Sunday, December 31, 2023

  flâneuse

Woolf called it “street haunting” 

Sophie Calle, whose celebrated career began the day that, out of boredom, she began secretly following people in the street whom she had chosen arbitrarily

Suite Vénitienne 

Flânerie, the great war reporter Martha Gellhorn told Victoria Glendinning, “is as necessary as solitude: that is how the compost keeps growing in the mind”.

This is a kind of micro-reporting, telling the world not what happened at a meeting between generals, but how much a loaf of bread mattered to an architect and his children.In her dedication to exposing misery, Gellhorn turned flânerie into testimony.



https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/jul/29/female-flaneur-women-reclaim-streets


many words undone

but one 

seems to always remain,

or two -

you are grateful for that.


 year

near

gone

 

Friday, December 29, 2023

 

Aqui jaz um grande poeta.
Nada deixou escrito.
Este silêncio, acredito,
são suas obras completas.»
(Paulo Leminski, La Vie en Close)

"Here lies a great poet.
Nothing left unwritten.
This silence, I believe,
are His finished works "
(Paulo Leminski, Life Close)

Tuesday, December 26, 2023

It's 

not

you

but love

this

too

Sometimes 

I am overwhelmed

by my

aloneness

 

a solitude that resembles

the breathless

exuberance

of  a running child.

 

Sometimes

I let it go

this 

precious

brilliant

solitude -

remains 

of which

surround me

like spent flowers



Monday, December 25, 2023

nothing

as far as

I can see

 1

a deserted street

lamplight

in the

cold dark 

____________

2

lap

cat

attached

adapting

to

you

_______________

酔ひふしのところはここか蓮の花

yoi (drunkenness) he (place) fushi (notable place)  

no (possessive)tokoro (yadori-inn) wa koko (individual) ka (?) 

basu no hana  (lotus flower)

Is this the inn of drunkenness ? lotus flower

Is this the lotus flower where the drunkard is?

Is this the place to get drunk or is it the lotus flower?

https://ameblo-jp.translate.goog/mtada99/entry-12474308573.html?_x_tr_sl=ja&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc

_________________

gi di na weyn' di min
 
we are all related to each other 
 
________________
 
o nado da pata emite um brilho brilhante
 
O pato enjaulado não faz nada.
Libertem-na!
Depois, a andar, a nadar ou a voar
ela torna-se
um instrumento
luminoso
de luz
 
the paw swimming emits a brilliant glow
 
The caged duck does nothing.
Release her!
Then walking, swimming or flying
she becomes
a luminous
instrument
of light

____________________________

redundâncias de discurso

Recitar narrativas
Ter pronto um pequeno livro de contos memorizados
para usar como armadura
para proteger
o seu coração 

Recite narratives
Have ready a small book of memorised tales
to use as armor
to protect
your heart 

______________________________

"We can change the pest by not making it the last chapter"

______________________________
 
 

 

 

 simply looking


shuttered life open


optioned also


sleep


with or without


dreams

Saturday, December 23, 2023

 

My mother told

how the smell of an orange

at Christmas 

delighted her

so rare there in the snow

when America was poorer

 

but really

there were many oranges 

somewhere else

a not uncommon fruit

or fragrance

 

(matter out of place)


her daughter

 

accustomed now 

to avocados

passion fruit

cannot name their season

 

Both

plentitudes

 

entering

memory 

become

canticles

to presumption


I also sing an ode to

 

the unused,

an obsolete

Transistor radio 

held to my ear

once indispensable

I  recall

isn't 

necessary at all 

 

or  a beloved  object 

 repurposed

that


At ten 

you jumped with

at seventy

used

to tie the terrace bench to the wall

against the winds

you know are coming

 



Friday, December 22, 2023

no more

no more

no less

than this


how small one life

not difficult to describe

in fact, a chorus of sounds

repetitive, not entirely original

not wholly elegaic

 

unexpectedly punctuated

by  a joy

 

not entirely revealed.

