fueron escritos originalmente. Se incluye en cada ficha una breve reseña biográfica del autor y fotos o cuadros de éste. Se complementa el grueso del material con datos de interés para escritores profesionales o aficionados a la literatura (como información sobre certámenes literarios, editoriales dedicadas a la poesía, etc).

Raymond Carver

Still Looking Out for Number One

Now that you’ve gone away for five days,
I’ll smoke all the cigarettes I want,
where I want. Make biscuits and eat them
with jam and fat bacon. Loaf. Indulge
myself. Walk on the beach if I feel
like it. And I feel like it, alone and
thinking about when I was young. The people
then who loved me beyond reason.
And how I loved them above all others.
Except one. I’m saying I’ll do everything
I want here while you’re away!
But there’s one thing I won’t do.
I won’t sleep in our bed without you.
No. It doesn’t please me to do so.
I’ll sleep where I damn well feel like it –
where I sleep best when you’re away
and I can’t hold you the way I do.
On the broken sofa in my study.


This room
This room for instance:
is chat an empty coach 
that waits below? 
Promises promises,
tell them nothing
 for my sake. 
I remember parasols,
an esplanade beside the sea, 
yet these flowers...
 Must I ever remain behind —
listening smoking, 
scribbling down the next far thing?
1 light a cigarette
and adjust tin window shade.
 There is a noise in the street
growing fainter, fainter.


Raymond Clevie Carver (Clatskanie, Oregón, 1938 — Port Angeles, Washington, 1988). Prosista y poeta.