Showing posts with label woman. Show all posts

Helena Kolody: Biography and Poems | Brazilian Poetry

Biography.

Helena Kolody (1912–2004) was a Brazilian poet and educator. Considered to be the outstanding poet of the State of Paraná, she started writing poetry when she was 12 and published her first poem "A Lágrima" four years later. When she was 20, she became a schoolteacher and later, on graduation, a lecturer at the Curitiba Normal School. She is remembered in particular for being the first Brazilian to write verse in the Japanese haiku style, publishing "Cântico" in 1941 and including haiku verse in several later publications.

Machine-Man

Man got married to the machine
and created a strange hybrid:
in the chest a chronometer
in the skull a generator.
Red corpuscles of its blood
are rounded algorithms.

Statistical cacti grow
in their abstract gardens.

Precision planning,
life of machine-man.
The gears vibrate with
exertion of its realizations.

In its obscure core
is a strange prisoner,
whose screams agitate
the metallic structure;
blazing are the reflections
of an imponderable light
disturbing the coldness
of the armored machine-man.

Translated by Rosaliene Bacchus

Biography.

Amanda Vital is editorial assistant at Patuá, associate editor of Mallarmargens magazine and Master's student in Text Editing at Universidade Nova de Lisboa. Author of the book Passagem (Patuá, 2018). Has poems and translations in magazines, newspapers and literary supplements in Brazil and Portugal, in addition to publications in anthologies. He is technical assistant at the annual event Raias Poéticas: Afluentes Ibero-Afro-Americans of Art and Thought, curated by Luís Serguilha.

Biography.

Elisangela Martins, known as Eli Macuxi, is a Brazilian poet and teacher. She teaches History and Art Criticism in the Visual Arts Course at the Federal University of Roraima in North Brazil. Her first poetry collection, Amor Para Quem Odeia (2013), portrays love in its various forms of human experience. She is a frequent participant of Coletivo Caimbé, an association founded in 2009, with headquarters in Boa Vista, capital of Roraima, to promote citizenship through literature and the visual arts.

Biography.

Márcia Kambeba, of the Omágua/Kambeba indigenous people in Brazil, is the author of Ay kakyri Tama – Eu moro na cidade (2013). She’s a writer, composer, poet, activist, photographer, performer, and public speaker on indigenous and Amazonian subjects. With a master’s degree in geography, she offers workshops and storytelling throughout Brazil and abroad.

Biography.

Astrid Cabral Félix de Sousa (born 1936) is a novelist, critic, environmentalist, and diplomat, and one of the most eminent contemporary poets in Brazil. She is the author of numerous books of poetry, including Through Water (2003) and Anteroom (2007), along with many collections of essays and short fiction. Born in Manaus, Amazonas, she has lived and worked as a diplomat in Beirut and Chicago and has taught in both the United States and Brazil. A mother of five, she currently resides in Rio de Janeiro, where she continues her work as a figure in the Amazonian cultural identity and recovery movement.

Biography.

Patrícia Rehder Galvão, known by her pseudonym Pagu (June 9, 1910 – December 12, 1962) was a Brazilian writer, poet, playwright, journalist, and translator who had a large role in the Brazilian Modernist movement. Pagu was also politically active, being associated to the Brazilian Communist Party during the 1930 decade.

Biography.

Deborah Brennand was born in Engenho da Lagoa do Ramo, municipality of Nazaré da Mata, state of Pernambuco. She married Francisco Brennand, one of the most internationally famous Brazilian plastic artists. She dedicated herself to poetry and cultural life in the 1960s and 1970s. Deborah's poetry shows a world full of contradictions.

Biography.

Myriam Fraga was born I 1937, in Bahia, Brazil. Her poetry has appeared first in many of the Brazilian periodicals and reviews. She has published many books of poetry, of which the most important are: Sesmaria, O Rison a Pele, As Purificações and A Lenda do Pásaro que Roubou o Fogo. She writes a week column on cultural events fro A TARDE, the most important daily of he Northern Brazil, and is member of the Academy of Letters of Bahia.

