Poem
Manuel de Freitas
BECHEROVKA
Norwegian, tall, dubiouslydark-haired and forever smiling.
She begged me not to be
sad, as truly I was.
And I think she paid for my last drink
before asking me “what I do”.
Writing, about death, isn’t
exactly a profession.
But that’s what I answered,
while on some napkin or other
I summed up, just for her, my “work”.
I’ll never know if she made out what I scrawled,
if she bought my books, if she heard
what in my dreadful French I tried
to tell her that night, hopelessly lost.
Nearly every poem is this: an inexcusable
way of saying we didn’t touch
the body that for once in our life was so close
and that didn’t even leave us a fleeting name.
© Translation: 2007, Richard Zenith
BECHEROVKA
BECHEROVKA
Norueguesa, alta, de um morenoduvidoso que sorria muito.
Pedia-me insistentemente para não estar
triste como deveras estava.
E pagou-me, creio, o último copo,
antes de me perguntar “o que fazia”.
Escrever, sobre a morte, não é
exactamente uma profissão.
Mas foi a resposta que lhe dei,
enquanto um guardanapo qualquer
abreviava, só para ela, a minha “obra”.
Nunca saberei se percebeu a letra,
se comprou os livros, se chegou
a ouvir o que em péssimo francês
lhe tentei dizer nessa noite, a mais perdida.
Os versos são quase sempre isto: um modo
inaceitável de dizer que não tocámos o corpo
que esteve, por uma vez, tão próximo
de nós – e que nem um nome breve nos deixou.
© 2005, Manuel de Freitas
From: A Flor dos Terramotos
Publisher: Averno, Lisboa
From: A Flor dos Terramotos
Publisher: Averno, Lisboa
Poems
Poems of Manuel de Freitas
Close
BECHEROVKA
Norwegian, tall, dubiouslydark-haired and forever smiling.
She begged me not to be
sad, as truly I was.
And I think she paid for my last drink
before asking me “what I do”.
Writing, about death, isn’t
exactly a profession.
But that’s what I answered,
while on some napkin or other
I summed up, just for her, my “work”.
I’ll never know if she made out what I scrawled,
if she bought my books, if she heard
what in my dreadful French I tried
to tell her that night, hopelessly lost.
Nearly every poem is this: an inexcusable
way of saying we didn’t touch
the body that for once in our life was so close
and that didn’t even leave us a fleeting name.
© 2007, Richard Zenith
From: A Flor dos Terramotos
From: A Flor dos Terramotos
BECHEROVKA
Norwegian, tall, dubiouslydark-haired and forever smiling.
She begged me not to be
sad, as truly I was.
And I think she paid for my last drink
before asking me “what I do”.
Writing, about death, isn’t
exactly a profession.
But that’s what I answered,
while on some napkin or other
I summed up, just for her, my “work”.
I’ll never know if she made out what I scrawled,
if she bought my books, if she heard
what in my dreadful French I tried
to tell her that night, hopelessly lost.
Nearly every poem is this: an inexcusable
way of saying we didn’t touch
the body that for once in our life was so close
and that didn’t even leave us a fleeting name.
© 2007, Richard Zenith
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