Not as a bruise to its blow

Not as a bruise to its blow, as Ryle says, are our imaginings related to our experience. Yet Hume sometimes supposes that imagination works like madness. If it can give to fiction all the appearance of reality, how is one to know what to believe when an author’s words, stirring in us like life, managing our minds with the efficiency of reality, throw Anna Karenina under the train’s wheels before our eyes?

William H. Gass, Fiction and the Figures of Life, Alfred Knopf, 1970.

até não sobrar de Lisboa senão o grito dos pavões nas colinas desertas

um desses broches baratos, de cercadura cromada, que representam um perfil de mulher de vaso grego, e eu a pensar, Iolanda, que detesto o Aquário, que detesto aquelas salas de peixes beiçudos, que preferia ir ver o mar a Caxias ou a Algés onde os esgotos vomitam a cidade no rio, becos inteiros, casinhas, esplanadas, senhoras à janela, carvoarias e tabernas, até não sobrar de Lisboa senão o grito dos pavões nas colinas desertas.

António Lobo Antunes, A ordem natural das coisas

Entire books

There is a painting by Picasso which depicts a pitcher, a candle, blue enamel pot. They are sitting, unadorned, upon the barest table. Would we wonder what was cooking on that pot? Is it beans, perhaps, or carrots, a marmite? The orange of the carrot is a perfect complement for the blue of the pot, and the genius of Picasso, neglecting nothing, has surely placed, behind that blue, invisible disks of dusky orange, which, in addition, subtly enriched the table's velvet brown. Doesn't that seem reasonable? Now I see that it must be beans, for above the pot - you can barely see them - are quaking lines of steam, just the lines we associate with boiling beans... or is it blanching pods? Scholarly research, supported by a great foundation, will discover that exactly such a pot was used to cook cassoulet in the kitchens of Charles the Fat... or was it Charles the Bald? There's a dissertation in that. And this explains the dripping candle standing by the pot. (Is it dripping?no? a pity. Let's go on). For isn't Charles the Fat himself that candle? Oh no, some day, he's not! Blows are struck. Reputations made and ruined. Someone will see eventually that the pot is standing on table, not a stove. But the pot has just come from the stove, it will be pointed out. Has not Picasso caught that vital moment of transition? The pot is too hot. The brown is burning. Oh, not this table, which has been coated with resistant plastic. Singular genius - blessed man - he thinks of everything.

Here you have half the history of our criticism in the novel. Entire books have been written about the characters in Dickens, Trollope, Tolstoi, Faulkner. But why not? Entire books have been written about God, his cohorts and the fallen angels.

William H. Gass, Fiction and the Figures of Life, Alfred A. Knopf, Londres, 1970. 

"Seven Psychopaths" de Martin McDonagh, 2012

Ah, medo tenho não é de ver morte, mas de ver nascimento.

Mirre veja: um casal, no Rio do Borá, daqui longe, só porque marido e mulher eram primos carnais, os quatro meninos deles vieram nascendo com a pior transformação que há: sem braços e sem pernas, só os tocos... Arre, nem posso figurar minha idéia nisso! Refiro ao senhor: um outro doutor, doutor rapaz, que explorava as pedras turmalinas no vale do Arassuaí, discorreu me dizendo que a vida da gente encarna e reencarna, por progresso próprio, mas que Deus não há. Estremeço. Como não ter Deus?! Com Deus existindo, tudo dá esperança: sempre um milagre é possível, o mundo se resolve. Mas, se não tem Deus, há-de a gente perdidos no vai-vem, e a vida é burra. É o aberto perigo das grandes e pequenas horas, não se podendo facilitar — é todos contra os acasos. Tendo Deus, é menos grave se descuidar um pouquinho, pois, no fim dá certo. Mas, se não tem Deus, então, a gente não tem licença de coisa nenhuma! Porque existe dôr. E a vida do homem está presa encantoada — erra rumo, dá em aleijões como esses, dos meninos sem pernas e braços. Dôr não dói até em criancinhas e bichos, e nos dôidos — não dói sem precisar de se ter razão nem conhecimento? E as pessoas não nascem sempre? Ah, medo tenho não é de ver morte, mas de ver nascimento. Medo mistério. O senhor não vê? O que não é Deus, é estado do demônio. Deus existe mesmo quando não há. Mas o demônio não precisa de existir para haver — a gente sabendo que ele não existe, aí é que ele toma conta de tudo. O inferno é um sem-fim que nem não se pode ver. Mas a gente quer Céu é porque quer um fim: mas um fim com depois dele a gente tudo vendo. Se eu estou falando às flautas, o senhor me corte.

