SHELL TO THE SEA

translated poems

we would need to measure in light years
the necessary distance equivalent to eyes closed –
my shell to the sea you are
my wish is to become unrecognizable
and with you
and no older than yesterday
Rich Forster

1
LANDSCAPE

I’ll have seen your face
with no torment,
shed of its future
and work,
turned to yesterday
that lingers on
and today
that never ends.

I’ll have seen your hands,
that are mine,
and the landscape turning green.

The look in your eyes will never fade away.

Afternoons will add on
and will stay connected in time
as leaves of a tree
that never dies.

April 3, 2002 – 2:05 p.m.
in Folias (Spree)

2
TO CLARICE LISPECTOR

Life does not start
on the first step.

It starts on the second,
when we learn

the balance
between the first

and the next.

The second starts
just because of the first.

Then, life starts,
as it is inevitable.

April 4, 2002 - 7:55 p.m.

3
LIKE RUMI

The universe moves you
and waits.

Sit by the fountainhead
and wait.

Dress your other robe
and be your own guest.

Life sheds torn clothes
and gives you a new body.

Your voice moves you,
the wind.

Walk through life in pair,
so you won’t live alone.

NY, JFK, Saturday, April 20, 2002 – 10 p.m.
Boarding back to Rio.

4
THE STONE, THE MOSS
for Carlos Felipe Moisés

Speech
astounds me.

Wherever I go,
I redress
myself
and take my place

so,
I change & transform
music in words

to make verses
drip
like water.

I pick up the stone
in the river
and wait for the moss.

April 26, 2002 - 11:07 p.m.

5
GREEN POEM

Sit
while you wait.

Nothing rushes
because of your haste.

Watch the pause between things,
forming arcs
in a funny
architecture.

Look at everything
from your parlor,
your open window,
your silent backyard.

And wait for the poem
to come out
of the limb.

April 27, 2002 - 10:43 a.m.

6
OXI-TONE

Nothing happens except when due.
Either the burden or the pick.

I insist in being, even alone.

The longest dayis yet to begin.

Look at the landscape through the slit
and see what you left outside.

Nothing is lost in your absence.

Wherever you are not,
is waiting for you.

April 28, 2002 - 1:55 p.m.

7
THE LAND WAS SWEPT

The land was swept
and I went down the enthralling earth
a dim visitation of Hades
a boat sailing a river
bearing a dark burden
swimming across spells
sweeping hours
of speech – what has been
will always be oblivion.

São Paulo, May 4, 2002 - 2:28 a.m.

8
BEYOND MORNING

April thirtieth and time slows down.
Fever and thoughts mix together
beyond my will.

I travel through liquid sensations,
invade uncertain banks,
all voices get tired and shut up.

I can only watch the horizon,
that motionless lays before me.

I revisit the present,
the only precise moment,
between past and future mists.

We are stuck in today.
There's nothing,
now that it is dawning,
my eyes can see again.

There are words left.

I close the books, feeling so tired,
and wish I can sleep.

Rio, May 7, 2002 – 6:06 a.m.

9
WHAT YOU THINK
for Mano Melo

You will be, unlike the seas, like me,
living and vibrating,
a moving pendulous,
reticently plunging in your memory,
while listening to you.

Away from home, you are
a flag waving in the skies
and you live eternity,
what you think of yourself and of God.

Rio/Axe Sante/terça/7-05-02/23h35

10
START ANEW

Blessed is death, the farce,
mottoes deciphering the wholeness,
eloquent, as dew drops gush between your fingers,
tenacious, yesterday’s cipher paying today’s.

Blessed is your house,
your mother, your family,
your brother telling you,
obliquely, what you’ve never forgotten
and what you are.

Your shadow listens to you
and the back of your hand is more gracious,
the coves collected measuring the arch.

You’ll look at life in the eye,
a fish in the bowl, for sure,
a glaring blade,
the only living voice in the dark.

Lace the infinite in the vastness you inhabit.
You’ll be what you’ve always been:
unceasing.

May 21, 2002 – 10:21 p.m.

11
MY BROTHER’S FOREHEAD

I kiss my brother’s forehead, who, unwillingly,
forgot his flushing blood,*
the same blood pulsing through his veins
and flooding his forehead,
every day’s muddy blood,
never sating him.

I kiss my brother’s forehead who takes my hand
and forgets the river flowing through his heart,
a ferocious voice of an unceasing roar,
his other hand holding mine.

I come everyday and kiss his forehead:
the abundant vine of an long time taste,
no grief piercing his chest
- just the eye prying me at a glance.

