The More Real Shadows

It is still beautiful to hear the heart beat
but often the shadow seems more real than the body.
The samurai looks insignificant
beside his armour of black dragon scales.

                              in Tomas Transtörmer's poem After a Death

Rua da Betesga

Ele há um fado que pede 
"Lisboa, não sejas francesa." 

Nunca entendi essa letra
que pela negativa reclama
retorno a uma portugalidade.

Se bem que não há regra
que diga que o que se cante
tem que fazer sentido,
e o autor, na onda da rima,
é arrastado por uma corrente,
e pode embater numa rocha,
quebrando o crânio, criando
vacuidade no derrame.

Contudo, naquela madrugada,
metidos num esconso com vista
sobre os telhados do Rossio
e os da Praça da Figueira,
avistámos dessa betesga a pinta,
e ela disse, "Parece Paris."

E foi, nesse ver finalmente a face
dessa Lisboa afrancesada,
e por vírus a espirrar obrigado, 
e sem me poder assoar no momento, 
que pinguei. Também do nariz.    

Suspenso

Leda e o cisne, de Botero

Se a vida é manutenção,
manutenção, manutenção,
manutenção,
eis a pura razão para deixar um momento
quieto no tempo, não o repetindo,
não buscando a repetição.

Pela biblioteca horizontal

Toda a criança e todo o vizinho

proibido de ruído para além duma tosse

tímida, reclinados numa chaise longue,

de psicólogo na mão, por vezes psiquiatra,

feitos de frágil papel e tinta desvanecente,

de si próprios palrando em surdina,

berrando em surdina, em surdina rindo,

e assim sussurrando beatificamente,

bestas, belos, bobos, quase todos.

Estar sentado é posto de trabalho;

deitado deve ser o absorver do etéreo

enredo em cada livro contido.

Logo, nesse derramar de deleite divino,

a cadeira não tem postura para a literatura.

Lombo dorido, fora! Venha a chaise longue!  

From close to closure - a toast

"I'm emotionally crazy right now," saía da rádio que poluía a esplanada ribeirinha onde fui tomar o vodka com laranja natural -- três euros, é um preço que já quase não existe em local semelhante àquele e em Portugal. E, esse vodka, tomava-o no afogar dessas emoções sempre tontas, sempre tantas, de saber que a Jennifer se entretinha com um amigo novo. Ora não há assexuada amizade entre homens e mulheres heterossexuais: É uma questão de tempo e oportunidade; estado de todos nós antes de a outros nós nos entregarmos. 

Ao saber desse estado Jenniferiano, não mais consegui continuar a nossa conversa telefónica, devido às emoções queimando no peito e, como água na cafeteira ao lume, subindo e misturando-se com a cafeína, que se mistura com o sangue, e que nos levanta e força à cafeína reagir, no meu caso a tomar um duche, fazer a barba, passar no cabeleireiro a que tinha antes desistido de ir neste dia mesmo, mas que agora tarde demais era: A aparadora de cabelo tinha-se ausentado; a depiladora removia pêlo nas traseiras (não sei se do traseiro), e as minhas orelhas tiveram que ficar frondosamente protegidas de agressões externas mais uma dia, pêlo sim pelo não.

E fui, a passo firme, a passo irado, até à beira-rio, até à esplanada, de onde as emoções se podem lançar para desaguar e diluir no Atlântico de águas frias, as quais as emoções quentes, se experientes, buscam. 

E, na esplanada, ambicionava eu saudar pela primeira vez uma nova amiga, mas sobre a Jennifer nada lhe dizendo, contudo dando-lhe atenção tão intensa como se ela fosse a Jennifer. E se isto que te digo te soa a infantil é porque é verdade. Tivesse eu tomado as rédeas do discurso e estaríamos ambos agora lendo uma poesia, porque ler não é um acto solitário, a menos que estejas lendo o que antes escreveste... E mesmo assim!... 

Depois deste pôr-do-sol irei pôr-me-belo, e o que vier receberei de braços abertos, livres que estão da forma do corpo ausente da Jennifer. 

É com estranho prazer que me expresso aqui em português, uma língua que por muito que ela a estude jamais a sentirá porque não a viveu -- tal como eu não vivi em inglês, ou, melhor, se o vivi foi-o noutramente.

Não te iludas -- eu quero que ela viva essa outra vida que agora se lhe apresenta. Não odeio no amor. Apenas queimo os cabos e as amarras que nos atavam um ao outro. E para isso um cigarro basta, seja a sua ignição por fósforo ou por isqueiro (por pedra pederneira ou por espelho demoraria mais do que este texto delonga). E desse cigarro se faz mecha, e dessa mecha se faz a queima, e daí naturalmente fumo.

Vem beber um vodka laranja, essa bebida cor-de-chama, em brinde e hino ao pôr-do-sol, tudo bem rimado com álcool.  

