500th Post

I can never get people to understand that poetry is the expression of excited passion, and that there is no such thing as a life of passion any more than a continuous earthquake, or an eternal fever. Besides, who would ever shave themselves in such a state? 
-- Lord Byron, in a letter to Thomas Moore dated from July the 5th, 1821  


This is my 500th blog entry since I started in the last month of 2004, never minding the quality of those previous 499...  

For a while I entertained the idea of writing this post as a reflective story on how I changed or what I learnt through these almost ten years. That story would provide deep insight into the human nature, or then again it would only raise many a sneer, “Oh, how naïve António has been...”

Though the thought of writing that story was not abandoned completely, I decided to celebrate the 500th post in a lighter tone.

I've been in a long poetic state of late and it'll eventually end one day. While shaving I already cut myself twice. And three large plates and a wineglass tried to make a bloody adventure out of the simple walking on my otherwise dull grey-stone kitchen floor.

As poetry has been in my bloodstream, I think I must wrap it all up with one of my latest creations:    


Love is like reading through a stream of Facebook posts.
It'll make you laugh, shed a tear, think deeply, sing a song.
You'll feel an inner wave ranging from sweet to despair.
And the very next day, addicted, you'll do it all over again. 


I'm kidding with those who unlike me are addicted to Facebook. On a serious note now, and as the last line of André Breton's Nadja goes:

Beauty will be CONVULSIVE or will not be at all. 

The Hard Disciplines -- Susan Elmslie

 

 

(For Luiz Felipe Coelho and João de Mello, because of that subject of physics and poetics)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Susan Elmslie’s I, Nadja, and other poems

 

The Hard Disciplines

 

2. Physics: After the Genesis Concert, 1982

 

My bedroom  measured say 10’ by 12’.

Momentum equals mass times velocity,

and what did I weigh, 95 lbs? Skinny.

One door, one window, one bed, flowered sheets.

I’d closed the drapes, was naked, half-asleep,

conch-eared, buzzed on blow-over weed.  Psst.

I jolted awake: Who’s there?  Stroking his need,

he leaned in the doorway to my room.  A seat?

he begged, gesturing to my pink bedspread.

He was sizing me up, my brother’s friend.

One door, and he blocked it.  Forget what you’ve read

about sailing, tacking into the wind —

I resolved this force with words:

                                                 Go ahead

and when he moved I shot past him, a warhead.

 

 

 

A tale before a grave

A tale

before

a grave

by António Dinis Lopes

Preliminary notes

Fernando Pessoa could write during his depressions.

Emily Dickinson could write under pain or during the intermissions of it.

Why shouldn’t I try then from my temporary illness?

Triumvirate.

Triptychos.

Trinity.

The outburst of a person who needs to save energy is usually short and compact.

Any crocodile, any snake demonstrates that in nature.

Natural is us thinking of nature.

________ + ________

I am sick when I don't care about the others.

In health I can detect such sickness with a few questions.

It too can be perceived by contrast.

* * *

Winter will be the season of my death.

Unpraisable fools will tell you which winter.

Even more base fools will wish it is not the next.

* * *

I remind you that the tune for my funeral is Bregovic’s “Tale V”.

You cannot afford the band to perform it.

Bring a green mp3 player.

* * *

This faint spark cannot light this house.

Cannot light this room.

But look again through my eyes.

* * *

Bring me a priest as I want to confess.

That I need no priest.

That there is no rest.

* * *

Give me a moment to recover.

To put an overcoat on my skin.

My skin on a recent lover.

* * *

This is my grave’s inscription.

It is still unwritten as the line below.

* * *

I’ve donated my headstone to build a school.

Donated my organs to science.

And bought some wood for my funeral pyre.

* * *

The father.

The son.

A Spirit with no Mother.

* * *

Hush.

You talk too much.

We listen not immensely.

* * *

Cry later in Spring.

A drop of salt.

My portrait.

* * *

I sing when the birds are quiet.

You call it silence.

Above me a remote duet.

* * *

Breton.

‘Oui.’

Where is Nadja.

* * *

I miss nothing here.

Not even a line.

No.

* * *

You were born to great deeds.

Including mourning me.

At night too.

* * *

Wilde.

‘Yes.’

A cigarette.

* * *

Come to understand.

Close your lids.

Shut the < I > of life.

________ + ________