domingo, 31 de dezembro de 2023
Meditações - New Eyes for the New Year
New Eyes for the New Year
The eyes on a face have brought me sadness:
the right eye searching for seams in ripped fishnets;
the left eye lost and wandering the dark; the eye
of the baby god crawling behind a couch in the moist
suburb where we planned our escape from video games
and grilled cheese; the eye of a whale we met in a dream
who spit us out so we could make the 8 o’clock screening
of On Golden Pond; the eye of the clock, blinking
when the oboe wailed like a burning shofar; the eye
inside the eye, curled up—a sprouting lima bean,
remembering the nineteenth century, those rosy drapes;
the eyes of missing finger tips, of sad afternoons
in French cafés in Dayton, Ohio; the eyes on the very
real parrot who sits on the shoulders of a wax actor
dressed as a pirate; the eyes of an actress, pretending
to be my mom; the eyes of my father, sleeping on a train,
dreaming about miniature crashing planes; the eyes
of a swimming pool, looking up or down everyone’s
swimsuits and into their souls; the eyes in love
songs written by mean men; the eyes in the painting
lost in a fire where we tried to save the ancient cat;
the eyes underneath tap shoes clicking like teeth;
the eyes of Fred Astaire, never blinking, even to kiss
in the dark; the eyes of the state of Texas secretly
tattooed on everyone’s ass, and the eyes on the billboard,
ripped and faded from rain like the eyes of the best
waitress
on the Upper West Side who knows everyone’s order,
even those of customers she’s never met.
Can you hear the eyes
under my eyes?
They steal other people’s dreams to use them for ad copy.
Here are the eyes of a man who’d be my husband if he
hadn’t married my twin, and there are the eyes of the judge
who divorced them, blue as his tie. I forget the eye color
of the first man I loved—what color was my hat when we cried
in the snow? The whites of everyone’s eyes swirl together
in silent music. Nothing like the closed eyes of a flamenco
dancer,
eating a dripping hamburger by the highway. Instead it is
the right eye of a teacher when she touches her student;
the eyes inside my mouth and the eyes outside your mouth;
the eyes of the writer and reader, a broken vase and a whole
petal;
the eyes on what you thought of as a cunt and the eyes
on what I thought of as a cock; the small eyes on the open book
and the bigger eyes of the closed book; the eyes I swallow
when we talk, and the eyes that fly above us in sleep.
sábado, 30 de dezembro de 2023
Há 100 anos - o Oceano da Eternidade
Acaba de decorrer mais um ano. Passaram-se mais trezentos e sessenta cinco dias e tal período de tempo, uma gora de água no Oceano da Eternidade...
Crónica de André Brun há exactamente 100 anos - 30 de Dezembto de 1923. In Os Meus Domingos (arquivo Fernando Correia de Oliveira)
Meditações - A New Year's Eve in War Time
A New Year's Eve in War Time
I
Phantasmal
fears,
And the
flap of the flame,
And the
throb of the clock,
And a loosened slate,
And the
blind night's drone,
Which tiredly the spectral pines intone!
II
And the
blood in my ears
Strumming
always the same,
And the
gable-cock
With its
fitful grate,
And
myself, alone.
III
The
twelfth hour nears
Hand-hid,
as in shame;
I undo the
lock,
And
listen, and wait
For the
Young Unknown.
IV
In the
dark there careers —
As if
Death astride came
To numb
all with his knock —
A horse at
mad rate
Over rut
and stone.
V
No figure
appears,
No call of
my name,
No sound
but 'Tic-toc'
Without
check. Past the gate
It
clatters — is gone.
VI
What rider
it bears
There is
none to proclaim;
And the
Old Year has struck,
And,
scarce animate,
The New
makes moan.
VII
Maybe that
'More Tears! —
More
Famine and Flame —
More
Severance and Shock!'
