Lo que al día le pido

Lo que al día le pido ya no es
que me cumpla los sueños, que me entregue
los deseos cumplidos de otros días,
porque al fin he aprendido que los sueños
son igual que las alas de un insecto
y al tocarlos el hombre se deshacen;
y es que un sueño al cumplirse es otra cosa
que no ayuda a volar.
Lo que al día le pido es ese sueño
que al rozarlo se parta en otros sueños
lo mismo que una bola de mercurio,
y que brille muy lejos de mis manos.
Lo que al día le pido empieza a ser
más difícil incluso de alcanzar
que los sueños cumplidos, porque exige
la fe antigua en los sueños.
Lo que al día le pido es solamente
un poco de esperanza, esa forma modesta
de la felicidad.


Vicente Gallego

The Aerodrome

First it went back to grass, then after that
To warehouses and brickfields (designated
The Creagh Meadows Industrial Estate),
Its wartime grey control tower rebuilt and glazed

Into a hard-edged CEO-style villa:
Toome Aerodrome had turned to local history.
Hangars, runways, bomb stores, Nissen huts,
The perimeter barbed wire, forgotten and gone.

But not a smell of daisies and hot tar
On a newly-surfaced cart-road, Easter Monday,
1944. And not, two miles away that afternoon,
The anual bright booths of the fair at Toome,

All the brighter for having been denied.
No catchpenny stalls for us, no
Awnings, bonnets, or beribboned gauds:
Wherever the world was, we were somewhere else,

Had been and would be. Sparrows might fall,
B-26 Marauders not return, but the sky above
That land usurped by a compulsory order
Watched and waited - like me and her that day

Watching and waiting by the perimeter.
A fear crossed over then like the fly-by-night
And sun-repellent wing that flies by day
Invisibly above: would she rise and go

With the pilot calling from his Thunderbolt?
But for her part, in response, only the slightest
Back-stiffening and standing of her ground
As her hand reached down and tightened around
    mine

If self is a location, so is love:
Bearing taken, markings, cardinal points,
Options, obstinacies, dug heels and distance,
Here and there and now and then, a stance.

Seamus Heaney, District and Circle, Faber and Faber, 2006.

This

Now what's this? What's the object of all this darkness all over me? They haven't gone and buried me alive while my back was turned, have they? Ah, now would you think they would do a thing like that! Oh, no, I know what it is. I'm awake. That's it. I waked up in the middle of the night. Well, isn't that nice. Isn't that simply ideal. Twenty minutes past four, and here's Baby wide-eyed as a marigold. Look at this, will you? At the time when all decent people are going to bed, I must wake up. There's no way things can ever come out even, under this system. This is a rank as injustice is ever likely to get. This is what bring about hatred and bloodshed, that's what this does.

Dorothy Parker, "The Little Hours", The Sexes, Penguin Modern Classics, Penguin, 2011.

Alma

Yes, but he did it only three times

"So Nur al-Din, who was drunk, went to her, took her legs, and pressed them to his sides, while she locked her arms around his neck and began to give him adept and passionate kisses, and he at once undid her trousers and took her virginity. When the little maids saw what happened, they cried out and screamed, while Nur al-Din, fearing the consequences of his action, got up and fled.

When the vizier's wife heard the cries, she came out of the bath in a hurry to see what was causing the commotion in the house. She came up to the two maids and said, «Woe to you, what is the matter?» They replied, «Our lord Nur al-Din came and beat us, and since we were unable to stop him, we fled, while he entered Anis al-Jalis's chamber and embraced her for a while, but we don't know what he did afterward, except that he came out running.» The vizier's wife went into Anis al-Jalis's chamber and asked her, «O my daughter, what happened to you?» Anis al-Jalis replied, «O my lady, as I was sitting here, a handsome young man suddenly came in and asked me, 'Aren't you the one whom my father bought for me?' and I replied 'Yes', for, by God, my lady, I thought that he was telling the truth. Then he came up and embraced me.» The vizier's wife asked, «Did he do you know what to you?» Anis al-Jalis replied, «Yes, but he did it only three times.» The vizier's wife said, «I hope that you will not have to pay for this!» and she and the maids began to cry and beat their faces, for they feared that Nur al-Din's father would kill him."

