The sound of water falls asleep…
and within me, there is a sweet silence…
I dreamed you were a dream…

Almada

The carp is hundreds of years old,
so is my story.
We speak the same dialect of time.

I know about the solitude of the night,
what does she knows about the river’s current

To read you, to love you, to make you my art,
In engravings of representation and in poems.
And to pretend that all your kisses and embraces are figs—
Verses stretched out in rows like entwined fig trees, and the kisses within the poems.
Ah, they are summer afternoons.

And when we lifted our arms, night had already fallen
– our heavy heads spoke with the blazing stars.

She was a rare bird.
In her hips, she carried music and strange fevers.
She was special, drinking us in with her water-like eyes.
One day, she stripped the polish from her nails,
cut locks of her hair,
opened a book of poetry and said a prayer
(I know that, in that moment, her roots were still bound to the world)
and then, feeling kissed, she fired a shot of pollen at her temple.

If I could,
I would sleep with Juliet
with Romeo watching


Almada

it is still too early to laugh
and to cast upon the ground the wing of the absurd forest.
it is still too early to be anything at all.
very ancient dogs cough in the distance
and the stairs creaks funereally,
i enter the library
the books withdraw their roots from the shadows
and prepare their expectant voices
for whatever may come

You are the sun in the sea wind
the bonze soul of spring
you are the law that moves my blood

My Philosophy (If I Have One)
Seek to reveal all the mysteries
that made your existence possible.

You defy all the foundations of reason,
you escape every universal law
that governs the motion of celestial bodies,
the power of alchemy, and the possibility of love.

There is nothing more beautiful in the world than your essence,
the eternal dawn that you are, where I always awaken.

20/Almada

I fill the darkness with the roar of being,
but from one being to another, it's all so irrelevant.
I am Kafka, and I die as Kafka.

21/Almada

When Mahler played the funeral rite,
Oh, the light, like a liturgical hand pulling me from the depths of darkness,
That light, resting upon me, so intense it blinded all my senses.
I rise, yes, an external force lifts me,
And I have never seen so clearly the path that leads me to life.
I have never felt such happiness, knowing that a condemned soul always sleeps alone.

Rose. The most perfect rose
Stained the snow
Sinking into the grave
I never knew its name
And she never knew
Of my existence
God made her perfect
But that rose. So perfect. Stained the snow where we all walk.

Birds loosen themselves from the writing of my fingers,
They cross my cold, alcohol-shadow
With bodiless flights,
Seizing my skin, suddenly set aflame.

I live with a cat because I don’t like cats.
This is the only way for me to live invisible.
The only way to have someone look me in the eye
and tell me, to my face, everything I don’t want to hear.

My mouth is the shell of a fish —
a slow flower of a bird.
Gray flower.
Ashen flower, like a breast sprung from the word of a fish.

Vine crystallized in the spasm of a vague and splendid wing,
a blow of mouth in the reflowering of the flower
in the fields strained white —
a blow born of nothing,
into the drowsiness of the shell.

Words watering in the mouth
toward the ether of the bird —
the quiver of the flower in the fish.

The sky lives intensely blue, but life is lukewarm. You can barely feel life in the air we breathe. The hours have a tenderness that is neither good nor bad and new words replace old ones but say the same. The same things are always said throughout life. Imagine that a scream is no different from an echo. The line always goes straight; where it began is where it ends. Mornings are always mornings. Nights are always dark. Silence is always death.

A tree
lifts its burned crown—
screams
from within
its *****.

Light
drools dead
the underground fruit
and the sound
of a new god.

I want to inhabit you
like a swallow in spring,
I want to dive into your flesh
and sin until there's no salvation left


15/Almada

a fire carp
on a shoulder it burns
just skin and scales

Only the one
who tastes
the poison
of time
knows,
the death
of the rose.


