Boulders (collection of poems)
To the girl with the upside-down eyes
Getting Nowhere Road
“The calla lillies are in bloom again, such a strange flower,
suitable to any occasion…”
KATHARINE HEPBURN in The Lake
So he tries to pacify her
But what’s inside her never dies
AMY WINEHOUSE — He can only hold her
MY EPITAPH
Here lies Pedro Dantas
But nothing is definite
LONE STAR
I traveled in a world that once was –
Hollywood long gone and forgotten;
And I exist in a world that never is –
The prison of the mind.
THAT CERTAIN FEELING
Friendships fade
Love dies
But that certain feeling…
Persists.
Nameless, endless
Is that affection? Tenderness?
Or maybe even simpathy?!
Strangers’ kindness, I guess… With tea.
Wouldn’t it be nice we together?
Forever? Heaven knows, Mr. Perhaps…
No, no way whatsoever!
I should have known better…
This special feeling without a word
But with the size and colors of the world
No one could define it — although
It becomes an actual part of everything
Through the rest of your life.
Some kind of affection that touches you
More meaningfully and lastingly
Than either love or friendship — both sinking ships.
It’s difficult to say I love you
As much as saying Goodbye
Or we are ashamed to say I miss you, even Hi
However, that’s how life is like — speechless.
I like you, you like me — numb them both
The day is cool; the moon is blue
Playing among the stars, my significant You
That is all that could be. (the rest — God damn it all)
Oh Be kind always, To-Morrow Me
But please, don’t rewind with an absented mind –
Treasure the moments of your shores, high and low
And just follow the tides of your heart, slowly…
That’s what is really right. Entirely.
(2019)
BRIDGE
I’m a Queen of Spades
Playing Hearts?
Solitaire, actually.
As a matter of fact, I…
(2019)
AN EARLY FROST
“At least though, I thought, swallowing with difficulty, we have a deadline.”
An early frost on a frozen cake
That’s all that we have
That’s all that we know
Or a rotten red cherry full of thorns
That’s all that we know
That’s all that we have
We have a deadline, curve of a destiny
Detour, dead end, Apple Annie
Scarlet people — what’s the plural of cul-de-sac?
Pick me up on Side Street — under Waterloo Bridge
Over my dead body.
READING EMILY DICKINSON AT NIGHT
“I want to die”
“I want to live”
That’s the most impossible riddle
To be solved by the human being
SUDDENLY IT’S SPRING
All of a sudden, out of the blue
A patch of blue!
The most timeless and beautiful landscape
I have ever seen, asleep or awake
Like Mother Earth having an eternal rendez-vous
with Spring — so keen!
And then, I awoke
Alone.
Thwart! What a pitfall!
Me a wonder-wander
Full of airy voices
Coming out from merry fairies
Wandering writer am I
Wondrous I am not.
Spring is upon us
So meet me in New Zealand
‘coz life is boring me to tears
And fears — cheers!
Moonlighting upon me
Beneath my soul
Right underneath
The skin of our teeth!
(inward sighs)
Lonesome-loathsome
God loath you, riffraff!
Well hello, aloneness, dahling
It’s me, aloof, without whom…
(dead reckoning)
QUERO-QUERO
(“The want bird” — ENGLISH TRANSLATION)
Eu só queria ser pardal
[I just wanted to be a sparrow]
Um lindo pardalzinho
[A beautiful little sparrow]
Mas minhas asas são âncoras
[But my wings are anchors]
E a gravidade é do mal
[And gravity is mean]
Assim foi o inverno
[So was the winter]
Da andorinha que só não faz verão
[Of a swallow that doesn’t make a summer]
De repente já era primavera
[All of a sudden it was spring already]
Outono de asas mortas
[Autumn of dead wings]
‘Eu queria…’ — melodia interrompida
[“I wanted..” — interrupted melody]
O que eu queria não importa
[What I wanted it doesn’t matter]
Cansei dessa cantoria — Não quis!
