Gruas no cais descarregam mercadorias e eu amo-te

Gruas no cais descarregam mercadorias e eu amo-te.
homens isolados caminham nas avenidas e eu amo-te.
silêncios eléctricos faíscam dentro das máquinas e eu amo-te.
destruição contra o caos, destruição contra o caos e eu amo-te.
reflexos de corpos desfiguram-se nas montras e eu amo-te.
envelhecem anos no esquecimento dos armazéns e eu amo-te.
toda a cidade se destina à noite e eu amo-te.

José Luis Peixoto, 2008 - Gaveta de Papéis

Poem for Marcel Duchamp

Even long after my death 

 Long after your death 

 I want to torture you. 

 I want the thought of me 

 to coil around your body like a serpent of fire 

 without burning you. 

 I want to see you lost, asphyxiated, wander 

 in the murky haze; woven by my desires. 

 For you, I want long sleepless nights 

 filled by the roaring tom-tom of storms 

 Far away, invisible, unknown. 

Then, I want the nostalgia of my presence; to paralyze you.

Maria Martins, Poem for Marcel Duchamp, 1945 

Morning Street

The splashing rain
unearthed my father.
I never imagined
him buried thus,
to the din of trolleys
on an asphalt street
giant palm trees slanting on the beach
(and a voice from sleep
to stroke my hair),
as melodies wash up
with lost money
discarded confessions
old papers, glasses, pearls.

To see him exposed
to the damp, acrid air,
that drifts in with the tide
and cuts your breath,
to wish to love him
without deceit
to cover him with kisses, with flowers, with swallows,
to alter time
to offer the warm
of a quiet embrace
from this elderly recluse,
discarded confessions
and a lamb-like truce.

To feel the lack
of inborn strengths
to want to carry him
to the older sofa
of a bygone ranch,
but splashes of rain
but sheets of mud beneath reddish street lamps
but all that exists
of morning and wind
between one nature and another
yawning sheds by the docks
discarded confessions
ingratitude.
What should a man do
at dawn
(a taste of defeat
in his mouth, in the air)
in whatever place?
Everything spoken, drunk, or even pretended
and the rest still buried
in the folds of sleep,
cigarette stubs
the wet glare of streets
discarded confessions
morning defeat.

Vague mountains
greening waves
newspapers already white,
hesitant melody
trying to spawn
conditions for hope
on this gray day, of a broken lament.
Nothing left to remind me
of the seamless asphalt.
Abandoned cellars
my body shivers
discarded confessions:
abruptly, the walk home.

Carlos Drummond de Andrade

Translated from the Portuguese by Thomas Colchie

Contra a Obscuridade

Against Obscurity

The gaze lets go from ripeness.
I don’t know what to do with a gaze
overflowing from a tree,
what to do with that ardour

overflowing from the mouth,
and waiting on the ground to flow back to the source.
I don’t know the destiny of light,
but whatever it may be

it is the same as that of a gaze: the same
fraternal dust,
a delayed pain gathering, the shadow,
quivering still,

of a startled skylark.


O olhar desprende-se, cai de maduro.
Não sei que fazer de um olhar
que sobeja na árvore,
que fazer desse ardor

que sobra na boca,
no chão aguarda subir à nascente.
Não sei que destino é o da luz,
mas seja qual for

é o mesmo do olhar: há nele
uma poeira fraterna,
uma dor retardada, alguma sombra
fremente ainda

de calhandra assustada.

Eugénio de Andrade, 1988.
Publisher: Fundação Eugénio de Andrade, Oporto, 1993.

Love is Essential

Love is essential.
Sex, mere accident.
Can be equal
Or different.
A man's not an animal:
Is a flesh intelligent,
Although sometimes ill.

(05-04-1935)
Fernando Pessoa
translated from Fernando Pessoa by J.Griffin.