El Toreador

Man and bull disarm one another

bodies touch

as arrows reach their targets

touching his suit of lights

and the bull's dark hide

coloring the wind

and the soil of the bullring

man and bull

do not deny the contest

until blood soaks the sand.

(Thomas-John Parr)

(Translated of the portuguese for Linda Marshall )

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Everything that comes by JTParreira
black by twisted roots
Coalholes by therequired

Apology, william carlos williams

Apology

Why do I write today?

The beauty of
the terrible faces
of our non
entities
stirs me to it:

colored women
day workers-
old and experienced-
returning home at dusk
in cast off clothing
faces like
old Florentine oak.

Also

the set pieces
of your faces stir me-
leading citizens-
but not
in the some way.
(William Carlos Williams)

Justificação

Por que escrevo hoje?

A beleza dos
rostos terríveis
da nossa gente anónima
move-me para isso:

pretas
mulheres a dias -
idosas e experientes -
que a noitinha devolve a casa
na sua roupa gasta
rostos como
velho carvalho de Florença.

Também

as harmónicas peças
das vossas faces me estimulam -
notáveis cidadãos -
mas não
do mesmo modo.

(Tradução: J.T.Parreira)

Subject for a Haiku

All the branches that I observe
lie

Lying today in the wind

Are prepared already
as a road for the Autumn

for the nudity

they wait under the dust
that will remain of the Summer.

As Adam early in the morning

As Adam early in the morning,
Walking forth from the bower refresh'd with sleep,
Behold me where I pass, hear my voice, approach,
Touch me, touch the palm of your hand to my body as I pass,
Be not afraid of my body.
(Walt Whitman)

COMO O ADÃO MADRUGADOR

Como o Adão madrugador,
passeio à frente das ramagens, acordado pela água,
vejam onde passo, ouçam a minha voz, aproximem-se,
toquem-me, com a palma da vossa mão passem por mim,
não temam o meu corpo.
(Thomas-John Parr)

America

To Allen Ginsberg

When will I be able to go to Safeway

with this heart in my hand?

I will pay for the wine and the milk

flaunting my boldeness.

I will use fingers

as a bar code

that always says the truth.

(Thomas-John Parr)

Allen Ginsberg: A Supermarket in California

Excerpt de Ginsberg with Whitman and Lorca


What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon. In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations! What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?

A Brasileira do Chiado

In the cafe A Brasileira do Chiado

sat the plural Pessoa,

Fernando with a vacillating smiles

in its lips

They waited for words to pass among them

and the noise of machines

and silence

that tasted the mouths

silenced in the desert wharves.
(Thomas-John Parr)

Adieu dans Paris-Orly

Your taxi-cab pushing through traffic,
through lights and horns overflowing
like a river in flood;
feverish cars, clocks running counter,
all odds stacked against you,

you still make to Paris Orly
barely in time to light your interior fire
with the bitter taste of a last cup of coffee
that goes down burning like a bonfire on a field of dreams.

Last call, calling all fliers,
the good-byes and the kisses, overwhelmed
lips turning around,
once more, a last time,
before becoming airlifted.
(Thomas-John Parr)

Everything but a haiku

Alone in the wind
the seagull goes after the shade
of the fish that flow.
(Thomas-John Parr)

Inspiring Joyce

http://www.themodernword.com/Joyce/music/pomes_penyeach.html

To Vincent Gallo & etc

The Last Night in Buffalo 66

No love is more cutting than this.

At 2:30 in the morning

Layla leaves off for the nothing.

The door of the hotel room

opens, a tear bursts in the eyes,

turns the key, locks the door.

Somebody sat in the bed of the night.

Passing for a smile

under the sadness.

(Thomas-John Parr)

BAHNHOFSTRASSE

The eyes that mock me sign the way
Whereto I pass at eve of day.

Grey way whose violet signals are
The trysting and the twining star.

Ah star of evil! star of pain!
Highhearted youth comes not again

Nor old hearts' wisdom yet to know
The signs that mock me as I go.
(James Joyce, in Pomes Penyeach)

Translator

sometimes
the typewriter
thinks
for me

and sometimes
i v_i_o_l_e_n_t_l_y
i disagree
violent
ly

(Emmett Williams, Carolina do Sul, 1925_)


às vezes
a máquina de escrever
pensa
por mim

e às vezes
eu, v_i_o_l_e_n_t_a_m_e_n_t_e
eu, discordo
violentando-
-a

(Thomas-John Parr)

Homage to Pessoa

The Tobacoo Shop (A Tabacaria)

It does not have nothing

to make, with the window

they come ice glasses

and the night's deep.

It will never be anything

more than a window

despite the light inside of itself.

It can´t wish to be nothing.

But it has in itself eyes

for all the dreams of the world.

It has millions of these rooms in the world

with walls underneath of pictures

with moistness in the Landscapes

and the Nature Morte.

(Thomas-John Parr)