At North Farm

-  John Ashbery


Somewhere someone is traveling furiously toward you, 
At incredible speed, traveling day and night,
Through blizzards and desert heat, across torrents, through narrow passes.
But will he know where to find you,
Recognize you when he sees you,
Give you the thing he has for you?

Hardly anything grows here,
Yet the granaries are bursting with meal,
The sacks of meal piled to the rafters.
The streams run with sweetness, fattening fish;
Birds darken the sky. Is it enough
That the dish of milk is set out at night,
That we think of him sometimes,
Sometimes and always, with mixed feelings?

It hurts so much

- József Attila


Death prowls behind
Outside inside you escape like
into the hole a small frightened mouse 

to the woman
until you can so that you be
protected by their arms, laps and knees.

Not only their
soft warm laps lure and your desire
you are thrust there by necessity.

Whoever can
find a woman will embrace till
all become white the seductive lips.

The treasure’s double
so is the trouble one has to love.
Who loves but cannot find a partner

he’s so homeless
as helpless an animal is
in the forest while doing its needs.

No other place
can hide your face even if you aim –
Oh, brave you!– a knife at your mother.

She understood –
no one else could – what these words mean
and yet she has just thrown me away.

My head’s splitting
among the living no place for me
I cannot endure the troubles and pain.

Like a baby
who gets crazy and shakes his rattle
but no one comes in. – It is in vain.

Should I love her
Could I hate her? It doesn’t matter.
I’m not ashamed that I found it out.

Because who is
scared by his dreams dazed by the sun
will be driven out in any case.

My culture’s falling
like the clothing from the lovers
in the happy hour of making love.

But where is she
to come and see death tosses me
Why should I suffer dolor alone?

They both suffer
through the labor the pain’s twofold
and humility can assuage it;

but to my songs
money belongs so my sorrow
can only bring disgrace on me.

So every whelp!
I beg your help there on the street
let your eyes burst where this woman goes.

Oh, innocents!
In labor camps wail under boots
and say to her that it hurts so much.

You faithful dogs!
In the thick fogs get under wheels
and bark to her that it hurts so much.

Women with babies!
Have miscarriages and go there
to sob to her that it hurts so much.

Safe and sound people
whoever meet her fail and shatter
and mumble to her that it hurts so much.

Young men who can
tear each other for a woman
do not conceal that it hurts so much.

Horses and bulls!
Quietly pulls who is gelded
But shriek out to her it hurts so much.

And you dumb fish!
Do accomplish the angler’s task
and gape from the hook it hurts so much.

All the living
with everything home farm country
let it burn down what the fire can touch.

From the cinder
let’s come to her while she’s dozing off
and yap together it hurts so much.

So she can hear
while living here what she denied
at her pleases is her own worth.

She has deprived
the outside inside escaping life
of the last chance for a rebirth.


(Tradução de Fórizs László)

Adiar o D

-   Roberto Bozzetti

Sentir-se fora
por velho,
velho por dentro
e por fora;
range o corpo,
o olho falha,
o gesto adia:
anacronismo ou
adeus, chegou  o seu
dia.
Pensar:
onde fica
o cemitério de elefantes?
Sentir-se
elefante
sine die
sina
D de todo dia

Um poeta

-  Gerardo de Melo Mourão


Hás de testemunhar ruínas
antes de existirem ruínas:
engenheiro de troços e destroços
empreitadas demolições -
desmoronaste muros.

Profeta – risca riscaste riscarás
roteiros de pássaros no ar – e riscas
calendários passados e futuros – riscas
a arquitetura dos escombros
antes durante e depois deles
os tempos ouvem ouviram ouvirão
esses passos de pedra
que pisam pisaram pisarão
rosa, lírio, jasmim e às vezes
ovelhas imoladas.

Maios, janeiros, setembros e outros meses
meses azuis e meses pluviais
te saúdam à beira das falésias à beira-mar à beira-rio
à beira-abismos à beira séculos:
piloto do naufrágio
governador dos tempos tetrarca dos milênios
arquivista – tabelião das eras
só os dias, poeta, e as noites, te conhecem
sabem teu nome
e nenhum outro nome.

Hawk mating on the fallen leaves

-  Ady Endre


Up. Up. And onward into Autumn fly
In shrill pursuit and raucous hunting cry
A pair of hawks with summer-weary wings.
Summer has bred new pirates in her care
And fresher pinions flutter down her air
To join the lists of Love which now are wide.
We fled from Summer, now ourselves pursued,
Till somewhere sometime in an autumn wood
We stooped with fluttered wings for very love.
This is our final mating. Now the keen
Talon on feather tears the quick between
And so we fall together with the leaves.



(Tradução de Paul Tabori)

O Apanhador de desperdícios

-  Manoel de Barros


Uso a palavra para compor meus silêncios.
Não gosto das palavras
fatigadas de informar.
Dou mais respeito
às que vivem de barriga no chão
tipo água pedra sapo.
Entendo bem o sotaque das águas.
Dou respeito às coisas desimportantes
e aos seres desimportantes.
Prezo insetos mais que aviões.
Prezo a velocidade
das tartarugas mais que as dos mísseis.
Tenho em mim esse atraso de nascença.
Eu fui aparelhado
para gostar de passarinhos.
Tenho abundância de ser feliz por isso.
Meu quintal é maior do que o mundo.
Sou um apanhador de desperdícios:
Amo os restos
como as boas moscas.
Queria que a minha voz tivesse um formato de canto.
Porque eu não sou da informática:
eu sou da invencionática.
Só uso a palavra para compor os meus silêncios.

Nas madrugadas de segunda-feira

-  Gastão Cruz


Nas madrugadas de segunda-feira
tinhas de regressar não sabíamos bem
a que fracção do tempo porque tudo
se sobrepunha
e éramos forçados a deter
o instante não por ser
belo, apenas por ser água
onde nunca ninguém duas vezes entraria

Hands

-  Jack Ridl


My grandfather grew up holding rags,
pounding his fist into the pocket
of a ball glove, gripping a plumb line 
for his father who built what anyone 
needed. At sixteen, wanting to work on 
his own, he lied about his age
and for forty-nine years carried his lunch
to the assembly line where he stood
tightening bolts on air brake after 
air brake along the monotonous belt.
I once asked him how he did that all 
those years. He looked at me, said,
"I don't understand. It was only
eight hours a day," then closed
his fists. Every night after dinner 
and a pilsner, he worked some more.
In the summer, he'd turn the clay,
grow tomatoes, turnips, peas,
and potatoes behind borders
of bluebells and English daisies,
and marigolds to keep away the rabbits. 
When the weather turned to frost, 
he went to the basement where,
until the seeds came in March,
he made perfect picture frames, each 
glistening with layers of sweet shellac.
His hands were never bored. Even 
in his last years, arthritis locking every 
knuckle, he sat in the kitchen carving 
wooden houses you could set on a shelf, 
one after another, each one different.