Biography.

Pallottini's poetry is a mirror of the real world. It reflects all the contradictions of everyday life. It balances between lies and truths, between illusions and frustrations, between life and death, pain and pleasure. Between the ugly and the beautiful. Between hope and despair. To feel and to understand her poems simultaneously is not a challenge because Pallottini is one of the few lucky artists (and people) who combine emotions and reason in a unique, harmonious way, both in her work and in her life. There is no dividing line between the heart and the brain, between the real and the imaginary, between the sophisticated and the simple. These are the qualities that make her and her work so appealing. — Elzbieta Szoka

Poem

Allflesh
I dedícate.

That of the body
that which I eat.

All I dedícate
my love

to your hunger.

To A Murdered Homosexual

You used to train dogs.
Probably they never bit you.
Today you are forever beneath the ground
killed by men
who train
devils.

Ride Naked On That Beast

Ride naked on that beast
That might throw you

It's no worse than seeing children
Thrown in the trash heaps

It's no worse than sandals
Smeared with manure

It's no worse than pain
that doesn´t become music

It's no worse than love
that hurts more than all the rest.

Ride naked on that beast
or the world will throw you.

Translated by K. David Jackson

Biography.

Rachel de Queiroz (November 17, 1910 – November 4, 2003) was a Brazilian author, translator and journalist. She began her career in journalism in 1927 under the pen name "Rita de Queiroz".[1] She entered the national spotlight with the unexpected success of her debut novel O Quinze in 1930. She published other three novels before moving to Rio in 1939.[2] She was also renowned for her chronicles, short topical newspaper pieces.

Glass Tile

When the town girl arrived,
she came to live in the farm
at the old house…
too old…
that house was built by my grandpa…
They let her to sleep at the dormitory,
a room with no light, so dark!
Dived into the sadness
from its darkness and its single little door…
The lady didn´t say a word;
but she asked someone to bring from the downtown
a glass tile,
she wanted it was lit up,
her room with no light…

Now the bedroom where she lives
is the liveliest at the farm.
So clear that, at noon,
it is like a lace of the sun arabesques
on the red bricks even being very old,
just now see the sun light…

The white and cold moon
also gets in the light
of the miraculous tile…
Or some daring little star
makes face on the mirror
where the lady combs her hair…
One day you told me
that your life it was all darkness,
gray, cold,
without a moonlight, without a flash…
Why don´t you try?
Wasn´t the lady so well succeed?
Put a glass tile on your life!

Translated by Isaac Furtado

Biography.

Henriqueta Lisboa (1901–1985) was a Brazilian writer. She was awarded the Prêmio Machado de Assis for her lifetime achievement by the Brazilian Academy of Letters. She is famous for her well-chosen words to create powerful poems. Her early lyrics deal with traditional poetic themes, while her later poems like Echo, she mysteriously magnifies the effect of a single image.

Suffering

A salt stone
becomes part of the ocean — very little! —

The soul remained lighter
than the body.

The music, far beyond
the instrument.

Of the lever,
its reason of being: the impetus.

Only the seal remains, the finishing
of the work.

The light which survives the star
and is its crown.

The wonderful. The immortal.

What I lost was so little.
But it was what I loved best.

On The Blind Man

For me the saddest event
is not to see in your eyes
this veil of mist
which hides the performance from you
But your ineptitude, the ineptitude
with which you neglect the display.

Faithfulness

Even now and always
the complaisant love.

In profile from the front
with life everlasting.

And if more absent
at every moment

so much more present
as time goes by

to the soul that allows
in the greatest silence

to keep it inside
the burning dimness

without forgetfulness
never forever

painfully.

Translated by Hélcio Veiga Costa

Biography.