Is the
order from Fate
That the
Rider speeds on
To pale Europe; and tiredly the pines intone.
sexta-feira, 29 de dezembro de 2023
Meditações - toward the close of December
Slowly, without sun, the day sinks
toward the close of December.
It is minus sixty degrees.
Over the sleeping houses a dense
fog rises - smoke from banked fires,
and the snowy breath of an abyss
through which the cold town
is perceptibly falling.
As if Death were a voice made visible,
with the power of illumination...
Now, in the white shadow
of those streets, ghostly newsboys
make their rounds, delivering
to the homes of those
who have died of the frost
word of the resurrection of Silence.
quinta-feira, 28 de dezembro de 2023
Meditações - Na areia que rolou da ampulheta dos annos
Não sei se era visão, filha do Mêdo,
Se verdadeira apparição nocturna;
Mas da sombra profunda do arvoredo,
Que o luar tornava muito mais soturna,
Vinham surgindo mysteriosamente
Phantasmas espectraes que eu distinguia
Através do sudário transparente
Como o primeiro alvorecer do dia...
E por deante de mim todos passavam,
E olhavam-me e choravam...
De mágoa ou compaixão, não sei dizê-lo;
Mas tudo o que aos meus olhos evocavam
Parecia-me um longo pesadelo...
Eram os Sonhos, as Chimeras mortas
Na minha morta Phantasia,
Que do vasto sepulcro abrindo as portas,
Passavam nessa funebre theoria...
Projectos, Intenções, Ideias, Planos,
Illusões d'um passado esquecido e desfeito,
Na areia que rolou da ampulheta dos annos
E que um vento de morte espalhou no meu peito.
António Joaquim de Castro Feijó - Sol de Inverno: ultimos versos : 1915
quarta-feira, 27 de dezembro de 2023
Meditações - conta bem os grãos de areia da tua ampulheta
Traidor! bradou o principe. Mentes! O braço de D. Pedro quebra e rompe todas as portas. Vais ver!... Villão! ajuntou fallando ao villico. Solta as mãos e a boca a essa donzella. Ninguem se mova! Sueiro Lopes, conta bem os grãos de areia da tua ampulheta.
Luiz Augusto Rebello da Silva - Contos e Lendas
terça-feira, 26 de dezembro de 2023
Meditações - a ampulheta em que vaes pulverizando as horas
Tenho ás vezes sentido o chocar dos teus ossos
E o vento da tua asa os meus labios roçar;
Mas da tua presença o rasto de destroços
Nunca de susto fez meu coração parar.
Nunca, espanto ou receio, ao meu animo trouxe
Esse aspecto de horror com que tudo apavoras,
Nas tuas mãos erguendo a inexoravel Fouce
E a ampulheta em que vaes pulverizando as horas.
António Joaquim de Castro Feijó - Sol de Inverno: ultimos
versos : 1915
segunda-feira, 25 de dezembro de 2023
Meditações - Christmas time
The snow lies deep upon the ground,
And winter’s brightness all around
Decks bravely out the forest sere,
With jewels of the brave old year.
The coasting crowd upon the hill
With some new spirit seems to thrill;
And all the temple bells achime.
Ring out the glee of Christmas time.
In happy homes the brown oak-bough
Vies with the red-gemmed holly now;
And here and there, like pearls, there show
The berries of the mistletoe.
A sprig upon the chandelier
Says to the maidens, “Come not here!”
Even the pauper of the earth
Some kindly gift has cheered to mirth!
Within his chamber, dim and cold,
There sits a grasping miser old.
He has no thought save one of gain, -
To grind and gather and grasp and drain.
A peal of bells, a merry shout
Assail his ear: he gazes out
Upon a world to him all gray,
And snarls, “Why, this is Christmas Day!”
No, man of ice, - for shame, for shame!
For “Christmas Day” is no mere name.
No, not for you this ringing cheer,
This festal season of the year.
And not for you the chime of bells
From holy temple rolls and swells.
In day and deed he has no part -
Who holds not Christmas in his heart!