[I’m sick of this singing — No more]
Eu não mais queria
[I didn’t want it anymore]
Enfim me descobri
[Then I found myself]
Um quero-quero — **
[A “want-bird” — ]**
Só uma coisa me decidi:
[I realized only one thing:]
Quero
[I want…]
Quero
[Want]
Quero-quero porque quero
[I want, so much, ‘cuz I want]
Agarrar com meu bico
[To grab with my beak]
A força da vida
[The stream of life]
Nada nunca vai mudar
[Nothing will ever change]
Mas a vida é como um sopro
[But life is like a blow]
O que importa é o agora
[Now is what matters]
Bato as asas e voo
[I beat my wings and fly…]
Que me importa de morrer?
[What do I care about death?]
- * “Quero-quero” is a natural bird from South America — in English it’s named Southern Lapwing (Vanellus chilensis). “Quero” is also a form in first person of singular of verb “querer” in Portuguese , that means “to want”. [“Eu quero” = I want]. The name of the bird is used as a word play. (quero-quero = something like “I want — I want”). The meaning ends up lost in translation. {Author’s note}
UNDERSCORE (or “LOVE IS A LOSING GAME”)
Nought. None. Nothing. Nil.
Zero. Love.
Oh… I see.
HAPPY DESANNIVERSARY
My life is empty
Nothing but emptiness
Craziness meaningless
Nothing but alone
Never having peace
All we’ve got is this land
And we all deserve what we get!
Our both hands
Sadness with no end
In this Godforsaken world…
Help, self-help me
Help, I’m to blind to see
So here is my apology
Under the sea and beyond…
A far cry into the darkness.
I think I died that night.
THE MOON IS A PINK BALOON
To Joan Fontaine
Last night, lost weekend
I woke up screaming
A cry in the night…
Life is no bed of roses, Joan.
Pal Joey, hey
The joker is wild, see?!
And wild is the Wind
A dust in the dusk
Long gone… say it to the drones
Thornes — thrones of red roses
Some came running;
I cried for you…
Over the man that got away.
No more aces to play
Or rolling in the hay
The woman “I” — stowaway
Signed, Madame X.
I lost my pink baloon to the sky
But suddenly, it was summer
An Indian one — night in my heart
The color purple, rain
Pink lemonade…
I have a hole in the head, yes.
But my heart is a pocket
Full of miracles;
And in my soul:
Cheshire Cat smiles.
(2019)
AS SUMMER DIES
As Summer Dies,
Winter Cries.
As Spring Flies,
Autumn Lies…
Human Ties, here they are.
(2019)
“When horses die — they breathe;
When grass dies — it dries;
When the suns die — they fade;
When people die — they sing songs.”
Velimir Khlebnikov
(Author’s translation direct from Russian)
HASBEEN, WASHOUT
A legendary past and an obscure future
He is 25 years old.
The present is a future that never is.
“She got out of nowhere
Only to see that she was heading nowhere
And that the end was death.”
THE LAST LAUGH
Somewhere in the night
Among all these wonderful and detestable people
Someone, in the last row, is
Having the last laugh
Is it me?
A RUSSIAN PSEUDO HAIKAI
The rain does not fall
It walks…
“For a trancelike moment, I chose my nom de plume
from thin air, dancing on thin ice.”
I miss Sonja Henie.
I TO I
Fools will be fools
And here I am.
I am I am I am
What if pains
Without an aim…
Is that all that is ?
Long gone… Not done
Staring the writings
Bleeding on the wall
The night bitter
Not feeling any less sour
Colder, older
Gone astray
Done and undone
And then they are gone
Happiness is just a thing called joe, Judy
Or a bowl of cherries, who knows
There’s nothing sadder then a
Gay one-man guy looking for
The men that got away…
And where do we go from here ?
Long nights and days
Those were NOT the days!
A silent sense of content
The same shade of brown
The green intensity of your eyes, oh…
So let up tho, live…
I wanna dance with somebody
Who has love for something
But weren’t the Carpenters who said …
“All you get from love is a love song”…
II
You are my everything
My every fucking thing
It’s Brighton, Pismo Beach
I don’t give a shit
Don’t talk about Birmingham
It’s over, it’s past november
I’m here again
Don’t know till when
Enjoy while you can
Seeing me existing while I can
The best and the worst that I can be
The Sun, The Mirror, the horror
But anyhow, I just, I mean… Stop it!