Carla Diacov, São Bernardo do Campo, 1975. She is the author of the books: Amanhã Alguém Morre no Samba (Douda Correria, 2015/Edições Macondo, 2018), ninguém vai poder dizer que eu não disse (Douda Correria, 2016), bater bater no yuri (livro online pela Enfermaria 6, 2017), A Munição Compro Depois (Cozinha Experimental, 2018), A Menstruação de Valter Hugo Mãe (Casa Mãe, Portugal, 2017/Edições Macondo, 2020), in which the poems are illustrated by drawings made with menstrual blood.

The Cair

there once was a couple with only one chair
in the chair sat the ovulated wife
and sat the menstruated wife
the man sat in the chair erect there was
this one convention between the couple
that the chair would be a regulating ritual
of the dirtiness type of object of contamination
of the woman things in the man things
afterwards they lay in the very only bed for one
pregnancy never happened and the wife died sitting
in the chair the husband married again but
the new wife brought along another chair and
pregnancy never happened thought
the first husband
we’re not using the same chair
the husband died in the first chair
and the second wife kept the house
with the only bed and she got rid of the first
chair
a fisherman bought the chair for three
scrawny sardines and sat in the chair
facing the world and precisely the world he knew he was
fenced off from the first aura
a chair where the first one
and the contamination
the fisherman was creating another chair
the third
a
daughter of that first convention

Holding Hands

i pass by these two lovers
it’s like holding my hands in a bucket of sardines
so many nips
i am wounded
it’s not mortal
passing by those two lovers
was like holding in a bucket of salt
my shredded hands
so many sardines
how the sun cuts
not even half a cat in sight
how the light cuts
how the boat cuts
so many scales
it’s like holding my hands
so many arms
not even half a cat
not even half a tongue
not even half bad

Lap

lay the mute fork in my lap
say incomprehensible things about love
say domestic things about life and hate
say not knowing how to tell death from technical death
say the anguish over the cat’s communication
lay the naked knife in my lap
say forbidden things about the thought of flower
say things under the nails of the dead
between their hairs
lay the dirty plate in my lap
say things and say and dance the fingers
lay the cracked glass in my lap
say things say things and all I hear is the tear in this our gentle language

Translated by Annie McDermott

Biography.

Eliane Potiguara (1950) is an award-winner writer, poet, activist, professor, social entrepreneur of indigenous descent. She published the following books: A Terra é a Mãe do Índio (1989), Akajutibiró: Terra do Índio Potiguara (1994), Metade Cara, Metade Máscara (2004; 2018), O Sol do Pensamento (2005), O Coco que guardava a noite (2012), O Pássaro Encantado (2014), A Cura da Terra (2015). She was bestowed the Order of Cultural Merit from the Brazilian Ministry of Culture, and participated in the elaboration of The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Her texts and poems have been published in several magazines, websites, anthologies and e-books.

In this century of pain

In this century we'll no longer have sexes.
For being a mother in this century of death
Is to be feverish to subexist
Is to be a female in pain
Plundered in the condition of woman

I repeat
That in this century we'll no longer have sexes
I don't care if they understand
Or can only grasp it in another stupid century

We no longer have vaginas, we no longer breed
Our husbands have died
And to bear sick indigenous people
For our children to be killed
And thrown in the ditches
On the obscure roads of life
In this world without people
It only takes one mastermind

In this century we'll no longer have breasts
Spites, eyes, mouths or ears
Sexes or ears do not matter
Principles, morals, prejudices or defects
I no longer want the agony of the centuries ...

In this century there'll be no more way for us
Manners, beauty, love or money
In this century, oh God (? !)
There'll be no way for us.

Translated by Rubens Chinali

Biography.

Olga Savary (21 May 1933 – 15 May 2020) was a Brazilian writer, poet, and literary critic. She wrote several publications and was a member of PEN International. Notably, she won the Prêmio Jabuti in 1970 for Espelho Provisório. In Olga Savary, there is a mixture of explosion and sensitivity, of folly and modesty, as if she feared, by speaking out loud, she would break the enchantment of life: whether it be a child, a memory, a city. Olga Savary died on 15 May 2020 in Teresópolis at the age of 86 due to COVID-19.

