Salvation

My suicide,
A wish I
Can’t hide.

A knife,
A wrist,
The perfect
Combination.

The blade cutting,
My blood running,
On my arm shining.

A light.

A bright light.

“Who are you?”

“A friend”.

A friend…

“Your hand”.

You took it.
And lifted me.

And saved me.

Cátia Ribeiro

Blood and Lead

Listen to what they did.
Don’t listen to what they said.
What was written in blood
Has been set up in lead.

Lead tears the heart.
Lead tears the brain.
What was written in blood
Has been set up again.

The heart is a drum.
The drum has a snare.
The snare is in the blood.
The blood is in the air.

Listen to what they did.
Listen to what’s to come.
Listen to the blood.
Listen to the drum.

James Fenton

The Divide

I keep thinking of you – which is ridiculous.
These years between us like a sea.
Any dignity that came with growing older
Would stop my pencil on the paper.
The player was open; you asked for the Stones;
Got that, got steaming coffee, conversation.
The heavy curtains kept a wild night out.
I keep thinking of your eyes, your hands.
There is no reason for it, none at all.
You would say I can’t be what I’m not,
Yet I can’t be not what I am.
Where does that leave us? What can we do?
The silence after Jagger was like a cloak
I’d have thrown over you – only the wind
Was left, and the clock ticked as you sipped,
Clutching the green mug in both hands.

Charles Tomlinson

Phases

Gargalhadas altas ecoam na minha cabeça, divertimentos da qual eu não faço parte, pois não são o meu mundo. Talvez devessem. Mas não são. Conversas sem sentido, mas feias. Risos felizes, mas demasiado altos.
As pessoas olham, pensam “ A juventude está perdida…” e eu, como se de telepatia se tratasse, penso “Realmente…”.
Olho para trás. Vejo. Penso. Vejo outra vez. Quando sinto que o lugar que antes era guardado para mim, já não me anseia. As bocas que por mim chamavam, calam-se como túmulos.

Será?

Não.

Lineage

In the beginning was Scream
Who begat Blood
Who begat Eye
Who begat Fear
Who begat Wing
Who begat Bone
Who begat Granite
Who begat Violet
Who begat Guitar
Who begat Sweat
Who begat Adam
Who begat Mary
Who begat God
Who begat Nothing
Who begat Never
Never Never Never

Who begat Crow

Screaming for Blood
Grubs, crusts
Anything

Trembling featherless elbows in the nest’s filth

Ted Hughes

A dream within a dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!

And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow-

You are not wrong, who deem

That my days have been a dream;

Yet if hope has flown away

In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone?

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand-

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep- while I weep!

O God! can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?

Edgar Allan Poe

The Sheaf

My life, as a slant of rain
On the grey earth fields
Is gathered in thirsty silence, disappears.
I cannot even guess
The roots, but fell them sighing
In the stir of the soil I die to. Let the rain
Be on the children of my heart,
I have no other ones.
On the generations,
On the packed cells and dreaming shoots,
The untried hopes, the waiting good
I send this drop to melt.

Edwin Morgan

100 mensagem...

Guerra...
Fome...
A nossa Terra
também come.

Doença...
Morte...
A nossa crença
em algo mais forte.

A necessidade
de procurar
E a felicidade
em encontrar

A perfeição.

Cátia Ribeiro

Ao Mar

Acalma-te, Mar furioso,
que a Caravela só avança
quando vier a bonança.
Deixa navegar o português curioso...

Acalma-te, Mar irado,
que o Cruzeiro só avança
quando houver segurança.
Deixa navegar o português enamorado...

Acalma-te, Mar selvagem,
que o Marinheiro só avança
quando tiver confiança.
Abre o coração para o português sedento de viagem...

Mar, não me engulas com o mundo
no dia do julgamento final,
pois sabes que me és tudo.
E até porque afinal:

Quando reparamos em quem queremos,
Já, quem tínhamos, não temos
e não adianta (sequer) lamentar
que perdemos, com quem queríamos ficar.
Sim, Mar?

I'll Explain

It’s something you say at your peril.
It’s something you shouldn’t contain.
It’s a truth for the dark and a pillow.
Turn out the light and I’ll explain.

It’s the obvious truth of the morning
Bitten back as the sun turns to rain,
To the rain, to the dark, to the pillow.
Turn out the light and I’ll explain.

It’s what I was hoping to tell you.
It’s what I was hoping you’d guess.
It’s what I was hoping you wouldn’t guess
Or you wouldn’t mind.
It’s a kind
Of hopelessness.

It’s the hope that you hope at your peril.
It’s the hope that you fear to attain.
It’s the obvious truth of the evening.
Turn out the light and I’ll explain.

James Fenton