Goodbye Now,

the eyes hurt

from staring at the same screen

for just way too long,

too long that you've been gone too

and the head aches

from lack of rest,

the missing split of time

when thoughts aren't born

and ideas

do not become walls

just too hard to believe in

like never again,

a last time

lost forever.

City Gettin' Dark

behind the skyscrapers

through thick glass

as the train moves on

over bridges of stone

and the sea stays still

reflecting the sun.

it is a dying sun

as another day goes by

silently leaving behind

faces with no smile

and eyes searching eyes 

for hope, for they find none.

Loneliness and Rainy Nights

he closed his eyes but could not fall asleep

everytime thinking that he should stop thinking

so that he could go to sleep and get at least

maybe 5 or 6 hours so he could go to work

the next day but thoughts, flashes like pictures

in the back of the head

and memories he could not put away for good,

like changing sides like unrest, like

not being able to forget that there's an end to

everything. he could hear the door when he

realised he was still awake,

mouth dry like something left behind in dust,

something that doesn't belong anymore.

he thought about that too, and how

one day you could have most things

and not care much about any of it

and even take love for granted, someone to talk to

durin' the worst of nights,

nothing but the feeling that you'd never grow old,

never lose and never fail

and that you'd always keep your mind straight

no matter what.

but even that changes too, he thought,

and he felt like missing something he couldn't recall what.

he felt tired of many lives lived, like life

being a long and so familiar road, like the way home

from the gas station a long time ago,

and yet he was too proud to even think

of letting it go. like something too dear

to ever have to say goodbye to.

Staring and Remembering

I look at his image for hope.

I look at his image for no answers,

no explanations at all.

holding a can of beer in a train station

somewhere,

near the hamburger joint and the W.C.

to believe there is a time for everything,

a split of a second needed in destiny,

something bound to happen.

to have words turned into music,

a song out of a page, footsteps, a door

opening and someone leaving,

walking streets at night again.

III

(de Rilke, traduzido.)

Um deus pode. Mas me diga, como pode um homem

seguir seu caminho estreito através das cordas?

Um homem é partido. E onde duas ruas se cruzam

no interior de cada um, ninguém construiu templo qualquer.

escrever poesia da forma que aprendemos de ti não é desejo,

não querer algo que jamais se pode ter.

escrever poesia é estar vivo. Para um deus isso é fácil.

Quando, porém, estamos de fato vivos? E quando é que ele

troca a terra e as estrelas de lugar?

Sim, tu és jovem, e tu amas, e a voz

te obriga a abrir a boca——ótimo, mas aprenda

a esquecer de transformar isso em verso. Não dura,

verso de verdade é um movimento diferente no ar.

Ar se movendo ao redor de nada. Um suspiro de um deus. Um vento.

For a Place in Time

days and nights of doubt

about what to dream

or to believe in.

writing, the love for hope

to hope for something more,

a continual flow of the senses,

feelings and thoughts.

so read,read,read and read on

and work and work and work

harder everytime.

remember Faulkner,

and keep those words close

to the heart

to never give up.

This Morning

(de Charles Simic, traduzido.)

Entre sem bater, inseto trabalhador.

me encontro aqui refletindo

sobre o que fazer nesse dia escuro e nublado.

Foi uma noite de rádio ligado mas baixo,

de um sono sóbrio, vago, sonhos perturbados.

acordei confuso e doente de amor.

Tive a impressão de ouvir Estella cantar no jardim

e certo pássaro responder,

mas era apenas a chuva. Os topos escuros das árvores

tremendo, murmurando. "Pode vir meu bem,"

eu disse. E assim ela veio,

com cheiro de menta na boca, sua língua

umedecendo meu rosto, quando ela então desapareceu.

O dia chegou devagar, um raio cinza de luz

pra lavar a cara e as mãos.

Horas se passaram, até que você se arrastou

por baixo da porta, e parou diante de mim.

Você também se veste de luto,

Dona Formiga. Eu gosto do silêncio entre a gente,

o quieto - aquele estado divino

que até a chuva reconhece. Ouça ela começando a cair,

como se tivesse os olhos fechados,

silenciando cada gota em seu coração selvagem.

Things, silence and Rilke.






