ld













DRUMMOND DE ANDRADE, Carlos


Your Shoulders Hold Up In The World

There comes a time when you can no longer say. My God.

A time of ultimate catharsis.

A time when you can no longer say, My love.

Because love has shown itself futile.

And your eyes refuse to weep.

And your hands will only go about their rough work.

And your heart is dry.

In vain women knock on your door; you will not open.

You are alone and the lamp has gone out,

But your eyes shine enormous in the dark.

You are full of certainty and suffer no more.

And you hope for nothing from your friends.

It does not matter if old-age comes, what is old-age?

Your shoulders hold up the world

And it weig'hs no more than a child's hand.

Wars and famines and discussions in clubs

Only prove that life goes on

And that not all have freed themselves yet.

Some, finding the spectacle barbarous

Prefer (the faint of heart) to die.

A tune has come in which it does not help to die.

A time has come in which life is an order.

Life unadorned, without mystifications.

Garden in Liberty Square

SWAYING greenery.

Caressing music of wáter

flowing between geometrical roses.

Elysian winds.

Sleek turf.

Garden so little Brazilian, and yet so lovely.

Landscape without depth.

It cost the earth no pain to yield these flowers.

Landscape without echoes.

Each moment that passes

unfolding in unpremeditated bloom.

Too pretty. Too inhuman.

Too literary.

(Poor gardens of the wilds of my country

beyond the Serra do Curral!

With neither cool fountains, nor languid pools,

with no running water, no appointed gardeners.

Only the dry thicket, carelessly growing among

tarnished evergreens

and the forlorn face of a girl tearing the daisy petals apart.)

Garden in Liberty Square

Versailles among streetcars.

In the frame of the brooding Ministries

the conscious grace of the lawns

composes a revery of green.

DO NOT WALK ON THE GRASS

Perhaps it were better to say:

DO NOT EAT THE GRASS

The watchful Prefecture

stands guard ver the slumber of the grass-blades.

And the black clock of the watchman is a banner

in the night starred with guards.

Suddenly a negro brass band,

sweating in pure vermilion,

bresaks into a rousing military march

in the stillness of the garden.

Startled fountains take flight.

Fantasia

In a sky of methylene blue

the moon, ironical, diuretic,

composes a print for the dining room.

Guardian angels on nocturnal rounds

keep watch over adolescent dreams

scaring mosquitoes

from the curtains and garlands of the bed.

Up the spiral staircase, they say, the foolish virgins,

embodied in the milky way, glimmer like fireflies.

Through a chink

the devil peers with a squinting eye.

The devil has a telescope

that sees for seven leagues

and his ears are as fine

as a violin's.

Saint Peter sleeps

and the clock of heaven mechanically snores.

The devil peers through a chink.

Down there,

crushed lips are sighing.

Sighing prayers ? They sigh lightly

with love.

And the entwined bodies

twine more closely still

and love invades love.

God's will be done!

Two or three may be spared,

the rest are all going to hell.

Pathetic Poem

WHAT RACKET IS THAT on the stairs?

It's love, crashed to a close,

it's the man who pulled the drape

and hung himself on the cord.

What racket is that on the stairs?

It's Guiomar who hid her eyes

and blew her nose in a rag.

It's the motionless moon on the plates,

on the pans over the sink.

What racket is that on the stairs?

It's the faucet, it's got a leak.

It's the imperceptible complaint

of someone who lost the game

while the music of the band

got harder and harder to hear.

What racket is that on the stairs?

It's the virgin with a trombone,

the child with a snare drum,

the bishop, bell in hand,

and someone muffling the sound

in the cavity of my chest.

Confidência do Itabirano

Alguns anos vivi em Itabira.

Principalmente nasci em Itabira.

Por isso sou triste, orgulhoso: de ferro.

Noventa por cento de ferro nas calçadas.

Oitenta por cento de ferro nas almas.

E esse alheamento do que na vida é porosidade e comunicação.

A vontade de amar, que me paralisa o trabalho,

vem de Itabira, de suas noites brancas, sem mulheres e sem horizontes.

