when

 

then

 

after

 

again

 insomnia

full moon

 

 I  deserve rest, the solitude and silence to do my best

jacinta

 At seven, Jacinta Martos saw figures in light, the earth's sun in parhelion. She'd been taught what to think these were, but her own thoughts we'll never know. Too much around her was coaxed, and coded. At seven, a child understands implications, powerlessness, the cloak of evasion, the comfort of an operational concreteness. Eye gaze and attention. Avoid retribution.  Seek the solidity of the ordinary. 

 

Children of Jacinta's age are enveloped in complex emotions that they are beginning to understand. But do they have the language to express it? Do they wish to? Heart secrets are part of the human character. Stories will be modeled to prevent extraction.

 

A girl child in an open field. 

 

A girl child child in a closed locked room. 

Innocence isn't ignorance. Children Jacinta's age are beginning to suspect this.

 

 

 

pineapple dream

In the dream

the pineapple's crown

fills the largest pot I have.

Parts of it

are grey,

look swollen 

like orchid pseudobulbs.

With my hands,

I choose to separate

a small section from the rest.

Even compressed,

this piece has grown leaves 

into a full circle of bright green

 

It's not easy to remove.

The plant part resists,

holding on to home,

the only one it's known.

I dig my fingers

into the ground around it, 

prising,

feeling for the right place to lift.

I shift position, feel

small spaces opening

pull it gently free.

 

In the dream,

when it lifts

the larger plant shifts quickly 

to fill the hole. 

 

I upend the new division, crown down,

and see the roots

nested in bright fruit,

yellow and sweet.

 

Oh, I think,

this pineapple

got it upside down. 

fruiting young,

around roots not air.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carlos de Oliveira

 Sobre o lado esquerdo

De vez em quando a insónia vibra com a nitidez dos sinos, dos cristais. E então, das duas uma: partem-se ou não se partem as cordas tensas da sua harpa insuportável.
No segundo caso, o homem que não dorme pensa: “o melhor é voltar-me para o lado esquerdo e assim, deslocando todo o peso do sangue sobre a metade mais gasta do meu corpo, esmagar o coração”.

A Poesia de Carlos de Oliveira, apresentação crítica, selecção, notas e sugestões para análise literária de Manuel Gusmão, Seara Nova/Comunicação, p. 116, 127, 13

About the left side

Every now and then insomnia vibrates with the clarity of bells, of crystals. And then, one of two things happens: the tense strings of its unbearable harp break or they don't.
In the second case, the sleepless man thinks: "it's best to turn to my left side and thus, by shifting all the weight of the blood onto the most worn-out half of my body, crush my heart".

A Poesia de Carlos de Oliveira, critical presentation, selection, notes and suggestions for literary analysis by Manuel Gusmão, Seara Nova/Comunicação, p. 116, 127, 131

Thoughts on living things

 1

(before stars)

larval weevils existed

underneath,

in roots.

Night will come.

Then only female

beetles will climb up

out of the soil 

to devour the world.

2

(last offices)

Cornu Aspersum,

storm washed,

are found

full of water and root maggots.

The end comes,

spiraling in, emptied out,

muddy,

not beautiful,

but true.

You remember washing your dead,

do the same for these snails.

3

chickweed

seed,

seeks soil,

nitrogen rich,

alluvial or piss, 

doesn't care which.

 

 

open to

interruptions

doubt

out in the world

within 

a small plot of

earth

where

I grow things

 

 

Blue

one small

disappears 

from the sea

 

 

first things 

first

thirst for water

then coffee,

breakfast

now 

with new eyes

you

suprised

by

not one

but two

sloops

full sail

sweeping

south

out to sea

 

 

Japan - Essays, Poems, Zuihitsu of Interest

On Kenko (Montaigne, Dante)

4 Japanese Diaries of the Middle Ages 

Nyonim-michi "The Women's Trail"

Three Poems - Ishihara Yoshiro

Ogura Hyakunin Isshu 

Set Design 

It's early morning,

so dark, and quiet.

I've had one sleep and 

wait for the second.

here in the sky

the sea

fishing

for

 boats

 

 

warning bark

yowling cat

pass

but the sound of the wind

continues 

for centuries