 


 

 



 

 

Thursday, December 21, 2023

 first full night's sleep in ages


that feeling

of surrender

overwhelmed

beyond resistance


Waking naturally at six

with a thirst

for water and morning

Wednesday, December 20, 2023

cedar 
birch
acacia
it's all ground down into dust

I pine away
for spruce
yellow and spilling sap
 
on the hill
above my terrace 
eucalyptus are
leading closed lives
as immigrants do
 
while all around them
garden plots nudge
girdled cork
 
the wind distorts 
the lowing pines

as sycamore lining streets
are sheared like sheep
 
willows, willows
where are you?
 
beyond
the norfolk spines
and palms full of weevils
are camelia crowded dells,
vine-strangled, ghosts
 
I search along
a stream
for willows
finding few
 
but knew tamarisk
would be here
and poplar
 
wiping away nostalgia
 
I return to Porto
to be sweet gummed
and ginkoed
 
 


 


 

Tuesday, December 19, 2023

 Ariadne 

Minos' daughter

led Theseus to

slaughter

the Minotaur

her half-brother



John Virtue

Eddie Tay


they influence me

gidinawendimin

gidinawendimin

miigwech

miigwech

minobimaadiziwin

 

I pray that even I 

a foreigner

who pushed herself

to live across seas

far, far away

isolate but never alone

may send breath

back into you

words, words

my home



We are all related, we are all related, thank you, thank you, the good life

 

 

An epistemic bubble is a social epistemic structure in which other relevant voices have been left out, perhaps accidentally. An echo chamber is a social epistemic structure from which other relevant voices have been actively excluded and discredited.

 

an echo of

seas

valleys

 

breaking glass

the past

 

cardinal

cormorant

galinha

 

have begun

each one

their

 

revolutionary

flight of

the ordinary

 

encircling

 

a person

a planet

a star

 






 


 


Tuesday, December 12, 2023

gaivotas
gallinas
pavões

pombos
papagaios
patos

pessoas
no parque
pássaros
passeando



___________

flores caídas à volta da camélia

 

 

wet from rain

old blooms ring

the camelia

a circle

of brilliant pink

beautiful and dying

in the fading winter light


Saturday, December 9, 2023

 Gimikwenden ina?

 Do you remember

that even smashed it's reassembled.

Someone bring the glue.

You, too, glue yourself together.


__________________________

 

“The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.”
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 
 
 
___________________________
 
 
I showed you the word.
You said 
It's just a word. 
Words don't mean anything.
 
Have you no respect for the letters, one following another, that have to hold so much?
 
Gimikwended ina?
 
I took the tablets I made to commemorate
 
minobimaadizin
 
and struck them down. 

What right have I to that word?
 
It rarely snows here,
so my tears will have to fall like rain.
My tears here are equally cold, but without their white-starred complexity.
I simply weep here, a salty sea
for every one and thing suffering everywhere.
 
 
 ________________________________________
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
I don't want to be your relative, family of man, 
said the sheep.
You are a family full of murderous intentions, arrogant and ungrateful.
 
Leave us be, 
said the clouds.
We aren't interested in your revelatory self-reflections.
 
Calma, calma,
said the far-off stars.
They are each briefly bright before they dim to nothingness.
 
 
 


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Tuesday, December 5, 2023

grutas, gritos
unem-nos
ruínas, risos
elevam-nos
sorrisos sórdidos
fazem-nos 

chorar 

mas
sob os soluços
somos sempre

um coro de cores

_______________

caves, screams
unite us
ruins, laughter
lift us up
sordid smiles
make us 

weep


but
under sobs
we are always

a chorus of colors
 

 Long ago,

I made memories

to help me through

that  never really 

made me safe.

Those I've lost,

tossed them

on a fire, with 

ancestor

lies,

mean friends

and cruel men.

I'm sure I'm not through.

More fires to come. A winter's worth of flames! 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


I notice

as I age

that

the spaces within

begin to fill,

not always 

wisely.

I find

cruelty,

pettiness,

envy. 

The uncertain nature of life

begins

to nudge death,

complaining.

Yet my own

happiness,

small bird,

fledged,

takes flight,

never surrenders.

 

 


Friday, November 24, 2023

looking at dawn

wind in the eucalyptus

blue hills, colder vale

 

se ud ved daggry

vinden i eukalyptustræerne

blå bakker, koldere dal

 

ao amanhecer

vento nos eucaliptos

colinas azuis, vale mais frio







 

 

 


Boys beating up math teachers 

an old Danish professor

a young woman prone to gaming and music

 

 

Sickness makes me stay at home.

So I fix the things I thought I couldn't

a broken blind

a leak

as I seek to still.

Then, after quiet,

I fill up again

with listening.

 

Pain in right ear

clearly bruxism again

as I grind my way out of worry

for a nephew hospitalized

or the madness of friends

I remind myself

these cannot endure

the returns of

the web, the orbed egg sac

or

the wavering vee

of swans
Zoropsis spinimana
 
 
I hope to find another 
 
As I watch little orb mother
near the sill plants
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday, November 12, 2023

Hairy Rose Beetle

 Tropinota squalida











hairy rose beetle


 


Crudely painted plaster saints

on folding tables wait -

so many of them!

