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who’s an employee of the dairy,

a resident of the Rua Namur

and 21 years old,

has no idea what an impulse

of human empathy might be.

And since he’s in a hurry, his body

leaves only the merchandise

on the doorstep of each building.

Given that the back door

might also conceal people

who aspire to the little milk

available in our time,

let’s walk down that alley,

enter the hallway,

and set down the bottle …

Without making any noise, of course,

since making noise solves nothing.

My milkman so nimble,

graceful, and light-footed

doesn’t walk, he glides.

But he always causes some

slight noise: a wrong step,

a flowerpot in the way,

a dog barking on principle,

or a contentious cat.

And someone always wakes up,

grumbles, and goes back to sleep.

But this someone woke up panicked

(thieves infest the neighborhood)

and wasn’t going to waste time.

The gun in the drawer

jumped into his hand.

A thief? This gun’s for him.

The shots in the night

liquidated my milkman.

If he was happy, if he was good,

if engaged, if a virgin,

I don’t know.

It’s too late to know.

But the one who shot him

lost all his sleep and ran outside.

My God, I killed an innocent man.

A bullet for killing burglars

can also rob the life

of our brother. Whoever

wants to can call a doctor,

the police aren’t laying a finger

on this son of my father.

No harm has come to the property.

The general night continues,

morning is slow to arrive,

but the milkman

lying there in the open air

has lost his former hurry.

Something thick is trickling

from the shattered bottle

on the now quiet pavement.

Milk, or blood … I don’t know.

Among the hazy shapes

barely liberated from night,

two colors grope for each other

and softly touch

and lovingly embrace,

creating a third shade

that we call dawn.

PROCURA DA POESIA

Não faças versos sobre acontecimentos.

Não há criação nem morte perante a poesia.

Diante dela, a vida é um sol estático,

não aquece nem ilumina.

As afinidades, os aniversários, os incidentes pessoais não contam.

Não faças poesia com o corpo,

esse excelente, completo e confortável corpo, tão infenso à efusão lírica.

Tua gota de bile, tua careta de gozo ou de dor no escuro

são indiferentes.

Nem me reveles teus sentimentos,

que se prevalecem do equívoco e tentam a longa viagem.

O que pensas e sentes, isso ainda não é poesia.

Não cantes tua cidade, deixa-a em paz.

O canto não é o movimento das máquinas nem o segredo das casas.

Não é música ouvida de passagem; rumor do mar nas ruas junto à linha de espuma.

O canto não é a natureza

nem os homens em sociedade.

Para ele, chuva e noite, fadiga e esperança nada significam.

A poesia (não tires poesia das coisas)

elide sujeito e objeto.

Não dramatizes, não invoques,

não indagues. Não percas tempo em mentir.

Não te aborreças.

Teu iate de marfim, teu sapato de diamante,

vossas mazurcas e abusões, vossos esqueletos de família

desaparecem na curva do tempo, é algo imprestável.

Não recomponhas

tua sepultada e merencória infância.

Não osciles entre o espelho e a

memória em dissipação.

Que se dissipou, não era poesia.

Que se partiu, cristal não era.

Penetra surdamente no reino das palavras.

Lá estão os poemas que esperam ser escritos.

Estão paralisados, mas não há desespero,

há calma e frescura na superfície intata.

Ei-los sós e mudos, em estado de dicionário.

Convive com teus poemas, antes de escrevê-los.

Tem paciência, se obscuros. Calma, se te provocam.

Espera que cada um se realize e consume

com seu poder de palavra

e seu poder de silêncio.

Não forces o poema a desprender-se do limbo.

Não colhas no chão o poema que se perdeu.

Não adules o poema. Aceita-o

como ele aceitará sua forma definitiva e concentrada

no espaço.

Chega mais perto e contempla as palavras.

Cada uma

tem mil faces secretas sob a face neutra

e te pergunta, sem interesse pela resposta,

pobre ou terrível, que lhe deres:

Trouxeste a chave?

Repara:

ermas de melodia e conceito,

elas se refugiaram na noite, as palavras.

Ainda úmidas e impregnadas de sono,

rolam num rio difícil e se transformam em desprezo.

IN SEARCH OF POETRY

Don’t write poems about what happened.

Birth and death don’t exist for poetry.

Life, next to it, is a static sun

giving off no warmth or light.

Affinities, birthdays, and personal incidents don’t count.

Don’t write poetry with the body,

the noble, complete, and comfortable body, inimical to lyrical effusions.

Your drop of bile, your joyful grin, your frown of pain in the dark

are irrelevant.

Don’t tell me your feelings,

which exploit ambiguity and take the long way around.

What you think and feel is not yet poetry.

Don’t sing about your city, leave it in peace.

Poetry’s song is not the clacking of machines or the secrets of houses.

It’s not music heard in passing, not the rumble of ocean on streets near the breaking foam.

Its song is not nature

or humans in society.

Rain and night, fatigue and hope, mean nothing to it.

Poetry (don’t extract poetry from things)

elides subject and object.

Don’t dramatize, don’t invoke,

don’t inquire. Don’t waste time lying.

Don’t get cross.

Your ivory yacht, your diamond shoe,

your mazurkas and superstitions, your family skeletons

all vanish in the curve of time, they’re worthless.

Don’t reconstruct

your gloomy, long-buried childhood.

Don’t shift back and forth between

the mirror and your fading memory.

What faded wasn’t poetry.

What shattered wasn’t crystal.

Soundlessly enter the kingdom of words.

The poems are there, waiting to be written.

Though paralyzed, they don’t despair,

their virgin surfaces are cool and calm.

Look at them: tongue-tied, alone, in the dictionary state.

Spend time with your poems before you write them.

Be patient, if they’re obscure. Calm, if they provoke you.

Wait for each one to take shape and reach perfection

with its power of language

and its power of silence.

Don’t force the poem to break out of limbo.

Don’t pick up the poem that fell to the ground.

Don’t fawn on the poem. Accept it

as it will accept its definitive, concentrated form

in space.

Move closer and consider the words.

Each one