Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

[4] I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one. It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct. It is true, I fear, that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open. The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity! I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.

[10] Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. It is not important that he should mature as soon as an apple tree or an oak. Shall he turn his spring into summer? If the condition of things which we were made for is not yet, what were any reality which we can substitute? We will not be shipwrecked on a vain reality. Shall we with pains erect a heaven of blue glass over ourselves, though when it is done we shall be sure to gaze still at the true ethereal heaven far above, as if the former were not?

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Henry David Thoreau, Walden
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Hurt

I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that's real
The needle tears a hole
The old familiar sting
Try to kill it all away
But I remember everything

What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
goes away in the end
And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

I wear this crown of thorns
Upon my liar's chair
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
Beneath the stains of time
The feelings disappear
You are someone else
I am still right here

What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end
And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way

Michael Trent Reznor

Marc Chagall (1887-1985)

Frida Kahlo (1907-1954)

Bill Watterson (1958)
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Vasko Popa (1922-1991)


Give Me Back My Rags #4

Get out of my walled infinity
Of the star circle round my heart
Of my mouthful of sun

Get out of the comic sea of my blood
Of my flow of my ebb
Get out of my stranded silence

Get out I said get out

Get out of my living abyss
Of the bare father-tree within me

Get out how long must I cry get out

Get out of my bursting head
Get out just get out

Vasko Popa

Tradução inglesa de Anne Pennington)
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Frank O'Hara (1926-1966)

As Planned

After the first glass of vodka
you can accept just about anything
of life even your own mysteriousness
you think it is nice that a box
of matches is purple and brown and is called
La Petite and comes from Sweden
for they are words that you know and that
is all you know words not their feelings
or what they mean and you write because
you know them not because you understand them
because you don't you are stupid and lazy
and will never be great but you do
what you know because what else is there?

Frank O'Hara

Ingeborg Bachmann (1926-1973)

A GRANDE CARGA

Foi embarcada a grande carga do Verão,
pronto a zarpar, no cais, está o barco do sol,
quando a gaivota cai e te grita o sinal.
Foi embarcada a grande carga do Verão.

Pronto a zarpar, no cais, está o barco do sol,
e à proa, sobre os lábios das figuras,
abre-se o ominoso riso dos lemures.
Pronto a zarpar, no cais, está o barco do sol.

Quando a gaivota cai e te grita o sinal,
então vem do poente a ordem de afundar;
mas é de olhos na luz que te vais afogar,
quando a gaivota cai e te grita o sinal.

Ingeborg Bachmann

(Tradução de João Barrento e Judite Berkemeyer)

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Eloy Sanchez Rosillo (1948)

Principio y fin

Puede ser que te digas: "El verano que viene
quiero volver a Italia", o: "El año que hoy empieza
tengo que aprovecharlo; con un poco de suerte
acabaré mi libro", y también: "Cuando crezca
mi hijo, ¿qué haré yo sin el don de su infancia?".
Pero el verano próximo, en verdad, ya ha pasado;
terminaste hace muchos años el libro aquel
en el que ahora trabajas; tu hijo se hizo un hombre
y siguió su camino, lejos de ti. Los días
que vendrán ya vinieron. Y luego cae la noche.
A la vez respiramos la luz y la ceniza.
Principio y fin habitan en el mismo relámpago.

Eloy Sanchez Rosillo

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António Franco Alexandre (1944)

deixo acesa, mas muda, a tv que derrama
uma luz submarina sobre a cama desfeita,
o corpo imaginado em que dormi.
Toda a noite esperei que me chamasse
a pancada das mãos numa mesa de galo,
ou do baralho gasto me saísse,
na lotaria universal, essa palavra incerta
quase a rimar contigo; e já
me esgueiro pelas frinchas da janela,
disperso na manhã leve e tranquila
como uma sombra mais incandescente.
Fora, a piscina do mar está lisa e fina
e apetece subir, pelas colunas de ar, ao céu
do deus desengonçado, ameaçá-lo
com a ignorância humana, a indiferença, a morte,
as coisas que não sabe nem pressente:
como um vampiro se não vê ao espelho,
como lobos vulgares são gente humana,
como os devora a imagem nunca vista,
como sempre se enganam a caminho
de um vago coração adormecido.

António Franco Alexandre

Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935)



Quero ser livre insincero
Sem crença, dever ou posto.
Prisões, nem de amor as quero.
Não me amem, porque não gosto.

Quando canto o que não minto
E choro o que sucedeu,
É que esqueci o que sinto
E que julgo que não sou eu.