Almada/99

I read two verses by Al Berto and went to set the sea on fire.
Led by the drunkenness of nocturnal herbs,
I buried my heart in some dune,
crushed by the immense tenderness
that the other creatures poured upon the moon.
Ah, I also longed for your body...
to untangle the lava of sorrows,
signs of love.

You are a tremor— a micro-arc roaring, fine sand in flight,
while I am your tide— an affection the fire torments, then soothes.
So fierce is your art it grows intimate with man,
drifting in bed as once the blind Thracian Phineus
loved the cold presence of your harpy form.

#Lisboa/18

All the poems
written have no end
They are stones and roses

With a sweep of the sword,
I cut through time, step in, and watch—
Your father sketching in the garden,
Your mother lifeless in the cellar.

To write, one must first think.
Thought cuts like a blade;
It, too, reshapes the world.

But it does not change mine.

Breton’s BLUE tongue
Breton’s blue TONGUE

Like a fantastic harp

- nommer les nuages -

Ships beneath rain-drenched seagulls.
The sea surrenders idleness to the land.

Lonely men are lonely.
So modern are the faces of loneliness today.
We can live the big lie, wish for death, drink wine, and still love someone.
And deep down, the hole never closes, the wound never heals,
and all we are is sand slipping through our fingers.

my smile,
as if dreaming
a sunflower into verse,
and my mouth, full,
singing.

in my head,
the terrible albatross—

it points to death,
knows the names of the dead by heart,
and swallows my life in a single gulp.

my smile
frees itself,
a child at play,

as if I loved
every heavy bee
but slept among the clouds.

The house with the swing was gray. It had once been yellow, but no one remembers that anymore. The swing remains the same, and the tree that holds it has stretched its roots through the garden for at least five generations.
Today, the house was ripped from the earth. It screamed. The tree, mute from birth, shook its dry leaves in protest.

Our love
On the verge of sinking into the shadow of what I write.
Clear statues, moonlit words,
Bare ships on the bulkheads of kisses,
Howls from the lighthouse guiding us to the salt of ***.
Our tide was brief.

In the streets where whales and other great mammals once dwelled,
Only the towering signs of the summer shows remain.

They call us,
The dead.
Lamenting the sway of entire fields of grain.
They,
With a mantle of countless lives we owe,
Call us.
When we quench the rough throat,
When we lay down the axes,
When we bow and pray,
When we strive and live.

She entered the small red room. He was by the window. She remained still, the geometric matrix of light softening her form as she swayed around her own axis. He ignored her.

Winter Mary – Do you hear that noise? It sounds like people sobbing. Listen now… do you hear it?

Blossom John – I don’t hear anything, Winter. Did you see Magic? She went out the window to the roof a while ago and hasn’t come back yet. Magic!!! Pchi Pchi Pchi…

Winter Mary – She must have gone after the cats – magical smile.

Blossom John – The only cat in her life is me, Winter – brusque and teasing.

They both laughed loudly. Blossom, in the meantime, had turned inward and tried to reach for Winter Mary, but she stepped back into a corner.

Blossom John – What’s wrong? Come on, don’t be like that, you’re my little cat too.

Winter Mary – *******, Blossom…

Blossom John – What!? Did the moon change or something… what’s going on? – he threw himself onto a large, dusty red armchair.

Winter Mary – Nothing. I just don’t like it when you say that.

Blossom John – What? That you’re a cat?

Winter Mary – No, that I’m yours. I don’t belong to anyone or any ******* thing. You should know that by now. – She opened her robe and let it slip slightly off her shoulders.

She stood there, half-naked before Blossom John. Her slender body, ivory-like, was simply beautiful.

Blossom John – And what’s that for? To turn me on?

Winter Mary – No. I don’t believe you can be turned on anymore.

Blossom John – Even if I could, what difference would it make? You can shove all the **** you want inside you, you don’t need me for anything.

Winter Mary – Sometimes you really are a ******* animal. – She tightened the robe around her waist, leaving only one breast exposed, like a moon.

