First (belated!) post of 2018

Year 2018 and sad testimony of a world crumbling around us.  If I were writing poetry at the moment (and it may come, I suppose, at any moment), it would have to reach so deeply into the wretchedness of our times that I would need to learn to write in a way I have not yet been able to.  So maybe, for now, will just stick to this little tidbit of the local, a project  connected to years of sociological research and personal immersion in "popular" and "rurban" horse cultures , that is to become a sort of  documentary photographic essay on children and horses on the periphery of a few southern Brazilian cities.  If I am succesful, I will be able to capture moments of tenderness, moments of communication between horses and humans, the way the interaction with the beauty and gentleness and spirit of equines helps us to find what is best in ourselves, carving small and momentary paths out of the debris of the city and a hopelessness (apathy, lack or loss of direction, absence of viable blueprints for a better world, etc.)  that is historically-produced and institutionally-sustained.  That threatens to destroy us all.

pieces ( after Human Flow) working on this!.

i.  

they arrived in the village on foot, by the hundreds.

they arrived unwanted, dragging a child or an elder,

a sack of belongings.  it was in fact a lovely place:  green

mountains, little black goats on the hillside, onions, potatoes

ready to harvest, and a river too wild to cross, almost

dragging them under,  against the chain of hands and

arms.  it must have been autumn by then, padded

jackets squirting clear water, weight for the crossing.

that was after the bombings, but before the camps,

and  before they saw the fire-colored horse, its slow

circular gallop, its  sweaty flanks, its eye toward

freedom

ii.

escape by water must be the hardest.

we take our walk along the coast, doing a shoot of

abandoned boats.  that one belonged to a fisherman. can't  you

see the pieces of net, the scales, the skeletal fish, dried

under tongues of sun?  this is almost the tropics.  wooden

boards losing their red, their green, but we find a ski

 boat in white and acqua, in fading plastic drifting from

 some other port, some high rise shoreline .  no one would
come here by high sea,  skimming the waves in absolute darkness,

fearing a storm or a mother birthing in a cabin with nothing
 but elbow room, and one last gulp of fresh water.

and that makes part of the story:  pirates centuries gone,

a coastguard expecting no surprises, a sleeping village

that could be awoken to plunge into the  low tide, pull out

the feverish, offer  the hands of a midwife

iii

to return to an abandoned city:

the women scavenge the ruins,

then shoulder the desperate tasks

of washing  the fluid-stained walls,

covering what is left of windows,

sweeping, stacking, or mending

the anything that  can be put back

together. a lone cow walks

 the streets, her bell ringing,

 her udder full.  war has been

 the business of men,  the work
 of memory for somebody's

children.

iv.

three Palestinian girls have gone to the beach.

there is in each, some deep harbor of hope: to where

can the boats carry them, each night  on the edge

of desire, where checkpoints and gruff soldiers  blur

into waves and sunsets,  or a midnight café where

music churns out onto the drizzle of streets and

dancing?  a tiger has gained his temporary

 freedom,  his non native savannah.  today all rests

in the hands of the men,  yet they are bound to

to the borders, the barring and the burning.  to

imagine is to excavate in depleted fields,  to unearth

all we have done to destroy

ourselves.

historias de guerra/war stories

(wrote it, translated it, working on it...)

A história cotidiana da guerra se esfuma.

Há quem não escutou nem o uivo longínquo dos lobos

quando seu bosque virou toda fumaça e pele humana.

Há quem não sentiu a falta dos tímidos rapazes, os arrastados

ou mesmo os brabos que se arrependeram quando passou-se

da palavra ao fato. Em certas cidades,

havia quem se dedicasse ao corriqueiro:

ao jogo de baralho na cantina do bairro,  ou à visita costumeira

à costureira, pensando ainda no baile, ou nas filhas debutantes.

Havia, como sempre, quem escondia o escasso alimento

 assim como aqueles que repartiam o último pão, ou colhiam

as maças ainda aninhadas  nos galhos,  saindo pelos campos a

distribuir as magras fatias entre as crianças escondidas no

capim ao lado dos trilhos. Nunca saberemos exatamente quantos:

os  perseguidos  escondidos no porão, ou  na cava

numa noite rebelde, ou num coração refugiado na loucura. 

Sempre contavam versões que mudavam:  com o sol, a lua,

com a chuva que limpava um pouco do sangue,

dos restos humanos,  as cinzas.  Os ossos ficam,

embranquecendo uns tempos sob um verão que sempre volta,

e nunca saberemos  dos nomes, das partidas,  somente

que as lições mais urgentes nunca se aprendem.  Mais fácil é

 alimentar os pequenos monstros,  velar pelas últimas migalhas,

 amarrar o pano na boca das palavras,   cultivar aos poucos apenas uma

aleijada imaginação, que não consegue nem lembrar

nem esquecer.

