Cheiro de areia

Entrei em mais um pedaço do grande mar
na areia, as pessoas na salmora:
suas vidas preparadas para exibição
seus segredos, manhas, secreções.
Julieta, que veio com duas filhas de cabelo longo
de Buenos Aires trazendo louça inglesa,
aprendeu a dançar lambada, um desvio tardio do tango,
no tempo em que fazia yoga nua no rio Pitinga.
Tango, ela aprendeu muito depois, de volta a Palermo.
As imitações precedem os originais, ela insinua, e diz:
- Pedaços de gente os mais escandalosos saiam de qualquer
acabrunhada ou acabrunhado que chegava ao Arraial.
Ajuda é onde os rios confluem para o oceano.
Mas os cabelos longos de Julieta e suas filhas
desfilando pelas ruas sem esgoto já foi há muitos anos,
agora, é outro sal.
Outra temperatura escaldante, outros exemplos.

Wanting to Die, an Anne Sexton

*Because iḿ about to write on suicides, heroes and what can be governed

Since you ask, most days I cannot remember.
I walk in my clothing, unmarked by that voyage.
Then the almost unnameable lust returns.

Even then I have nothing against life.
I know well the grass blades you mention,
the furniture you have placed under the sun.

But suicides have a special language.
Like carpenters they want to know which tools.
They never ask why build.

Twice I have so simply declared myself,
have possessed the enemy, eaten the enemy,
have taken on his craft, his magic.

In this way, heavy and thoughtful,
warmer than oil or water,
I have rested, drooling at the mouth-hole.

I did not think of my body at needle point.
Even the cornea and the leftover urine were gone.
Suicides have already betrayed the body.

Still-born, they don't always die,
but dazzled, they can't forget a drug so sweet
that even children would look on and smile.

To thrust all that life under your tongue!--
that, all by itself, becomes a passion.
Death's a sad Bone; bruised, you'd say,

and yet she waits for me, year after year,
to so delicately undo an old wound,
to empty my breath from its bad prison.

Balanced there, suicides sometimes meet,
raging at the fruit, a pumped-up moon,
leaving the bread they mistook for a kiss,

leaving the page of the book carelessly open,
something unsaid, the phone off the hook
and the love, whatever it was, an infection.

Guarda-chuva faz dois anos de furos

improvisa, improvisa, improvisa
vou chegar atrasado outra vez

feliz aniversário buca

eu queria furar este guarda-chuva
feito da porra da ordem
com uma furadeira atômica, nuclear
mas só dá pra fazer furinhos
com alfinete

conspiro

quero ser mancomunista

The need to breathe, by Crissa C

The clear of the blue
sky clouded
with bits of dust
that came from
out of the blue

as earth quakes
lives shake
hearts tremble
knees tremor

Air is thick with clouds of dust
as weak foundations crumble
and rubble falls around
obscuring that which giveth light
and makes it hard to breathe

As dust surrounds
my heart and mind
it fills them with unease
and makes it hard to breathe

I search for light
and those I love

I feel the need to breathe…

Tomorrow´s Toussaints

Um poema de Kalam Salaam, que escreveu Iron Flowers, um livro de poemas sobre sua viagem ao Haiti. Ver: http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/notes/salaam.htm


this is Haiti, a state
slaves snatched from surprised masters,
its high lands, home of this
world's sole successful
slave revolt. Haiti, where
freedom has flowered and flown
fascinating like long necked
flamingoes gracefully feeding
on snails in small pinkish
sunset colored sequestered ponds.

despite the meanness
and meagerness of life
eked out of eroding soil
and from exploited urban toil, there
is still so much beauty here in this
land where the sea sings roaring a shore
and fecund fertile hills lull and roll
quasi human in form

there is beauty here
in the unyielding way
our people,
colored charcoal, and
banana beige, and
shifting subtle shades
of ripe mango, or strongly
brown-black, sweet
as the such from
sun scorched staffs
of sugar cane,
have decided
we shall survive
we will live on

a peasant pauses
clear black eyes
searching far out over the horizon
the hoe motionless, suspended
in the midst
of all this shit and suffering
forced to bend low
still we stop and stand
and dream and believe

we shall be released
we shall be released
for what slaves
have done
slaves can do

and that begets
the beauty

slaves can do

vento quente

escrevo versos em um diário sem leitores
cheiro um bafo do mar, abafado, e fico afobado
escuto uma música feita de grades
mas confio no vento quente

a parafernália da conexão

com uns olhos de avelã fresca
os lábios sem casca confessaram:
não consigo amar
as velocidades me confundem
viro conto, faço contas, controlo
as mágoas pequenas eu não diluo
eu precisava ser um braço de mar
um delta, um estuário, desemboque
eu pereço
passo as mãos nos meus cabelos
toda a minha pele fica mais fina
parece que vai voar
falta sal, passa o sal
depois da confissão os lábios sem casca
batem na mesa da lan house em araxá
perdeu o jogo

Um Eliot de natal enviado por Diana

A Journey of the Magi

A cold coming we had of it,
just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.’
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high-prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for

Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

um dieter da terra do dieter

ridículo?
quem não é ridículo
diante do tempo?

esperar achar o tempo para maturar

dizem que são ondas
ondas surgem puxando um elástico dos dois lados
perto da represa, ao invés de me transformar
sigo sendo - uma pinga, duas pingas
uma pontada no sul do ouvido
e uma vontade de ficar girando com o planeta
in other words
it pleases me
mas eu respiro de saudades dos anos que escaparam
ontem