João Guimarães Rosa. Grande Serão: Veredas. Nova Fronteira (2001).

Dislocations: Seven Scenarios, 6

Not to get up and go back to the drafting table
where failure crouches accusing
like the math test you bluffed and flunked
so early on
not to drag into the window's
cruel and truthful light    your blunder
not to start over

but to turn your back, saying
all anyway is compromise
impotence and collusion
from here on I will be no part of it

is one way you could afford it

Adrienne Rich, The School among the Ruins, Norton, 2004.

Saeta

Até aos 0.37" desta música, as balas podiam estar a voar que Miles Davis nem sequer era mortal.

Dislocations: Seven Scenarios, 5

Faces in the mesh: defiance or disdain
remember Paul Nizan?
You thought you were innocent if you said

'I love this woman and I want to live
in accordance with my love'
but you were beggining the revolution

maybe so, maybe not
look at her now
pale lips papery flesh

at your creased belly  wrinkled sac
look at the scars
reality's autographs

along your ribs across her haunches
look at the collarbone's reverberant line

how in a body can defiance
still embrace its likeness

Adrienne Rich, The School among the Ruins, Norton, 2004.

Rapariga à secretária

Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin.

Or sit and wonder why

Transparencies

That the meek word like the righteous word can bully
that an Israeli soldier interviewed years
after the first Infitifada could mourn on camera
what under orders he did, saw done, did not refuse
that another leaving Beit Jala could scrawl
on a wall: We are truely sorry for the mess we made
is merely routine   word that could cancel deed
That human equals innocent and guilty
That we grasp for innocence whether or no
is elementary   That words can translate into broken bones
That the power to hurl words is a weapon
That the body can be a weapon
any child on playground knows   That asked your favorite word in a game
you always named a thing, a quality, freedom or river
(never a pronoun never God or War)
is taken for granted  That word and body
are all we have to lay on the line
That words are windowpanes in a ransacked hut, smeared
by time's dirty rains, we might argue
likewise that words are clear as glass till the sun strikes it blinding

But that in a dark windowpane you have seen your face
That when you wipe your glasses the text grows clearer
That the sound of crunching glass comes at the height of the wedding

That I can look through glass
into my neighbor's house
but not my neighbor's life
That glass is sometimes broken to save lives
That a word can be crushed like a goblet underfoot
is only what it seems, part question, part answer: how you live it

2002

Adrienne Rich, The School among the Ruins, Norton, 2004.

Bibliografia, de Miguel Manso e João Manso, 2013

De «Epilogos»

(...)

to trust that on its own language will
produce the necessary
feelings thoughts
if necessary new
feelings
thoughts
so we can survive fear
with our fear
intact

(...)

Or erotic attempts
all that unifies us
is what
divides us
in the first place death
is our only continuity
division
forever unified
in the second place life
is our particular discontinuity
unity
temporarily divided
in the third place psychic striving
total eroticism is
independent of sex
inconceivable without it
independent of death
inconceivable without it
concentrated on uniting
what is divided

(...)

Fear of being alone
alone with the past
alone with the great pressure of your imagination
distraction emptiness
alone with your joy your courage
your inadequate effort
alone with your song
your facts
and your freedom
alone with it all
in its discontinous
condition
unique
incomparable
the sun
of an unobserved solar system
Fear of being with others
with others
who suddendly know
what they must not know
about itself
with others
who suddendly say
that what you have said
must not be said
and if you say it again
they will leave
a threat
a shock
or with others
who just don't feel like it
and with others
who feel like it too much
or with
accusation
gossip
anger
with
hope
jealousy
despair
with
demons
reasonable people
and ascetics
with everyone and everything
in its discontinous condition
specific
comparable to
a worn meteor
in a totally illusory solar system
Fear of completion
of habit inertia
monotonous dialogues
of recognition
repetition
conclusion
of the synthesis that is never right
of the rightness that is never honest
of the honesty that is never right
of the practical
ordered
well-organized
civilized
pattern
and of the system
of your own system
to which you cling
of the others' systems
in which you are caught up
of the system as such
magnetic
set
and all-inclusive
Fear of completion
of movement
space
conflict

(...)