Rio, May 24, 2002 – 00:11 a.m.
*lead by Tavinho Teixeira

12
POEM BY THE FULL MOON

I dip my hands in the river waters,
feel the chill around my fingers
and remember other less lazy days.

O Heraclitus, in which of your rivers should I bathe?*

River of a thousand rapids, where’s the sea waiting for me?

May 25, 2002 - 3:53 a.m. / May 26, 2002 – 2:43 a.m. / 3:19 p.m.
*lead by Tavinho Teixeira

13
YOUR DREAM

Your dream is the whitest flesh of your darker being,
the worm of my hour which passes by
and I won’t survive another dawn besides today’s,
because this hour, so large, forgets me, uneasy,
and I rest as all deaths rest,
a forgotten body in a nacre fullness.

Listen to me, that I climb down
to the last mother’s embrace,
the land which is seed and destiny,
a celebrated and bare afternoon.
I dress eyes which I are not mine
and the ditch of your desire takes you.
Exile yourself once more
and inebriate again
in restlessness.

22-24/05/02 - 18h48-1h29

14
COFFEE POEM

Tiny coffee spoons and coffee cups,
in which we thoughtlessly drink,

roasted and grounded grains
become liquid and pour,

uniformly, a sacred and dark water
of a communion act.

Together or alone, we drink coffee
in contrition.

We eat the bread, the biscuit,
and give way to thought.

Coffee makes us dream.

Like my grandfather, who from
a grain built a machine,

of whom planted it in the crop,
sacks and more sacks of riches,

the old aroma visiting us all the time.

Drink coffee with our History,
of a land which has the name of a plant,

an ardor that lives in the flame and the smoke,
in the immutable and ancient landscape.

Go back in time and pick up the grains
from the coffee yards, with black hands.

Pour the thick infusion of brothers,
who drink and dream together.

Rio, May 24, 2002 – 10:20 am – Coffee Day

15
LONG HOUR

Fireflies of your tongue,
when in my ears,
clear the mystery.*
A mystery mixed
to the illusion, where
sated, the hand can no longer satisfy.

The hair of your chest, aloof,
hides today’s late making.
Wake the days as yesterday
and don’t forget to come again.

The cool waves flow on your back,
we dance with the sea tides,
licking the crimson faces.

My waterfalls flood
the pools of your long hour.

May 25, 2002 – 3h35
*lead by Tavinho Teixeira

16
BURNING STAKE
Not every being stirs my tongue.

Every day is a libel,
torn traces of puberty,
specks and ravishment
of a flying cathedral.

I’ve been mad, I’ve been saint,
and today I fly above the clouds,
an apocalyptic goddess of wars.

Which other saint fought in a war?

(Now, on the day Joan was burnt
at the stake as a witch
over 500 years ago,
justice is redeemed and poor.)

The same prayers are said,
the same angels attend,
the same voices speak
inside my head
and I’m not mad.

Speak, speak to me!
I, Joan, can hear you.

May 30, 2002 – 2:04 a.m.
(St. Joan of Arc’s Day, 1431)

17
VAST HEART
World, world vast world,
much vaster is my heart.
Carlos Drummond de Andrade

A pendulum swings, like in a clock,
ticking the passage of time.

While it moves back and forward, the eye rests
on its immovable image, giving room to dreams.

Don't rush and don’t fear.
Everything has its time and ways.

If the heart is still, leave it alone.
If it is touched, believe it.

Learn to live from it.

Paced beats, coming and going,
and pausing in between.

Life fits in the heart and the heart, in one hand.
The heart and the fist are the same size.

What can you hold in one hand?

We stretch it to help a friend
and inside the heart we keep our deepest loves.

All fits in the heart, as it would in one hand.
How vast is the ocean that runs through the heart!

June 1, 2002 - 1:53 p.m.

18
AFTERNOON
Longing ails your image,
traced in clouds this afternoon.
Victor Farinha

Abyssal, the clouds and your body
come over me,
your hands holding my face,
sliding down,
your breath and breathing,
a dull sky slowly dimming,
as I close my eyes.

Incrust me in this hour when everything ceases,
lend me your hand and your ear,
strip the swirl of the instant
and rest without seeing or waiting for me.

So time runs between the margins of a waking day.

June 5, 2002 – 2:53 a.m.

19
TIMES

I’m lost in your deep furrows
your teeth tearing the chaos
source of evils and hungers
my so many enraptured and secret risks
nothing else before the pedestal.

I know nothing of your shades and core
a being of poignant blue
a shadow projected over roofs
and porches forgotten in the dark.

