Sonetilho de verão - Paulo Henriques Britto

Traído pelas palavras.
O mundo não tem conserto.
Meu coração se agonia.
Minha alma se escalavra.
Meu corpo não liga não.
A idéia resiste ao verso,
o verso recusa a rima,
a rima afronta a razão
e a razão desatina.
Desejo manda lembranças.
O poema não deu certo.
A vida não deu em nada.
Não há deus. Não há esperança.
Amanhã […]

Philip Larkin's Study of Reading Habits

When getting my nose in a book Cured most things short of school, It was worth ruining my eyes To know I could still keep cool, And deal out the old right hook To dirty dogs twice my size. Later, with inch-thick specs, Evil was just my lark: Me and my coat and fangs Had ripping times in the dark. The women I clubbed with sex! I broke them up like meringues. Don't read much now: the dude Who lets the girl down before The hero arrives, the chap Who's yellow and keeps the store Seem far too familiar. Get stewed: Books are a load of crap.

More Szymborska: Possibilities

For those who saw Gisel's presentation of her work in the gallery she's exhibiting in London 2 weeks ago, here is the original poem she was inspired by:

Possibilities

I prefer movies.
I prefer cats.
I prefer the oaks along the Warta.
I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky.
I prefer myself liking people
to myself loving mankind.
I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.
I prefer the color green.
I prefer not to maintain
that reason is to blame for everything.
I prefer exceptions.
I prefer to leave early.
I prefer talking to doctors about something else.
I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations.
I prefer the absurdity of writing poems
to the absurdity of not writing poems.
I prefer, where love's concerned, nonspecific anniversaries
that can be celebrated every day.
I prefer moralists
who promise me nothing.
I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind.
I prefer the earth in civvies.
I prefer conquered to conquering countries.
I prefer having some reservations.
I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
I prefer Grimms' fairy tales to the newspapers' front pages.
I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves.
I prefer dogs with uncropped tails.
I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark.
I prefer desk drawers.
I prefer many things that I haven't mentioned here
to many things I've also left unsaid.
I prefer zeroes on the loose
to those lined up behind a cipher.
I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars.
I prefer to knock on wood.
I prefer not to ask how much longer and when.
I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility
that existence has its own reason for being.

Synchronicities with Szymborska and Cazzaria

Hoje no cinema parei na porta na livraria e dei de cara com uma tradução da Cazzaria de Antonio Vignali. Este mesmo que apareceu no poema sobre colecionadores de livros eróticos aqui no blog na semana passada. E, no meio do filme, Barwy Ochronne, apareceu uma pessoa que parecia a Wislawa Szymborska falando meu poema favorito dela, nessa tradução chamado de Under a Small Star:

My apologies to chance for calling it necessity.
My apologies to necessity if I'm mistaken, after all.
Please, don't be angry, happiness, that I take you as my due.
May my dead be patient with the way my memories fade.
My apologies to time for all the world I overlook each second.
My apologies to past loves for thinking that the latest is the first.
Forgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger.
I apologize for my record of minutes to those who cry from
the depths.
I apologize to those who wait in railway stations for being asleep
today at five a.m.
Pardon me, hounded hope, for laughing from time to time.
Pardon me, deserts, that I don't rush to you bearing a spoonful
of water.
And you, falcon, unchanging year after year, always in the
same cage,
your gaze always fixed on the same point in space,
forgive me, even if it turns out you were stuffed.
My apologies to the felled tree for the table's four legs.
My apologies to great questions for small answers.
Truth, please don't pay me much attention.
Dignity, please be magnanimous.
Bear with me, O mystery of existence, as I pluck the occasional
thread from your train.
Soul, don't take offense that I've only got you now and then.
My apologies to everything that I can't be everywhere at once.
My apologies to everyone that I can't be each woman and
each man.
I know I won't be justfied as long as I live,
since I myself stand in my own way.
Don't bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words,
then labor heavily so that they may seem light.

the existence of sex

there is mounting evidence against humanity;
no shoulder hold the sky suspended
rushing lions, slow sunsets, the worms of dizziness
i will not hold the bridle while he cinches the girth
may you find a way out: a seagull or a photograph
the universe is full of fine lines, hold them
as for me, I have the purpose of not
i will knock these doors when they shut
in my guts I hear water, turtles and Simbad
my face carries this sociobiology
squeezes the squid, sweet, triumphant and bitter
i’m in a country never my own, but my legs can stretch
what does it take to dance? host a duet in your mouth
there is mounting evidence against fitting matrioshkas.

On Lao Tze from The Horn Book

Maybe we need an opening gate for studies in erotic
(art, science, leisure, thrill) bibliography.
It's about knowing.
The Horn Book. Puritan. Popular.
Those who know
do not say.
Bernard de La Monnoye
wrote best poetry
aged eighty-five
(his collection of erotica
was open to the general public,
he exposed his copy of Cazzaria,
of Arentino's sonnets,
of Verville's Moyen de Parvenir;
who did he want to please?).
Waves of containment
put the price of erotica down - is it humanism?
pleasure, lust, exhibitionism, charity:
and those who say
do not know.

At an early age we're supposed to hide
certain physical sensations.
Tamed muses, sometimes merry.
Indignation, does it belong in erotica?

A star without a name (by Rumi)

Been bumping into sufi bodies, rumiphiles. They sometimes seem utterly under the spell of wisdom, aroused.

They drum, they listen to music with impatience. Maybe anxiety is the main bone of meditation. Ephat, who makes her own clothes, took me to the riverside in Kew Bridge. Food with no cooking. Pas cuit. C'est le grand cru?

When a baby is taken from the wet nurse,

it easily forgets her

and starts eating solid food.

Seeds feed awhile on ground,

then lift up into the sun.

So you should taste the filtered light

and work your way toward wisdom

with no personal covering.

That's how you came here, like a star

without a name. Move across the night sky

with those anonymous lights.

Some holes in the whole (a celebration of the streets of Granada)

La reputación depende de la respiración
Hesitar es estar solo en Oaxaca y sin voz
(Os están gobernando)

Y nos mandan al trabajo

Y nos mandan a la escuela

Nos mandan a las iglesias
A creer en algo más grande pero

Entre el trabajo, la escuela y las iglesias
Hay calles – y unas palabras.

Liçoes do amanhecer; de L. Sombra

É preciso ter cuidado:

nada que defina de fora o caminho.

Nenhum Deus, nenhuma vida a gerar,

nenhum ser a cuidar.

É preciso deixar apenas a chance

de perceber.

É preciso apenas se permitir à dança

e deixar que a escolha se faça.

É preciso se deixar esvaziar,

é preciso deixar o ser escolher,

mesmo o fragmento de ser que passa por nós

e chamamos "eu".

É preciso não acreditar em nada

e em nada duvidar.

É preciso amar, amar sem cessar.

É preciso falar a prosa do mundo

e não renunciar.

Laurênio Sombra lê Pirsig, escreve sobre Heidegger e risca um exemplar de Excessos e Exceções. Sob seus pés a terra se fecha, entre os dedos dos seus pés o mundo se abre.

Fare, taxes, total

Nenhuma energia, os poderes desligados:
tateio, apalpo - e não posso encontrar a pele dela?
ou uma escavadeira levantando os amores
subterrâneos
sem listas
sem verrugas
derretidos de frio.
Meu biscoito com tomate no chão escuro.
Há rugas no coração?