De mim mesmo viandante
Olho as músicas na aragem,
E a minha mesma alma errante
É uma canção de viagem.

Fernando Pessoa
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Anna Akhmátova (1889-1966)

Lot's Wife

The just man followed then his angel guide
Where he strode on the black highway, hulking and bright;
But a wild grief in his wife's bosom cried,
Look back, it is not too late for a last sight

Of the red towers of your native Sodom, the square
Where once you sang, the gardens you shall mourn,
And the tall house with empty windows where
You loved your husband and your babes were born.

She turned, and looking on the bitter view
Her eyes were welded shut by mortal pain;
Into transparent salt her body grew,
And her quick feet were rooted in the plain.

Who would waste tears upon her? Is she not
The least of our losses, this unhappy wife?
Yet in my heart she will not be forgot
Who, for a single glance, gave up her life.

Anna Akhmátova

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Gustave Courbet (1819-1877)
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Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936)



CORRIENTE

El que camina
se enturbia.
El agua corriente
no ve las estrellas.
El que camina
se olvida.
Y el que se para
sueña.

Federico Garcia Lorca
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Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

Pleno de vida agora

Pleno de vida agora, concreto, visível,
Eu, aos quarenta anos de idade e aos oitenta e três dos Estados Unidos,
A ti que viverás dentro de um século ou vários séculos mais,
A ti, que ainda não nasceste, me dirijo, procurando-te.

Quando leres isto, eu que era visível, serei invisível,
Agora és tu, concreto, visível, aquele que me lê, aquele que me procura,
Imagino quanto serias feliz se eu estivesse a teu lado e fosse teu companheiro,
Sê tão feliz como se eu estivesse contigo. (Não penses que não estou agora junto a ti.)

Walt Whitman, Cálamo

(tradução de José Agostinho Baptista)

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Countee Cullen (1903-1946)

The Wise

The WiseDead men are wisest, for they know
How far the roots of flowers go,
How long a seed must rot to grow.

Dead men alone bear frost and rain
On throbless heart and heatless brain,
And feel no stir of joy or pain.

Dead men alone are satiate;
They sleep and dream and have no weight,
To curb their rest, of love or hate.

Strange, men should flee their company,
Or think me strange who long to be
Wrapped in their cool immunity.

Countee Cullen

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Maria Teresa Horta (1937)


Poema sobre a recusa

Como é possível perder-te
sem nunca te ter achado
nem na polpa dos meus dedos
se ter formado o afago
sem termos sido a cidade
nem termos rasgado pedras
sem descobrirmos a cor
nem o interior da erva.

Como é possível perder-te
sem nunca te ter achado
minha raiva de ternura
meu ódio de conhecer-te
minha alegria profunda

Maria Teresa Horta
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Mário de Sá-Carneiro (1890-1916)


Além-Tédio

Nada me expira já, nada me vive
-Nem a tristeza nem as horas belas.
De as não ter e de nunca vir a tê-las,
Fartam-me até as coisas que não tive.

Como eu quisera, enfim de alma esquecida,
Dormir em paz num leito de hospital...
Cansei dentro de mim, cansei a vida
De tanto a divagar em luz irreal.

Outrora imaginei escalar os céus
À força de ambição e nostalgia,
E doente-de-Novo, fui-me Deus
No grande rastro fulvo que me ardia.

Parti. Mas logo regressei à dor,
Pois tudo me ruiu... Tudo era igual:
A quimera, cingida, era real,
A própria maravilha tinha cor!

Ecoando-me em silêncio, a noite escura
Baixou-me assim na queda sem remédio;
Eu próprio me traguei na profundura,
Me sequei todo, endureci de tédio.

E sé me resta hoje uma alegria:
É que, de tão iguais e tão vazios,
Os instantes me esvoam dia a dia
Cada vez mais velozes, mais esguios...

Mário de Sá-Carneiro
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Salvador Dalí (1904-1989)
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Charles Simic (1938)

The Oldest Child

The night still frightens you.
You know it is interminable
And of vast, unimaginable dimensions.
"That's because His insomnia is permanent,"
You've read some mystic say.
Is it the point of His schoolboy's compass
That pricks your heart?

Somewhere perhaps the lovers lie
Under the dark cypress trees,
Trembling with happiness,
But here there's only your beard of many days
And a night moth shivering
Under your hand pressed against your chest.

Oldest child, Prometheus
Of some cold, cold fire you can't even name
For which you're serving slow time
With that night moth's terror for company.

Charles Simic

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