I turn my eyes so many times to where you are.
Slow are the steps and the travel long.

The satin is still unstained.
Unhurt lives, until they begin.

May 25, 2002 – 11:47 p.m.

20
ODE TO THE SUNSET

I build an ode to your soft laughter

the curve of your shoulder
the thin skin

docile contour
incandescent

verse pouring images
life placed in your hands
travelling along.

Once more I won’t resist
to mould your lips

the dense forest of your thoughts
the vessel encircling the island

the mouth of your throat
vertigo

the night blushed in your open skylights

passing the days sailing the hours
honeyed time of your silent voice

a sunset veil and a vast life.

Rio, May 10, 2002 – 4:15 p.m.

21
THE TEAR

I won’t kiss you
for your eyes(*)
only.
I’ll kiss you for your lips
that hold the gods’ manna
spilled over your syllables.
I’ll gather the words
from your tongue
and your kisses will taste
as honeycombs
placed at the foot
of the Ararat.
All starts on your lips
and continues in your eyes
dropping a tear
I drink from you.

June 6, 2002 – 5:14 p.m.
(*) line by Tavinho Teixeira


22
BEFORE, THE WIND
for Claufe Rodrigues

Before
there was the wind
revolving our hair
a look over a static and pending
horizon
a sign of older dawns
still forgotten on your face.

Before we were different
and couldn’t remember who we were.

Today, we do.

Rio/Wed/May 8, 2002/12:05 a.m.

23
WHAT YOU ARE
You’ll be what you already are,
as I’ve always known.
Mano Melo

If I am what I have become
and you are what you have always been,
when have I become more?

When, without telling me,
have you become what you are?

Eternity lies
at your feet
- early and solitary bird.

We’ll be what we already are
and we never knew.

June 12, 2002 – 3:18 a.m.

24
HABITAT

Your house inhabits you.
Dress a veil and build yourself a gothic arc.

Look around into a
long vastness and a near horizon.

Nothing watches your time
and all is hollow and empty.

You walk along many roads
tracing these crossing steps.

You belong here.

Everything belongs to you and to all living things.

June 12, 2002 – 4:53 a.m.

25
WEAVING

There are surprises
hiding
every day.

There are lives growing together
as veins
of the same pebble.

We live
and grow
like ivy on the wall
weaving on the same pure
surface.

June 12, 2002 – 11:05 p.m.

26
HIGH SEA
for Fernandinha Correia Dias

Enfold the seas
with your singing,
Nubian mermaid,
Greek nymph,
gods curve before
and open seas
for you.
Weave the cloak in
which you wrap your beloved.
Tie him to the grassland that grows
on the road.
Take him, for giving yourself,
and let him be, feverish and mythical,
the harp of your voice.

Rio, June 13, 2002 – 2:06 p.m.

27
BEARINGS

Take my wounds,
fissures that won’t heal,
laughter kept in books,
silenced and plunged.

Play the music I hear
spalla in my orchestra
stacatto
ma non troppo.

Take your time with me,
fight me in a battle,
write the dry word
on a piece of paper.

Sing for the last time,
fados, laments, ballads,
and listen, in the echo,
to the forgotten song.

Rio, June 17, 2002 – 1:54 am

28
MORE LOVE

There is more love under your nails
than in all ploughed land.

There is more love in the kisses you can’t give,
than in everything we write to each other.

March 12, 2002 - 6:41 p.m.

29
PRAYER

I lifted you,
as I lift you in soliloquy,

magnificent, magnetized relieve,
altar seams and silences,

the cosmos around your fingertips,
a blessed playing chaos,

orbiting flames,
small bent trapezes,
multiple Mandalas,

hollows where hours
hasten – tithes, suspended
words.

I lift you in a cup
and you contain milleniums.

June 6, 2002 – 11:55 p.m.

30
ETERNITY TODAY
Literature, like any art,
is a confession that life itself
is not enough.
Fernando Pessoa

Forget
the afternoon, the day,
the millstone,
the sleepy life
we let go,
the urging for delays,
nature clipped in photo
albums.
Forget the sortilege,
the war, why we do
everything and postpone it.
All is scarce and doubtful
like the docility of the sphere.
There’s no poetry for nothingness.
Only for what we have
in excess.

July 11, 2002 – 11:54 p.m.

31
IN YOUR NAME

In your name
there’s a morning,
a crack
of dawn.

In your name
I celebrate existence,
a plentiful life,
held in arms.

In your name, I inscribe
mine, day by day,
so the wondrous nights
may remain
in ever coming
mornings.