António's box is open, never as destructive as Pandora's.

______

The Incompetent

"Violence … is the last refuge of the incompetent."
in Isaac Asimov's The Foundation


The first refuge: to refuse to act
Wake up, greet everyone, read the newspapers,
Break the fasting, go for a walk, greet everyone, 
Go to work, greet everyone,
Travel abroad, greet the world. 
Did my incompetence harm any one? 

2: to refuse incompetence
Read myself, read books, read people,
Read newspapers, read manuals, read myself
Again, read people, read the same book,
Read how it now read, read myself reading.
Did I get rid of my incompetence?

3: to embrace incompetence
Who cares about the world, about people,
About what they think of me, about consequences,
The future, the past, history and the rest,
This is my first and last show up in life.
Did my incompetence bother you much?

The last refuge: to resort to violence
Who cares if violence begets violence,
Forwards no cause, melts down the brain,
It saves me time, gets me through refuge 1 and 2,
Lands me on 3, and I'm free to see, you fools, 
My incompetence realized fully.


__________

Written in Times New Roman, written in Times New Roman... 

To Walk the Talk

"Walking Willow Man" a sculpture by Hester Pilz

Finally we stand by and consciously 
Measure the double sense of all our talk, 
And, every man his dramatist, anxiously 
Corrects his role, his gesture, and his walk. 
    
     in John Ciardi's poem, Port of Aerial Embarkation


Waiting at the arrivals hall, I could see her before I could recognize her face. She came through the gate with one of those gaits that others before her didn't exhibit. The flow of her movement stood out amidst the crowd of walking passengers weary of the time spent sitting. Amusingly, sitting is the new smoking in terms of health, and I tell you this while sitting down and just before going outside for another smoke. 

My dog died a year ago, and since then I'm not forced to walk around one hour daily to maintain its happiness levels. That lack of maintenance endowed me with a bigger belly, so new reasons to force me to walk are in the forge of my very belly. After all, our guts turned out to be our second brain. And, no, our brain is the boss of our sexual organs, and not the other way around: it's just that our brains are, wisely, very reproduction-oriented, and we've to thank nature for it to be so pleasurably so. With such two brains, the connection in between two separate pleasures, food and sex, has quite some new reason to be made. Perhaps I should forget about that cigarette and go out for some chocolate instead.

Tergiversation aside, I've been observing how we walk. This time of the year is appropriate for that as the city is brimming with tourists so the walk of more than one culture can be scrutinised, and as we are wearing less clothes much more of the mechanics of walking can be thus seen. And if you're thinking I'm just finding an excuse to my pervert ways, if you're measuring the double sense of my talk, let me inform you that I've been observing men too, and no children at all. 

"Walking Man" a sculpture by Mathew Harding

And it turns out to be that days pass without an elegant walker being spotted. Or rather, without a walker drawing my attention. The elegant walker is the agent after all, while I'm just a passive walker-by. 

In films, where most of the time we're watching actors from the belly up, I started to pay attention to the frames when their full person is shown walking. And attractive looking people don't seem to pass the test very often. As one example, George Clooney's elephantine displacement cuts his grace in half.

Could it be that as we inherited a face we inherited a motion as well? Or is it derived from culture? Or from our very emotional traumas? (physical traumas are too obvious a walking changer.) How much of how we walk is a result of our own body's mechanics? Has the time we spend sitting down increased our awkwardness as upright walking primates? Should we walk more and drive or be driven less? I can't answer these questions as I'm not a scientist or will ever study the subject at hand. Err, at foot. 

I don't even know if my own stride is graceful, and I apologise for drawing your attention to this subject when we have so many others, more or less important, to deal with constantly. But I invite you to join me for a walk whenever you feel like it. I'll, of course, be watching you from up close.  

Urban Arteries

There was a day when Lisbon became very ill.
First it shivered. Then it was drenched in waves of cold sweat.
Then the fever, as hot as many fires burning simultaneously.
Then the delirium: "Pray, for we are sinners! That's why God is punishing us!"
It was so shaken up on that 1st of November 1755 that it had to be injected blood from Brazil.
Brazil was so drained out that it started to feel a malaise towards Lisbon.
Lisbon convalesced for some years until it was discharged. A different Lisbon emerged.
So we emerge different persons after each illness. Our antibodies much wiser.
Our Lisbon looking differently. Our drained out Brazil filling up an Ocean in between us.   

St Anthony's Day Revelations

I tend to choose a humorous or saucy revelation when it comes to this day of the year which sees my namesake saint being worshipped in the Christian world. But the massacre in Orlando plus the political exploitation of it, in particularly by Trump's campaign, bled my intentions out. 

