quinta-feira, 3 de dezembro de 2020

Tânia Tomé

Moçambique

Quando me sento descalça
sobre o sapato do menino pobre
que me enche o pé
muito mais que outro qualquer
me lembro que existir
não é sozinha
é com toda gente.
E me lembro
que tenho de embebedar-me de ti
Moçambique
Porque tenho saudades de mim



segunda-feira, 23 de novembro de 2020

Agostinho Neto: Criar



Criar criar
criar no espírito criar no músculo criar no nervo 
criar no homem criar na massa
criar
criar com os olhos secos

Criar criar 
sobre a profanação da floresta
sobre a fortaleza impúdica do chicote
criar sobre o perfume dos troncos serrados
criar 
criar com os olhos secos

Criar criar 
gargalhadas sobre o escárnio da palmatória
coragem na ponta da bota do roceiro
força no esfrangalhado das portas violentadas
firmeza no vermelho sangue da insegurança
criar
criar com os olhos secos

Criar criar
estrelas sobre o camartelo guerreiro
paz sobre o choro das crianças
paz sobre o suor sobre as lágrimas do contrato
paz sobre o ódio
criar
criar paz com os olhos secos

Criar criar
criar liberdade nas estradas escravas
algemas de amor nos caminhos paganizados do amor
sons festivos sobre o balanceio dos corpos em forca simuladas
criar
criar amor com os olhos secos.


Agostinho Neto. Poesia Angolana de Revolta (Antologia). Porto: paisagem Editora, 1975.




sábado, 12 de setembro de 2020

Jacques Prévert: Bairro Livre


Pus o boné na gaiola
saí com o pássaro na cabeça
E então
já não se faz a continência
perguntou o comandante
Não
já não se faz a continência
respondeu o pássaro
Ah bem
desculpe julguei que se fazia
disse o comandante
Não há de quê toda a gente pode enganar-se
disse o pássaro.

Jacques Prévert. em Poesia do Século XX, antologia, tradução, prefácio e notas de Jorge de Sena, Porto: Edições ASA, 2003.




quinta-feira, 10 de setembro de 2020

Jorge de Lima: Poema do Cristão

Porque o sangue de Cristo

jorrou sobre os meus olhos,

a minha visão é universal

e tem dimensões que ninguém sabe.

Os milênios passados e os futuros

não me aturdem porque nasço e nascerei,

porque sou uno com todas as criaturas,

com todos os seres, com todas as coisas,

que eu decomponho e absorvo com os sentidos,

e compreendo com a inteligência

transfigurada em Cristo.

Tenho os movimentos alargados.

Sou ubíquo: estou em Deus e na matéria;

sou velhíssimo e apenas nasci ontem,

estou molhado dos limos primitivos,

e ao mesmo tempo ressoo as trombetas finais,

compreendo todas as línguas, todos os gestos, todos os signos,

tenho glóbulos de sangue das raças mais opostas.

Posso enxugar com um simples aceno

o choro de todos os irmãos distantes.

Posso estender sobre todas as cabeças um céu unânime e estrelado.

Chamo todos os mendigos para comer comigo,

e ando sobre as águas como os profetas bíblicos.

Não há escuridão mais para mim.

Opero transfusões de luz nos seres opacos,

posso mutilar-me e reproduzir meus membros como as estrelas-do-mar,

porque creio na ressurreição da carne e creio em Cristo,

e creio na vida eterna, amém.

E, tendo a vida eterna, posso transgredir leis naturais:

a minha passagem é esperada nas estradas,

venho e irei como uma profecia,

sou espontâneo com a intuição e a Fé.

Sou rápido como a resposta do Mestre,

sou inconsútil como a sua túnica,

sou numeroso como a sua Igreja,

tenho os braços abertos como a sua Cruz despedaçada e refeita,

todas as horas, em todas as direções, nos quatro pontos cardeais,

e sobre os ombros A conduzo

através de toda a escuridão do mundo, porque tenho a luz eterna nos olhos.

E tendo a luz eterna nos olhos, sou o maior mágico:

ressuscito na boca dos tigres, sou palhaço, sou alfa e ômega, peixe, cordeiro, comedor de gafanhotos, sou ridículo, sou tentado e perdoado, sou derrubado no chão e glorificado, tenho mantos de púrpura, e de estamenha, sou burríssimo como São Cristóvão, e sapientíssimo como Santo Tomás. E sou louco, louco, inteiramente louco, para sempre, para todos os séculos, louco de Deus, amém!

