Poem of the day: The Dead Girls Speak in Unison

Danielle Pafunda

The Dead Girls Speak in Unison

Do not pretend that you don't like it
when we threaten you.

We see you getting pheromone stink
under the collar, moaning, baldly.

Motionless, picturing decay.

When we creak your step,
when we crack your glass,
when we tap tap tap,

that is a bone

that is all we have

though we are very shiny,
and filled with beetles.

We are made entirely of bone.

Like an idol.

Like the tusk of some wonderful past.

When you cleave to us,
your skin will fuse,
hot calcium meth,
and in the myth,
you will be named for us.

Poem of the day: Ants

Ravi Shankar

Ants

One is never alone. Saltwater taffy colored
beach blanket spread on a dirt outcropping
pocked with movement. Pell-mell tunneling,

black specks the specter of beard hairs swarm,
disappear, emerge, twitch, reverse course
to forage along my shin, painting pathways

with invisible pheromones that others take
up in ceaseless streams. Ordered disarray,
wingless expansionists form a colony mind,

no sense of self outside the nest, expending
summer to prepare for winter, droning on
through midday heat. I watch, repose, alone.

My poems: dark waters

dark waters

don’t get near me
you might damage me
and once the damage is done
we can never go back

these dark waters
where you found me by myself
eating away at time
reminiscing
allow me to float
wander
find protection

and I came back here
because somehow
it always makes me realise
that belonging
is being part of a bigger lie

that it is nothing but a haze
similar to the ones you feel
when someone is trying to fix you
instead of embracing you with hope

you will not find me here again
you will not be able to open me with a key anymore
watch me as I dive again
far away from you

Musical Suggestions: Yakuza - Of Seismic Consequence

Yakuza - Of Seismic Consequence

My poems: everyday cruelty

everyday cruelty

how much more cruel can you be
how much more insane
in the one-dimensional brain
that exhales nothing but rage
for your humankind

while you hang on to everything you possess
even though it’s only a fallible monetary value
your life chews away at you
as if toying with the hypothesis of an afterlife

and the psychosis that’s been your home
the place where you belong
and suffer
will never wither
as long as you keep staying faithful to your death wish

never mind the self-destruction appeal
whatever you might feel
or whomever you might call
will not be trustworthy enough
to make you comfortable in your own skin

all your thoughts are barred
now that you find yourself
lost
with no reproach

more alone than you have ever been
and more prone to error than everybody else

but you are no accuser
your end is not taking place
you place your hand on your face
you are now a believer
that the truth will come
buried in someone else’s dream
just a word away

The things you tell yourself to make yourself believe you are not good enough

Source: http://www.nowpublic.com/health/72finalposternotgood11x17

Poem of the day: Introduction to the World

Matthea Harvey

Introduction to the World

For the time being
call me Home.

All the ingénues do.

Units are the engines
I understand best.

One betrayal, two.
Merrily, merrily, merrily.

Define hope. Machine.
Define machine. Nope.

Like thoughts,
the geniuses race through.

If you're lucky

after a number of
revolutions, you'll

feel something catch.

Poem of the day: At Home

Christina Rossetti

At Home

When I was dead, my spirit turned
To seek the much-frequented house:
I passed the door, and saw my friends
Feasting beneath green orange boughs;
From hand to hand they pushed the wine,
They sucked the pulp of plum and peach;
They sang, they jested, and they laughed,
For each was loved of each.

I listened to their honest chat:
Said one: 'To-morrow we shall be
Plod plod along the featureless sands
And coasting miles and miles of sea.'
Said one: 'Before the turn of tide
We will achieve the eyrie-seat.'
Said one: 'To-morrow shall be like
To-day, but much more sweet.'

'To-morrow,' said they, strong with hope,
And dwelt upon the pleasant way:
'To-morrow,' cried they one and all,
While no one spoke of yesterday.
Their life stood full at blessed noon;
I, only I, had passed away:
'To-morrow and to-day,' they cried;
I was of yesterday.