As Mil e Uma Noites: História da escrava Anis al-Jalis e de Nur al-Din Ali ibn Khaqan
Trad. Husain Haddawy

Roger Kimball: The Great American Novel

On the other hand, it is undeniable that we continue to think of art and literature as something more than mere recreation: We want it, as Hamlet said, to hold the mirror up to nature, at least to our nature, and we value it not simply as a source of distraction but also as a source of revelation. Indeed, it might be argued that in the modern world, whose understanding is so deeply shaped by scientific rationality, the novel—and art and literature generally—is more valuable than ever because it reminds us that reality, our reality as moral agents, exceeds the demonstrations of science.

Quarta-feira de Cinzas

Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessed face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice

de TS Eliot. Ash Wednesday.

Entrevista

Como se reflecte numa faculdade de Letras a alteração de mentalidades que considera hoje irrelevantes as ideias e as Humanidades, para dar primado absoluto ao conhecimento prático que assegure emprego?

É uma espécie de discurso asfixiante. O que é uma brutalidade – as pessoas entram aqui vindas do liceu, estão três anos, o tempo de uma licenciatura (quanto a mim, seria melhor se fossem quatro), e durante esses três anos os alunos ouvem obsessivamente falar de saídas profissionais, empregabilidade, etc., quando deviam estar três anos a ler, a ir ao cinema, ocupados com actividades que os educam.

A noção de educação deixou de interessar. A brutalidade prática é tal, que a única coisa que interessa é a saída profissional. E isto é algo que vai ter custos enormes no país, nem que sejam custos de um ponto de vista moral, da auto-estima das pessoas, etc.

António Feijó, Director da Faculdade de Letras, em entrevista ao i.

Que le lecteur sache lire et tout est sauvé

Enseigner à lire, telle serait la seuse et la véritable fin d'un enseignment bien ententu; que le lecteur sache lire et tout est sauvé.

Qu'est-ce qu'un coup d'Etat, sinon de la raison d'Etat discontinue? et qu'est-ce que la raison d'Etat, sinon un coup d'Etat continue?... Quand on est sorti de la justice, que ce soit pour la violence continue ou pour la violence discontinue, il n'ya plus que l'ordre de l'injustice et du fait.

La défaite et la persécution subie sont une épreuve sans doute; elles ne sont presque rien pourtant auprès de cette épreuve la plus redoutable: la victoire et la tentation de la persécution tout prête à exercer.

Charles Péguy. Pensées. Gallimard (2007)

A frágil voz

Não o ignoro, mas a verdade é que

o esqueci há muito.

Pousava o capacete na cadeira ao lado

daquela em que se sentava

e quando não havia cadeira

deixava-o docilmente no chão

como se de peça muito amada se tratasse;

era parte do seu armado corpo,

no início das defesas e correrias da vida.

Também eu, ainda hoje, me

engano sobre o exacto sentido do verbo.

Ouve, presta toda a atenção que puderes à

frágil voz,

por um instante ela explica o interesse

da acção, as necessidades da intriga: sofrer

quer apenas dizer

estamos demasiado longe da mesma realidade.

João Miguel Fernandes Jorge, Não é Certo este Dizer, Presença, Colecção Forma, 1997.

Cigarette

The young man with the scenic cravat glanced nervously down the sofa at the girl with the fringed dress. She was examining her handkerchief; it might have been the first one of its kind she had seen, so deep was her interest in its material, form and possibilities. The young man cleared his throat, without necessity or success, producing a small, syncopated noise.

'Want a cigarette?' he said.

'No thank you,' she said. 'Thank you so much ever the same.'

