(Teresina, Piauí, 1930;
    plane crash [Andes], 1962)

from Man and his Hour (1955)

Life all Language

Life all language,
a sentence ever-perfect, verse, perhaps,
usually unadjectived,
unornamented column, usually broken.
Life all language,
a word always and always a verb, and a noun
here, there, assuring eternal
perfection for the period, a verse, perhaps
interjective, perhaps, verse, a verse.
A life all language,
fetus in compassionate language suck
blood the child will spill — o active metaphor!
milk gush from adolescent fountain,
seed of men grown, word, a word.
Life all language
well know old men
who against black windows
repeat glitter of images
that star their clouded course.
Life all language —
                                   as we all know,
to conjugate these verbs, to name
these names is
                           to love, make, destroy
man, woman and beast, devil, angel and
god, perhaps, and nothingness.
Life all language,
life ever-perfect,
imperfect only in dead words
a young man, on winter’s terraces,
writes or speaks
against the rain
to try to make life eternal,
as if missing
another immortal syntax
for life which is perfect
                                          eternal
                                                        tongue.


•


I feel the month we live in murder me,
This month, all birds are born without a voice
And time in truth does wield its dominion
Over naked men due south of curving moons.
I feel the month we live in murder me,
I run stripped bare behind a shackled christ,
A fine gentleman who reviles and draws
Me toward immodesty of left-hand light
In agony’s own alley where he espies
The spatial death illuminating me.
I feel the month we live in murder me,
And I, secular thief, steal my females
From apostolic mariners who pull
Me along the current where blaspheming
Seagulls taste the flesh of miracle fish.
I feel the month we live in murder me,
There is grieving in this dawn’s rosace,
There are ironic bells at every hour
(In Libra, scorpions measure out my lot)
And cloth enough to imprint the hardened face
By force of sweat, by force of blood and sores.
I feel the month we live in murder me,
The very last stars come twisted into being
And time in truth does wield its dominion
Over the dead who bury their own dead.
That time in truth does wield its dominion,
Amen, amen, I say unto thee, dominion,
And I laugh at those things shot our way by words,
Those bolts of false eternity that return
To murder all of us in a murderous month.



from Fragments of a work in progress (1958-1962)

. . .

In this moment shadows
seethe in the woods
seek one another in the woods
like snakes in the woods
just as bats they suck and
writhe as one — in the woods
— as worms.
Some and others find one
another as one finds vacuum,
in the woods
they come across
nothing’s reverse
soon to be lost
in the woods: woods and void —
In this moment cars
resound along concrete
between woods and river —
in this moment the sea
quivers upon the bed
through shore and shore —
In this moment shadow
covers world and void
in this moment time
sucks void, time
seeks time, encounters
time, penetrates time and is lost
shadow furled into shadow,
knot of vipers, shadow,
one sole chaos, search and encounter
and loss and all: shadows.

. . .

Tunnel, stone, tun.
The hand without a glove,
the hand with a sore.
World that rises and falls,
world that suffers and grows.
World that begins, thrives and ends,
world of bile and honey,
tunnel, stone, tun.

And the abundant folds
of the sleep cloak
fall about
the time bed

and the strong tolls
of the lament bell
thunder in turns
of wind and mourning —

At the tunnel’s end, the tunnel’s beginning.
In the ascent of stone, the descent of stone.
The tun has no bottom, the hand does not arrive at grapes —

Strife, coffin and fortune,
life, passion and oblivion.

[glove/luva, grapes/uvas; sore/chaga, arrive/chega; falls/desce, grows/cresce]

. . .

Labor:
Lovely head
                        (crowns
                                        for all)
bent over
labor
lovely head
                      (six billion crowns!)
turned toward
the future.
Sail rustles
by far cape
drizzle hides fire
evident on earth
                               far
promontory pointing to
a future for all.

Prows over golden seams
entombing the past
eminent behind the cordillera, fire
consumes that which does not remain:
somewhere in a garden in some night
exist peacocks
in solitary promenade
haughty they pause
before the rest:
one sole mirror, the rest
of the world
reflects a peacock and its absurdity.

. . .

Swordfish on the crest of a wave,
swordfish, froth,
real swordfish,
swordfish hurled ashore, sea in flight,
swordfish, tumult,
swordfish, sand dune,
rays of sun surround
the last gasps of the fish,
rays of sun dessicate
the corpse of the fish,
rays of sun shine bright
against the bones of the fish and its sword —

standard of Christ, the wave
of standards dissipates,
royal standard
standard hurled ashore, guard in flight,
standard, tumult,
standard, sand dune,
scimitars surround
the last gasps of the king,
scimitars dissect
the corpse of the king,
scimitars shine bright
against the bones of the king and his sword —

shoal, shoal and horde,
we await the fish,
horde, horde and shoal, mute horde,
we await the king —

[swordfish/espadarte, standard/estandarte; froth/espuma, dissipates/se esfuma]

. . .

The honey of time spills:
indeed, silence —
hornet gone quiet in its nest:
hard, it’s hard —
dawns and the world buzzes, buzzes and mocks
when not enfuriated by your shout
request for silence
        or suspension
of the grief of being alive.
Alive and hollow,
alive and unalive, actor,
lies whisper to the breeze, Midas.
Court without luxury: cover with nothingness
the void populated
with springs, tendrils, loathings —
such is death —

[nest (hive): cortiço/court without luxury: corte sem viço; buzz: zumbar / mock: zombar]

. . .

the axis: the span: the storm: the all —
aria of lament, advent of squall —
the oarless ocean shades horizons,
Boreas abhors this canto and leaves —

for this, the midst. Ocean high and two-faced,
mast sags under the weight of its stars,
all abides and passes, Vasco and canvas,
the stunned hour, the bridge, the cattle —

state, sleepless time, seaquake,
the fish in its grave, fraudulent sky,
tread of stars, fulcrum of torments,
from below are born a sheaf, a bow, a pasture —

inviolable, procelarian bird,
hard by its apex, sail and plumb,
beyondsea, short-of-earth, sky sub and supra,
winged skeleton at large, froth and wake,

courser postponed and corollary
to sea and sorrow and air and smoke and burst,

squalid stylet, arrow and course —

squalid stylet, arrow and course.

. . .

Prismatic forest, river, jewels,
a fountain of herons bloomed
the fisherman stood
and set lip to jug
and the palm tree rained sunlight
and the water’s surface glittered and changed color
Brute bramble a challenge to the hunter,
palm closed around cold rifle barrel,
belt of buds, cold ankle,
kneeling hunter,
the wall of leaves glittered, did not change color.
Mute otters, hunt-and-fish, cold otters.
They are to the south, the stars. They are their remnants, the night parade —
exchange of keys, the cross-to-the-south, the astrolabes,
heart is refuted, superfluous heart,
vacuum, flux-and-reflux, arcanum, archangel,
air charged and gasping, the flower, all else.

. . .



•—•—•—•—•

• First posted by Berkeley Neo-Baroque Gang of One, 4.20.2006


• Under continual revision, augmentation and correction


• Translation based on text of O Homem e sua Hora e outras poemas (SP, 2002), edited by Maria Eugenia Boaventura, who established chronological order


• Reproduction rights granted upon request


• Differing translations can be found here


• Much more to come