E o hábito de sofrer, que tanto me diverte,

é doce herança itabirana.

De Itabira trouxe prendas diversas que ora te ofereço:

[esta pedra de ferro, futuro aço do Brasil;]*

este São Benedito do velho santeiro Alfredo Duval;

este couro de anta, estendido no sofá da sala de visitas;

este orgulho, esta cabeça baixa…

Tive ouro, tive gado, tive fazendas.

Hoje sou funcionário público.

Itabira é apenas uma fotografia na parede.

Mas como dói!


Poem of Seven Faces

When I was born, a crooked angel

One of those who live in the shadows

Said: Go, Carlos, be gauche in life

The houses spy on the men

Who chase after women

The afternoon might have been blue

If there weren't so many desires

The tram passes full of legs

White, black, yellow legs

Why so many legs, my God? Asks my heart

But my eyes

Don't ask anything

The man behind the mustache

Is serious, simple, and strong

Hardly talks

Has few, rare friends

The man behind the glasses and the mustache

My God, why have you forsaken me?

If you knew I wasn't God

If you knew I was weak

World, world, vast world

If my name were Raimundo

It would be a rhyme, not a solution

World, world, vast world

Vaster is my heart

I shouldn't tell you

But that Moon

But that cognac

They make us moved like the devil

The Word

I no longer want to consult

dictionaries in vain.

I only want the word

that will never be there

and that can't be invented.

One that would resume

and replace the world.

More sun than the sun,

in which we all could

live in communion,

mute,

savouring it.

Residue

A little of everything remained.

Of my fear. Of your disgust.

Of stuttered cries, Of the rose

a little remained.

….
Because a little of everything

remains: a little of your chin

in the chin of your daughter,

a little of your harsh silence

in the angry walls,

in the speechless,

climbing leaves.

…..
But a little of everything terribly remains.

Under the breaking waves,

under the clouds and winds,

under bridges and under tunnels,

under flames and under sarcasm,

under slobber and under vomit,

under the sob, the jail, the forgotten,

under gala shows and scarlet deaths,

under libraries, asylums, and triumphant churches,

under you yourself and your crusty feet,

under the hinges of class of family

a little of everything always remains.

Sometimes a button. Sometimes a rat.

…..


Amar / To Love

What can one creature do,

Among his fellow creatures, if not love?

Love and forget,

Love and mis-love,

Love, unlove, love?

Always, even to eyes gone glassy, love?

What else, I ask, can a loving being do,

Alone in a rotating universe, if not

To turn too, and love?

Love what the sea brings ashore,

Love what it buries and what, in the sea-breezes,

Is salt, or love’s yearning, or plain anguish?

To love solemnly the desert palms,

Love what is surrendered or pregnant with demands,

Love the barren, the unpolished,

A flowerless vase, an iron floor,

The inert breast, the street seen in a dream, a bird of prey.

This is our destiny: to love without accounting,

Distributing it to the faithless and the hollow,

An unlimited donation to complete ingratitude,

And, still from the emptied shell, the nervous, patient

Scrounging out of more and more love.

To love even our own lack of love, and in our parched state

To love the implicit water, the implied kiss, the infinite thirst.

(transl. by Harrison Tao)


For always / Para sempre

Why does God allow

that mothers go away?

A mother has no limit,

she is time without hour,

light that does not fade

when the wind blows

and the rain falls.

A velvet hidden

on wrinkled skin,

pure water, clean air,

pure thought.

Death happens

to what is brief and goes by

without leaving a trace.

a mother, in her grace,

is eternity.

Why must God remember

- profound mystery -

to take her away someday?

Were I the king of the world,

I would create a law:

a mother does never die,

she will always stay

with her child

and her child, though old,

will be little

like a maize grain


Friendly Song/Canção Amiga

I'm working on a song

in which my own mother sees her image,

everyone's mother sees her image,

and it speaks, it speaks just like two eyes.

I'm traveling along a roadway

that winds through many countries.

My old friends—if they don't see me,

I see them, I see and salute them.