It is your own fleeting Glory named Life
Hell yes — Deal with it!
I COULD GO ON LIVING
Looking for the light to go on
Or waiting for the light to go on?
Gosh I dunno
…
Afterglow, afterlife
Beyond the walls of Death
I could go on singing
I could go on living
To the point that means
After life, better than life
The extension of being
Light and heavy, (un)bearable
Larger than life
I am always chasing rainbows
And jellyfish. But I can’t be a sponge.
Life is just an instant
An instant of now
In the end nothing is real
As you might think
But I still have not found
What I am looking for…
Being. Just be “it”.
The ClaraBowless it. Then
Beat it!
The art of being, in a nutshell, is:
Being in spite of. In spite of.
HOMESICK
Aloneless or loneliness?
Hopeless lioness
A homesick homeless
Princess or basket case?
A lost case
A lost cause
But it’s good that you fought, you know
Although you have lost
Not the battle, but the war…
Anyway what I’m looking for is
Uniqueness!
I depress
Nevertheless
Lifeless, selfless
Endless, speechless
Heartless — never
I will regress
I’m a mess
In life I trespass
Not Swanson nor Davis
But I digress…
Guess, or else
Possessed ?
Chained and … Love among stars
Princesses, running with
Compasses, beware!
I died in Chelsea
Across a deep blue sea
Just in time for tea
Plea… Plethora
Okay, subpoena, here it is:
YOU ARE TALENTLESS AND TIMELESS.
TO HAVE NOT
Vigil in the night
A far cry…
I can’t make my way out of a shithouse
You’re either too young or too old — always!
So just put your key in my largo and
Find my dark passage.
No, wait, I changed my mind
You’re not Bogie, so
SCRAM!
THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN ARTHUR
Sly without being coy
Whimsical without being silly
Unique without being nutty
A theatrical personality who was untheatrical
Life is doing what you wanna do
Or trying anyway
You just do what you gotta do
Or trying anyway
Go to parties and talk about nothing?
I don’t happen to — said me, the hermit.
Food, clothes and sex
I can’t live graciously without’em.
Now, the supreme conquest:
To face audiences and to forget them
To see the footlights and not to see them
[The question mark is the lamp that turns on and off
At the same time.]
To garge the reactions of hundreds of people and yet
To throw yourself completely into a role that you are
Oblivious to their reaction.
I am an actor because I didn’t want to be myself
I want to play a thousand lives — the mystery is so importante
I don’t hate people
I just want to be alone… because in life
I walk alone.
Ladies and gentlemen, forget your morning glory –
Your best performance is to be yourself.
(The Curtain rises)
“Acting is standind up naked and turning around very slowly.” (Rosalind Russell)
THE SKY IS THE LIMIT
Backwards in the backyard
Upwards and downwards — an inward sigh.
Feelings towards, for this day forward,
At once
Afterwards
Skywards…
(sighs)
SAY SOMETHING EDGY
Leave me alone.
LOVE
By Marina Tsvetaeva
“Is it a sword? A fire?
It’s softer — but oh so loud!
Pain — well-known
As the eyes to the palms
As the lips to
The name of your own child.”
1924
(Author’s translation direct from Russian)
HERMIT
And there I went
With my dark and destructive thoughts…
A song for you, Mr. Hathaway
A song from way back in its past
The kind of song for 3 o’clock in the morning
When you are sitting in a half-empty club
With half-empty glasses, half-full infatuation
Fucking with a Sinatra look-alike
That in the end it’s just a one-night stand…
And off to Broadway I went
With my dark and destructive thoughts…
40 carats — Stage door, autographs, bows, laughs
Wings — don’t bother, those aren’t mine.
So waiting for the lights to go on
From the white casket of my own grief.
BE TENSE
Hasbeen
Wannabe
Never-was
I am a Will be
Wouldn’t be
Can it be ?
Let’s not, let’s don’t, don’t let’s
Or… A must be
Shall we?
