Life, simply
Not when you want it
Not when you desperately, crazily,
look for it
Least of all when you ache for it
In the loneliest mornings,
The most abandoned hour
Life, simply
Awaiting you casually
in the booth of that diner
The layers slowly stripping
The effort, the struggle,
the insane awareness of itself
Life, simply
unannounced
Not to be advertised,
Not a story to be told
(forgive the vanity of these words)
Rather, life simply lived
In sharing an avocado toast
[Gilbert, Arizona]
[San Tan Mountains, Arizona]
Don’t take me wrong: Arizona is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.
Arizona, to the effects of this blog, is a metaphor. It is a state of mind, an inner landscape rather than a geography. Arizona is not a “place”.
Aristotle’s definition of metaphor as “transfer of a foreign name” is suitable. It is speaking about something in terms of something else.
[Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich]
Morning fog,
the always feared feature
A wasted ideia,
a fleeting sun ray
a foreign cry,
stuck in the throat
The day, persistent and naive
invites back:
8, 9, 10 o’clock.
The watch tic tacs
to the minutes melting
on the pavement outside.
– The world –
in my gasping chest
on the spots of my hand
In the ancestral fatigue
Our riches are plentiful
Refinement
in that snug arm chair,
on the volumes sitting on the book shelf
The small opening in that couch
which shelters your arm
ever so snuggly:
this is opulence
The value
in that old cat,
lounged indolently
in the middle of the living room floor
Hold dear the familiar smells,
Your sweet hesitation.
May Portuguese
be an atonement
A living paradox,
a homecoming.
To recover the voice
never lost
May Portuguese be
a maternal caress
a nod of the head
a regret, even,
to my Brazilian heart
It will pour like the rain
in my home town:
inelegant and bothersome.
An unexpected storm
continuous and maddening
soaking the hair and
the sacredness of being.
The desperate metaphor
seeps through the solemn
edges of the umbrella.
Nossas riquezas sao muitas
O requinte esta
naquela poltrona
e na mesa dos livros
Naquela fresta do sofa
que cabe perfeitamente o teu braço.
O encanto se encontra
no acato
do olhar
No gato
espalhado indolente
no meio da sala
Nos cheiros familiares,
na tua doce hesitação
Our riches are many
Virá como a chuva
Da minha terra
Deselegante e incomoda,
Um dilúvio inesperado
Contínuo e ensandecido
Encharcando o cabelo
E o sagrado do ser.
A metáfora desesperada
Escorre pelas soturnas bordas
Do guarda-chuva
arizona-me 