July 12, 2002 – 3:56 p.m.

32
I WISH

Wish I had the pleasure
of the smallest things,
as if I had them –
even not having them,
as if I did.

April 26, 2002 – 6:45 p.m.

33
CIRCLE

Hunger is enough.
You stretch your hand
and pick up the ripe fruit.

Your eyes hold
the fullest brightness
and the infinite I seek
in the verses I write.

I read the lines in your palms,
where water streams flow,
golden veins in jade monoliths.

Run your eyes through the books
on the shelf.
Search the word you wish
to keep.
Voiceless songs,
your hands moving
to the music.

Time lifts you.
You’re no longer alone.

34
LONG POEM

Never.
In the shape of forms,
echoes pass over the asphalt
– half-open and moving
lips –
a flowing river course.

You move about
yourself more
than the spinning
earth.

All you try, errs.
A wandering cane,
and dusty
sandals.

We touch the moving water
over an ivy face.
We dive.
A fountain of rich honeycombs,
cotton on my breasts,
the spine,
cut and wound.

The desert,
cloak of quintessence
of dried dates.

The splendor of
desiring eyes.

A verse reverted
to its own shell,
inhabiting the hollow
without filling it.

Drink
once more from your own hand,
a windy outline,
profile,
night interrupted
by lisping sounds.

Pour. Once more
the waiting in your exiles.
Flowers a the blue
vase.

Wait. For nothing.
For nobody.

Not even for your own
voice.

August 17, 2002 – 11:17 p.m.

35
VERB

Verb.
Yours the first
name.

Sweeps from your
shadow
the salt from your mouth,
tongue, lime,
voids.

Lines, false
winds,
Turner's flights,
meadows,
empty hands.

Green
gravel, river
humus,
edge of landscapes,
inner seas,
land where
birds fly
and pass by.

Marks,
yet
knowing
the names.

Rio, September 13, 2002 - 12:23 a.m.

36
SHADOWS

Shadows drift
over your amber
breast.

The light pours
on your most
loved skin.

There’s a circle
in which you stand
unmoving.

And I stay
in it
forever.

January 12, 2003 – 6:03 p.m.

37
SEA

And the sea came,
the waters moved
in solfeggio,
waves breathing in restless
billows, tacit,
shuddering blandly,
nothing left of its soft
curves, long spread waters,
so the sea came
and covered the sand.

February 2, 2003 – 12:10 a.m

38
AFTERMATH

Nothing will ever be like the aftermath.
After meeting you,
After waiting for you – afterwards.
Nothing will matter as before.
After seeing you I will have changed.
My hands will have a new touch
And my mouth a new taste.
Life will never be the same.
I'll have a new joy
And, after loving you,
I'll be new.

December 27, 2003 – 10:16 p.m.

39
IF I LOVE YOU

If I love you,
I don't lie.
Wash me wholly
the abundance of my rhythmic love.
Here I am near you,
marigold balming your skin,
sap of flowers,
mistletoe,
the outline of your hands
over my hips.
I may break in two,
unknowing,
life, the gloss of your speech.
Here I am,
because I'm yours.

Rio, March 5, 2004 - 12:02 a.m.

40
MY SOUL A WIDE OCEAN

My soul a wide ocean.
I sail there by night
no guiding light
no loading star,
which would point to my destiny,
and I have only the sea as my tune.

The waves crash upon the hull
of a boat forwarding forever
on her quest for the downing sun.

My soul calls for me.
There are other lands at the edge of those waters,
where other tears flow, and merriment.

My watch is the horizon thither
go the traveler, warrior
and merchant.

This is my plowing ground
my untamed sea
though embracing me tight as if I were a son.

If I lived to come here, seeing what I saw,
God must be in me.

August 6, 2002 - 1:54 p.m.
(translated by Denis Borges Barbosa)

41
BEFORE THE SILENCE

Before
there was a silence
I did not know.
A rustle,
slow moving eyes,
visions of hymns,
voices in a circle of fire.
There was a silence touched
by the waiting,
a temple in the stone,
a void of petals,
listening to a ruffling of shells,
wind running through the leaves.
We build a garden
for a last landscape
to keep us forever.

April 17, 2004 - 5:24 p.m.

42
SUBMERGED LANDSCAPE

In which landscape do I submerge
and consent to wait?
All remains after we have slowly
passed.
Nothing remains unconcluded.
You gesture is complete
even interrupted.
The permanence of your hand.
All things are eternal.
Even what is lost.

April 25, 2004 – 2:02 p.m.