FROM DAWN TO DUSK
In seach for pagan hollywood
for a pagan love song;
Profanity, in Singapore:
Kiss the profane blood off my hands,
Sirocco, sirocco…
ME
Alone in a studio
In the solitude of a room
I felt me
It was meant to be
It could be me
I could be me!
I can be me…
I laughed with glee.
At last I feel free
I feel ME.
Perhaps to stir the depths of the imagination
He would say that white lies are recorded in invisible ink
Faded and forgotten by the time we get there…
Till the clouds roll by
Drifting through the sky
I wonder why my love never said
Goodbye…
OBLIVIOUS OBLIVION
“If I ever bore you, it will be with a knife” Brooksie
To Louise Brooks
“She scared men shitless.”, said someone.
Dying in a cinema, you seen
While her celluloid image and being
Continues to exist up there on the screen
Has always been for me the poetic
Symbol of the permanence of beauty
through the medium of cinema –
Until dancing into oblivion.
Always enigmatically impassive,
Overwhelmingly exists.
Being just an extraordinarily
Beautiful woman who happens to be
In a movie.
The work of art being born by her mere presence.
By her mere breath,
Her long and naked neck.
Whose beauty leads the spectator
To endow her with complexities of
Which she herself was unaware ?
Child like open look
A satanic mirror of all the evil in oneself
Cast in a unique frame of black and alabaster beauty
On the silver screen
It’s all about the neck!
Naked on her goat,
She acts with her neck,
That incomparable neck,
A solitaire through slender curving
An alabaster column;
Oh what the heck –
She twists it in a sudden dynamics
Flash, or bends it to reveal its dynamite ,
Strange and enticing convexity,
And complexity
Very slim and nervously poetic,
with grayish eyes of immense fascination
The final flickering images are unforgettable;
We observe a luminous presence
Cut off in her prime, but in turn are
Struck by the immortalized image,
Chances are…
She is isolated in time, preserved by the art
Of film.
Veni, vidi, vici
*Inspired by many quotations from Barry Paris’ biography on Louise Brooks
All my life is undone. Everything is done.
And forget the world and oneself…
The temptress trespasses
Attempts
Such passes
Impacts, impasses
Compasses, princes and kings
Gypsies, tramps and thieves
Of an empty kingdom.
In NYC or LA: sunglasses
Nyack
Princess — princesses
Yuck.
Concepts, collapses
And then forgets…
A man from Nantucket.
It stinks.
“Windmills of the mind
With a sinking feeling…
It must have been what Eve felt
Having been created full grown out of somebody’s rib
Born without a history. That is exactly how I felt.”
“I think life is a little like a message in a bottle
To be carried by the Wind and the Tides”
GENE TIERNEY
AN OLD TUNE
In his little dining room, just off the salon
The only adornment on the table
It was likely to be an enormous
Hunk of rock Crystal.
We were perfect strangers
Perfect understanding ,
No idea I had an ax to grind.
He was Strong as an ox,
Stubborn as a donkey,
Luckier than anything…
Slightly peculiar
Rather remote
Totally cerebral
He fascinated me.
And the way he spoke was a tapestry…
But it was not meant to be.
Whenever we met afterwards
He greeted me and kissed me
No hard feelings — just a whistling
An old tune, only half remembered…
The loneliest and loveliest eyes I’ve ever seen
Spiritless and dull.
Living inside himself –
Cold as stone.
He was like a Pacific pilot
Always looking to see another dawn…
I will survive, alright
But please don’t ask me why I cry.
“There are only two possibilities for any real order: in art and in religion. All political history is a vile mess, varying only in degrees of vileness from one epoch to another, and only the work of saints and artists gives us any reason to believe that the human race is worth belonging to.”
E.M. Forster
“The voice of the individual artist might seem perhaps of no more consequence than the whirring of a cricket in the grass.”
Katherine Anne Porter
“And the voice you are hearing in this book is the whirring of one much-obliged cricket…”
Rosalind Russell … and me.
HITHERTO
A bias:
Well, golly darling,
Dwell.