The daily underside of  war slips away.

There were those who heard nothing, not even the distant

howl of wolves when their woods went up in smoke and skin

and those who missed not even the shy boys, the ones who

were dragged away, nor the rowdy who wanted to

flee when word turned to act.  In some villages

there were those who held out in the commonplace:

the card game at the tavern, the habitual visit to the

dressmaker,  reminded of dance halls or debutant daughters.

There were, like there always are, those who stashed away

tidbits of food, or who picked the last apples nestled in branches,

then slipping away from the fields, handing the thin slices out

to the children hiding in the grass near the train tracks.

We will never know the exact numbers:  those left hidden

in attics or wine cellars,  or on some tumultuous night

or in some heart that fled into madness.  The stories  they told

were constantly changing:  in the sunshine, under the moon

or when the rain washed away some of the blood,

vestiges, ashes. The bones however remained a bit longer,

slowly bleaching  in ever-returning summer. And the names

and departures we cannot ascertain. We know  only

that the most urgent lessons are the ones never learned.  Easier it is

to feed our little ghouls from our hands, hover over  the last of

the crumbs, tie dirty rags around mouths full of words,

 nurture slowly but surely a wretched  imagination

unable to remember, unable to forget.

such is life

such unsatisfactory men

hunched behind shoulders and

soliloquy. how  the rain falling behind

 them bores its pores into the

world. if we could whisk them away

even for a minute, some different tune

might be audible, some suggestion of  a new

way to paint the walls or lay the bricks, a

nimbler dance   perhaps, and some way

to become

again.

Poema dos vinte anos - Benedito Costa Neto

 Caminhávamos de mãos dadas até uma esquina

Quando vc me olhou triste, a dizer
Coisas estranhas sobre a liberdade
Olhei para o mar e vi cortinas de chuva no horizonte
Era fevereiro e tantas pessoas se divertiam
Não entendo bem metáforas
Tampouco vejo presságios nos voos dos pássaros
Passeávamos como um casal de dálmatas alegres
Lembrei da tapeçaria com o tema da caça ao cervo
Contávamos cães e cervos

Não queria olhar para trás: seria quer balizar

Algo não mensurável, o tempo

Baixei os olhos e temi a morte
Brincaria com os pêlos do seu braço se ninguém nos visse

De alto de um templo você me oferecia o mundo
E éramos como uma foto de revista, editada
Cena de filme de um ou outro cineasta engajado

Completamente underground para o resto

Num bar, homens jogavam cartas

Jamais invejei tanto o grito de “seis” 

Uma mulher olha pra seu calção de linho branco

E para sua camiseta de listras azuis
Já não sinto mais aquele misto de compaixão

Ciúme, ironia

Porque
Caminhávamos de mãos dadas até uma esquina

Quando, sem jeito, você começou a questionar a liberdade

Com palavras estranhas

Vi seu corpo difuso num dark-room de São Francisco

Numa viagem a Madrid, a ler guias queer

E os azulejos brancos dos banhos públicos modernos

Onde as águas são a um só tempo

Mais e menos que disfemismos baratos

A procurar o amor nas praças, nuança mais negra de Eros

Andávamos juntos até uma esquina

Quando você me disse coisas tristes sobre a liberdade

Sob a imagem de um Heliogábalo

Emplumado num carro alegórico de 20 metros

A dançar, a girar

Como um demônio vermelho
Ambíguo por natureza e força

Num baile de máscaras aberto

Angélico nas formas femininas

Luciferino porque andrógino

Caminhávamos juntos até uma esquina

De mãos dadas até o fim

Porque eu vi dois rapazes a andar de bicicleta

E fiquei a admirá-los até que desaparecessem.