As I stepped in the truck and closed the door behind me
I looked at the street
and I saw a man standing there.
He was an old Chinese man, short and skinny,
and it looked like he was carrying something on his back.
He had somehow managed to attach a rubbish bin using
some sort of a rope.
He also carried a red hula hoop around his waist.
As he walked he kept looking at the ground
and he had a tired look on his face
like a train
that had been running for way too long.
I have heard that the man walks every morning to Chinatown
where he spends his days performing some sort of a show. But I read hope in his eyes too,
some sort of hope for a way out, a break,
a single minute to breathe.

At that moment I felt I had it easy.

Life could be very hard when you were not showing clean white teeth on TV.
But you could still see mansions being built alongside the sea,
and you could still hear senators proving that even words could have no meaning,
piles of money but no love, no peace and no heart.

I thought about all that later on
on my way back home sitting on a bus packed with people
going home from another day's work, another chance
to stare through so familiar windows, like looking at
old pictures we got tired of looking at,
the late night outside announcing that we had lost it again.
No words were necessary,
we all had the same look in our eyes, like sardines gasping desperately for air,
like something with less and less feeling every time.

I was reading Rilke and I kept reading regardless,
going through the pages like a desperate man in need of forgiveness,
a man about to die hoping for three more minutes.

The Power and the Glory

There was silence all around him.

That place was very much like the world:

overcrowded with lust and crime

and unhappy love.

It stank of heaven.

But he realized that after all

it was possible to find peace there

if you knew for certain

that the time was short.

The lightning shot down over the harbor

and the thunder beat upon the roof.

That was the atmosphere
of a whole state—the storm outside

and the talk just going on—terms like

'mystery' and 'soul' and 'the source of life'

came up over and over again

as they sat on the bed talking

with nothing to do and

nothing to believe and 

nowhere to go.

2011

it gets very tricky when you try to think

about W.B Yeats and poetry durin' the 30's

while encapsulated by vibrating ends

of metal and yellowed plastic stopped still

in front of a red light.

the fumes of the engine are no longer industrial revolution

and the explosion of bombs no longer progress

so how did the post-war period influenced

the future of lines and words

and changed writing forever...

while this bus keeps moving forward

through our own time's graveyard;

a wasteland of garbage we no longer need,

televisions and scattered papers, bed-frames,

empty pot-plants and old vacuum-cleaners.

Bukowski said people look like flowers at last

but today, walking down these streets,

we all still look a lot more like broken glass,

like the heat when it hangs in the air,

like the urge to forget.

The Mad Square

I stare at a blank page thinking of names,

promising myself that I will never write

just for writing

and that I'll never use a word

to describe an empty space.

Robinson Jeffers,

Rimbaud,

Rachmaninoff,

someone asked for directions to Goulburn Street but I couldn't answer.

too many names in my head I guess,

too many pictures of desperation, hunger, war, prostitution and

persecution, disease and power and propaganda.

The Mad Square.

this poem exists for one reason only,

a humble tune for brave people in mad times

when the last of us lost all humanity, every dime and every meal

but not hope

or the strength to fill our lungs

and scream.

At Joan's

são quase três horas

e eu me apoio no topo de mármore da mesa

organizando poemas, miserável

a pequena lâmpada que quase não brilha

enquanto eu não brilho nada

eu tomo outro conhaque

e olho dois pequenos quadros

de Jean Paul, tão grande

eu preciso fazer tanto

ou eles apenas acontecem

a brisa é fresca

quase som algum é filtrado

através desses olhos cansados

sozinho por mim mesmo

não consigo encontrar um só poema de verdade

e se não acontecer comigo

então o que farei

(Poema traduzido de Frank O'Hara)

To Have and Have Not.

alguns fizeram a longa queda

da janela do apartamento ou escritório;

alguns tomaram quietos, em silêncio,

em uma garagem de dois carros com um motor ligado;

alguns usaram a tradição de uma Colt ou de uma Smith and Wesson;

aqueles tão bem desenvolvidos implementos

que acabam com a insônia, terminam remorso, curam câncer,

salvam da falência e acabam com as repetidas músicas na cabeça

explodindo uma saída de posições intoleráveis através da pressão de um dedo;

admiráveis instrumentos americanos tão facilmente portáteis,

carregados de efeito, tão bem desenhados pra terminar

o sonho americano quando se torna pesadelo.

(Ernest Hemingway, trecho traduzido.)