Yearning yield
Ears and years… No earnings
Satin, satin, satin
Anos de cetim, sonhos de cetim
Passado de cetim passado
Cetim, cetim, cetim
Satin, satin, satin
Lavender satin
Silk stockings
Burnt black satin
Satin goody two-shoes
Positioned at the far end
The colors were muted tones of lavender
Pale blue, silver and gray
He stood in the middle of the room
Looking more like a peer of a palm realm
Than a real person
She was a pixie, not very real actually
You were not paying attention, very matter of factly
And when stepping forward to greet me
I got the feeling he could look through me
Okay so the pianist arrived
Shoot the pianist, Godard!
Goddard, Truffaut, anybody
Anyway her voice, Ethel,
was clear and brilliant
And every word of the world could be heard
In the far reaches of the theater
The cameraman’s powder flashes
Went off like lightning in a bottle,
Making the foyer follies look like a shower
Of meteors inside a tinsel box
Forays, ermines, mink and sables
Dressed to the nines.
Till the end of the night
Many guys were trampled and killed.
I stayed home, through the dusk
with a Peter Pan collar dress
Oblivious and absent-minded
Looking at a Hopper grasshopper.
And that was the-the première
On the day of the locust.
CITIZEN OF NOWHERE
I’m a citizen of nowhere
Looking for nothing
Questioning all things
But just tell me something
Anything else
Elsewhere…
HAYWIRE
Margaret Sullavan’s voice
Exquisite and far away,
- almost like an echo -
Tells me again, strange, gay, mysterious –
Like a voice singing in the snow:
“No sad songs for me… Please”.
I was always seeking in the crowd the face of the one who would release me
an echo of my mother and father…
BROKEN ENGLISH
The clock is on the wall (withdraw)
Tik tok tik tok
I am fine, and you? (a basket case)
I am good, thank you!
White walls — indoors
“Am I saying right?”
Repeat, please!
Outside… outsider (I don’t understand)
[I am not hearing you!]
The teacher is broken.
Broken English was spoken.
Tik tok, tik tok, the teacher teaches stitches and remains speechless
Am I saying right
[I am a basket case]
O tempo abala, a bala
Mad mad clockwork, heavy castle
Balalaika, balalaika
O tempo vive, machinery
Louca a badalada — time lives
Leaves and flies
We have to hit the wall
[We go out once, twice
Never three times or more]
Listening
[the nature inspires the silence of sleep]
I died a hundred times
I cried a thousand,
a million times (between classes)
[My life is empty]
Listening…
My life is empty.
Tik tok, tik tok
Homesick, homesick
Of places I don’t even know
I am sick, sick, sick, sick, sick
And tired.
Nobody is home, and I am dead.
[ Hello, Blanche… Hello, Blanche… ]
Broken blossoms para los muertos
And now, class,
The final frame — dictation
Listen and repeat, students:
(Please)
[Absolute silence]
HOPES AND ROPES
Snakes and ladders, I am running with scissors;
The rope came from
The sky and the end was never in sight
Insights. Fights.
I was filled with compassion for life down below
However content I was, as ever,
Just a watcher
In a night flight
Through the celestial dome
I can see life
For the bow I thank you –
The unknown stranger from the first row…
THE LAKE
For Veronica Lake
A name to remind you
The coolness of a lake
Sexy, slim and aloof
Her hair the best gimmick
Oh please take me back to those days
When I truly meant something to someone
A certain sad sweetness radiates now
from her large soulful eyes — after so many years
Even though the forties are long lost
But not your silver witchcraft
Scorpio eyes rising a gleam
Things in that eyes that I cannot put in words
Vicarious, vivacious — a sun beam
You, the cinematic chimera
I began to feel the sting of impermanence
I ran all the way like John Garfield
It was not Force of Evil.
It was Body and Soul
Not feeling a bit gregarious
This kept me suspended in midair
I am alone on the lonely road
Done with bad pictures
A bit of a misfit,
Indeed –
Living like praying to a God you know doesn’t exist
And with Him dying
And end of the road where waiting for him
And with Him dying
As night drew its curtain of black over everything
Some alley cat in the heat –
Shades of sky ablaze
Long live, short hair
No sweater, no sarong
The peakaboo — whose?
But forever the voice of a whisper:
A kiss of death.
Now it’s only me , myself
No more the coolness of Lake
Drinking itself into oblivion.
