Poem of Seven Faces
Carlos Drummond de Andrade
Translation: Unknown
When I was born, a twisted angel,
one of those who live in the shadow,
said: Go, Carlos! be gauche in life.
The houses spy on men
who chase after women.
The evening might have been blue,
had there not been so many desires.
The streetcar passes by full of legs:
white, black, yellow legs.
My God, my heart asks, why so many legs?
And yet my eyes
question nothing.
The man behind the mustache
is serious, simple and strong.
He seldom talks.
He has a few, rare friends
the man behind the glasses and the mustache.
My Lord, why did you abandon me
since you knew that I wasn’t God
since you knew that I was weak.
World, world, vast world,
if my name was Twirled
it’d be a rhyme, it wouldn’t be a solution.
World, world, vast world,
even vaster is my heart.
I shouldn’t tell you
but this moon
but this cognac
shake a person up like hell
It Didn’t Pass
Carlos Drummond de Andrade
Translation: Adam Charles
Did it pass?
Tiny eternities
swallowed through minimal watches
they resonate in the cavernous mind.
No, no one died, no one was unhappy.
The hand- your hand, our hands-
wrinkled, with an ancient heat
of when we were alive. Were we?
Today we are more alive than ever.
A lie, we are alone.
Nothing, that I feel, really passes.
It is all the illusion that it has passed.
To Wake Up, To Live
Carlos Drummond de Andrade
Translation: Adam Charles
How to wake up without suffering?
To restart without horror?
Sleepiness transported me
to that kingdom where there is no life
and I remain inert without passion.
How to repeat, one day after another,
an unfinished fable,
to support the similarity of harsh things
of tomorrow with the harsh things of today?
How to protect myself from the wounds
which the event tears inside me,
any event
that reminds of the Earth and its demented purple?
And more of that sore which I impose on myself
at every hour, executioner
of the innocent one that I am not?
No one responds, life is rough.
I can’t recall this. Do you have the Portuguese too?
Yes, here you go!
Acordar, viver
Como acordar sem sofrimento?
Recomeçar sem horror?
O sono transportou-me
àquele reino onde não existe vida
e eu quedo inerte sem paixão.
Como repetir, dia seguinte após dia seguinte,
a fábula inconclusa,
suportar a semelhança das coisas ásperas
de amanhã com as coisas ásperas de hoje?
Como proteger-me das feridas
que rasga em mim o acontecimento,
qualquer acontecimento
que lembra a Terra e sua púrpura
demente?
E mais aquela ferida que me inflijo
a cada hora, algoz
do inocente que não sou?
Ninguém responde, a vida é pétrea.
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