I shivered comfortless, but cast
No chill across the tablecloth;
I all-forgotten shivered, sad
To stay and yet to part how loth:
I passed from the familiar room,
I who from love had passed away,
Like the remembrance of a guest
That tarrieth but a day.

Poema do dia: Nevoeiro

Fernando Pessoa

Nevoeiro

Nem rei nem lei, nem paz nem guerra,
Define com perfil e ser
Este fulgor baço da terra
Que é Portugal a entristecer--

Brilho sem luz e sem arder,
Como o que o fogofátuo encerra.
Ninguém sabe que coisa quere.
Ninguém conhece que alma tem,

Nem o que é mal nem o que é bem.
(Que ânsia distante perto chora?)
Tudo é incerto e derradeiro.
Tudo é disperso, nada é inteiro.

Ó Portugal, hoje és nevoeiro...
É a Hora!

Heavy Metal

Poem of the day: Drench

Anne Stevenson

Drench

You sleep with a dream of summer weather,
wake to the thrum of rain—roped down by rain.
Nothing out there but drop-heavy feathers of grass
and rainy air. The plastic table on the terrace
has shed three legs on its way to the garden fence.
The mountains have had the sense to disappear.
It's the Celtic temperament—wind, then torrents, then remorse.
Glory rising like a curtain over distant water.
Old stonehouse, having steered us through the dark,
docks in a pool of shadow all its own.
That widening crack in the gloom is like good luck.
Luck, which neither you nor tomorrow can depend on.

Meus poemas: úteros invisíveis

úteros invisíveis

vamos abraçar-nos
aqui
entre o frio
e as dúvidas que carregamos

as pétalas que dividimos
constrangidos um pelo outro
vão acabar desfeitas
em promessas
de pessoas que não podemos ser
pessoas que nunca vamos ser

abracemo-nos, porém,
enquanto o sentimento de culpa
não nos traz chagas
que não queremos invocar

vamos esperar mais um dia
pode ser que venha a claridade
e nos faça deixar de temer
o que abandonámos há muito tempo
as pequenas mortes diárias
o delírio constante
que nos faz achar que estamos unidos
por um qualquer sentimento
que nos devolve a sensação
de estarmos no útero
a ser protegidos
por uma invisibilidade
controlada pelos bocejos do silêncio

Untitled #12

Poema do dia: Euforia

Al Berto

Euforia

cai neve no cérebro vivo do imaculado - dizem
que este milagres só são possíveis com rosas e
enganos - precisamente no segundo em que a insónia
transmuda os metais diurnos em estrume do coração

dizem também
que um duende dança na erecção do enforcado - o fulgor
dos sémenes venenosos alastra no brilho dos olhos e
um sussurro de tinta preta aflora os lábios
fere a mão de gelo que se aproxima da boca

o vómito da luz ergue-se
das palavras ditas em surdina

a seguir vem o sono
e o miraculado entra no voo dos cisnes
o dia cansa-se
na brutalidade com que a voz se atira contra as paredes
abrindo fendas
em toda a extensão das veias e dos tendões

quando desperta com o crepúsculo
o miraculado olha-nos fixamente e sorri
dá-nos uma rosa em forma de estilete - fechamos os olhos
sabendo que este é o maior engano
da eternidade

Poem of the day: The Coming of Light

Mark Strand

The Coming of Light

Even this late it happens:
the coming of love, the coming of light.
You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,
stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,
sending up warm bouquets of air.
Even this late the bones of the body shine
and tomorrow's dust flares into breath.