An old woman prays aloud,

a plea to Saint Rita,

as I trace

mould on the door,

creeping down to the floor

from the water-stained nave.


Friday, November 10, 2023

thoughts, november

What this life listens to - how much terrible noise we humans make.

 




 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1

w i n d   p o e m  - V i l a  d ' E s t e

 

early winter storm

nothing rigid will survive

so I strive for bent

flex, arc, crook, curve, bow and now

spring back after, unbroken


2

everywhere

in the house

I am outside


3

N o v e   a n d a r e s


9 nono             não existe

8 oitavo           céu lindo

7 sétimo          cães e pessoas barulhentas

6 sexto            uma aparição
 
5 quinto          silêncio  

4 quarto          ou cozinhas
 
3 terceiro        música do outro tempo

2 segundo       afirmação de boa vontade 
 
1 primeiro      dez mil passos
 
res de chão    grutas e sepulturas
 
 
 



 
  

lua e arvore

 Dezasseis luas já passaram e ainda não consegui sair de sarashina.

438 Basho trans. Joãquim M. Palma


At Obusate I will fall

with no one there at all

even the moon

can't see 

me a tree 

in an agony forest

migrating north



Wednesday, November 8, 2023

 "Didn't leave much, did she? Not much for a life, is it?" - Vera S6 Ep3 Pt2

 

The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story. - Chimamanda Adichie

 

Laotzu might even have said: The wise man is without bones, like water. - Byunh-chul Han, Absence

 

 

Saturday, November 4, 2023

prayer

 on this night of fierce howls

help me get through

what's being swept into me

the idiot that I am

has locked herself in a room

seeking refuge

but in reality starving for a silence

away from this wind

that never stops howling my name


Friday, November 3, 2023

wall, walk

Campylopus introflexus Heath star-moss

Polypodium cambricum, the southern polypody, limestone polypody, or Welsh polypody, is a species of fern in the family Polypodiaceae, native to southern and western Europe where it grows on shady rocks, near the coasts of the Mediterranean Basin and in the mountains of Atlantic Europe

                                                                           uncertain
Tamarillo

 

Tuesday, October 31, 2023

Wish my stone sills

were bone dry


On the floor

a damp cocoon -

wet beginnings,

winter.

 

 


 self like unsealed stone

leaking through and into

my interior

a bit damp

 

_______________________

 

live daily

taxed or lax

one before two

________

 

There isn't any other space

but this one

__________________________

 

 



 


Wednesday, October 25, 2023

One brown cocoon

deflates, lifeless

 ____________________

 

I am not afraid of death

but of that circle in hell, poverty

its endless waterwheel -

a relentlessly inefficient

extraction of the soul 


________________________




Sunday, October 22, 2023

 

 

n a u f r á g i o s  Cabeza de Vaca            1542 

i n t e r l i n e a r  Haniel Long     1936  1944 1972

Para proteger a ociosidade que amo
Cercar a inação com muros contra o mar


Abafo o som das ondas
com auscultadores silenciosos e reclinado,
tranquilo,

observo os céus
viajando pelas constelações
_________________________

 
To protect the idleness I love
I surround inaction with sea walls

I muffle the sound of the waves
with silent headphones and reclining,
tranquil,

I watch the skies
traveling through the constellations


 

breve sol

Minha vida é um feixe de luz
que tenta pesar
uma sombra
antes de desaparecer

 ______________________

 

My life is a beam of light
that tries to weigh down
a shadow
before disappearing

Mais a rima

montões, pilhas

recuperar o que é descartado

to be with experience

to see as normative

uncomfortable feelings

paying attention to

uses, applications

 



O meu casaco/ My coat


Encontrei
um casaco
feito de
peles e penas
que pensei ter perdido.

Agora estou
feliz por o ter encontrado.

Mostro-vos
fotos a preto e branco dos
os mortos e eu digo

todas elas
cabem perfeitamente
nos bolsos
deste casaco.

O casaco colorido
ali
pertence a outra pessoa.

Este é meu,
realmente meu,
um silencioso
espanto,
castanho
e reconfortante
como
vacas leiteiras e pardais.
 
 
_____________________



I found
a coat
made of
fur and feathers
I thought I'd lost.

Now I'm
happy to have found it.

I show you
black and white photos of
the dead and I say

all of these
will fit perfectly
in the pockets
of this coat.

The colored coat
over there
belongs to someone else.

This is mine,
really mine,
a quiet
astonishment,
brown
and comforting
like
milk cows and sparrows.
 
 

sonhando com o barco feito de dentes