Toca-me na língua

 

Tu não falas o meu português,

erras nas minhas sílabas tónicas,

deixas-me as conjunções atónitas,

o teu sorriso tem zê.

 

Nem eu falo o teu português,

imaginando os teus recantos

nervosos, desacompanhados

ao som de quê?

 

Nestas guitarras portuguesas

por um destempo desafinadas,

dedilho eu, e tu usas palhetas  

cor-do-porquê.

 

 

 

na foto: Carlos Paredes

Poesia da Rosa Mãe

(aquela de publicação autorizada)

Tenho aqui em casa um frango

inteiro que já não vou comer

(lembras-te que o trouxe

da minha mãe

no domingo?),

mas deve estar bom para o cão.

Não tenho comido

em casa

e esqueci-me completamente que o tinha.

Se quiseres levo-o

e vou passeá-lo um bocadinho

(o cão, não o frango...).

A personal approach to the work of Fernando Pessoa

Originally written to explain to a dear friend how Fernando Pessoa’s works work for me (after such a double work, I’m already sweating), I decided to share the following essayish with you all who haven’t yet had the pleasure of messing up with Pessoa’s brain or let his several brains mess up with yours. Those who already know some of his work might find the following text interesting, if not able of giving you an extra insight (or a get out of my sight) into the written legacy of this multi-layered author.

_____________________




A personal approach to the work of Fernando Pessoa
by António Dinis Lopes

I don’t know how you approached the work of Fernando Pessoa (FP), but if I had to recommend it to someone then it should be done only with an introduction, contextualizing it. True, some poems survive a pure reading of them. By pure I mean that the reader was not exposed to any other by FP before or doesn’t know what’s behind them. But FP for me, in order to be fully enjoyable and for his texts to gain other dimensions, needs some blah-blah, blah.

The best blah-blah in English I came across so far is of a contemporary and actual editor, Richard Zenith. He had the pleasure of rummaging an almost mythical trunk full of FP’s writings on various qualities of stationary (which constitutes the majority of what he left at his death, having been published only lightly).

If I had to produce a not so specialized blah-blah, blah, I would probably point out his life route, from Lisboa to Durban, South Africa, the contact he had there with the English language and literature, and his coming back for good to Lisboa at the age of 17, where the major part of his work is written, and which town he barely left except on a few visits to family and to neighbouring towns such as Sintra (a poem is written celebrating it, for instance). He travelled – and enjoyed it the most, according to his own words – with his mind. He wrote about a boy, who was gathering postcards of the places he wanted to travel to, that that same boy was the real traveller, and would cease to be when he started the travel itself. It might be at the same time, if not only, an excuse for FP’s lack of wealth in order to travel, an excuse for being who he was, an averse to action sort of person – and his financial situation was never fine during all his life. (He would have been a tad rich if he had been published in life as he is nowadays).

Then I’d say that in Durban he already showed he was keen or inclined to write as if he was other. «Other» is a crucial word for him and for reading him. He played alone, developing his own social circle. That propensity certainly developed from the fact that he was an introvert person aided by a self-conscious lack of good looks, an apparently lacklustre human being. Does that fact help to develop the mind? I think it does. It’s almost as a natural strategy for balancing things: “You are the good-looking, and therefore your looks will bring you many social benefits, while you are the one who in order to succeed needs to think more and better.” Name three good-looking geniuses for instance. But I’m still not fully sure. It is just a subject that tends to come to mind from time to time when faced with more data that might feed it or shrink its head. FP was insecure in the physical presence of others; he can turn into a ravaging pirate and the ravaged girl simulatenously in his writings. His undefined or suppressed homosexuality; his so virginal sexual inexperience is the cherry on top of his cake.

And then I’d mention the heteronyms, which I think cannot be abridged without at least FP’s own accounts of them and their meetings, their relationships. Simply put, I’d say that Alberto Caeiro (inspired by Walt Whitman but with a Portuguese rural flavour) is the master, even though such heteronym appeared later than his disciples, as FP tells us on a letter to a friend. His most intriguing, intrigued and rebellious disciple is the naval engineer Álvaro de Campos (my favourite, if I had to choose). FP, also a disciple of his own heteronym Alberto Caeiro, is deemed as a poor character by Álvaro de Campos and it was even this heteronym that terminated the real life relationship with the only girlfriend FP had! Álvaro de Campos is then almost an alter-ego of FP, reflecting the views the writer has of himself. Finally and regarding Álvaro de Campos, this heteronym reminds me of FP's friend and artist Almada Negreiros. Ricardo Reis should be given not much importance but makes sense as an «other», as he is a formalist poet, a posing one, a Greek statue but without the split body, half in motion half in rest; he is not paradoxical, not human, not for me anyway.

