Books I'm reading: Contra Salazar

Depois de ter lido uma "mémoire", das poucas que li na vida até agora, regresso à poesia, a um lugar familiar: Fernando Pessoa. E porque eu papo tudo que sai sobre Fernando Pessoa, tinha de ler este também, mesmo achando que só me trará algumas gargalhadas. Talvez o que lá encontre me surpreenda. Depois desta ainda não sei o que vou ler, talvez me volte para poetas estrangeiros novamente. Time wil tell.

Poem of the Day: Making a Fist

Naomi Shihab Nye

Making a Fist

For the first time, on the road north of Tampico,
I felt the life sliding out of me,
a drum in the desert, harder and harder to hear.
I was seven, I lay in the car
watching palm trees swirl a sickening pattern past the glass.
My stomach was a melon split wide inside my skin.

"How do you know if you are going to die?"
I begged my mother.
We had been traveling for days.
With strange confidence she answered,
"When you can no longer make a fist."

Years later I smile to think of that journey,
the borders we must cross separately,
stamped with our unanswerable woes.
I who did not die, who am still living,
still lying in the backseat behind all my questions,
clenching and opening one small hand.

Anathema: We're Here Because We're Here

don't be afraid to come inside

Meus poemas: de profundis

de profundis

Society, as we constitued it, will have no place for me.
Oscar Wilde, De Profundis

quanto tempo vais perder
a tentar perceber a profundidade do corte

a profundidade do corte

vais ambicionar outros tempos
vais ser outro escudo penitente

como um dos fracos
entregues a uma solidão
tão monótona
quanto exagerada
escolheste os passos

e dessa travessia
sobrarás
como o único sobrevivente

no caminho
vais ser
o que te dizem para ser

vais fazer de tudo
para sentir

Poema do dia: Meu Pobre Portugal

Fernando Pessoa

Meu Pobre Portugal

Meu pobre Portugal,
Dóis-me no coração.
Teu mal é o meu mal
Por imaginação.

Tão fraco, tão doente,
E com a boa cor
Que a tísica põe quente
Na cara, o exterior.

Meu pobre e magro povo
A quem deram, às peças,
Um fato em estado novo
Para que o não pareças!

Tens a cara lavada,
Um fato de se ver
Mas não te deram nada,
Coitado, que comer.

E aí, nessa cadeira,
Jazes, apresentável.
O transeunte amável.

Poema do dia: Magdalene Poem

John Taggart

Magdalene Poem

Love enters the body

enters
almost
almost completely breaks and enters into the body

already beaten and broken

peaceful if breaking if breaking
and entering the already broken is peaceful

untouchable fortunately
untouchable.

Surprises unfold: Between the Buried And Me

So, I heard about Between the Buried And Me like 4 years ago. A mate from school recommended a song to me. I never listened to that song, I was too busy listening to other prog. A few years later, like in 2010, like now, I listened to "The Great Misdirect" which was released in 2009, so I'm late anyway. Now I'm exploring this new band starting with their latest release, that happens a lot. They are labeled as many things but to me, based on this record, they simply play progressive metal. That would be perfect for me right? Well, it is. So, I'm highlighting this album as one of the biggest surprises of the year so far, good ones, of course. The other good new band I found out about that made me feel the same way was "Stone Circle" when they released "Myth", totally different album but still genre bending progressive metal. Once in a while, a pearl like this pops up and makes itself visible to me, to my eager years. I see myself more and more attracted to extreme progressive metal sounds as much as "typical" progressive melodic metal. This is, however, a very difficult band, in the sense that most people won't really enjoy listening to them, too "specific" and "true" for most "consume, conform" minds. But, at the same time, they seem to be a very popular band, which, to me, is a contradiction. And why is that? They are in a big label and the press labeled them as metalcore? That might be it. Also, I feel you must have a certain musical background to really enjoy their music and understand what they are doing because there are so many musical genres involved and that are being explored and updated, taken aback, that one does need to be paying attention. But, in the end, this is the kind of music I love, music that isn't all that easy to understand or process, music that will make me think about what's being said and communicated, music that will speak to me on a higher level, music that will make me feel different things all at once, music that takes its time to reveal itself to me, music that feeds my brain and stretches it.

Between the Buried And Me - The Great Misdirect

And they will be playing in Portugal soon too, I won't be able to see them but I'm promoting it anyway. 24 June 2010 in Porto, The Great Misdirect European Tour hits our country. I'm sure it'll be worth it. They are very skillful and imaginative performers and they obviously know how to play their instruments.