I am giving away a secret

like someone who loves, or smiles.

In the most natural way

two caresses reach each other.

My whole life, all of our lives

make up a single diamond.

I've learned a few new phrases—

and to make others better.

I'm working on a song

that wakes men up

and lets children sleep.

Translation: Lloyd Schwartz


Dawn

The poet was drunk in a streetcar.

Day was dawning behind the backyards.

The gay boarding houses were sleeping most sadly.

The houses also were drunk.

Everything was beyond repair.

Nobody knew the word was going to end

(Only a child guessed it but kept silent),

That the world was going to end at 7:45.

Last thoughts! final telegrams!

Joseph, who had mastered his pronouns,

Helen, who loved men,

Sebastian, who was bankrupting himself,

Arthur, who said nothing,

Set all for eternity.

The poet is drunk, but

He listens to an invitation in the dawn:

Shall we all go dancing

Between the streetcar and the tree?

Between the streetcar and the tree

Dance, my brothers!

Although there is no music

dance, my brothers!

Children are being born

With such spontaneity.

How marvelous is love

(Love and other products).

Dance, my brothers!

Death will come later,

Like a sacrament.


Consolation at the Beach

Come on, don´t cry…

Childhood is lost.

Youth is lost.

But life is not lost.

The first love is over.

The second love is over.

The third love is over.

But the hurt goes on.

You have lost your best friend.

You haven´t tried any traveling.

You won no house, ship, or land.

But you look at the sea.

You haven´t written the perfect book.

You haven´t read the best books

Nor have you love music enough.

But you own a dog.

A few harsh words,

In a low voice, have hurt you,.

Never, never have they healed.

But what about humor?

There is no resolution for injustice.

In the shadow of this wrong world

You have whispered a timid protest.

But others will come.

All summed up, you should

Throw yourself — once and for all — into the waters.

You are naked on the sand, in the wind…

Sleep, my son.


The Ox

O solitude of the ox in the field,

O solitude of man in the street!

Amid cars, trains, telephones,

Amid screams, the profound aloneness.

O solitude of the ox in the field,

O millions suffering without a curse!

Whether it is night or day makes no difference,

Darkness breaks up with the dawn.

O solitude of the ox in the field,

Men writing without a word!

The city cannot be explained

And the houses have no meaning.

O solitude of the ox in the field!

The ghost ship passes

Silently trough the crowded street.

If a love storm should blow up!

The hands clasped, the life saved…

But the weather is steady. The ox is alone.

In the immense field: the oil derrick.


Morning Street

The splashing rain

unearthed my father.

I never imagined

him buried thus,

to the din of trolleys

on an asphalt street

giant palm trees slanting on the beach

(and a voice from sleep

to stroke my hair),

as melodies wash up

with lost money

discarded confessions

old papers, glasses, pearls.

To see him exposed

to the damp, acrid air,

that drifts in with the tide

and cuts your breath,

to wish to love him

without deceit

to cover him with kisses, with flowers, with swallows,

to alter time

to offer the warm

of a quiet embrace

from this elderly recluse,

discarded confessions

and a lamb-like truce.

To feel the lack

of inborn strengths

to want to carry him

to the older sofa

of a bygone ranch,

but splashes of rain

but sheets of mud beneath reddish street lamps

but all that exists

of morning and wind

between one nature and another

yawning sheds by the docks

discarded confessions

ingratitude.

What should a man do

at dawn

(a taste of defeat

in his mouth, in the air)

in whatever place?

Everything spoken, drunk, or even pretended

and the rest still buried

in the folds of sleep,

cigarette stubs

the wet glare of streets

discarded confessions

morning defeat.

Vague mountains

greening waves

newspapers already white,

hesitant melody

trying to spawn

conditions for hope

on this gray day, of a broken lament.

Nothing left to remind me

of the seamless asphalt.

Abandoned cellars

my body shivers

discarded confessions:

abruptly, the walk home.


Square Dance

João loved Teresa who loved Raimundo

who loved Maria who loved Joaquim who loved Lili

who didn’t love anyone.