They used to think I was a sexy siren
But I am more of a Golden Girl from Miami
Swmming in a blue-violet sky
This is my oasis… between summer stocks.
We are all actors anyway — most bad, only a few good
Feeling good, just good
Never-to-be-explained goodness
That seems so difficult to find these peculiar days
Do you want wings? Come up here.
Give me a glass key and the blue dahlia
And I’ll make you a new Gulliver
No guns or murders…
Just peace.
THE CHURCH
A five o’clock shadow
We all deserve what we get I guess
No afterlife, no nothing
Death by degrees is the máster
Of finality
From the reality of Earth
To the frozenness of mud
The prismatic and majestic church
Light captured by the fog and backlit
Cool and empty — still
Candles lit -
Peace.
The door was locked.
Oh Momma of God,
Please let me in!
The sobbing came
I smashed my hand against the walls
Let it come, tears
Mumbled curses
I vomited.
The priest looked out.
Then he walked out.
I went to jail.
MO(U)RNING BECOMES PEDRO
Take the U out of Mourning
Then you get right Morning
Even in the evening…
Whatever the weather.
Morning is a state of being;
And the hour is darkest
Just before the dawn.
As a flame burns brightest
Just before it goes out!
We are seeds crossing in the wind
Fighting and never losing
DID YOU EVER SEE A DREAM WALKING?
There I sat dry-eyed on the floor in front of the fire
Listening to the sound of voices
Singing and dancing as they were holding mercury
It was beautiful to hear such beauty
Which I had never time for
And we would dream away the hours…
In this our life — like an old Fox musical
An eternal nickelodeon
To make a living only kidding and playing games
While drinking pink champagne
That’s the real life, I suppose.
The artists are gone but not forgotten
Shining in a sky with more stars than Old MGM
That’s the art of film:
To give emotion to the motion.
PROFUNDO COMO O MAR
(Deep as the sea — ENGLISH TRANSLATION)
Danúbio azul profundo
[Deep Blue Danube]
Profundo como o mar
[Deep as the sea]
Amor maior que o mundo
[Love — bigger than the world]
Faz-me livre para voar!
[Make me free to fly!]
Mar sagrado templo
[Sacred sea temple]
Esplendoroso e régio
[Splendid and regal]
É a esfinge que contemplo
[It is the sphinx that I comtemplate]
Cheia de sortilégio
[Full of sorceries and spells]
Maremoto em mim goteja
[Tsunami drips over me]
Diamante — lantejoulas a brilhar
[Diamond — glittering sequins]
Rachadura na gruta lateja
[The crack in the cave throbs]
Corações — solitários a cintilar
[Hearts — sparkling solitaires]
Eu queria com as mãos tocar
[I wanted to touch with my hands]
O fundo do mundo
[The bottom of the world]
O mais profundo e vivo que há –
[The deepest and liveliest there is — ]
Profundo como o mar
[Deep as the sea]
Mundo afora, aqui e agora:
[Worldwide, here and now:]
Decifra-me ou me afoga!
[Decipher me or drown me!]
Assim na Terra como no Céu,
[On Earth as It Is in Heaven]
Assim no Mar como no Ar.
[On the Sea as It is in the Air]
À deriva, em mar aberto
[Drifting in the open sea]
Ferida a céu aberto, fico alerta:
[Floating with open wounds, beware:]
Nas profundezas do mar sem fim
[In the deep end of the ocean]
Há infinita descoberta…
[There is endless discovery]
Esvaziada a clepsidra
[The clepsidra is empty]
Não morro, mas me afogo de amar
[I won’t die, but I’m drowning in love]
Com a paixão dos suicidas,
[With the passion of suicides]
Que se matam no mar
[Who kill themselves in the sea]
Entregue à própria sorte
[On my very own, I know]
Mais forte que a morte
[Stronger than death]
Sobre mim certeza escorre:
[Certainly oozes over me]
De amor também se morre.