I’d continue by saying that Bernardo Soares, whom FP called a semi-heteronym (probably because of his own fears of self-exposure), casts many a light on FP’s concept of himself and, of course, that of others, on The Book of Disquiet (which was never a book and never published, but, like the majority of his work, a bundle of notes… for he was «moving», for sure, in many directions at different times but with short intervals in between them, almost never ending a task before getting engaged in a new one).
As a later note, I’d add that some authors approach FP for his mystical side and writings, enquiries, astrological charts, even his automatic writing. They all tend to forget that FP himself later on dismissed that phase of his life as rubbish. And we all should have our freedom to make mistakes.
 
Maybe I’d then say that this is enough of blah-blah, and would recommend, based on my own taste, the reading of Álvaro de Campos’ text «Ultimatum», his poems «The Tobacconist» and «Maritime Ode», the whole poems of the master Alberto Caeiro («The Keeper of Sheep») and Bernardo Soares’ The Book of Disquiet. If after that my interlocutor would find FP to be uninteresting, then that would be none of my problem as I'd have given almost all I could about the author(s)(r)(s)(r)(s).

Varina e Pescador emaranhados

 

(aviso: pornografia)

 

 

Pescador, pescador,

se fores ao alto-mar

vem-te pelo baixo;

há que trazer peixe

no ventre do barco

para a tua varina

pôr dentro do vime

e na hora da sesta

à rosa-dos-ventos

sem cardinais apregoar:

— Pescador, ó pescador!

O teu anzol é um pecado

e a tua rede penetrada

deixou passar o peixe

e apanhou meu amor.

«Em mim espraia-te...»

 Imagem paradoxal: Almada Negreiros

 

A humidade na humanidade

Esta cidade tem sementes dormentes no solo.

Com os primeiros pingos de chuva,

talvez com o seu premonitório cheiro,

eis que se materializam viaturas do quase nada —

rótulo imposto à garagem plena de pouco gozo.

 

Caminharemos nós na ilusão de que água é vida?

De que género dela se pipoqueia este corpo,

esta extensão de pénis ou de planta

criptogâmica, o carro?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Imagem: Saanga, "rain at sunset"

A Rainha de Inglaterra & a avó-baú

 

Dedicado ao Sr. Baú, e às suas experiências terrenas

A Rainha de Inglaterra é diferente no título
mas igual na terra.

Quando Nosso Senhor a trouxe ao mundo,
berrou.

Se se retira majestosamente para o privy,
mijará.

Com uma ligeira indisposição gástrica,
peida-se.

E no dia de Excelsa Glória Celeste,
morrerá.

Bem dizia a avó-baú:
"Nem melhor, nem pior. Somos iguais."

A Rainha de Inglaterra contudo
(e tem muito)
fala outra língua e, dentro dela, dialecto.

 

To call, distichs.

 

For an Irish friend living in Canada,

on the nominees for an Oscar

 

 

 

 

To call, distichs.

 

 

You call me Ireland;

I’m calling you home.

 

No need I have of you,

by far an extra one.

 

But you took from me

items of my essence:

 

my rhythm in substance;

my music, my balance.

 

So deprived, I’m land

striped off of mortal ire.

 

Keep your fire, keep,

yet do return my love:

 

above a canned land,

be I damned ever first.

 

You know your curse’s

my hospitable laughter.

 

 

 

 

Porque perco tanto tempo com um assunto enterrado?

Desta tristeza de ser agnóstico, nesta falta de rumo imposta pela ausência duma certeza mesmo que fosse inominável, indefinida, inexplicável, surge por vezes o lamento:

— Deus! Porque me abandonaste? Quero-te tanto, mais do que os que te...

— Importunas-Me.

— Meu Deus!

— Que pleonasmo esse o teu...

