sexta-feira, 30 de novembro de 2012

THE LISTENER - John Burnside

Luke 11: 6

It’s nightfall again on our hill.
Headlamps and spots of gold
in the middle distance;
sculleries; pig sheds; a bedroom above a yard
where someone is lulling an only child
to sleep.
I’ve been on this road since morning,
the land gone from green through grey
to a soft, damp bronze
around me till, a mile or so from home,
I come to the usual
gloaming: an almost white
against the almost black
of gorse and may.
Summer now: an older mode of sleep;
and this, the running dream that follows stone
and fence wire, digging in
for what remains of snow-melt and the last
good rain, the low road
peopled with bone-white figures: not
the living, in this aftermath of grass,
and not the dead we mourn, in empty kirks
or quiet kitchens, halfway through the day,
but something like the absence of ourselves
from our own lives,
some other luck
that would not lead
to now.
Along the coast, it’s still
from field to field,
the living asleep or awake
in the quick of their beds,
hard-wired with love
and salt-sweet from the darkness,
the long-dead blanking the roads
and everything
disloyal to the earth
it came from, streaks and nubs
of grief pooled in the dark
and stitched with strictest
pleasure at the core: that cunning
relish for the irremediable.
There’s nothing so final as want
on a summer’s night,
and few things so tender or sure
as a knock at the door
and nobody starting awake
in the knit and tear
of buried rooms, where mice breed
in their millions, spilling loose
through ruptured drains
and root-bins, nightlong squeals
that run beneath the stillness, like the stains
of manganese and nickel in a wall
where ancient conversations turn to hair
and plaster: uncles
calling from the sway
of grammar
and a cousin twice-removed
reciting what she knows of saints and stars
for no one but herself,
resigned to live
forever, on the promises she kept
and paid for,
in a cradle
of thin air.

John Burnside, from here.

quinta-feira, 22 de novembro de 2012

A poem by Joshua Marie Wilkinson

A Song Called Theodicy
   after Cyrus Console

Why violence likes to get
unconcealed occasionally,
nightlong, & break some vessels.
You mean, the long drawn‐out
second take of the tunnel scene?
Or the scene where a child’s
encounter on the film set 
gets everybody behind
the camera to crying?
That’s not the wound
we thought long for—
Nor even the one we knew
we might have to defend.
The coils of the springs
of the theodicy of being.
Because evil’s a bad measure
of what’s happened here
& even violence can sound
pretty easy in the right mouth.
Joshua Marie Wilkinson’s recent and forthcoming books are Selenography(Sidebrow 2010), Swamp Isthmus (Black Ocean 2013), and The Courier’s Archive & Hymnal (Sidebrow 2014). Born and raised in Seattle, he lives in Tucson, where he teaches at the University of Arizona and works as an editor for Letter Machine Editions and the poetry/poetics site The Volta. More information here.

Foram Breves e Medonhas Noites de Amor - Al Berto

foram breves e medonhas as noites de amor 
e regressar do âmago delas esfiapava-lhe o corpo 
habitado ainda por flutuantes mãos 

estava nu 
sem água e sem luz que lhe mostrasse como era 
ou como poderia construir a perfeição 

os dias foram-se sumindo cor de chumbo 
na procura incessante doutra amizade 
que lhe prolongasse a vida 

e uma vez acordou 
caminhou lentamente por cima da idade 
tão longe quanto pôde 
onde era possível inventar outra infância 
que não lhe ferisse o coração 


in O Medo, Assírio & Alvim, 2000

segunda-feira, 19 de novembro de 2012

Regras

o homem corre em direcção à mulher num último esforço para a alcançar, enquanto um outro grupo de homens o persegue. ele corre com todas as suas forças tentando desesperadamente fugir para abraçar a mulher. a mulher chora e, entre soluços, chama pelo seu nome. os homens apontam as pistolas, mas falham o alvo. alguns chegam a hesitar o disparo: as balas já são tão poucas.
ao correr em desespero o homem perde um dos sapatos, tropeça, cai e volta a levantar-se rapidamente, com uma agilidade que não conhecia em si próprio. depois de muito esforço consegue, finalmente, chegar à mulher que o abraça com toda a força do mundo. ele beija-a. um tiro ecoa ao longo da rua. um dos homens mantém a expressão dura, o fumo da pistola a serpentear-lhe por entre os olhos. manteve-se assim durante algum tempo antes de dar um segundo tiro. afinal de contas a guerra tem regras. 

de José Duarte, 'Regras', de Heartbreak Hotel, a sair um dia destes.