Eccentric attempts
when a man
steps out of himself
steps out of
his daily life
his function
his situation
steps out of
his habits
his peaceful
condition
we call the process
ecstasy
when he claims
that the clouds
shoot like pain
that the clouds
originate
in electrical charges
water vapor
flight
inside his weighted head

(...)

how shall we invent
thoughts for the feelings
how shall we find
a technique
for understanding
a technique
for shared consciousness
a knowledge at least
of all that we don't even see
in ourselves
in the others
each other
it could be me
that stepped out of myself
Magical attempts
it could be words
that stepped out of themselves
as realities
it could be words
that like a fever transformed
fear to joy
it could be words
that got to the bottom
of seduction
placed their genes
in the individual
cell
grew
forced themselves through
cancer and virus
and mortalities
to the glorious stature
of antibodies
medication
salvation
it could be words
that brought grace
into the world
formulated fear
so every single fearful person
knew that he was probably
alone in the world
was probably alone
with his fear
but never alone
with his own consciousness

(...)

Inger Christensen, It, Susanna Nied (trad.), Anne Carson (intr.), New Directions Books, 2006 (originalmente publicado em dinamarquês em 1969).

Centaur's requiem

Your hooves drawn together underbelly
shoulders in mud   your mane
of wisp and soil deporting all the horse of you

your longhaired neck
eyes   jaw yes   and ears
unforgivably human on such a creature
unforgivably what you are
deposited in the grit-kicked field of a champion

tender neck and nostrils   teacher   water-lily suction-spot
what you were   marvelous    we could not stand

Night drops   an awaited storm
driving in to wreck your path
Foam on your hide like flowers
where you fell    or fall    desire

2001

Adrienne Rich, The School among the Ruins, Norton, 2004.

Text

universalities

6

I see that I am here by choice

See that I do not vanish

Though I may want to

See that there is no connection between what I want

And what I would choose

See that I must start over

On good and evil

Inger Christensen, It, Susanna Nied (trad.), Anne Carson (intr.), New Directions Books, 2006 (originalmente publicado em dinamarquês em 1969).

Para alcançar um lugar ao sol

Grande poema, aqui, em tradução portuguesa.

o comboio de corda
cruza o sítio de partida
e fecha um dos zeros
do 8 deitado no mapa
celeste
e se leste
até ao fim o seu movimento
viste-o fechar o outro zero
e caíste infinitamente
na terra finita.

Manuel Gusmão, Pequeno Tratado das Figuras, Assírio & Alvim, 2013.

Text

variabilities

1

After the first morning I seek

the lips' crude formulations

Again and again I kiss the memory of

pass me! pass me! The salt and the white

consciousness in endless writing

What you gave my thoughts is words and

excrement, a body with the functions

of a star

What you gave me is pure morning

My passion: to go further

Inger Christensen, It, Susanna Nied (trad.), Anne Carson (intr.), New Directions Books, 2006 (originalmente publicado em dinamarquês em 1969).

8. Cápsula

Tudo se foi embora. Já os sons adormeceram
ou retiraram-se já, como se diz do mar
que abandona a praia:
in-
suportável.
Ficou apenas
o áspero rumor distante da máquina
do mundo. Que funciona mal. Nada
solicita já a tua presença entretanto
inalcançável. A noite solidificou no espaço
entre o sagrado nome das coisas
quietas. Aquele rumor e esta noite são
o que te separa de ti - frágil distância e
contudo demasiada.

Manuel Gusmão, Pequeno Tratado das Figuras, Assírio & Alvim, 2013.