— Pai, é pasmo o meu!

— ... circunlóquio, superfluidade.

— Ah... vieste ensinar-me figuras de estilo?

— Não gozes.

— A pergunta é um gozo?

— Se a resposta não houver lugar.

— Sendo assim e doravante, tentarei sempre amplificar as minhas inquirições, reservando-lhes espaço para as respostas! Obrigado por este primeiro ensinamento!

— Não necessito dos teus favores, logo não te obrigues a nada no que Me toca.

— Não te toco...

— Nem Me vês.

— Oiço-te?

— Ouves.

— E falas?

— Falo.

— Então sempre és macho...

— A tua estupidez é tão lastimável quanto o teu gracejo.

— Como assim?

— Porque não vês que o é óbvio, que Eu só poderia ser macho, e porque te falta a divina graça.

— Explicas-me?

— Sim. É Minha a função de pai, pedagogo, disciplinador e protector, logo de demonstrar-te o que não sabes.

— E quem te incumbe dela?

— Escuta apenas. E não vejas.

— Perdão...

— O homem nasce para um desconhecido, e todo esse vazio, tão cheio, necessita de ser emprenhado de sentido, para que cessem perguntas tantas, para que possa movimentar-se, actuando.

— Estou escutando. Cerro os olhos...

— E assim agarrar-se-á rapidamente, porque urge, porque morre, ao que vê. Ver não é mau, mas simplesmente falho. E da origem da vida vê-lhe o sexo e a semente, e a macha ganha visibilidade quando se enrija e se esporra, e sente-la fervente. E a semente fêmea abscôndita contudo é de glória análoga...

— ... Que estilo verbal, o divino...

— ... Dos sentimentos, sente o homem a força no macho, a protecção de todos os eventos que não controla, que desconhece; o movimento universal que se desenrola. Se se quiser um protector de tanto desconhecido, quer-se a figura mesma, quer-se o pai. E se se quiser um director, a autoridade última de onde tudo o que não se controla emana...

— ... Quer-se a irmã?...

— ... quer-se o pai, o que manda. E quer-se um pai bruto de certezas sobretudo no início e no fim da vida, ou noutro período humano de fragilidade, tal como nos de assoberbada exaltação.

— Mas isso seria válido também numa sociedade matriarcal?

— Enquanto o macho for o dos músculos, sim.

— E quanto à mãe, à virgem Maria?

— Se lhe fosse reconhecido algum poder então haveria papisas.

— Mas ela tem algum poder?

— Se não o tivesse nem sequer se a adorava.

— Bom, poder de escolha pelo menos não teve...

— Acautela-te pois leio-te a mente impura.

— Essa é como a minha carne, que fazer?... Mas diz-me, foste tu que a violaste?

— Para que necessitaria Eu de mulher para fazer da concepção um milagre? Foi poderoso que por ali passou e lhe disse que o calasse.

— Um nobre?

— Um monarca. Afinal, «Venha a mim o Vosso reino».

— Que frase tão tendente ao equívoco...

— Assim é a voz divina.

— Mais alguém agora a escuta?

— Não. E sim. Simultaneamente.

— Um paradoxo?

— Retornas às figuras de estilo e de retórica.

— Sou, pois, um ser circular?

— Como o amor, sim.

— O amor é um ser?

— Era uma metáfora, a Minha.

— O amor é uma metáfora?

— Não. Tu és uma metáfora para o amor.

— O amor é mais verdadeiro do que eu?

— Em absoluto. E sem ele não o eras.

— Não entendo... o que é o amor então?

— O que te fez, que te move, que te mantém.

— E que me mata?

— Também.

— Pai?

— Diz.

— Não tenho tempo para continuar este diálogo...

— Comigo não se dialoga. Monologa-se.

— Pois que seja, mas a minha ênfase é no tempo que me é curto...

— Entendo as tuas pressas. Tiveste tanto tempo quanto memória dele tens. Vai.

— Mas não sem uma derradeira questão...

— Diz.

— Alguém acreditará na minha palavra quando transcrever o nosso diálogo?

— Monólogo.

— Pois...

— Diz-lhes apenas isto: que se não acreditam na palavra de Deus que por ti repasso então é porque de Mim duvidam.

 

 

 

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.

________ + ________