[One also dies from love]
Desvario de Ismália**,
[Ophelia** throws herself off]
Meu coração flambava, voo de Ícaro
[My heart on fire, Icarus flying]
Eu chorava… Meu par de asas se retalha
[I was crying… My pair of wings split]
Num destino pícaro
[In a picaresque fate]
Amo tanto que nem sei –
[I love so much that I don’t even know — ]
Me afoguei
[I drowned]
Deus sabe o quanto amei –
[God only knows how much I loved — who?]
Naufraguei.
[I sank.]
As ondas quebram na praia
[The waves break on the beach]
E no calor da enseada
[And in the heat by the sea]
boia o corpo de uma raia
[The body of a streak floats]
que foi um dia ensolarada
[That once was sunny and gay]
Do mar eu sempre teria
[From the sea I would always have]
Apenas uma nesga
[Just a gore]
Meu coração se contorcia
[My heart then contorted]
Numa água viva de tristezas
[In a jellyfish of sadness — living, dark, deep waters]
O mar me bebeu
[The sea drank me]
E junto um descobrimento:
[And along, a discovery]
O mar será meu túmulo
[The sea will be my grave]
Mas não é o fim — é um renascimento.
[But no ends — it’s a rebirth]
Corsário, coração tropical
[Corsair, tropical heart]
Partirá esse gelo — e irá !
[That ice will break — and go!]
Profundo como o mar
[Deep as the sea]
Profundo como o mar
[Deep as the sea]
Pássaro místico azul
[Blue mystical bird]
Infinito como o mar
[Infinite like the sea]
É meu diamante bruto
[You are my diamond in the rough]
Que pra sempre há de brilhar
[That will forever shine]
No fundo do mar.
[At the bottom of the sea]
ZODÍACO
(Zodiac — English Translation)
No calor dos Trópicos, sob o signo de Áries, ei-me.
[In the heat of the Tropics, under the sign of Aries, here I am]
O Sol de Marte ataca, ata-me, desvenda-me
[The Mars Sun attacks, binds me, unravels me]
Numa chuva de música e fogo.
[In a rain of music and fire.]
Escorpião, suas garras cravam-se em mim, prendendo o coração
[Scorpio(n), whose claws spike me, holding my heart]
num buquê de jasmim, criando este profundo medalhão:
[Attached to a jasmines bouquet, a profound medallion:]
Um maldito e vingativo aguilhão — de redenção.
[A cursed and vengeful sting — of redemption.]
Meus pensamentos são Gêmeos de mil olhos, sem nenhum rosto
[My thoughts are Twins — Gemini — thousand eyes, faceless]
Minhas emoções: retrógradas, avessas e sem eixo
[My emotions: retrograde, inside out and without axis]
Minha Lua não chora: ela sente, senta e pensa.
[My Moon does not cry: it feels, sits and thinks.]
Sou filho bastardo de Mercúrio com Netuno
[I’m a bastard son of Mercury with Neptune]
Nunca ajo, apenas penso, e quando faço, não penso
[I never act, I just think, and when I do, I don’t think]
Eu não falo — eu vomito, eu despejo!
[I don’t speak — I throw up, I dump!]
Marte em Leão, Vênus em Peixes
[Mars in Leo, Venus in Pisces]
Carinho e entusiasmo, sou a greta e sou o garbo
[Affection and enthusiasm, I am greta and I am garbo]
Sou a fera e a ferida, mais Virgem que carneiro.
[I am the beast and the wound, more Virgo than ram.]
E quando eu amo um homem, com o sonho do entregar
[And when I love a man, with the dream of giving myself]
Eu procuro um pai e um deus. Mas sonho não é amor. Um dia,
[I am looking for a father and a god. But a dream is not love. One day,]
vou deixar de amar o que vejo, para acreditar no que não vejo.
[I will stop loving what I see, to believe in what I don’t see.]
A lua negra um fauno triste e solitário ilumina
[The black moon — a sad and lonely faun illuminates it]
Sedento de conhecimento a preenche-lo –
[Thirsty for knowledge to fill it — ]
Júpiter, você é Lúcifer, ardendo sem se ver…
[Jupiter, you are Lucifer, burning in the nude …]
À beira do penhasco, Capricórnio, nós dois temos chifres.
[At the edge of the cliff, Capricorn, we both have horns.]
Eu te odeio, mas eu te amo!