Eden Hades

Water gardens satisfy our thirst
sunshine swollen in veins
hanging like mango
and I was like the owner of a ship
arrogant, deserving. Just like
an open vowel, I opened doors for the sand
in sudden loss of memory.
That the air should be swallowed like a ship.
All the sea breeze appears on the terraces
and vibrates in the sargassos above the swells.
Caught in the trap
Transforms the darkness to morning.
These are the contours of the dream:
a silver plaque and a name inscribed,
today deleted, engraved long,
long ago. And only that. The gods summon us,
they want us all because they want nothing,
they laugh at us, they lose us to win us
and to our questions
they play deaf,
they don’t respond except for the hollow
echo. Everything loses meaning
evil is pronounced.

Translated by Rosaliene Bacchus

Biography.

Angélica Freitas (born April 8, 1973) is a Brazilian poet and translator. Angélica Freitas had her poems published for the first time in an anthology of Brazilian poetry published in Argentina, titled Cuatro poetas recientes del Brasil (Buenos Aires: Black & Vermelho, 2006), organized and translated by Argentine poet Cristian De Nápoli. Her first book of poems was Rilke Shake (São Paulo: Cosac Naify, 2007). In 2012 her book um útero é do tamanho de um punho was a finalist on 2013 Prêmio Portugal Telecom.The English edition of Rilke Shake (translated by Hillary Kaplan) won the Best Translated Book Award for poetry in 2016. Freitas's poetry was published in France, Germany, Mexico, Spain and the United States. Her poems were published at several print and digital magazines

The Woman Is A Construction

the woman is a construction
must be

the woman is basically meant to be
a housing complex
all the same
everything plastered
just change the color

particularly I'm a woman
of bricks on display
in social gatherings having to be
the most hardly dressed

I say I'm a journalist

(the woman is a construction
with too many holes

leaks

the revista nova* is the ministry
of cloacal affairs
pardon me
do not talk about shit in the revista nova*)

you are a woman
and if you suddenly wake up binary and blue
and spend the day turning the light on and off?

(do you like being brazilian?
to be called virginia woolf?)

the woman is a construction
makeup is camouflage
every woman has a gay friend
how good it is to have friends

all friends have a gay friend
who has a woman
who calls him fred astaire

at this point, it's already late
the psychologists of the freud coffee shop
look and smile

nothing is going to change–

nothing will ever change–

the woman is a construction

Translated by Rosaliene Bacchus

Grad

men women are born they grow
they see how others are born
and how they disappear
from this mystery a cemetery arises
they bury bodies then forget

men women are born they grow
they see how others are born
and how they disappear
they record, record with their phones
make spreadsheets then forget

they hope their time comes slowly
men women
don’t know what comes next
so they go to grad school

men women are born they grow
they know that one day they’re born
and the next they disappear
but that’s not why they forget
to turn off the lights and the gas

Translated by Daniel Medin

One More (tiny) Thing

don’t calculate what you’ve lost in buying a box of pins (made in china)
and from where exactly they emerge with heads (flat)
and your cursing mao tse when a drop of blood appears (from the finger)
and when you find a pin in the street, leave it there (it’s not dead)
the same kind of pin pointing to the blouses (in your closet)
and brushing your skin it produces a red (so rare)
and someone is dreaming of pins (in china)
in this life only valued by a dozen (clearly)

Translated by Farnoosh Fathi

Biography.

Elisa Lucinda (born February 2, 1958) is a Brazilian actress, singer, poet, writer and journalist. Lucinda attended journalism school at Vitória, when she worked writing for newspapers and in a news program. Lucinda was 27 when she decided to move to Rio de Janeiro to become an actress; however, her poetry was more successful.The poet Elisa Lucinda talks about love, pain, passion, frustration, birth, death; these universal themes that accompany the despair and hope of us all. But her poetry doesn’t shy away from dealing with social problems that are quite Brazilian. Racism, sexism, mistreatment of the poor.

