Poem
Luís Miguel Nava
Squall
His I had burst to where his very name was a wound through which his flesh oozed pus. The lost sunny mornings of his childhood, now but a few tatters clinging to the roots, still produced an occasional flash, a hopeless appeal to reality, searing him from his eyes to his ears.It now became clear that whoever conceived his bones wanted them to flower. From them would sprout the skin, the sky, the pageant of glory. But all this was no more than a bunch of desperate images bound together by memories at odds with the present and even with the past where they seemed to dwell, images that leaked at their edges, allowing forgetfulness to act on them like a species of sulfuric acid.
Each time it rushed in on him, the torrent of memories rose to such a height of consciousness that his very bones ceased being fixed and stable points he could hold on to. Dismantled, they ended up floating on the surface of the stormy waters, mixed up among his innards, with only his heart still apparently in place, as if inflating and keeping his other parts afloat among the grease and tumult of remembrances.
© Translation: 2008, Richard Zenith
Borrasca
Borrasca
Estalara-lhe de tal forma o eu que o próprio nome era uma ferida, através da qual a carne supurava. Das perdidas manhãs de sol da sua infância, de que lhe restavam agora escassos farrapos presos às raízes, libertava-se por vezes um clarão, desesperado apelo em direcção à realidade, rasgando-o dos olhos aos ouvidos.Quem quer que lhe tivesse concebido os ossos, era então visível o objectivo de os fazer florir. Deles brotaria a pele, o céu, a encenação da glória. Tudo isso mais não eram, entretanto, do que imagens em apuros, imagens atacadas por memórias em conflito com o presente, ou mesmo com o passado onde pareciam radicar, e que, esbeiçando-se nos bordos, davam lugar a que o esquecimento sobre elas actuasse como uma espécie de ácido sulfúrico.
De cada vez que o invadia, a enxurrada da memória ascendia-lhe assim a um tal nível da consciência que os seus próprios ossos, deixando de ser pontos fixos e estáveis aos quais ele se pudesse segurar, vinham, desmantelados, boiar à superfície das águas borrascosas, de mistura
com entranhas donde só a alma parecia não se ter desalojado ainda, como que as inflando e
conservando à tona entre a gordura e o tumulto das lembranças.
© 1994, Fundação Luís Miguel Nava
From: Vulcão
Publisher: Quetzal, Lisbon
From: Vulcão
Publisher: Quetzal, Lisbon
Poems
Poems of Luís Miguel Nava
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Squall
His I had burst to where his very name was a wound through which his flesh oozed pus. The lost sunny mornings of his childhood, now but a few tatters clinging to the roots, still produced an occasional flash, a hopeless appeal to reality, searing him from his eyes to his ears.It now became clear that whoever conceived his bones wanted them to flower. From them would sprout the skin, the sky, the pageant of glory. But all this was no more than a bunch of desperate images bound together by memories at odds with the present and even with the past where they seemed to dwell, images that leaked at their edges, allowing forgetfulness to act on them like a species of sulfuric acid.
Each time it rushed in on him, the torrent of memories rose to such a height of consciousness that his very bones ceased being fixed and stable points he could hold on to. Dismantled, they ended up floating on the surface of the stormy waters, mixed up among his innards, with only his heart still apparently in place, as if inflating and keeping his other parts afloat among the grease and tumult of remembrances.
© 2008, Richard Zenith
From: Vulcão
From: Vulcão
Squall
His I had burst to where his very name was a wound through which his flesh oozed pus. The lost sunny mornings of his childhood, now but a few tatters clinging to the roots, still produced an occasional flash, a hopeless appeal to reality, searing him from his eyes to his ears.It now became clear that whoever conceived his bones wanted them to flower. From them would sprout the skin, the sky, the pageant of glory. But all this was no more than a bunch of desperate images bound together by memories at odds with the present and even with the past where they seemed to dwell, images that leaked at their edges, allowing forgetfulness to act on them like a species of sulfuric acid.
Each time it rushed in on him, the torrent of memories rose to such a height of consciousness that his very bones ceased being fixed and stable points he could hold on to. Dismantled, they ended up floating on the surface of the stormy waters, mixed up among his innards, with only his heart still apparently in place, as if inflating and keeping his other parts afloat among the grease and tumult of remembrances.
© 2008, Richard Zenith
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