[I hate you, but I love you!]
Mas eu te odeio! como eu amo o próprio Nada…
[But I hate you! as I love Nothing itself …]
Rios de Peixes, gelados, profundezas abissais do imaginário
[Pisces Rivers, ice cream, abyssal depths of the imaginary]
Continuem, peixes, a nadar sobre os anéis de Saturno congelado
[Keep going, fish, to swim on the frozen rings of Saturn]
Entre pedros pedregulhos de sonho e de loucura
[Between pedros, pebbles, boulders of dreams and madness]
Urano, meu Planeta da Utopia, coberto de opalas
[Uranus, my Utopian Planet, covered in opals]
Toda abstração um dia quebrará o vidro do verão neste aquário
[Every abstraction will one day break the summer glass in this aquarium]
Uma nova era de Aquarius, pode entrar!
[A new age of Aquarius, please come in!]
Plutão explode o pus das minhas feridas
[Pluto blows the pus out of my wounds]
Inferno de gelo num coração tropicalista
[Icy hell inside a tropicalist heart]
Escorpião, degelo, meu veneno é feroz e imortal.
[Scorpio-n, thaw, my poison is fierce and immortal.]
Culpar os astros é engraçado, mas além da cúspide
[Blaming the signs is funny, but beyond the cusp]
Ainda hei d’através deste mapa sem tesouro
[I still have this map without a treasure — and I will]
Desvendar o Câncer que eu (não) sou. Seja então…
[Unravel the Cancer that I am (not). Be then …]
Casas vazias: o leão enrustido procura a ti — ó elo da intuição e da razão
[Empty houses: the enclosed lion seeks you — Leo — the link between intuition and reason]
Ausente de terra e de balança: sou só um equilíbrio delicado
[Libra, my complementary opposite — absent from earth and scale: I’m just a delicate balance]
No fundo do céu a querer deixar minha marca — fora do meu rosto.
[Deep in the sky wanting to leave my mark — out of my face.]
Autoconhecimento: eu me amo e me odeio
[Self-knowledge: I love and hate myself]
E me amo e te amo, dando a cara a tapa ao universo
[And I love myself and I love you, turning both cheeks to the universe]
Eu me amo, mas sou humano, e não quero ser um mito.
[I love myself, but I’m human, and I don’t want to be a myth.]
Quero tocar o outro não com garras, mas mãos, cheias de poeira cósmica
[I want to touch the other, not with claws, but with hands, both full of cosmic dust]
e que o mesmo outro desvende meu mistério atrás de um riso sério:
[and that the same other unravels my mystery behind a serious laugh:]
Claro, alto, e nu como a lua.
[Clear, tall, and naked as the moon.]
(2017)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
“An outcast from Taubaté”, he would say himself. (Taubaté is a city from São Paulo, Brazil).
Pedro Ferreira Dantas (São Paulo, Brazil; April 5, 1995) is a Brazilian writer, poet and English teacher. He also teaches Foreign Languages, such as Russian, and his native language: Portuguese. He graduated from University of São Paulo, in Brazil. His degree is in Literature, Linguistics and Languages (major in Russian — language, literature, theatre and culture).
Besides writing and teaching, Mr. Dantas is a classic movie addict, plus an avid collector of DVDs, cinema books, biographies, general movie memorabilia and autographs. He has a channel on Youtube (simply “Pedro Dantas”) that grows more each day — sharing rare Hollywood motion pictures and languages classes as well. He aspires to become a filmmaker one day.
Pedro lives in Lisbon, Portugal.
ANOTHER BOOKS FROM PEDRO DANTAS (in Portuguese**) — all available at Amazon.com
Deep as the sea (original title : PROFUNDO COMO O MAR) — poetry [paperbook only available at Amazon.com.br]
The Nighthawk (original O GAVIÃO DA NOITE) — poetry
The Aries Arrow (original A FLECHA DE ÁRIES) — poetry
Adamant — (original ADAMANTE) — poetry
He skipped classes and went to the movies (original MATOU A AULA E FOI AO CINEMA) — a novel
**The reader must search for the titles using the Portuguese names of the books. They are not translated into English yet. More news to come.