Warning of The Menstruating Moon

Boy, watch out for her!
Care must be taken with these menstruating people...
Imagine a waterfall inside out:
In every act, the body confesses.
Watch out, boy
Sometimes it looks like grass, it looks like ivy
Beware of these people who generate
These people who metamorphose
Half legible, half mermaid.
The belly grows, it explodes humanities
And still goes back to the place that is the same
But is another, there it is:
Every word said, before saying it, man, consider...
Your damn mouth doesn't know that every word is an ingredient
That will fall on the same pan planet.
Be careful with every character you send her!
She's used to living inside herself,
Transforming fact into element
Sauting, boiling, frying everything
And everything still bleeds the following month.
Watch out, boy, when ya think ya escaped
Then it's your turn!
Because I'm a good friend
I’m talking the "real" talk
I know every one, besides being one of them.
You who came out of her crack
Delicate force when returning to it.
Don't go uninvited
Or without the proper wooing...
Sometimes by the bridge of a kiss
You soon reach the "secret city"
The lost atlantis.
At other times, several poundings and more you move from her.
Watch out, boy, that since you have a snake between your legs
You fall into the condition of carelessness
Before the serpent itself
She is a snake with an apron
Do not despise domestic meditation
It's from the everyday dust
That women draw philosophizing
Cooking, sewing and you arrive with your hand in pocket
Judging the art of lunch: yuck!…
Don't you know where are your boxers?
Ah, my desired dog
So concerned about growling, snarling and barking
That you forget about biting slowly
You forget about enjoying, sharing.
And then when you want to assault
You call her chick and cow.
They are two worthy neighbors of our world!
What you have to say about cows?
What you have I'll tell and don't you complain:
Your mom's a cow. a milking cow.
Cow and chick...
Well, it does not offend. it praises, flatters:
By comparing queen to queen
Ovules, eggs and milk
Thinking that you're assaulting
That you're swearing dirty words.
You're not, man.
You're quoting the beginning of the world!

Translated by Rubens Chinali

Biography.

Ana Martins Marques is a Brazilian poet (Belo Horizonte, 07 de novembro de 1977). She has received various literary awards in Brazil, among them the Prêmio da Fundação Biblioteca Nacional and third place for Prêmio Oceanos. Her poems have been translated into English, French, Italian, and Spanish. His poetry combines formal elaboration with a reflection on life, promoting a narrowing between language and experience.

The Sea

She said
the sea
said
sometimes improbable things come
not merely plastic bags cardboard wood
empty bottles condoms beer cans
also umbrellas shoes fans
and a sofa
she said
it’s possible to look
for a long time
it is here I come
to clear my eyes
she said
those who were born far from
the sea
those who never saw
the sea
what will they make
of the limitless?
what will they make
of leaving?
will they think of taking a long road
and not looking back?
think of airport
highways
border controls?
when they say
I want to kill myself
will they think of blades
guns
poison?
for I only think
of the sea

One day

We didn’t sleep;
we believed the night
could be replaced by coffee
and it was

our round heads
under a round moon

we were saved by the small restaurant open until so
[late]
keeping in its heart bright red
soup

you carried in your pockets
coins from three countries

dawn came like the cover
of a notebook

we talked as though writing subtitles
for photographs

we wanted so much
so little

we took the bus
at the last minute

traveled
side by side
like a bilingual
edition

Summer

The days aren’t hard
or compact,
they’re days of vacation,
bright and open days,
freed from the calendar,
days that recall those other days,
from some other childhood,
which perhaps never existed.
We want the sun
to stain our skin,
the sand to hurt us,
we spend all our money
on hot beers,
we let the water salt our bodies
and strip ourselves of so many other products
(the creams, the crimes).
Of these days we accept everything,
their excitement and excesses,
we light salty cigarettes
and let the light hurt our eyes,
we linger in conversations
brittle as these stars we find.
Apart from one another,
but at the disposal of the sun,
we accept each other
like one lizard
accepts another.
And at the end of the day
– the sun left its mark, our bodies traced,
there is nothing to tell
other than the sea and its repetition,
its waters taught us about an unstable silence,
made of foam,
we move in the rhythm
of the beach’s almond trees
– we are more porous
we’re thirstier,
we awaken in us
certain submarine thoughts
and a memory forged
in the light flesh of forgetting.
But this you can’t see in these photographs.