Os meus poemas: diminuir a luz

diminuir a luz

esta é apenas mais uma preocupação nocturna
como todas as outras
que nos acompanham
quando estamos a adoecer

quando esta voz
se instala
no peito adormecido
e faz diminuir a intensidade
das palpitações
do coração que está de fora

ela é mais do que uma palavra espelhada noutra
é mais medrosa do que isso

e a certeza que transparece
a certeza de estar a ser transformada
por uma espécie de portão
que se abre à minha frente
e assinala uma passagem dolorosa
faz-me temer o confronto
num espaço periclitante
entre os passos que dou
e os sons dos passos dos outros

receio a minha identidade
tanto como a minha clarividência febril
e na debilidade própria da lucidez
falta-me a fragilidade
para ser funâmbula

Poem of the day: The Novelist’s Comments

John Mateer

The Novelist’s Comments

After I read my poem addressed to one of his people’s heroes,
in his reclaimed, autochthonous voice
the novelist doesn’t say:

This is our language, our land.

Nor does he say:

Why don’t you go back where you came from?

And in what he doesn’t say he is echoing the woman
who after burying her father – a rare fluent speaker of language –
declared she should have chucked his tapes and journals,
his repository of the tongue, after him into the mouth
of the grave:

So that the white bastards wouldn’t get that too.

Poem of the day; White Nights

Paul Auster

White Nights

No one here,
and the body
says: whatever is said
is not to be said. But no one
is a body as well,
and what the body says
is heard by no one
but you.

Snowfall
and night. The repetition
of a murder
among the trees. The pen
moves
across the earth: it no longer knows
what will happen, and the hand that
holds it
has disappeared.

Nevertheless, it writes.
It writes:
in the beginning,
among the trees, a body came walking
from the night. It
writes:
the body's whiteness
is the color of earth. It is earth,
and
the earth writes: everything
is the color of silence.

I am no
longer here. I have never said
what you say
I have said. And yet, the body
is a place
where nothing dies. And each night,
from the silence of the
trees, you know
that my voice
comes walking toward you.

Literatura Portuguesa Contemporânea: Recomendações

Recomendo, para já, dois livros, que eu própria vou ler muito brevemente, uma vez que ainda tenho que esperar que cheguem a casa e que depois tenha tempo para os ler. Mas as premissas dos livros em si já fazem deles recomendações e pequenos oásis no deserto da literatura portuguesa, que embora sempre rica, nem sempre nos presenteia com o seu melhor. É preciso procurar bem, e para quem não conhece, ou nunca ouvi falar destes autores, porque não lê-los? Especialmente se gostarem de literatura anglo-saxónica, como eu que a amo profundamente. Estes dois autores estão ligados não só por laços emocionais, como também por laços literários e temáticos se quiserem, embora se expressem em formas literárias diferentes, mas sempre complementares, do meu ponto de vista. A poesia e o romance. Boas leituras, eu por mim sei que os vou ler, mais cedo ou mais tarde. São ambos publicados pela Relógio D'Água que, por sinal, é uma editora de muito bom gosto. Tenho tantos livros da Relógio D'Água que isso deve querer dizer qualquer coisa.

a) Hélia Correia - Adoecer

b) Jaime Rocha - Necrophilia

Soundtrack recommendations

This is mainly a list of albums that should be listened to on a rainy day like today, totally fitting for their mood and atmosphere. You can always go against the grain and listen to it on a sunny day, as long as it's in silence. It's bound to make you feel something. No matter what it is. Soundtrack recommendations:

a) Ghost Brigade - Isolation Songs

b) Stone Circle - Myth

c) James LaBrie - Static Impulse

My poems: decomposition

decomposition

I want to tell you the truth:

I have been waiting for you
to give me the knife

watch my mind
in decomposition
and open a new door
where you won’t enter
at least physically

watch time disappear
between the passing moments
we did not share

raise your dead hand
in confirmation
and tell me
what’s inside me
that needs to be freed

the truth is
none of these dreams
make me wash the blood off my hands

I have been waiting for you
to erase me

I have been waiting for you
to suffocate me

but the truth
is that the mirrors within
obfuscate
disintegrate
what’s always been concealed
in a black light
behind the closed eyes
the isolation madness

the barrier
where I catch what you said
between portraits and hands
and passion habits

