Doomed

it is midnight

but there's still people on the bus,

in pairs, groups, talking, laughing -

while she rides alone, in silence.

she probably feels like crying, and she

does try, but not a tear drops down.

people dry up too, just like dead grass.

the same train goes through the same

station, the same motions, the

opening and closing of doors, the sound

of the pressure of the air.

she walks the same streets,

but at night, nobody around now,

nothing but a full mind

and the heavy weight of being, breathing sometimes.

the way home again. another city, country,

another continent. she barely looks at the sky.

it is dark, and it's saturday, and quiet

and capable of nothing -

I have to watch her go away.

Me recuso a aceitar o fim do homem.

Acredito que ele não só sobreviverá

mas que ele há de prevalecer. Imortal,

não porque ele sozinho, dentre todas as criaturas,

possuí voz inextinguível, mas porque possuí alma,

um espírito capaz de compaixão, sacrifício

e acima de tudo de resistir. O dever do poeta, do

escritor, é o de escrever sobre isso.

É seu privilégio fazer com que o homem possa resistir

elevando o seu coração, lembrando-o de sua coragem

e sua honra e esperança e seu orgulho e

compaixão e piedade e sacrifício,

marcas de toda glória de seu passado.

A voz do poeta deve ser mais que um testemunho,

deve ser um pilar, uma única última estrutura

que ajude o homem a resistir a qualquer custo

e enfim prevalecer, eterno.

William Faulkner

When it's still not time

the middle of town when still dark

but not night anymore. Saturday began

Friday

and it's still too cold early in the morning

as he goes up the stairs,

the station as the only place warm enough to read.

That is so so he does not really wake up

and dreams long lost in sleep are fetched back,

brought to reality under new light,

eyes not yet that clouded by the feel

of life passing.

He knows there's people living

in hospitals, suitcases all over the floor,

take-away food

and that even children are waiting to die;

they kill a man and ask us to forget there was ever a war.

But ten years are gone now

and nothing brings anything back. Not now,

not anymore. Then the phone rings

and everything stops -- it is 7:20, time

to wake up! says the machine as he

stands up trying desperately not to think

about anything now, finally and almost sadly

awake for the world.

This Morning

(poema traduzido de Raymond Carver)

Por um minuto ou dois

tornaram-se nebulosos os usuais devaneios

sobre o que era certo,

e o que era errado -- dever,

doces lembranças, pensamentos de morte, como eu deveria

tratar minha ex-mulher. Todas as coisas

que eu esperava que desaparecessem essa manhã.

Coisas com as quais vivo todos os dias. O que

eu passei por cima pra permanecer vivo.

Mas por um ou dois minutos esquecí sim

meu próprio eu e o resto todo. Eu sei que sim.

Pois quando voltei

não sabia onde estava. Até que alguns pássaros alçaram voo

acima das árvores. E se foram

na direção que eu necessitava ir.

Grief

(poema traduzido de Raymond Carver)

Acordei cedo esta manhã e de minha cama

lancei o olhar distante sobre o Canal e vi

um pequeno barco cruzando as águas agitadas,

uma só luz de navegação. Lembrei

de meu amigo que costumava gritar

o nome da esposa morta do topo do morro

ao redor de Perugia. Que colocou um prato

pra ela em sua simples mesa muito tempo

depois que ela se foi. E abriu as janelas

pra que ela respirasse o ar puro. Tais coisas

que me sentia embarassado. Assim como

outros amigos. Eu não conseguia ver.

Não até essa manhã.

The day the sun looked sad over the bridge.

" I answered the phone and became quiet.

A few seconds later I felt life leaving me behind,

every drop of every death becoming larger,

harder, every smile I had ever seen suddenly

disappearing, vanishing, abandoning my soul for good,

leaving no trace of any hope. The illness

was back. Spread through the hole body, each

and every little bone condemned. Just a kid.

Two years old, no clear words and nothing but

strength and happiness. Now he's got two months

to live. And I'm the one that feels like giving up.