Translated by Elisa Wouk Almino

Biography.

Maria da Conceição Evaristo de Brito (born November 29, 1946) is a Brazilian writer. She was born in a favela in the southern area of Belo Horizonte, to a very poor family with nine brothers and her mother. She had to work as a domestic servant during her youth until she finished her normal course in 1971, at the age of 25. Conceição Evaristo is a great exponent of contemporary Brazilian literature. She writes about race, gender and class discrimination, especially of black women.

In Writing...

In writing hunger
With empty-palmed hands
when the hole-stomach
expels famished desires
there is, in this demented movement
the dream-hoping
for any leftovers.

In writing cold
with the tip of my bones
caring in my body the tremor
of pain and shelterless-ness
there is, in this tense movement
the warmth-hoping
for any miserable little vest.

In writing pain,
alone,
searching for the resonance
of another in me
there is in this constant movement
the illusion-hoping
for our doubled consonance.

In writing life
fading and swimming
on departure’s test tube
there is, in this useless movement
the treacherous-hoping
for catching Time
and caressing eternity.

Translated by (?)

Women Voices

The voice of my great-grandmother
echoed as a child
inside the ship’s bowels.
Echoing moans
of a lost childhood.

The voice of my grandmother
echoed obedience
to the white-owners of everything.

The voice of my mother
whispered echoes of revolt
in the very end of the other’s kitchens
under the trusses
of whites’ dirty linen
along the dusty road
towards the slum.

My voice still
echoes perplexing verses
in rhymes of blood
and
hunger.

The voice of my daughter
uniting all our voices
gathers within itself
the dumb silenced voices
choking in our throats.
The voice of my daughter
gathers within itself
speech and action.
Yesterday - today - now.
In my daughter’s voice
the resonance will be heard
the echo of freedom-life.

Translated by Maria Aparecida Salgueiro de Andrade and Antonio D. Tillis

My Equal Body

In the darkness of the night
my equal body
diffuses dangers
deciphers messages
whistles and tam-tams.

In equal darkness
my night body
opens volcanically
the ethnic skin
that dresses me.

In the darkness of the night
my equal body
floats tears, oceanlike,
sieving searches
nailing dreams
quilombo-gathering hopes
in the darkness of the night.

Translated by Maria Aparecida Salgueiro de Andrade and Antonio D. Tillis

Biography.

Ana Cristina César (June 2, 1952 – October 29, 1983) was a poet, literary critic and translator from Rio de Janeiro. She came from a middle-class Protestant background and was usually known as "Ana C." She had written since childhood and developed a strong interest in English literature. She spent some time in England in 1968 and, on returning to Brazil, she became a published author of note. She is considered one of the main names of the mimeograph generation, also known as the marginal poetry of the 1970s.

First Lesson

The genres of poetry are: lyric, satirical, didactic,
epic, light.
The lyric genre comprises lyricism.
Lyricism is the translation of a subjective feeling, sincere
and personal.
It is the language of the heart, of love.
Lyricism is also so named because in other times
sentimental verses were declaimed to the sound of
the lyre.
Lyricism can be:
a) Elegiac, when it treats sad matters, almost always death.
b) Bucolic, when verse about rustic subjects.
c) Erotic, when verse about love.
Elegiac lyricism comprises the elegy, the dirge, the
threnody, the epitaph, and the epicedium, or funeral
oath.
Elegy is poetry which treats dolesome topics.
The dirge is poetry in homage to a dead person.
It was declaimed beside a bonfire on which the corpse was
incinerated.
Threnody is a poetry which reveals the heart's sorrows.
Epitaph is a short verse form engraved on tombstones.
Epicedium is a poetry which relates to the life
of a dead person.
I look for a long while at a poem's body
until I lose sight of whatever is not body
and feel, separated between my teeth,
a filament of blood
on my gums