João went to the United States, Teresa to a convent,

Raimundo died in an accident, Maria became a spinster,

Joaquim committed suicide, and Lili married J. Pinto Fernandes,

who had nothing to do with the story.

José

What now, José?

The party’s over,

the lights are off,

the crowd’s gone,

the night’s gone cold,

what now, José?

what now, you?

you without a name,

who mocks the others,

you who write poetry

who love, protest?

what now, José?

You have no wife,

you have no speech

you have no affection,

you can’t drink,

you can’t smoke,

you can’t even spit,

the night’s gone cold,

the day didn’t come,

the tram didn’t come,

laughter didn’t come

utopia didn’t come

and everything ended

and everything fled

and everything rotted

what now, José?

what now, José?

Your sweet words,

your instance of fever,

your feasting and fasting,

your library,

your gold mine,

your glass suit,

your incoherence,

your hate—what now?

Key in hand

you want to open the door,

but no door exists;

you want to die in the sea,

but the sea has dried;

you want to go to Minas

but Minas is no longer there.

José, what now?

If you screamed,

if you moaned,

if you played

a Viennese waltz,

if you slept,

if you tired,

if you died…

But you don’t die,

you’re stubborn, José!

Alone in the dark

like a wild animal,

without tradition,

without a naked wall

to lean against,

without a black horse

that flees galloping,

you march, José!

José, where to?

The Machine of the World

As I went on one day trudging alone

down a street of Minas, a stony one,

at close of eve a hoarse-timbered bell

joined its tolling to the measured sound

of my leaden soles; as birds fell

and soared through barren skies, upon the ground

their silhouettes blended with the dark;

a darkness greater still was coming down

from mountainside as from myself now,

my desillusioned self; out of a stark,

utter silence – I cannot fathom how –

the machine of the world suddenly started

to open up unto my very eyes –

eyes shrunk from all dreams of such a prize,

pained at the very thought of having asked.

Circumspect, majestic all the way,

it opened with no sound impure, or glare

to human eyes impossible to bear;

nothing would force itself nor dismay

my pupils long wasted in the task

of surveiling a desert, nothing asked

of my exhausted mind to work out

an entire reality transcending

all image of itself sketched out

on the face of the mysteries, on the abyss.

It opened quietly, in perfect calm inviting

what senses-intuitions were amiss

yet still haunted him who long since

had lost them, nor desired to have them back

to repeat the same and ramdom lacks

while circumnavigating that or this;

it invited them all, called on their throng

to try again, to apply themselves strong

and mighty upon the pure feast and wring

out of a cornucopia past all song

the full mythical nature of all things.

It told me so (though no voice nor breathing

nor echoes nor percussion testified

that from a mountainside a single sigh

was addressing a miserable, nightly being):

“What you sought in yourself or far above

those narrow confines, what wouldn’t do

though you humbled yourself often enough

‘til at the last moment you withdrew,

regard, attend, examine – all these riches

beyond the pricelles pearl, this science which

is hermetic, formidable and sublime,

this total explanation of life,

this primal, singular nexus past all rhyme,

all of it unconceivable to you,

so evasive it was, so out of reach

even after you burned your best and worst

on the last, outermost and ardent quest –

see, contemplate it all, open your breast

and hold it, keep it all with you at last!”

The bridges most superb, the buildings past

all conceivable craft, all though of first

or last causes gone beyond all pitch,

all resources and means of earth steep

– all passions, all impulses, all of pain

and whatever defines us human beings

then proceeds through animals and plants

to soak in the angry sleep of minerals deep;

what will turn round the world until again

is engulfed in the wholesome, all too plain

geometrical order of all things,

and the absurd original, its enigmas

more truthful and higher still than all the grandest

monuments ever built to truth on earth;

