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.

________ + ________

 

overclocking cerebral

 

 

Quero estancar este fluxo, que prazer, que me desembrulha os dados enfiados pela memória adentro, violação auto-inflingida, que prazer, one is tempted to define man as a rational animal who always looses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason, cala-te, Oscar, rio, e será que a receita para a desaceleração está precisamente em ti, Oscar, quando every impulse that we strive to strangle broods, or it brooks and it books, adiciono em nota de rodapé ou escrevinho mesmo nas tuas entrelinhas, in the mind and poison us... The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it, disseste tu quase trinta anos antes da publicação de Freud sobre a psicanálise, tu, Oscar, paradoxas-te e me, chamemos outro para nos fazer companhia por mais umas linhas descarriladas aqui, agora, e este aqui e este agora são da Miranda, eu sei, Miranda, faz duas vozes, uma das quais minha, e assim continuarias esta desengrenagem em solo como se me fosses enquanto eu dormia, mas és Miranda aPróspera, subsequentemente teu pai de poderes nulos será, poderes sem efeitos em língua de sujeito nulo como esta, but if I swap it, if I swap it, I will write endless I´s e nada parará, antes tomará um rumo cêntrico rumo ao centro do ser, e esse é o que queremos arrumar debaixo da cama, quais botas da tropa engraxadas de disciplina, rebrilhante, contudo isso é claridade e confunde-se com o nascer do dia, que nasce, mas ao qual se pretende adiar o parto, sim, vou-me e conjuro uma revolta à revolta para não ter que voltar.

 

Está despida a pedida.

 

 

 

A amplitude da sensibilidade

«O sentimentalista é sempre um cínico no seu âmago. De facto,

a sentimentalidade é meramente o dia feriado do cinismo.»

                                                                                                 Oscar Wilde

 

A amplitude da sensibilidade,

a amplitude do entendimento,

o mergulhar num plano amplo,

o quebrar-se e embrenhar-se,

pois é de queda a gravidade.

 

E as plantas, não se erguem por insuficiente substância?

Do solo, do profundo, da lama?

 

Rarefeito é estado base de vez muita –

nada raro este efeito – e o que se segue,

o feito, a subida, finalidade. Que? Que.

 

 

 

 

RESET

Failing to deliver a perfect product, GOD Inc. (acronym for Ghost On Drugs Incorporated), just as any other major corporation that blundered but wants to keep a fine share of the market, apologised for not having included a reset button for the mental constructions Man produces for himself.

 

It was announced recently, around 8.000 years ago, when Man is reported to have begun his settled life, having mastered the art of growing edible plants in a favourable area for such, that there are some ways to achieve a reset.

 

The first is to follow any path one's already following. The final reset will come sooner or later.

 

Another available reset is to follow the path of GOD, a golden and toll motorway, and GOD's main area of business. “The instructions to achieve this specific reset were precise and not intended to be taken metaphorically,” said GOD. Confronted with the actual text of the instructions, also known as BIBLE (Brilliantly Irrelevant Book from Lost Eras), GOD reportedly mumbled, “Okay, okay.… We inserted some little stories to keep the client reading the instructions with interest until the end...” This sort of final reset will come sooner or later too.

 

For those in need of a reset before the final one, GOD proved that it is possible to question oneself. The reporter replied, “Can I?” and GOD said, “There’s the proof!” This soft reset is the most difficult to master, so GOD said that the sub-routine FAITH was created to help all of those who fail to achieve it. The reporter asked what FAITH stands for, only to be advised that those who ask that very same question have nun. *

 

Questioned about what GOD has been producing lately, the answer was blunt: “Why do you think we made things that can reproduce themselves?” The same did not happen when the reporter asked what GOD has been doing lately. GOD’s face shifted into a broad, paternal smile, when it said, “We’ve been entertaining our guests,” and gave the example of Oscar Wilde, who has been helping GOD with the corporation's last aphorisms.

 

“Let us tell you off the record,” GOD said, “that we think Oscar fancies us a bit too much, asking us all the time to show to him what we have in between our legs as a proof that we made him to our image.” As this comment was produced off the record and is here published nonetheless, GOD threatened the reporter with DEATH (Delicious End Available To Humans). A long debate then ensued on that mortal virus that came with the original package, ending only when GOD, in its infinite forgiveness, told the reporter that, “You might live a little longer if only you publish some of the aphorisms we and Oscar came up with.”

 

This article therefore ends with the above said aphorisms, for which the reporter denies any responsibility.

 

THE WORD OF GOD

 

When you think you finally found IT you will be already lost.

 

If you think games are for children then your game is over.

 

Part of the truth is that you will never be able to see that you are blind or understand that you are stupid.

 

____________________

 

 

* Erratum et Addendum: GOD said, “none,” and that, “If it is to talk about women, after the manuscript we haven’t thought of producing any womanuscript, as we do not intend to get into an area of business that is doomed to fail right from the start.”

 

 

 

The Disciple - Oscar Wilde

When Narcissus died the pool of his pleasure changed from a cup of sweet waters into a cup of salt tears, and the Oreads came weeping through the woodland that they might sing to the pool and give it comfort.

And when they saw that the pool had changed from a cup of sweet waters into a cup of salt tears, they loosened the green tresses of their hair and cried to the pool and said,'We do not wonder that you should mourn in this manner for Narcissus, so beautiful was he.'

'But was Narcissus beautiful?' said the pool.

'Who should know that better than you?' answered the Oreads. 'Us did he ever pass by, but you he sought for, and would lie on your banks and look down at you, and in the mirror of your waters he would mirror his own beauty.'

And the pool answered, 'But I loved Narcissus because, as he lay on my banks and looked down at me, in the mirror of his eyes I saw ever my own beauty mirrored.'


Oscar Wilde