fleeting

E eu, que queria tanto um tempo para mim
um espaço para existir, sem nenhuma identidade
que não a minha

Eu, que achava que precisava da solidão da porta fechada
da concentração da mesa vazia

Eu, que ansiava pela paz da janela de sempre,
da prateleira só minha,
da gaveta do passado

O que preciso é isto.
Este momento tão único, tão rápido, tão cadente
que é a nossa dança celeste

o teu cheiro inigualável
a tua cabeça aninhada
os teus braços pesados, seguros, confiantes que
eu te agarro.

O que eu preciso é estar, deixar, ser – todos
esses verbos da perenidade
já que a tua vida é um relâmpago na minha.

Softener

Sometimes, in the dark,
I see the shadow of the belly you once were

The lines of your little body reminding me those of my own
Or was it yours?

We were so one, then. It was easier, lonelier, hopeful, colder, then.

We still spend so long in the dark, just the two of us, like before.
But your little face can see me now,
we can hear and smell each other,
we can look and touch,
and know we are real

Still, your heart is as wise as ever
you can feel my presence,
you can sense every beat of me,
give and take my sanity all in one minute

Sometimes, in this darkness, the only real light is
You.

mundanities and attempts

My ceiling is white. Or off-white.
Eggshell, perhaps?

What is this speck of dust
In the corner of my
Laundry closet? How – *how* – do
I get it out?

And why did I not notice it before?

The balance of complexity
has now shifted within.

The excitement of mail. Oh, another
ad. Nevermind.

I look so much forward to
that pause, that book, by that
window facing the sunset

Reality,
more than ever,
lived through a sieve-
And I don’t fully determine
The tightness of its mesh.

(I have control issues)

Inside

There is a drum that beats, inside
There is a life-filled pause, inside
There is a familiar normalcy, inside
There is a foreign chaos, inside
There is a quiet that burns, inside

I have folded all
The insides my inside held
I have aired all
The receptacles I once weld

Suturing the leaves of a
Daily mess
Avoiding the unsurmountable
As if pieces of chess

Unwove the blinds
Were it not for my cloud
The conclusion of
Dreams, the dread of sound

There is a drum that beats, inside

an education

attention: the news cycle
moving domino pieces
inside my brain

bed, window, sill, door
conscience or effervescence

time is sketched in
familiar spaces,
drowned in new swamps
far from daily faces

an overwhelming emptiness,
a treasured silence,
a feeling of restlessness,
a secret alliance

this, is an eduation.

misleading

It has been a long time
Since the sea came to me,
Since I felt the nervous
breeze of a calm day.

There are unique moments
For outside attainment;
Those are not what is real.

Reality is the hands
That touch,
The blue sky,
The smell of fresh bread.
The ant-building of choices. Moments.

There is a value you keep
Inside the trapdoor

of fear.

‘morrow

Amanhã, disse-me o vento
Pintor de águas
Arrumador de mágoas
Coleccionador de tempo

Amanhã, disse-me o sol
Esperando a maré
Escondendo, sem pé
Deixando-me seu farol

Amanhã, perguntou-me o céu
Contido no (seu) ar
Preparado para abraçar
E a resposta, eu?

Eu. Que nem se quer sabia
Que o vento, o sol e o céu
Se conheciam

Eu. Que nunca tinha visto
Uma dança celeste
Nas pedras de xisto

Eu. Um fado inacabado,
Uma fita de embrulho
Em papel molhado.

Amanhã,
Talvez, eu.

 

Observation, of sorts

The illusion of time, planted
In my days
Dangling -almost- within
reach of my hands

A race between who I am
And what I envision for myself
(or what others envision?
It’s confusing sometimes)

The space between the two
Is, apparently, just time.
Who invented this continuum?
I’d like to speak to them

Because time and space are
So often
Not friends, or even
Acquaintances.

Space is there
if you let it.

Time is as still as
Each second,
As moving as the wind,
As life-giving as the sun
As life-crushing as the
Asteroid that may -or may not-
Come.

Time flies from itself, leaving
us with a chest of drawers to
carry somewhere

Space is there
if you make it.

Bread crumbs

I document the breath of days
The stillness of clouds
The earnest of the sun
Life downloading in cycles
That are so familar, that are

So unique.

I fold to the countless dreams
That invade my night
In the darkest places
I am awarded with sights,
Sounds and memories

That entrench the past.

I stop for one beat, two beats?
I lost count
I remember
The air that
Polluted my lungs,

The pollution that my feet avoided.

I distance myself from an
Engulfment lived
In the past
I am far now, so far
That bits of me

Are left in the woods.

Left for me, as for a bird
To find my way back
To something that, yet

Never was.

bereavement

watered plants are the ones that grow
clothes are made from fabric you sew

400 miles separate my bereaved self
the stories and articles stored in the shelf

a continuum of cold grounds
resurrected in knowledge
without bounds.