a journey that will take me
to a severed place
which is so familiar

Robert Olen Butler: Severance

bought a new book today, just now. Heard about Butler's short stories in the meeting I had today with other literature and translation researchers. I always think the meetings are a bit boring at times but the truth is that I always learn something new, and even more important might be the fact that I always learn about a new book I haven't read yet or heard about. It's what happens when you're surrounded by literature aficionados. I always leave those meetings wanting to read more than I already do. And here is something I haven't read in a while, short stories. I used to read a lot of short stories in college and I really enjoyed it. But I stopped doing it for a while, for no apparent reason. And now I feel like drinking a bit of that again. And I will. Soon, after I finish "The Killer Inside Me", I'll start reading hopefully one of the best of the genre, certainly an important name in the short story contemporary world. He was in Lisbon for a conference in my college so that's why we started talking about him and his books. Also I was intrigued when I found out that this book was about what people supposedly said before being decapitated. Some people might find it appaling, well I don't, I think it's an interesting thing to write about. I'm very curious to know how he did it and what he made of it. And also I'm curious to find out how 1 page short stories can come to life. I'm just very curious about the whole thing and this book has been so praised that I might as well give it a try since its probably an interesting subject matter for me going in anyway. New books, new stories to read. Going back to the past in a way, reading short stories again. I feel like it. I feel excited about it. Besides, short stories always puzzled me, it's a part of literature that makes me want to know more.

Robert Olen Butler - Severance

poem of the day: Heroisms, 4, 5

Dan Beachy-Quick

Heroisms, 4, 5

4.

I speak these words directly into his yawn

Open cave of
his dark almost kind
of fire-lit mouth

And the shadows there my words form these shadows
In the back of the hero's throat

A world we applaud where chained to the ground
We watch the trees walk past us. There are other ways to describe the year:

Seasons of
The hero's boredom.


5.

Where the horror is comparison, honor sees
Hands in the trees instead of leaves—

Honesty asks why the applause is so quiet
When the wind blows so hard—

Breath is the atmosphere at utmost extreme
Where the lungs are flowers—thought the dew—

The sun doubts everything, a general statement
In whose light the hero sees these helpless things

Beg mercy, beg darkness for obscurity—
We do not comprehend the awe, it comprehends us—

When leaves fold in halves they look sleepy
Like eyes, but these eyes are fists

Poem of the day: I measure every Grief I meet

Emily Dickinson

I measure every Grief I meet (561)

I measure every Grief I meet
With narrow, probing, eyes –
I wonder if It weighs like Mine –
Or has an Easier size.

I wonder if They bore it long –
Or did it just begin –
I could not tell the Date of Mine –
It feels so old a pain –

I wonder if it hurts to live –
And if They have to try –
And whether – could They choose between –
It would not be – to die –

I note that Some – gone patient long –
At length, renew their smile –
An imitation of a Light
That has so little Oil –

I wonder if when Years have piled –
Some Thousands – on the Harm –
That hurt them early – such a lapse
Could give them any Balm –

Or would they go on aching still
Through Centuries of Nerve –
Enlightened to a larger Pain –
In Contrast with the Love –

The Grieved – are many – I am told –
There is the various Cause –
Death – is but one – and comes but once –
And only nails the eyes –

There's Grief of Want – and grief of Cold –
A sort they call "Despair" –
There's Banishment from native Eyes –
In sight of Native Air –

And though I may not guess the kind –
Correctly – yet to me
A piercing Comfort it affords
In passing Calvary –

To note the fashions – of the Cross –
And how they're mostly worn –
Still fascinated to presume
That Some – are like my own –

Hide Inside

we are just like these sand dunes

always trying to hide from something

even though we are stronger

than everything else that can haunt us

Is this what we've become?

My poems: the spiteful

the spiteful

I close my eyes
when you lie
beside me
during sleep

it is grief
now that you’re inside me
in belief

let’s relive the past
once and for all
and be spiteful

there’s nothing quite like the morning dew
when it’s being swallowed whole
in a sort of darkness
that resembles us

what we are
now that it’s too late to stop
too late to stop the stains
is nothing like a symbiosis
but it is always a reminder
of what might have been