Blossom John suddenly stood up and leaned out the window again.

Blossom John – Come on… Pchi Pchi Pchi!!! Magic, come home.

Winter Mary – Close the **** window, I can’t stop hearing people sobbing, it’s getting on my nerves.

Blossom John – I still don’t hear anything. Maybe it’s coming from the floor. – He lay down and pressed his ear against the wooden boards. – Or maybe it’s just your imagination.

Winter Mary – You’re so ridiculous.

Blossom John got up, smiling.

Blossom John – Hey, let’s go out. It’s Lilac’s birthday today, she’s expecting us at 8 at the Paradise. – He moved closer to her without touching her. – I want you to look beautiful. It’s been a long time since you got beautiful for me.

Winter Mary – Beautiful like a woman or like a *****?

Blossom John – Like the best of ******.

They both smiled. She walked away, raising her ******* high, and locked herself in the bathroom. He turned back to the window.

Winter Mary shouted – Do you think it’ll be cold downtown later?

Blossom John – What!? No. How could it be cold!? Didn’t you hear the ******* news? Today’s the hottest day of the year… maybe of our lives.

Winter Mary – What an exaggeration.

Blossom John – Sometimes you worry me. You’re too distracted, too distant from all the simple things.

Winter Mary – If you loved me, you’d worry less. – She murmured, barely moving her lips, as she drew a thick black line around her eyes.

Blossom John – What did you say?

Winter Mary – I asked what you’re going to wear.

Blossom John – The shirt you gave me on your birthday. Of course.

Winter Mary – I threw it away.

Blossom John – What?

Winter Mary – I threw it away. Along with the lipstick marks it had from the last time you wore it. I think it was last week when you went out with Oom.

Blossom John – You did well. They say that **** is hard to get out of shirts.

Winter Mary – Whose was it, may I ask?

Blossom John – What?

Winter Mary – The lipstick.

Blossom John – Some random girl, nothing important. I don’t even remember her name.

Winter Mary – At least you took her home?

Blossom John – I paid for her cab. Why?

Winter Mary – No woman deserves to be abandoned by you, Blossom.

Blossom John – You’re so dramatic sometimes, love. – He said, smiling.

Winter Mary returned to the room, and Blossom John was already holding Magic gently in his arms.

Blossom John – Look who came home, Winter… look who came back to me.

Winter Mary – You really are a mountain where all women crash.

Blossom John – What? No way, right my little one? – He said to the cat, rubbing his face against hers.

Winter Mary – Are you ready? Weren’t you afraid of being late?

Blossom John – See, little one? They make me leave you here alone. You’ll miss me, won’t you?

Winter Mary – Oh God!!!!

He gently placed the cat on the sofa. The cat purred and curled her head between her paws, the bell on her collar jingling softly. Blossom John stood there for a few seconds, just watching. He felt at peace with it.

Blossom John – Did you give her water and food in her little dish?

Winter Mary – Yes. And poison, lots of poison. But don’t worry, it’s the good kind of poison.

They took a cab, and in less than ten minutes, they were going down the avenue. When they arrived at the party, Lilac was at the door waiting to greet them.

Lilac – Here comes the couple I envy the most. If love took a form, it would undoubtedly be the way you look at Blossom, and vice versa.

Winter Mary – What an exaggeration, darling. I’d say it’s more like the way you look at the bottom of a whiskey bottle.

Lilac smiled, showing her teeth stained with red lipstick. Winter Mary kissed her coldly on the cheek.

Winter Mary – Thanks for inviting us.

An impression of rain lost in the senses,
like something spoken from so far away,
so desperately,
before being itself,
the inner healing we seek in a new language,
the light we want to believe exists to guide us.

Your hand reaches the depth of a fruit
You dream the interior of that fruit with the right geometry
And your head falls asleep in the burst of a bee’s examination
And at night, when the stars align by reason,
Your hand once again reaches the depth of that fruit
Of the poem and of ***.