domingo, 18 de novembro de 2012

Little Things - Raymond Carver



Early that day the weather turned and the snow was melting into dirty water. Streaks of it ran down from the little shoulder-high window that faced the backyard. Cars slushed by on the street outside, where it was getting dark. But it was getting dark on the inside too.
He was in the bedroom pushing clothes into a suitcase when she came to the door.
I'm glad you're leaving! I'm glad you're leaving! she said. Do you hear?
He kept on putting his things into the suitcase.
Son of a bitch! I'm so glad you're leaving! She began to cry. You can't even look me in the face, can you?
Then she noticed the baby's picture on the bed and picked it up.
He looked at her and she wiped her eyes and stared at him before turning and going back to the living room.
Bring that back, he said.
Just get your things and get out, she said.
He did not answer. He fastened the suitcase, put on his coat, looked around the bedroom before turning off the light. Then he went out to the living room.
She stood in the doorway of the little kitchen, holding the baby.
I want the baby, he said.
Are you crazy?
No, but I want the baby. I'll get someone to come by for his things.
You're not touching this baby, she said.
The baby had begun to cry and she uncovered the blanket from around his head.
Oh, oh, she said, looking at the baby.
He moved toward her.
For God's sake! she said. She took a step back into the kitchen.
I want the baby.
Get out of here!
She turned and tried to hold the baby over in a corner behind the stove.
But he came up. He reached across the stove and tightened his hands on the baby.
Let go of him, he said.
Get away, get away! she cried.
The baby was red-faced and screaming. In the scuffle they knocked down a flowerpot that hung behind the stove.
He crowded her into the wall then, trying to break her grip. He held on to the baby and pushed with all his weight.
Let go of him, he said.
Don't, she said. You're hurting the baby, she said.
I'm not hurting the baby, he said.
The kitchen window gave no light. In the near-dark he worked on her fisted fingers with one hand and with the other hand he gripped the screaming baby up under an arm near the shoulder.
She felt her fingers being forced open. She felt the baby going from her.
No! she screamed just as her hands came loose.
She would have it, this baby. She grabbed for the baby's other arm. She caught the baby around the wrist and leaned back.
But he would not let go. He felt the baby slipping out of his hands and he pulled back very hard.
In this manner, the issue was decided.

"Little Things" from Where I'm Calling From: The Selected Stories Atlantic Monthly Press, 1988. Copyright © 1988 by Tess Gallagher. Retirado daqui.

quinta-feira, 15 de novembro de 2012

Diane Arbus - The Wonderful Wizard of Odds


Diane Arbus, "Jewish Giant at Home with His Parents in the Bronx" (1970)

"Na fotografia 'A Jewish giant at home with his parents in the Bronx', (N.Y., 1970,) o corpo do gigante aparece fora das proporções da mobília e do espaço. A sua difícil situação é demarcada pela banalidade do contexto (característica de quase todas as fotografias de Diane Arbus, na maior parte o background está ausente ou é o mais banal possível). A sua casa contrasta com a sua grandiosidade, ele é um freak porque não há espaço que consiga acomodar o seu grande corpo, um ponto que é enfatizado pelo facto de estar na sua própria casa. Contudo, perante a sua gigantesca figura, quem parece ser freak são os seus pais. A sua “freakishness”, tal como é representada na fotografia, é de uma ordem diferente, pois anuncia a dor e a solidão que resultam de uma incongruência entre o seu corpo e aquilo que intimamente o rodeia."
.

quarta-feira, 14 de novembro de 2012

David Harsent - From Legion

There was a man who made toffee; he would leave it to cool
on a blue-veined marble slab by the open window
of his shop, which was little more than a tin-and-timber lean-to
in the Street of Songs. There was a man who made small
animals and the like — horses, mostly — from scraps of steel
the plough turned up: high-grade stuff he could fine-tool;
while he worked he would sing, as if he had someone to sing to.
There was a man who made paintings: portraits, as a rule,
of business-men in their best; though he made one, once, of a fool
wearing a crown of stars and pissing a bright arc, while behind him
the Devil herded souls through a vesica piscis, its holy seal
ruptured. I thought that if I could find him,
or one of the other two, or any in that street, I might know
what became of my house and those in it; and what to do; and where to go.


Legion, Faber & Faber, 2005.

segunda-feira, 12 de novembro de 2012

50-50

I’m all alone in this world, she said,
Ain’t got nobody to share my bed,
Ain’t got nobody to hold my hand—
The truth of the matter’s
I ain’t got no man.

Big Boy opened his mouth and said,
Trouble with you is
You ain’t got no head!
If you had a head and used your mind
You could have me with you
All the time.

She answered, Babe, what must I do?

He said, Share your bed— 
And your money, too. 


Langston Hughes

sábado, 10 de novembro de 2012

Um poema de João Luís Barreto Guimarães


este poema foi escrito ontem hoje não
vou escrever (na face nego sorrisos como
quem fecha janelas) hoje só preciso de
mim (este poema é grátis: não está
incluído no preço do livro). hoje
não tocarei o corpo da Corona Four
uma ‘azerty’ americana já com uma certa
idade (ainda é das que escreve poesia a
preto e ranco) faz um mês que se perdeu
a tecla da letra « » só por isso não
tenho escrito sobre o rilho dos teus
olhos. o meu copo está vazio (hoje
não é poedia) depois eu mando alguém
uscar as minhas palavras
João Luís Barreto Guimarães, Poesia Reunida, Quetzal, 2011.

terça-feira, 6 de novembro de 2012

Pays en Abyme

Um país é considerado o território
físico de um Estado soberano ou de uma
menor ou antiga divisão política dentro
de uma região geográfica. Um país pode
coincidir com uma região geográfica e estar
associado a uma nação, linhagem, família,
cisterna, separação, caída, cal, aborto,
abismo, desgoverno.

Susana Araújo, Dívida Soberana, Mariposa Azual, 2012