Amo -

lançando-se contra moinhos de vento gritava dom Quixote.

Amo –
envenenado de céus gritava Otelo.
Amo –
recostado em Ossian soluçava Werther.
Amo –
tremendo nas carruagens de Jasvin repetia Vronski.
Amo –
separando-se de Grusenka sonhava Dimitri Karamazov.
Amo –
brandindo a espada recitava Cyrano.
Amo –
regressando do comício sussurrava Jacques Thibault.
Amo –
gritaria também o herói de um romance contemporâneo,
mas o autor não lho permite.

Não está na moda.
O amor já não é contemporâneo.

Tradução: José Luís Peixoto e Juan Vicente Piqueras

poema encontrado aqui

Pendant cinq années entières,
elle a tenu la crosse du fusil :
main du soldat.

Elle a été obligée
de frapper le chien aimé :
main du chasseur.

Toute la vie,
elle a donné des coups :
mains du boxeur.

Toute la vie,
elle a porté le verre aux lèvres :
main de l'ivrogne.

Mais voici pourtant une main heureuse,
celle qui depuis vingt ans te caresse.
Mais voici pourtant une main heureuse !

Todas voltam de algum lugar
Zelja de Regensburgo.
Sanja de Trieste.
Asja de Maiorca.
Daniela de Tuniz.
Nieves de Roma.
Mirka de Budapeste.
Sandra Lucic de Tucepi.
Nusa Kajetan do mercado.
Zaga do hospital.
Lucy das aulas.

Todas voltam de algum lugar.
Apenas tu não voltas.

poema enviado por Amélia Pais (por mail)

The Criticism of Poetry

Why is it that the critics of poetry
do not write poetry
when they know so much about it?

If they did really know,
most likely they’d write poems
rather than write about them.

Critics of poetry are like old men
who know everything about love
except they do not know how to make love.

The Blues

It would be interesting to know
what will happen to our souls after our deaths?

It would be interesting to know
Will our souls get wet in the rain after our deaths?

It would be interesting to know
if our souls will still rush toward each other
after our deaths?

It would be interesting to know
what our souls will feel when spring comes
after our deaths?

It would be interesting to know
How our souls will talk to each other without our eyes?

Tradução: Charles Simic

In Sarajevo
In the spring of 1992,
Everything is possible:

You go to stand in a bread line
And end up in an emergency room
With your leg amputated.

Afterwards, you still maintain
That you were very lucky

Em Sarajevo
Na primavera de 1992
Tudo é possível:

Uma pessoa põe-se na bicha do pão
e vai parar ao serviço de urgência
com uma perna amputada.

E no fim ainda diz
que teve muita sorte.

Theory of maintaining distance
 
The theory of maintaining distance
was discovered by writers of post-scripts,
those who don't want to risk anything.

I myself belong among those
who believe
that on Monday you have to talk about Monday,
because by Tuesday it might be too late.
 
It's hard, of course,
to write poems in the cellar,
when mortars are exploding above your head.
 
It's only harder not to write poems.
 
The war reached us so very unprepared
 
Today is the tenth day of war
and we still can't really hate.
 
To Boro Spasojevic,
the architect, friend, human being
 
Before the war broke out
I promised you
that I would write a poem about Sarajevo.
On the day
when I saw
how you mourned the destroyed city
before the TV cameras,
you wrote my poem for me.
 
All that remains for me to do
is to put my name after the lines.

Former Yugoslavs
(for Mustafa Cengicnek)
 
Some of us
former Yugoslavs
are marked for genocide
by a part of the late
Yugoslav People's Army.

The Jewish Cemetary
 
From the direction of Marindvor
the deadliest fire
comes out of the Jewish Cemetary.
Though he set up his machine-gun behind his grave,
Milosevic's mercenary had no way of knowing
who Isak Samokovlija was,
nor who were flattened by his out-going bullets.
He, simply, for every snuffed-out life,
be it a first-aid Doctor
or by chance a street car driver,
stuffs 100 German Marks into his pocket.

Good-luck, Sarajevo Style
 
In the Sarajevo
Spring of 1992 everything is possible:
you get into a line
to buy bread
and end up in an emergency ward
among torn-off legs.
 
And still you can say
that you were lucky.

Work Detail
 
We cleaned up the trash
from both streets.
 
But how can be clean it up
from the surrounding hills?

Let me just live through this
 
That I have lived through all this,
besides my lines of verse,
I can thank ten to fifteen ordinary people.
Saints of Sarajevo,
whom before the war I barely knew.
The State also showed some understanding
about my situation,
but whenever I knocked at its door
it was never home:
gone to Genf,
gone to New York.

After I was wounded
 
That night I dreamed
that Slobodan Markovic came up to me,
to ask forgivenss for my wounds.
 
So far that's been the only
act of forgiveness from a Serb.
 
And that came in a dream,
moreover from a dead poet.

To my former Yugoslav friends
 
What happened to us in just one night,
my friends?
 
I don't know what you're doing,
what you're writing,
with whom youÕre drinking,
in which books you've buried yourselves.
 
I don't even know
if we are still friends.

DEL LUNES SE DEBE HABLAR EL LUNES

La teoria de la distancia fue inventada por los eternos rezagados
los que nunca arriesgan nada.

Yo soy de aquellos que consideran
que el lunes se debe hablar el lunes; el martes podría ser ya
demasiado tarde.

Naturalmente, es difícil escribir poesía en el sótano
mientras arriba vuelan las granadas.

Hay algo más difícil aún:
no escribirla.

A mi familia le duele la garganta

Todos tosemos cuando Tamara tose.
Cuando Tamara tiene 38 grados, a todos nos sube la fiebre.
Ante las puertas está el día, pero también algo asustado.
¿Y dónde están sus golondrinas?

¿Hacia dónde va la primavera, a qué país afortunado?
Si esto sigue así, hasta el destino del verano será incierto.
Cuando la cabeza de Tamara se abandona, nosotros apenas
podemos sostener las nuestras.
Todos estamos enfermos. También este poema que le escribo.

Desde há tempos


Desde há tempos
que não me interessa em absoluto a poesia.

Interessa-me a vida.

Os piores lugares em poesia são, na realidade, a poesia.

Assim que a vida irrompe na poesia,
os versos, quase sem a intervenção do autor,
convertem-se em poesia.

lido aqui