And a light will open your forehead and spread its shroud over your body, from feet to chest, and before the world awakens to love, you already know how sweet love is.

Immolated hands close sunflowers.
The restless sea echoes where pain is most dreadful.
Pain exists and resists the fight we put up against it.
The pain that never sleeps is terrible.
It dances with us all night like a wolf.
Like a pack of wolves.
We hold each other tight to avoid losing ourselves in it.

Beauty in the shadows
Cold hands, Baudelaire
From your verses, they bloom

Scant aegis, insular wasteland
in the infernal roar of the cliffs,
the sea breathes with its black manes.
Searching in the empty wombs of women
for the word of prayer,
the single and vital principle of all things.

They killed my dog because he couldn’t read.

He didn’t know how to drive a car or fly a plane.
But he spoke a strange language—his own—not from here.
He didn’t go to beauty salons, restaurants, or church.
In fact, he prayed to a dog god, different from the dog of God of those who killed him.

he was a happy dog. that's why he's dead.
We no longer see happiness as something natural.
We can’t stand anyone less miserable than we are.

And so, on a warm morning,
with nothing worth reading in the newspaper,
without a trial, they killed him.

BAMMM!!!
Three shots to the neck and seven stab wounds to the heart.

He didn't breathe again.

For me, the dead dog didn’t even look like a dog.
(I hesitate to say what it looked like.)

And now I play chess alone, because he couldn’t read...

20/Almada

She, petal by petal,
On the ground, in the sky of her mouth, in the breath of the earth.
She was sublime, recited by Virgil or Solon,
In every stanza, a ship crosses me, ablaze, heading to her.
She sleeps, and I, at her feet.

It's Saturday
let's do something really foolish
something that, for a moment—even if just for a second—
makes the world spin the other way.

let's set all the birds free from their cages
teach children to love poetry
or
make the almond trees burst into a storm of blossoms.

Spit on the ground.
Begin the most terrible of wars
with someone who hears you
dragging your armor through the hush of dawn.

Strike the final flame.
Let it light the streets
where wild bodies ripple like fire.
Howls, heavy with iron,
as we sip from the herb of night
the tender intimacy of a goodbye.

Extreme. Absolute.
A green star, fallen
on careless earth,
between mud and water—
human reflections.

Let no one bring love.
The cruel illusion
of still being a child
is unbearable.

A whole morning, fasting.
I want to drink my wine
standing.

Everything feels like a cold, melancholic afternoon.
Words weigh heavy on my fingers, dragging along,
as if my thoughts were pulling iron horses.

Listen—
I exist only within myself now.
The motion of life does not tempt me;
nothing stirs the wish to be anything else.

I speak from a new territory,
shaped only so that I may fit within it.
To exist is to be here,
between what is written and what is dreamed.

THEN the morning was a long way to reach you, I wrote with ashes the wounds in music as if god MOVED in the grass.

I
memorize
your steps
in the rain
and sing
whenever you come near
you
touch my hair
calm my day
and I fall asleep
believing that you love me

Almada

Lonely men are just lonely.
They have their salty hands in what they have left,
then they return and sleep noisily, as if slaughtering horses.
An axe cutting the nerve of water,
the terrible hours landing like ancient birds,
chronic hunger fracturing the bones of distant objects,
as if trees embraced the mist in tremendous pain.

I am alive
knowing, at the same time,
that I am dead.

we spend the afternoons
walking down the avenue,
hand in hand —
each step, a soft erosion toward silence,
toward profound solitude.

I ask you without using words:
what is it like
to walk hand in hand with a stranger?
and you look at me
as if you believe
that everything is the opposite
of what it seems.

and in that
there is a devastating peace —
knowing you believe in love,
in your own quiet way,
is the sign
that you were saved.

when I return, I write:
I am dead
knowing, at the same time,
that I am alive.

(I owe you
this unexpected metamorphosis)