E, sendo a loucura de Deus, sou a razão das coisas, a ordem e a medida;

sou a balança, a criação, a obediência;

sou o arrependimento, sou a humildade;

sou o autor da paixão e morte de Jesus;

sou a culpa de tudo.

Nada sou.

 

 

Jorge de Lima. Poesia Completa. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Nova Aguilar, 1997.

Kate Tempest: People's faces

 


Hugo Williams: Um dique

 

A minha mãe chama-me,

um som familiar, de duas notas,

que atravessa os campos

e me encontra aqui

de joelhos num regato,

os braços metidos em lama até aos cotovelos.

 

Regresso

E tento explicar

O que estive a fazer este tempo todo

Tão longe de casa.

“A fazer diques?”, vai ela perguntar.

“Ou a fazer poemas sobre fazer diques?”


Hugo Williams. 

terça-feira, 8 de setembro de 2020

Jacqueline Woodson: What reading slowly taught me about writing

 


Albert Camus: Towards Dialogue (1946)


Yes, we must raise our voices. Up to this point, I have re­frained from appealing to emotion. We are being torn apart by a logic of History which we have elaborated in every detail - a net which threatens to strangle us. It is not emotion which can cut through the web of a logic which has gone to irrational lengths, but only reason which can meet logic on its own ground But I should not want to leave the impression, in con­cluding, that any program for the future can get along without our powers of love and indignation. I am well aware that it takes a powerful prime mover to get men into motion and that it is hard to throw one's self into a struggle whose objectives are so modest and where hope has only a rational basis - and hardly even that. But the problem is not how to carry men away; it is essential, on the contrary, that they not be carried away but rather that they be made to understand clearly what they are doing.

To save what can be saved so as to open up some kind of future - that is the prime mover, the passion and the sacrifice that is required. It demands only that we reflect and then decide, clearly, whether humanity's lot must be made still more miserable in order to achieve far-off and shadowy ends, whether we should accept a world bristling with arms where brother kills brother; or whether, on the contrary, we should avoid bloodshed and misery as much as possible so that we give a chance for survival to later generations better equipped than we are.

For my part, I am fairly sure that I have made the choice. And, having chosen, I think that I must speak out, that I must state that I will never again be one of those, whoever they be, who compromise with murder, and that I must take the conse­quences of such a decision. The thing is done, and that is as far as I can go at present. Before concluding, however, I want to make clear the spirit in which this article is written.

We are asked to love or to hate such and such a country and such and such a people. But some of us feel too strongly our common humanity to make such a choice. Those who really love the Russian people, in gratitude for what they have never ceased to be - that world leaven which Tolstoy and Gorky speak of - do not wish for them success in power-poli­tics, but rather want to spare them, after the ordeals of the past, a new and even more terrible bloodletting. So, too, with the American people, and with the peoples of unhappy Eu­rope. This is the kind of elementary truth we are liable to forget amidst the furious passions of our time.

Yes, it is fear and silence and the spiritual isolation they cause that must be fought today. And it is sociability (« le dialogue ») and the universal intercommunication of men that must be defended. Slavery, injustice and lies destroy this inter­course and forbid this sociability; and so we must reject them. But these evils are today the very stuff of History, so that many consider them necessary evils. It is true that we cannot « escape History, » since we are in it up to our necks. But one may propose to fight within History to preserve from History that part of man which is not its proper province. That is all I have to say here. The « point » of this article may be summed up as follows:

Modern nations are driven by powerful forces along the roads of power and domination. I will not say that these forces should be furthered or that they should be obstructed. They hardly need our help and, for the moment, they laugh at at­tempts to hinder them. They will, then, continue. But I will ask only this simple question: what if these forces wind up in a dead end, what if that logic of History on which so many now rely turns out to be a will o’ the wisp? What if, despite two or three world wars, despite the sacrifice of several generations and a whole system of values, our grandchildren - supposing they survive -find themselves no closer to a world society? It may well be that the survivors of such an experience will be too weak to understand their own sufferings. Since these forces are working themselves out and since it is inevitable that they con­tinue to do so, there is no reason why some of us should not take on the job of keeping alive through the apocalyptic histor­ical vista that stretches before us, a modest thoughtfulness which, without pretending to solve everything, will constantly be prepared to give some human meaning to everyday life. The essential thing is that people should carefully weigh the price they must pay.