Translated by John K

Ladies’ Talk

I don’t even need to marry
I get all I need from him
I won’t leave here anymore
I really doubt it
This subject of women has come to an end
The cat ate it and enjoyed himself
He dances just like a barrel organ
The writer no longer exists
But also doesn’t have to become a god
Someone’s at the house
Do you think he can stand it?
Mr. Tenderness is knocking
I couldn’t care less
Conspiring: I answer back again
Trap: dying to know
She’s strange
Also you lie too much
He’s stalking me
Who did you sell your time to?
I don’t really know: I slept with that klutz
It makes no sense at all
But what about the gig?
He’s being a good boy
I think it’s an act
Don’t even start

Translated by Brenda Hillman

Grams

The heart has little irony in the late afternoon
Carnal secrets on the surface of the skin
skinny poems, just waiting

Life refuses to carry itself off to the hills
holes dug by weasels
grass flowering

In the pool the heart has almost no breath left
In the yards it fires wet
In closed rooms it avoids car horns

Life is put in charge of the windows
But it ends up plummeting in a rush
It does not fit Gives no support Is weightless

Translated by John K

Biography.

Hilda Hilst (April 21, 1930 – February 4, 2004) was a Brazilian poet, novelist, and playwright. She is lauded as one of the most important Portuguese-language authors of the twentieth century. Her work touches on the themes of mysticism, insanity, the body, eroticism, and female sexual liberation. Hilst greatly revered the work of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett and the influence of their styles like stream of consciousness and fractured reality in her own work. In several of her writings Hilst tackled politically and socially controversial issues, such as obscenity, queer sexuality, and incest.

Poems for the Men of our Time

Beloved life, my death lingers
What to say to man
What journey to propose? Kings, ministers
And all of you, politicians,
What word besides gold and darkness
Stays in your ears?
Besides your RAPACITY
What do you know
Of the souls of men?
Gold, conquest, profit, deception
And our bones
And the blood of peoples
And the lives of men
Between your teeth.

***

To meet you, Man of my time,
And in the hope you may subdue
The rosette of fire, hatred, and wars,
I will sing to you eternally in the hope of knowing you
one day
And invite the poet and all those lovers of words, and
the others,
Alchemists, to sit with you at your table.
Things will be simple and round, fair. I will sing to you
My own crudeness and earlier unease,
Appearances, the lacerated love of men
My own love is yours
The mystery of the rivers, earth, seed.
I will sing to you the One who made me a poet and
promised me

Compassion and tenderness and peace on Earth
If within you still resides these gifts he gave you.

Translated by Rosaliene Bacchus

Of Desire

Because there is desire within me, everything glimmers.
Before, daily life was thinking of heights
Seeking Another decanted
Deaf to my human bark.
Sap and sweat, they never came to be.
Today, flesh and bones, laborious, lascivious
You take my body. And what rest you give me
After the readings. I dreamt of cliffs
When there was a garden by my side.
I thought of climbs where there were no signs.
Ecstatic, I fuck you
Instead of yapping at Nothingness.

Translated by Lavinia Saad

Ten Calls to a Friend

If I seem to you nocturnal and imperfect
Look at me again. Because tonight
I looked at myself as if you were looking at me.
And it was as if water
Desired

To leave your house that is the river,
Just slipping by, not even touching the riverbank.

I looked at you. And it has been so long
That I understand that I am earth. It has been so long
That I wait
For your brotherly body of water
To stretch over mine. Pastor and naut

Look at me again. From a lesser height.
And more attentively.

Translated by Lavinia Saad

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