Too weak for this world I am, too weak...

When have I earned any right to live? God.

I think of god and I pray for mercy, forgiveness,

salvation. I think of my dear friend, the kid's

father, and I just wanna hold him tight

through the darkness of this times. And I

feel like I'm losing the ground and every last

breath of love for a world bound to nothing

but dust, dry tears in lonely unforgiving nights.

People call all this life but I just don't know

what else to call it anymore. Nothing makes any

sense when you don't have any faith and I

believe I lost that a long time ago. Restless

I keep on searching for that glimpse of the eyes

suddenly appearing out of shadow, a touch

of the palm of your hand, to hear your heart

reassuring me, for once, that everything

will be okay. "

English Literature

As I walk up the long hill heading home,

sweating under the midday sun,

I see a girl seating cross-legged upon the grass

near a tree, an empty coffee mug beside her.

She not even once looks up;

all I can see is her black silky hair

on top of her head, facing down,

her eyes lost among words and pages of a book.

George Orwell's 1984.

For a second I believe I try to mutter something

but nothing comes out of it

just pure silence,

the mutual understanding that we, both,

suffer from the same illness,

senseless reaching for something to grab,

something to hold us beneath the surface

of a world we can no longer touch.

-Twain

"The coffee mill shone like a monstrance.

Fear vanished.

In the bottom of my mind I knew it would return,

but not right away.

I felt a promise of something like

happiness -

that the future did not exist and would not

exist for a while, because I would soon

die a beautiful death, having known,

briefly,

something greater than death.

Nadia helped me,

and together we carried it off with the help of God.

But that was not really the point.

The point was that, face to face with death,

she gave me what she had and what she felt

was the ultimate gift she could give.

She gave me herself, "

(Josef Skvorecky, The Engineer of Human Souls)

Days I've Been Thinkin' About War

the word sickness crosses the night

in flashes of unaffected energy

runnin' through telephone wires.

a tired tone of voice communicates,

or rather tries to,

some pain we could only imagine

or not even.

it is a strange distant land

in someone else's heart.

there's nothing left for me to say

or do

so I don't. In silence I search for

pen and paper

and in silence I confess 

I do not understand.

For wars older than me

days went by on screen

like turned pages of a book 

you read long ago,

memories you didn't let go

like the sweet taste of escaping

and getting to the end of a nightmare.

it wasn't long ago you still felt young.

you saw her through the car window

like you didn't,

like something turned true

without even mattering.

nights like this that get to you

like the smell of gasoline or

stale vomit in an old carpet,

words you've always wanted to use

when the eyes couldn't hide.

it grew tight

and tighter in relation to life,

the life felt on impressions of ink,

the rough texture of paper like skin,

the outer covering of that much hope,

strength and love.

procura

a poesia há de encontrar novo ritmo

noutra forma de existir.

palavras em harmonia

construindo uma imagem,

retratos em sequência de filme

música som e cores.

tudo a expressão da impressão

de talvez um só sentimento,

memória ou até sonho.

outro mundo se abriu sem deus, sem mito,

sem crença forte o bastante.

anseios não respondidos

resgatados em uma cena sem cortes,

lembranças escritas de um coração aberto.

Versos de Trem no Ônibus

foi quando, sentado,

curvou as costas

e apoiou os cotovelos nas pernas;

através não de uma,

mas duas portas de vidro -

sentado do outro lado,

noutro vagão, também curvado e

lendo algo, um livro,

a cena toda um retrato

demais familiar pra ser ignorado.

era ele próprio mas não em reflexo,

do outro lado, outro corpo

alegando outra vida

enquanto o trem seguia,

Hurstville, Penhurst, Mortdale, -

sentiu-se envolvido

por uma estranha quietude não estática,

mas tomada de graça e movimento

como uma folha solta ao vento

vagarosamente descendo, caindo

e enfim alcançando o chão, um toque,

um sopro simples do ar.