Poem for my twenty years

(translated by Miriam Adelman)

Hand in hand we strolled to the street corner

Where you found me with your sad gaze, to

Pronounce strange words on  freedom

And I looking to the sea found curtains of rain on the horizon

It was February and so many people were out having fun

I don't understand much about metaphor

Nor do I find omen in the flight of birds

We strolled along like a cheery pair of dalmations

I  remembered the tapestry with its deer-hunting motif
How  we counted dogs and deer

 I had no desire to look backwards: which would be a beacon to

Something incommensurable, time itself

So I lowered my gaze, felt fear of death

I would have caressed the hair along your arm were no one to see  us

From high atop the temple you offered me the world

And we were like a magazine shot, scene

Cut from a film of some committed film director
From the unrecognized underground
There in the bar, men were playing cards
 I never so envied  that cry of  "six!"
A woman stared  at your white linen trousers
At your blue-striped tee shirt
Gone now my mixture of compassion
Jealousy, irony
Because
There we strolled  hand in hand to the corner
Where clumsily you began to question freedom
With your strange words
I  envisioned your body diffuse in a San Francisco darkroom
Or on a trip to Madrid, reading queer guidebooks
The white tiles of modern public bathrooms
Where waters flow in one sole tempo
More or less than cheap old dysphemisms
Searching for love in city squares, Eros in its darkest nuance
We strolled together  to the street corner
Where you began sad words on freedom
Under the image of a plumed Elagabalus
Parading twenty meters high atop a float

Dancing, swiveling

Like a red demon
Ambiguous by nature and force
At a masquerade ball open to all

Angelical in feminine forms

Androgynously Lucifer-like
We strolled together  to the street corner
Hand in hand till  the end

Where I saw two boys riding their bicycles

And stayed to watch until they disappeared.

Como ajudar as crianças em tempos de guerra

                          - Denise Duhamel

Mister Rogers recomenda dizer às crianças americanas

que a tristeza faz parte.  Apresente então para elas o globo

em lugar do mapa ordinário,  para  mostrar e dizer

quão longe realmente fica o Oriente Médio.  Enfatize que

assistir meteorologia da TV Saudita não quer dizer

que se chega lá de carro. Enfatize para elas o que

seu presidente lhes garante:  que toda vida é preciosa,

a de uma criança iraquiana igual à do soldado americano.

Diga isto para seus filhos, acreditando ou não

nas palavras dele.  Fale para as crianças que seus pais

sejam civis ou soldados, as amam, seja qual for

o chão que habitem. Considere descrever para elas

a guerra como ela é,

mas se sua filha jogar Nintendo, não lhe sirva

sangue em lugar de leite no cereal matinal.  Se seu filho

andar numa gangue perigosa, então deixe que ele

te explique a guerra.  Aos pequeninhos, sugira

que levem seus jogos de química para a areia do parquinho.

Se você ensina arte, explique eventos atuais

com bonecos de papel.  Uma corrente de homens de cartolina vermelha:

George Bush, Dick Cheney, Sadam Hussein, et cetera.

Peça para os aluninhos que amassem um dos bonecos,

que lhe deem o nome Noriega. Que o joguem num copo de papel

que representa a cadeia.  Nesse momento pode fazer perguntas

para que percebam o quanto um boneco se parece

com o outro.  Peça para cada criançinha

escolher um que seja seu favorito.

É esse que devem retalhar, os pedaços mais minúsculos

que suas tesourinhas permitam.

Talvez alguns aluninhos se inquietem, se polvilhando uns

aos outros com os pedaçinhos cor carmim.   Permita isso:

confete, carnificina, neve vermelha, bombas.

Versão:  Miriam Adelman

How to Help Children Through Wartime

How to Help Children Through Wartime

                           - Denise Duhamel

Mister Rogers says to tell your American young

it's OK to be sad.  Present them a globe

rather than a flat map to show-and-tell

how far away the Middle East really is.  Stress

that the TV Saudi weather report

doesn´t mean the country is within driving distance.  Stress

that their U.S. president assures them that all life is precious,

an Iraqi child's equal to that of an American soldier.

Tell your children this, whether or not

you yourself believe him.  Tell children that parents,

be they civilian or soldier, love them regardless

of what soil they're on.  Consider letting children know

what the war is really like,

but if your daughter has Nintendo, do not pour blood

instead of milk on her Cheerios.   If your son

is in a dangerous gang, let him explain

war to you instead.  Encourage all elementary schoolers

to take their chemistry sets to the sandbox.

If you teach art, explain current events

with paper dolls.  A strand of red construction paper men:

George Bush, Dick Cheney, Sadam Hussein, et cetera.

Have students crumple up one doll and name him

Noriega. They may throw him in a Dixie cup

that represents a jail. Then you may ask questions

that lead students to notice the resemblance

of one paper man to the next.  Have each of the children

pick a doll who represents their favorite.

Instruct them to cut that man up into the teeniest pieces

their safety paper scissors will permit.

Members of the class may begin to get restless, to sprinkle

each other with the crimson bits.  Allow this:

confetti, bloodshed, red snow, bombs.