ant the memory of the gods, and that solemn

sentiment of death which mars all birth

as we see it flowering through the stem

of even the most glorious thing alive

– everything in a glimpse was there to drive

my senses back to a realm august

finally given to the human gaze…

Why, as I was too reticent to cast

an eye, as I would offer no reply

to such a marvel calling unto praise

a faithless, undesiring, sad, ungrateful

and consequently hopeless outcast

(too tired to be told of things higher

or else to let go of shadows baleful

as filter through all rays in brighter skies),

my defunct beliefs far below

weren’t as quick as to colour or to repaint

a face neutral: faith was too slow

to build a newer face upon the faces

I go on demonstrating pale and faint

to each path I tread upon of late;

as if another being, a distant mate

of the one I had been, had now replaced

for years countless what of me became,

I resigned my will and thus abandoned

what I might have wanted – no command

was offered: as some flower, say a rose

reluctant to being open is well nigh close,

as though a tardy gift were now too bland

to be longed for – how much less

possessed! – I set my eyes upon my feet

and proceeded uncurious, void of sense

and tired, quite tired and quite unfit

to behold any splendour, any gift.

Night had finally landed, thick and strict;

a quiet darkness was all round, all dense,

almighty… The machine of the world

recomposed itself as slow and wordless

as it had been repulsed. I weighed the cost:

my hands hanging be my sides, tense,

my whole body bending on the road

of old, stony Minas, there I strolled

evaluating what I had lost.


The Girl Reveals a Thigh

The girl reveals a thigh,

the girl reveals an ass cheek,

only she doesn’t show me that thing

— conch shell, beryl, emerald —

which blossoms, with four petals,

and contains the most sumptuous

pleasure, that hyperboreal zone,

a mixture of honey and asphalt,

a door sealed at the hinges

with a giddiness held captive,

a sacrificial altar without

the blood of the rite, the girl

doesn’t show me that thing.

And she is torturing me, this virgin

with her modesty making me dizzy

from the sudden blow struck

by a vision of her luminous breasts,

her pink and black beauty

that winds itself into a ball,

wrinkled, intact, inaccessible,

that opens, then closes, then takes flight

and this female animal, by laughing,

dismisses what I might have asked her about,

about what should be given and even beyond

given, what should be eaten.

Oh, how the girl kills me,

turns my life into one in which

all hope is consumed

by shadow and sparkle.

Rubbing up against her leg. The fingers

discover the slow, curving,

animal-like secrets, yet

they are the greatest mystery,

always crude, nocturnal,

the three-pronged key to the urn,

this concealed craziness, it doesn’t

give me anything to go on at all.

Before it never would have provoked me.

Living didn’t have a purpose,

the feelings walked around lost,

time wasn’t set loose

nor did death come to subject me

to the light of the morningstar,

which at this hour is already the first star,

violent, rising up like nausea

in the wild beasts at the zoo.

How I might know her skin,

where it is concave and convex,

her pores, the golden skin

of her belly! But her sex

has been kept a secret of the state.

How I might know the cold, dewy

meadow of her flesh,

where a snake rouses from sleep

and traces its path

back and forth, among all the tremors!

But what perfume would there be

in an unseen cave? what enchantment

what tightness, what sweetness,

what pure, pristine line

calls me and leads me away?

It might offer me all its beauty

and I would kiss or bite

and draw blood: I would.

But her pubis refuses me.

In the burning night, in the day

her thighs come together.

Like a deserted inn

closed on the inside by a latch,

her thighs seal themselves,

seclude themselves, save themselves,

and who said that

I could make her my slave?

I could debate this possibility

without a glimmer of hope for victory,

already her body erases itself,

already its glory tarnishes,

already I am made different by that thing

which wounds me on the inside,

and now I don’t know for certain

if my thirst was more ferocious because of

that thing of hers that I might have possessed.

There are other fountains, other hungers,

other thighs of other animals: the world is

vast and the forgetting profound.

Maybe today the girl in the daylight . . .

Maybe. For certain it never will be.

And if it hides itself away

with such fugues and arabesques

and such stubborn secrecy,

on what day will it open?

What would need to change for it to offer

itself to me on an already cold night,

its pink and black blossom in the snow,

never visited by me,

that boat carrying incense that I can’t board?

Or is there no boat carrying incense at all . . .