The world is not more violent than it was in the past but extremism is visibly on the rise. A few weeks ago we almost saw a far-right president take office in Austria, right in the heart of the well educated western world. In France, Marine Le Pen's party is still gathering momentum. The soon to be held Brexit referendum has deep notes of the rise of nationalism and the closing of borders that entails it, and could potentially lead to a disaggregation of the European Union---a union which was thought of, first and foremost, as a way to end the possibility of more events similar to the two world wars to erupt. And it's predictable that the continuous flow of migrants on to the eastern borders of Europe will take a toll in the the popularity of more moderate visions of the world.

To add to that, demented individuals killing in the name of Islam will only help to swell the ranks of extremism, to recruit paradoxically more enemies and thus self-defeating their purpose: if life in the western world was any tough for a Muslim before it will only get worse. Curiously, if there was a time when Islam was great it was when it was the most tolerant of cultures; when Jews, Christians, Hindus, Nogodians were non-persecuted subjects in the Muslim world. Medieval Europe, by then, was a cesspool of religious fanatics in comparison. 

So it's not the time to shun political correctness in every day language, specially if we're talking of public figures as Mr Trump got to become. It's by language first that we dehumanise our fellow human beings and thus make it mentally possible to proceed to wish for their death, or to kill them ourselves. And it's also by language that perpetrators such as the one in Orlando will be shunned or deemed as heroes. Therefore it's not the time to attach other labels to that murderer other than demented individual. That should be inscribed in his tomb. Whether he adhered to ISIS or to Lunar Defenders is just a way of finding a group to blame, and the murderer a channel for his insanity.

It's in times like these that cool brains are precious commodities, when the whipping up of emotion towards blame and hatred blinds. And if you're inclined to think of apparently strong leaders, as Mr Trump views himself, as the way to fight a perceived threat to the world you hold precious, it's funny but it's exactly the insecure who will fill out that role of strong leaders. The way Mr Trump reacts to comments on his small hands or sexual apparatus, the way he responds to personal criticism, are hints on how insecure he is. An assured person would most probably smile or laugh at similar comments. The strong, and tough, and aggressive stances are a cover under which the insecure person hides. And I invite you to look for those characteristics in historical figures. It's a fun exercise.    

Even more curious is that America was much greater when the likes of Mr Trump could never go past the intention of becoming a presidential candidate. The smallness of Mr Trump's world lies in the self-delusion that he can make a society greater out of subtracting those whom he deems that should not be a part of it.

This is a time to be politically aware and to keep all our democratic cards close at hand. Our every day stance and speech within our social circles counts; our vote is likely to have too much importance on our collective near future not to be cast.  

“Play it, Franz. For old times' sake.”

If we replace Franz with Sam, the resulting utterance is the most famous in the history of cinema but usually reproduced wrongly as “Play it again, Sam.” That would be a great way to start an article on how easily tricked our brains are, or on how we collectively pass down information of events that never were; myths as one example. But this one, Sam, is going to be about what you were there for—for music.

It seems I'm one of those who came equipped to this world lacking the starstruck gene, or whatever it is that makes us want to have children with a person we know almost no thing about except that his or her performance is messing with our entire beings. So you can easily imagine my dropping jaw when watching footage of a The Beatles' gig, and all that mass hysterical screaming, and all that fainting.

But...

The thing is that it would be implausible that all of a sudden in the early 1960's a part of humanity had suffered a mutation that made it swoon in the presence of music composers and performers. And that thought leads me back to Franz, Ferenc, Franciscus, all of them Liszt, out of a list of alternative names for the very same composer.

Liszt is reputed to have been one of the rare both composers and virtuoso performers of the 19th century, while his pieces were famous for being dubbed as unplayable, or for requiring four hands to be performed. This is easily perceived in his only piano sonata known as Piano Sonata in B. Minor. That's quite a stolid name for a piece that could have been known as I Am the Yellow Submarine and I Will Dive in You. The shift of emotions throughout the piece, and the intensity that playing it requires, surely drew many a sigh from the lady concert goers of that time. “Oh, Franz...”

And why? Because, most likely, Liszt's music would have sounded as a break from what the ears of that time were used to, in a pleasant way. He was the shit of his own time. And music and our very existence seem to the fatally tied to one another, from the heartbeat of our mother, from the resonance of her voice in our first concert hall: the womb, to the sound of our hands and feet first stamping the floor. No surprise then that music turned out to be therapeutic in some instances.

Musical score sheets, with their allegro energetico or con strepito entries, might be seen today as elitist or snob. I'm inclined to believe though that, if those kind of entries were renamed mentally to fuck all or bring the house down, the gold wash that they seem to wear would wear off. And thus we could see the bare nature of the geniuses behind them, regardless of the epoch each was born in.

My niece C and her colleagues and teachers did exactly that last night to an even older rock star, Claudio Monteverdi. By erecting a performance with humour and amour, and in spite of the gold wash the 17th concert hall in need of repairs exhibited, they were able to transport the sex-appeal that Monteverdi brought to the world in that same century and the one before to the 21st.

“Play it, Franz. For first times' sake.”