To conclude: all I ask is that, in the midst of a murderous world, we agree to reflect on murder and to make a choice. After that, we can distinguish those who accept the conse­quences of being murderers themselves or the accomplices of murderers, and those who refuse to do so with all their force and being. Since this terrible dividing line does actually exist, it will be a gain if it be clearly marked. Over the expanse of five continents throughout the coming years an endless strug­gle is going to be pursued between violence and friendly per­suasion, a struggle in which, granted, the former has a thou­sand times the chances of success than has the latter. But I have always held that, if he who bases his hopes on human nature is a fool, he who gives up in the face of circumstances is a coward. And henceforth, the only honorable course will be to stake everything on a formidable gamble: that words are more powerful than munitions.

sexta-feira, 14 de agosto de 2020

O outro pé da sereia


Agora ela sabia: um livro é uma canoa. Esse era o barco que lhe faltava em Antigamente. Tivesse livros e ela faria a travessia para o outro lado do mundo, para o outro lado de si mesma.

Mia Couto.

sábado, 2 de maio de 2020

Philip Larkin: The Mower

The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found   
A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,   
Killed. It had been in the long grass.

I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.   
Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world   
Unmendably. Burial was no help:

Next morning I got up and it did not.
The first day after a death, the new absence   
Is always the same; we should be careful

Of each other, we should be kind   
While there is still time.

Philip Larkin, "The Mower" from Collected Poems. Copyright © Estate of Philip Larkin.  Reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber, Ltd.
Source: Collected Poems (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2001)

quinta-feira, 20 de fevereiro de 2020

Richard Brautigan: My name


I guess you are kind of curious as to who I am, but I am one of those who do not have a regular name. My name depends on you. Just call me whatever is in your mind.
If you are thinking about something that happened a long time ago: Somebody asked you a question and you did not know the answer.
That is my name.
Perhaps it was raining very hard.
That is my name.
Or somebody wanted you to do something. You did it. Then they told you what you did was wrong “Sorry for the mistake,” and you had to do something else.
That is my name.
Perhaps it was a game you played when you were a child or something that came idly into your mind when you were old and sitting in a chair near the window.
That is my name.
Or you walked someplace. There were flowers all around.
That is my name.
Perhaps you stared into a river. There as something near you who loved you. They were about to touch you. You could feel this before it happened. Then it happened.
That is my name.
Or you heard someone calling from a great distance.
Their voice was almost an echo.
That is my name.
Perhaps you were lying in bed, almost ready to go to sleep, and you laughed at something, a joke unto yourself, a good way to end the day.
That is my name.
Or you were eating something good and for a second forgot what you were eating, but still went on, knowing it was good.
That is my name.
Perhaps it was around midnight and the fire tolled like a bell inside a stove.
That is my name.
Or you felt bad when he said that thing to you. She could have told it to someone else: somebody who was more familiar with her problems.
That is my name.
Perhaps the trout swam in the pool but the river was only eight inches wide and the moon shone on iDEATH and the watermelon fields glowed out of proportion, dark and the moon seemed to rise from every plant.
That is my name.
And I wish Margaret would leave me alone


Richard Brautigan, In Watermelon Sugar. (1968)

Mia Couto: O Universo num grão de areia


A humanidade nasceu em África. Mas podemos também dizer que a humanidade nasceu da capacidade de produzirmos e contarmos histórias. Somos humanos exatamente porque não somos apenas uma entidade biológica. Somos feitos de histórias tanto como somos compostos de células. As histórias são também um lugar onde nos inventamos eternos e encantados.


Mia Couto, O Universo num grão de areia. Lisboa: Caminho, 2019.

Fotografia: Sebastião Salgado.

Jorge Luis Borges: El hacedor

Un hombre se propone la tarea de dibujar el mundo. A lo largo de los años puebla un espácio con imágenes de províncias, de reinos, de montañas, de bahias, de naves, de islas, de peces, de habitaciones, de instrumentos, de astros, de caballos y de personas. Poco antes de morir, descubre que ese paciente laberinto de líneas traza la imagen de su cara. 


Jorge Luis Borges, El hacedor (1960)