'Sorry I've only got these kind,' he said. 'You got any of your own?'

'I really don't know,' she said. ' I probably have, thank you.'

'Because if you haven't,' he said, 'it wouldn't take me a minute to go up to the corner and get you some.'

Dorothy Parker, "The Sexes", The Sexes, Penguin Modern Classics, Penguin, 2011.

Um pentâmetro

In his poetic autobiography Tristia ("Sad Poems") 4.10, Ovid records that his father (a conservative country gentleman who lived to be ninety) tried to force him to give up writing poetry because there was no money in it, but that whatever he said turned out to be poetry. This passage may have inspired a wonderful, but apocryphal, anedocte: once, when his father was beating him for persisting with his poetry, Ovid cried out, parce mihi; numquam versificabo, pater! ("Spare me, father, and I will never write verses again"), which scans as pentameter.

J. C. McKeown, A Cabinet of Roman Curiosities: Strange Tales and Surprising Facts from the World's Greatest Empire, Oxford University Press, 2010

Principia

...And if I speak to you in parables and fables

this is that you may listen to them with greater sweetness, and the horror

cannot be talked about because it is alive

because it speechless and continues to advance

and drips during day, drips into sleep

μνησιπήμων πόνος.

Should I speak of heroes, should I speak of heroes: Michael,

who left the hospital with open wounds

was speaking perhaps of heroes on that night

when he dragged his foot on the city's blackout

and cried out; fumbling the pain that was ours: "We go

towards darkness and in the dark proceed..."

Heroes proceed in darkness.

Few are the moonlit nights I care for.

Yorgos Seferis in Τελευταίος Σταθμός (A última estação), tradução de Kimon Friar, tradução integral (e outros poemas) aqui. Versão original aqui. Poema lido aqui.

***

Κι α σου μιλώ με παραμύθια και παραβολές
είναι γιατί τ' ακούς γλυκότερα, κι η φρίκη
δεν κουβεντιάζεται γιατί είναι ζωυτανή
γιατί είναι αμίλητη και προχωράει
στάζει τη μέρα, στάζει στον ύπνο
μνησιπήμων πόνος.

Να μιλήσω για ήρωες να μιλήσω για ήρωες: ο Μιχάλης
που έφυγε μ' ανοιχτές πληγές απ' το νοσοκομείο
ίσως μιλούσε για ήρωες όταν, τη νύχτα εκείνη
που έσερνε το ποδάρι του μες στη συσκοτισμένη πολιτεία,
ούρλιαζε ψηλαφώντας τον πόνο μας "Στα σκοτεινά
πηγαίνουμε, στα σκοτεινά προχωρούμε..."
Οι ήρωες προχωρούν στα σκοτεινά.

Λίγες οι νύχτες με φεγγάρι που μ' αρέσουν.

Homicídio

When the elder Cato was asked what he thought was the most profitable way of utilizing one's resources, he replied, "Grazing livestock successfully", what second to that, "Grazing livestock fairly successfully", what third, "Grazing livestock unsuccessfully"; what fourth, "Raising crops." When his questioner asked, "What about money-lending?" Cato replied "What about murder?" (Cicero On Duties 2.89).

J. C. McKeown, A Cabinet of Roman Curiosities: Strange Tales and Surprising Facts from the World's Greatest Empire, Oxford University Press, 2010

Desencorajar os outros leões

According to Pliny (Natural History 8.47), the Greek historian Polybius reported that he and Scipio Aemilianus, who destroyed Carthage in 146 B.C., saw man-eating lions crucified there as a deterrent to other lions.

J. C. McKeown, A Cabinet of Roman Curiosities: Strange Tales and Surprising Facts from the World's Greatest Empire, Oxford University Press, 2010

Atendendo ao actual momento do Sporting, há uma série de graçolas que me ocorrem envolvendo esta história, mas vou abster-me de as fazer.

Podia ser o meu mote

ζῇ τε καὶ βλέπει φάος (Ésquilo, v. 299 dos Persas).

