Funambulismo

The more the poet comes to believe in the heroes and gods whose images fill his mind, the nearer he approaches the priest. However, he totally succumbs to the enchantment only when he either makes sacrifices, or indeed sacrifices himself, to the god who is the subject of his poetry. 

 Edgar Wind. The Eloquence of Symbols. OUP (1983).

Whisky

Poder e interesse

Onde estão o poder e o interesse dos poetas? Têm a sua origem em estados oníricos. E estes surgem porque o poeta é o que é em si mesmo, porque soa uma voz na alma dele que tem uma força equiparável à das sociedades, do Estado e dos regimes. Ninguém se torna interessante com a loucura, a excentricidade ou outras coisas do género, mas em virtude do poder de cancelar a distracção, a actividade e o ruído do mundo e porque se mostra capaz de ouvir a essência das coisas.

Saul Bellow, O Legado de Humboldt, Salvato Telles de Menezes (trad.), Quetzal, 2012.

Dirty Women

"The sleepy city is dreaming the night time away 
Out on the streets I watch tomorrow becoming today 
I see a man, he's got take away women for sale, yes for sale 
Guess that's the answer 
'Cos take away women don't fail"

Habemus Catullum!

Já está disponível na livraria da Cotovia (Trindade, Lisboa) a primeira edição portuguesa (integral e não censurada) dos Carmina de Catulo (tradução e notas de André Simões e José Pedro Moreira, introdução de Ana Alexandra Alves de Sousa). 

P.S. Isto é de verdade uma alegria.

Entrevista a Paulo Morais, vice-presidente da ONG Transparência e Integridade

Strindberg and Helium [não percam isto]

E o site dos génios criadores é este.

En Passion, Ingmar Bergman (1969)

Svevo

He came along, kicking the deep snow. Here was a disgusted man. His name was Svevo Bandini, and he lived three blocks down that street. He was cold and there were holes in his shoes. That morning he had patched the holes on the inside with pieces of cardboard from a macaroni box. The macaroni in that box was not paid for. He had thought of that as he placed the cardboard inside of his shoes. 

Jonh Fante, Wait Until Spring, Bandini, Ecco, 2002.

Aquiles lamenta a morte de Pátroclo

«Porquê lágrimas?» disse a mãe. «Fui até Deus.

E Ele fez o que pediste.

Foi a tua voz que Ele ouviu, suplicando-lhe “Senhor,

Até que sintam a minha falta, deixai os Gregos arder.”»

E ouviu-o, entre os soluços dele, dizer:

«Verdade. Mostrai-Lhe a minha gratidão.

Não esqueças de guardar para ti uma pequena parte.

Eu matei Pátroclo.

Eu matei-o. Matei-o. Matei-o.»

«Eee… eee… eee… eee… eee…» um som aterrador.

Algo como eu ou tu nunca ouvimos.

«Ele era o melhor. Melhor do que eu. Mais corajoso do que eu.

Mais honrado do que eu. Valia duas vezes a minha vida.

Ele escutava. Ele aconselhava. Para todos tinha tempo.

Para homens e mulheres em quem eu nem reparei.

E eu matei-o. Matei-o.»

Aquele som aterrador. Aquelas pancadas.

«Não estava lá para o ajudar quando morreu.

Não estava lá para o ajudar quando morreu.

Aquiles não estava lá. Ele não estava lá

para ajudar o seu próximo, o seu coração, o seu companheiro amado

quando Heitor o matou.

Sei que Deus disse que eu morrerei

pouco depois de matar Heitor – se for capaz.

E, mãe, podes estar certa de que sou capaz.»

‘Why tears?’ his mother said. ‘I went to God.

And He has done all that you asked.

It was your voice He heard, begging Him: ‘Lord,

Until they feel my lack, let the Greeks burn.’”

And heard him, in between his sobs, say:

‘True. Give Him my thanks.

Be sure to keep a little for yourself.

I have killed Patroclus.

I have killed him. I have killed him. I have killed him.’

‘Eee … eee … eee … eee … eee…’ a terrifying noise.

The like of which, the likes of you and me, have never heard.

‘He was my best. Better than me. Braver than me.

More honorable than me. Worth twice my life.

He listened. He advised. Had time for everyone.

For men and women that I failed to see.

And I have killed him. I have killed him.’

That terrifying noise. Those slaps.

‘I was not there to help him when he died.

Achilles was not there. He was not there

To help his next, his heart, his dear companion

When Hector killed him.

I know that God has said that I shall die

Soon after killing Hector – if I can.

And, mother, yes, be certain that I can.’

Christopher Logue, Logue’s Homer: War Music, Faber & Faber, 2001

The Blue Flannel Suit

I had let it all grow. I had supposed
It was all OK. Your life
Was a liner I voyaged in.
Costly education had fitted you out.
Financiers and committees and consultants
Effaced themselves in the gleam of your finish.
You trembled with the new life of those engines.

That first morning,
Before your first class at College, you sat there
Sipping coffee. Now I know, as I did not,
What eyes waited at the back of the class
To check your first professional performance
Against their expectations. What assessores
Waited to see you justify the cost
And redeem their gamble. What a furnace
Of eyes waited to prove your metal. I watched
The strange dummy stiffness, the misery,
Of your blue flannel suit, its straitjacket, ugly
Half-approximation to your idea
Of the proprieties you hoped to ease into,
And your horror in it. An the tanned
Almost green undertinge of your face
Shrunk to its wick, your scar lumpish, your plaited
Head pathetically tiny.
                                   You waited,
Knowing yourself helpless in the tweezers
Of the life that judged you, and I saw
The flayed-nerve, the unhealable face-wound
Which was all you had for courage.
I saw that what you gripped, as you sipped,
Were terrors that killed you once already.
Now I see, I saw, sitting, the lonely
Girl who was going to die. 
                                         That blue suit,
A mad, execution uniform,
Survived your sentence. But then I sat, stilled,
Unable to fathom what stilled you
As I looked at you, as I am stilled
Permanently now, permanently
Bending so briefly at your open coffin.

