Biography.
Mário Raul de Morais Andrade (October 9, 1893 – February 25, 1945) was a Brazilian poet, novelist, musicologist, art historian and critic, and photographer. One of the founders of Brazilian modernism, he virtually created modern Brazilian poetry with the publication of his Paulicéia Desvairada (Hallucinated City) in 1922. He has had an enormous influence on modern Brazilian literature, and as a scholar and essayist—he was a pioneer of the field of ethnomusicology—his influence has reached far beyond Brazil.
Improvisation of The Dead Boy
Dead, gently he lies on the flowers of the coffin.There are time like this when people living
This life os self-interest and fierce struggles
Tire of the ingathering of desires and worries.
They stop for a moment, cast aside the commotion of the body,
The confused mind ceases to imagine
As oblivion slowly comes.
Who theb enjoys the roses surrounding him?
The good view cut off by the automobile?
The thought that makes a hero of him?
The body is like a veil thrown over a piece of furniture,
A gesture that stopped in the middle of the road,
A gesture people forgot.
Dead, gently he forgets himself on the flowes of the coffin.
It seems not that de sleeps, nor dreams happily, he is dead.
In a moment of life spirit forgot itself, and stopped.
Suddenly he was afraid of the fanfare of crying,
Felt some immemorial cheat
At casting life aside while strong and young,
A deep resentment, and he did not move again.
And now he will never move again.
"Depart! Depart, dead boy!
Depart, for I no longer know you!
Do not return nnightly to beget upon my destiny
Tha flare of you being and your courageous hope,
Nor ask me for your dreams, the confirmation of earth!
The universe bellows with pain in the lightnings of fires,
Anxieties, alarmed, meet and pass in the air,
Enormous, unbearable, my peace!
My tears fall on you and you are like a broken sun!
What liberty in your oblivion!
What firmness of independence in your death!
Oh, depart, for I longer know you!"
Translated by Richard Eberhart
Along those squares, those streets,
Ha in himself an enormous secret.
He is a man.
That woman like all the others
Along those squares, those streets<
Has in herself a cruel surprise.
She is a woman.
The woman meets the man,
They smile and hold hands,
The surprise and the secret expand
Violently.
But the shadow of the restless one
Guards that mystery in the dark.
Death watches with her scythe.
Verily, it is night.
Translated by John Nist
Only a wish for neatness binds the world…
There is sun. There was rain. And the wind
Scatters trombones of cloud in the blue.
Nobody can be whole in the city.
The doves cling to skyscrapers, it rains.
It is cold. It is heartache… It is this violent wind
That bursts from the caves of human earth
Demanding sky, peace, and a touch of spring.
Translated by John Nist
Depart, for I no longer know you!
Do not return nnightly to beget upon my destiny
Tha flare of you being and your courageous hope,
Nor ask me for your dreams, the confirmation of earth!
The universe bellows with pain in the lightnings of fires,
Anxieties, alarmed, meet and pass in the air,
Enormous, unbearable, my peace!
My tears fall on you and you are like a broken sun!
What liberty in your oblivion!
What firmness of independence in your death!
Oh, depart, for I longer know you!"
Translated by Richard Eberhart
The Man who Walks All Alone
That man who walks all aloneAlong those squares, those streets,
Ha in himself an enormous secret.
He is a man.
That woman like all the others
Along those squares, those streets<
Has in herself a cruel surprise.
She is a woman.
The woman meets the man,
They smile and hold hands,
The surprise and the secret expand
Violently.
But the shadow of the restless one
Guards that mystery in the dark.
Death watches with her scythe.
Verily, it is night.
Translated by John Nist
Moment
The wind cuts everything in two.Only a wish for neatness binds the world…
There is sun. There was rain. And the wind
Scatters trombones of cloud in the blue.
Nobody can be whole in the city.
The doves cling to skyscrapers, it rains.
It is cold. It is heartache… It is this violent wind
That bursts from the caves of human earth
Demanding sky, peace, and a touch of spring.
Translated by John Nist
