When he saw her reading "On the Road"

I can still remember when

the most exciting thing was a book.

to read it in a moving train,

drunk of wine in the middle of nowhere, no

one to speak to,

just endless roads in a never ending world.

things change when you start to die a little

every day, 

                     wrecked and smashed around

by the tic-tac's of an unforgiving clock,

the merciless hours slipping away,

nothing but dust and ashes.

what's left of our dreams grew old, sick

and tired of waiting for any good love

or any love at all.

Nights at the Bay

and he watched as she turned, smiled

and pressed herself against him, while

the lights on the pinball machine went on,

blinked, and the metal balls kept shooting.

outside it started to rain hard, but all he

could think was to have someone else to hold,

to hope for better days to come.

and it went on and on like that, like winter,

like people in a bar drinking themselves to forgetfulness.

nights lost in the flashlight of white skin and blonde hair,

beer, vodka and rum, a search

in the darkness of the saloon.

Carson McCullers

(Tradução de poema de Charles Bukowski)



ela morreu de alcoôlismo

enrolada em um cobertor

sentada na cadeira

de um barco no oceano


todos seus livros

de assustadora solidão


todos seus livros sobre

a crueldade

do amor sem amor


foi tudo que dela

restou


quando um pescador

encontrou seu cadáver

e avisou o capitão


e ela foi rapidamente despachada

pra algum lugar

do navio


e tudo seguiu sendo

da mesma forma

que ela sempre havia escrito.

The Watcher

 




they say the world might be coming to an end
but someone waited the hole day for that time,
that place in silence and smoke.
 
and there's a bomb ready to explode
in a desert in Libya, in a basement near Russia,
civil war in every corner of Africa, floods near Fargo,
the Red River Rage.
 
Japan is covered in a nuclear dust while the earth shakes
and tornados sweep ghost towns out of the globe.
 
but there's a drunk man walking the streets downtown,
early in the morning, and there's women in trains
that look tougher than life, tired, sick from waiting
and never having.
 
and there's a lot of talk about money
and unhappiness, all these people coming up and
down the roads, looking back filled with remorse
and regret, dreaming of a better life that could never happen.
 
but the B-doubles keep snaking through the freeways anyway, through corpses
of dead animals, dead dreams of the loneliest days
the world have ever seen.
 
wasteland have mercy on us all,
humans with no humanity left,
no heart, no love, no joy. everything as empty as that
blank look in our eyes, a mad world reflected in our guts,
our lungs long lost in lies.

a tragédia das folhas

(tradução de Charles Bukowski, "The tragedy of the leaves")

acordei numa secura e as samambaias estavam mortas,

as plantas nos potes, amarelas como milho; minha mulher se foi e as garrafas vazias, como corpos feridos, me cercavam sem qualquer utilidade; porém o sol ainda era bom e o bilhete da senhoria emitia um amarelo tranquilo que não exigia nada em troca: o que era preciso agora era um bom comediante, estilo antigo, um palhaço com piadas sobre o absurdo da dor: a dor é absurda porque existe, nada mais; fiz a barba cuidadosamente com uma velha navalha, o homem que um dia havia sido jovem e que diziam ter algo de genial; mas essa é a tragédia das folhas, das samambaias mortas, das plantas mortas; e eu entrei naquele corredor escuro onde a senhoria de pé aguardava, apocalíptica e terminal, me mandando ao inferno, balançando seus braços gordos, suados e berrando, gritando desesperada por aluguel pois o mundo havia fracassado com nós dois.

De Ratos e Homens






 

por 15 anos morou lá.
mais que qualquer morador do prédio.
 
morou sempre no térreo
porque nessa vida opaca de homem moderno
andar de cima é coisa de rico,
 
dessa gente com dinheiro
que se junta à noite em reunião de condomínio,
às escuras, às escondidas
a decidir o destino do único ausente:
 
"pode ir embora
que ficou caro demais pra gente".

The Son of the World

He was almost asleep now. He had his arms around her waist
when he suddenly moved away from her. His body was there,
he could feel it against the sheets as he could feel hers
against his own — but his mind, heart and soul were elsewhere,
nowhere to be found nor touched.

He woke her up to tell her he ought to go to work. She half-smiled
and stood up pronto, like some lady out of those nice movies.
She opened the door and said: "I'll see ya around." but her hand was waving goodbye
and although he could barely notice that, when he reached
the dark-empty streets and felt himself to be once again surrounded by nothing
but that so familiar loneliness, he somehow knew right there
that he would never see her again.