Ted Hughes, Birthday Letters.

Aborrecimento

     - Diz lá - perguntou de repente o animado Avdéev a Panov -, acontece-te alguma vez ficares aborrecido? 

     - Que aborrecimento pode haver? - respondeu Panov a contragosto.

     - Comigo, às vezes o enfado é tanto que nem sei o que sou capaz de fazer comigo.

     - Não me digas! - disse Panov.

    - Daquela vez, lembras-te? Derreti o dinheiro todo na bebedeira, só por causa desta chatice. Tomou conta de mim, e pensei: vou emborrachar-me até cair.

     - Às vezes ainda se fica pior com os copos.

     - Mas também, o que se pode fazer?

     - E é porquê, esse teu aborrecimento?

     - Porquê? Porque tenho saudades de casa!

     - E como era a tua vida, a tua família é rica?

     - Ricos não, mas vivíamos bem. Nada mal, até.

     E Avdéev pôs-se a contar o que já tinha contado muitas vezes a Panov.

     - Alistei-me por minha própria vontade, na vez do meu irmão. Ele já tinha cinco filhos, e eu não, tinha acabado de me casar. E a minha mãe pediu-me tanto. Pensei: não me importo! Mais tarde talvez me agradeçam o bem que lhes fiz. Fui falar com o meu senhor. O nosso senhor é bom, disse: «Fazes bem, rapaz, vai!» E vim, em vez do meu irmão.

     - Fizeste bem - disse Panov. 

     - Mas agora é um tédio, acredita. E aborreço-me sobretudo porque vim na vez do meu irmão. Penso: ele agira está a viver como um rei, e eu aqui a sofrer. Quanto mais penso, pior me sinto. É uma tentação, acho eu. 

 

Lev Tolstói, Hadji-Murat, Relógio d'Água, 2009. 

    

C'est très bête. Nous sommes des gamins.

     Il murmura, tout bas:

     "Je t'aimerai bien, ma petite Made."

     La douceur de cette voix émut la jeune femme, lui fit passer sur la chair un frémissement rapide, et elle offrit sa bouche, en se penchant sur lui, car il avait posé sa joue sur le tiède appui des seins.

     Ce fut un très long baiser, muet et profond, puis un sursaut, une brusque et folle étreinte, une courte lutte essoufflée, un accouplement violent et maladroit. Puis ils restèrent aux bras l'un de l'autre, un peu déçus tous deux, las et tendres encore, jusqu'à ce quele sifflet du train annonçât une gare prochaine.

     Elle déclara, en tapotant du bout des doigts les cheveux ébouriffés de ses tempes:

     "C'est très bête. Nous sommes des gamins."

     Mais il lui baisait les mains, allant de l'une à l'autre avec une rapidité fiévreuse et il répondit:

     "Je t'adore, ma petite Made."

Guy de Maupassant, Bel-Ami

The Dreamers (2003), Bernardo Bertolucci

From "Punch's Day Book: Her Answered Letters"

Mornings are worse. Do you
find that? I wake as light arrives
at every crevice in the house. The birds
are a chorus of women
thrilled by new possessions. I might hear
the church bell, an aeroplane
descending in steps... The world
is close, but outside:
beyond the window-sill, beyond the gate,
a guileless cryptogram.

I shall die of my thoughts. I've become
my story's heroine
saturated by disease, the last
of the beautiful tuberculars.

All this would be solved
if I had you between the pulses of my wrists.

David Harsent, do livro Mr Punch in Selected Poems:1969-2005, Faber & Faber.

Saying Whitman in a Meth Lab

não canto porque sonho

A Blessing in Disguise

Yes, they are alive and can have those colors,
But I, in my soul, am alive too.
I feel I must sing and dance, to tell
Of this in a way, that knowing you may be drawn to me.

And I sing amid despair and isolation
Of the chance to know you, to sing of me
Which are you. You see,
You hold me up to the light in a way

I should never have expected, or suspected, perhaps
Because you always tell me I am you,
And right. The great spruces loom.
I am yours to die with, to desire.

I cannot ever think of me, I desire you
For a room in which the chairs ever
Have their backs turned to the light
Inflicted on the stone and paths, the real trees

That seem to shine at me through a lattice toward you.
If the wild light of this January day is true
I pledge me to be truthful unto you
Whom I cannot ever stop remembering.

Remembering to forgive. Remember to pass beyond you into the day
On the wings of the secret you will never know.
Taking me from myself, in the path
Which the pastel girth of the day has assigned to me.

I prefer “you” in the plural, I want “you”
You must come to me, all golden and pale
Like the dew and the air.
And then I start getting this feeling of exaltation.

John Ashbery, retirado daqui.

o destino incendeia-se

Much wisdom she knows, I see further ahead
to the terrible doom of the fighting gods.

Brother will fight brother and be his slayer,
brother and his sister will violate the bond of kinship;
hard it is in the world, there is much adultery,
axe-age, sword-age, shields are cleft asunder,
wind-age, wolf-age, before the world plunges headlong;
no man will spare another.

The sons of Mim are at play and fate catches fire
at the ancient Giallar-horn;
Heimdall blows loudly, his horn is in the air,
Odin speaks with Mim's head.

Poetic Edda. Voluspa [A Prophecia da Vidente] 44.3-4, 45, 46. Carolyne Larrington (trad). Oxford World's Classics (1999).