A gramática espiritual de Kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky altera, criando, novos signos através da obra de arte. Pretende que o objecto consiga ser subtraído, essa rigidez do signo, para que o abstracto, o interior ganhe voz. Através da novidade, as formas de representação quebram a asfixia presente na obediência às formas de linguagem, aos sinais anteriormente estabelecidos. Recuando à aproximação da génese ontológica dessa linguagem, o que se propõe escutar é então a parole, o discurso interior.

In the end, I came to experience consciously my earlier feelings of freedom, and thus the merely incidental demands I made of art gradually disappeared. They vanished in favor of one single demand: the demand of inner life of art.

Composition 6:

I carried this picture around in my mind for a year and a half, and often thought I would not be able to finish it. My starting point was the Deluge.

(...)

In a number of sketches I dissolved the corporeal forms; in others I sought to achieve the impression by purely abstract means. But it didn't work. This happened because I was still obedient to the expression of the Deluge, instead of heeding the expression of the word "Deluge". I was ruled not by the inner sound, rather by the external impression.

Wassily Kandinsky, Reminiscences/Three Pictures ["Rückblicke", "Komposition 4", "Komposition 6"; "Bild mit weissem Rand"]. Berlin 1913.

bênção - robert kelley

Bliss
Robert Kelly

isso é uma palavra nevada uma palavra carregada
para ocidente na nossa acrópole sinistra
(à sombra de colunas iónicas
esfregou as costas a um pilar)
pois é sempre apropriado
caminhar lentamente à volta de algo
com um galho de pereira preso entre os dedos
levemente como uma varinha para adivinhar
as intenções da Besta Que Vem
(vira-te para o lado, estás a ressonar)
preciso do meu café, a religião
está demasiado longe daqui num clima de gente
(dentes de retórica antiga, zeugma-te
comigo ou é um pássaro muito maior
strouthos para hastear a mim tua quadriga)
peliça duma virgem, torque dum Celta
(o que é o ouro? resposta na contracapa)
aliás o amor é tal e qual a álgebra
mas agora mesmo não posso dizer porquê tu podes
a liberdade tem alguma coisa a ver, resolver
para duas incógnitas, mas porquê em árabe?
As crianças esperam que a política acabe
reparaste em todos aqueles bailarinos nus
que celebram as cerimónicas cívicas nas nuvens
como saltaricam solenemente à maneira de liturgia
e falam apenas com os seus membros em movimento ou
scordatura de ventos pipitantes carvalhos castanhos
esses cadáveres folhas deixadas para troçar do nosso verão
(oh vem até mim de novo desta vez não hei-de
ou deixar-te ir, tira a roupa
há tantos livros para ler)
agressores natural este clima puderam comer
nunca ninguém conta as flores no jarro
ou se contam não se preocupam com as pétalas portanto
estamos cercados por uma beleza sem número
(a terra tem dedos não tocamos em pele fora a nossa)
a minha estalactite preferida mede quatro pés
na carteira prateada polida vê o lírio a reflectir
a música que ontem à noite não foi ouvida de novo agora ecôa
(uma das características da manhã tal como a barba no meu queixo)
toca-me sou um estrangeiro ouve-me acordar
será que as pessoas vivem em casas pelas razões erradas?
haverá um clima onde a Cleópatra esteja ainda viva
ainda jovem audaz e perita em química
linguística ela com o grande pharmakon
ela que foi a última a ler as pedras?
(esforça-te mais a ouvir se queres mesmo que ela te dê atenção)
os pássaros tornam-se pesarosos com o seu próprio clamor
como crianças que brincam à espera do anoitecer
voz de mães que as mandam voltar para casa
para longe das contingências de outras pessoas
(ninguém pode sofrer como uma criança não te lembras?)
vira-te para cá e fala duma vez comigo ou isto tudo é
um engate duma noite só que nunca acabou?

Robert Kelley. Aqui. Tradução minha.