três poemas por Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen

REGRESSAREI

Eu regressarei ao poema como à pátria à casa
Como à antiga infância que perdi por descuido
Para buscar obstinada a substância de tudo
E gritar de paixão sob mil luzes acesas.

***

AS ONDAS

As ondas quebravam uma a uma
Eu estava só com a areia e com a espuma
Do mar que cantava só para mim.

***

MEIO-DIA

Meio-dia. Um canto da praia sem ninguém.
O sol no alto, fundo, enorme, aberto,
Tornou o céu de todo o deus deserto.
A luz cai implacável como um castigo.
Não há fantasmas nem almas,
E o mar imenso solitário e antigo
Parece bater palmas.

Alone With Everybody

by Charles Bukowski

“the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and the men drink too
much
and nobody finds the
one
but keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.

there’s no chance
at all:
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.

nobody ever finds
the one.

the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill

nothing else
fills.”

like a thunderclap

one of those days

you’re such

a sincere

person

FEAR NOT, DULCINEA!

I never fear the day.
the sun blinds me, gives me rage,
rage to destroy fate and go on.

so warm, so hot on the
top of my head
the sun shines bright
above all buildings.

I am
indestructible.
undefeated
I am.

bullets may come,
asteroids, robbers, cops.
I have two fists,
I have choler
they’ve got nothing on me.

this mass of light,
bright on top of us all.
a drop of sweat runs down my temple.

it is rage it is rage
it is the death of darkness.
my blood boils in the heat of the day
and I will break your bones
and your teeth
if once again you tell me
you are afraid of anything
at midday.

where are you, mon Bel-Ami?

“The creation and development of narratives play a crucial role in the construction of our identities, cultures, and worlds. (…) So, that we respond emotionally to fictions is not only consistent with the fact that we react to actual situations, but it is also required by the affective engagement that narratives demand from us, as much in the quest for fictional entertainment as in factual, quotidian circumstances.” (Stephen Davies, “Responding Emotionally to Fictions”)

“now the Sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence…”

what must a sailor do when utterly alone?
when all other sea mates have abandoned ship?
everyone swallowed into the tempest of water,
each one devoid of spirit, all but thee?

what must this old seamen do
when forgotten even by sirens, by the sea?
neither do heavenly bodies want you
nor the currents, tides, waves or breeze.

goodbye, our ol’ captain, my good master!
like thy mates must you dive, must you leap!
have you no longer a hull, nor a crew…
a salty treasure must become of thee.

“Hamlet’s antic disposition”

If I, to you, revealed my heart,
poured its contents, whole and part,
on this very bar table
maybe you would finally be able
to understand it all from the start.

however, I remain in silence,
for a prison of feelings is an art.
still, art such (almost a science!)
that can be decoded by the smart -
i.e. those who are able to notice,
(silently) the small seedlings of the heart.

so, if my eye expression goes afar
and you’re upset by my silent antics,
understand deeply that you are
(although being an ultra-romantic)
not able to use your semantics
to explain the mystery of my heart.

don’t go around making me silly comments

tiny feelings

I hope you share my fate. the inexorable one, unchangeable. I hope you wander about the same fields I did, and that you share the same feelings – a desert, those are, where nothing could ever grow, apart – maybe – for that little flower that stands there, at the bottom of the cliff. unreachable, with thorns. down down in the deepest of the fall, it was there. I hope you’re clasped by the same unrelenting nights, where one could not but stand like a fool next to the unimaginable horror that permeated the thoughts. I hope you share the same sleepless darkness, the dreamless sleeps, and that you lie down in the merciless sweat of your fears, that you smell it soaking your sheets as well as your mind. I hope that you share my fate of discovering the puzzle, constructing it, the frightening goosebumps rising to the flesh when you are down to the two last pieces! I hope you will feel the implacable sense of victory up to the moment where you realize that the pieces don’t fit. two different pieces, albeit so similar, are still so different – never meant to assemble a harmonic picture.

still, after all, I hope you’ll end up as happy as you are entitled to.