Jose Gomes Ferreira (1900-1985)

Vai-te, Poesia!

Deixa-me ver a vida
exacta e intolerável
neste planeta feito de carne humana a chorar
onde um anjo me arrasta todas as noites para casa pelos cabelos
com bandeiras de lume nos olhos,
para fabricar sonhos
carregados de dinamite de lágrimas.

Vai-te, Poesia!

Não quero cantar.
Quero gritar!


Go, poetry!

Let me see life
exact and intolerable
in this planet made of human meat crying
where an angel drags me home every night
with flags with fire in the eyes,
to make dreams
filled with dynamite of tears.

Go, poetry!

I don't want to sing.
I want to scream!

The new president

Our new president is Aníbal Cavaco Silva. He won the election with 50.6% of the votes, which avoid him a second round. Surprisingly, Manuel Alegre largely beat Mario Soares (20.7% against 14.3%), making this election a big defeat for the Socialist Party.
Although this result will divide the power between left and right (Cavaco is center-right and Socrates, the prime-minister, is center-left), portuguese people hope to have now the stability needed for the economical recovery promised for several years.
Only the future can tell...

Elections

Next Sunday, the portuguese people are going to vote for a new president. The stronger candidates are:

a) Cavaco Silva is the most probable winner. The last predictions say he will get 52% of the votes, which will avoid a second round. If he doesn't get the absolute majority of the votes, he will have to go for a second voting, with the second stronger candidate. He is an independent candidate (which is an advantage, since the portuguese people seem to be tired of all parties), who was prime minister from 1985-1995. He was the leader of the center right party for several years and is the candidate supported by the "right" parties. here he is, playing the portuguese guitar:














b) Manuel Alegre is according to some predictions the second most voted, while others put him as third. He is also an independent candidate, who is a member of the center left party. Before the beginning of the campaign, everybody thought his party would support him, but after Mario Soares (see below) confirmed to run for the elections, he was not supported anymore. However, he decided to run independently and the amount of votes predicted is a big victory for him and a defeat for his party. I personally admire him for his writing. Besides a politician, he is a (very good...in my opinion) writer and poet. About the lack of support from his party to the election, he wrote:
“I’m not sure in which war I am. Every day at this time, about 6 o’clock in the afternoon, I start being surrounded by troops that I don’t see.
I feel them close to me, I know they are around me, but I don’t see anyone. Only the shooting…….Sometimes they take the microphone and order me to surrender:
- You are alone, they say. You’re a lonely soldier in a war that is lost for a long time.
The problem is I don’t even know which war it is. I don’t know who put me this uniform, or who sent me here……
…..
What does it matter? Dream or not, they are here, I have to defend my square, there is no other way but this one, fight till the end, a man doesn’t surrender, it wouldn’t be nice, it would be, if you excuse me, impolite, very impolite.”











c) The older candidate (82 years old) is Mário Soares. No one believed he would still run for this election. but he did and seems to have enough strength to do it again. He was president from 1986-1996 and prime minister in the early 80s. He was also one of the important figures in the 74 revolution, which ended the dictactorship.
His campaign is being hardly criticized because he constantly attacks and provokes other candidates, especially Cavaco Silva.















Let's see what the people has to say about this on Sunday. I will let you know next week.

Fernando Pessoa again

Para ser grande, sê inteiro: nada
Teu exagera ou exclui.
Sê todo em cada coisa. Põe quanto és
No mínimo que fazes.
Assim em cada lago a lua toda
Brilha, porque alta vive.

To be big, be complete: nothing
Yours exagerate or exclude.
Be all in each thing. Put what you are
in the least you do.
Like this in every lake the whole moon
Shines, because high lives.

Portinho da Arrábida

This beautiful beach, hidden behind the not less beautiful mountains of Arrábida, offers one of the things most difficult to find these days around Lisbon: silence and quietness. It is ideal as a runaway from Lisbon for a weekend. It is part of the Natural Park of the Arrábida mountains, which is worth being discovered for its diversity of fauna and flora and, off course, the natural beauty.

The first three pictures are mine and the last one was "borrowed" from:
http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Europe/Portugal/South/Setubal
/Arrabida/photo166697.htm

Nuno Júdice

This "fado" way of thinking of the portuguese people also has some good things. After reading a lot more poetry of portuguese authors, I found out some beautiful poems. I chose to post one by Nuno Júdice today. He is a contemporary poet, from whom many poems can be found on the web. The one that I chose is not one of the most widely found. I read it in a book and it immediately attracted my attention:

Presente

Queria neste poema a cor dos teus olhos
e queria em cada verso o som da tua voz:
depois, queria que o poema tivesse a forma
do teu corpo, e que ao contar cada sílaba
os meus dedos encontrassem os teus,
fazendo a soma que acaba no amor.

Queria juntar as palavras como os corpos
se juntam, e obedecer à única sintaxe
que dá um sentido à vida; depois,
repetiria todas as palavras que juntei
até perderem o sentido, nesse confuso
murmúrio em que termina o amor.

E queria que a cor dos teus olhos e o som
da tua voz saíssem dos meus versos,
dando-me a forma do teu corpo; depois,
dir-te-ia que já não é preciso contar
as sílabas, nem repetir as palavras do poema,
para saber o que significa o amor.

Então dar-te-ia o poema de onde saíste,
como a caixa vazia da memória, e levar-te-ia
pela mão, contando os passos do amor.

Nuno Júdice

Present

I would like in this poem the colour of your eyes
and I would like in every verse the sound of your voice:
then, I would like that the poem would have the shape
of your body, and that while counting every syllable
my fingers would find yours
Making the addiction that ends up in love.

I would like to put words together like bodies
get together, and obey the only syntax
that gives life a meaning; then,
I would repeat all the words that I’ve put together
until they loose their meaning, in that confusing
murmur that ends up in love.

And I would like the colour of your eyes and the sound
of your voice to come out from my verses
giving me the shape of your body; then,
I would tell you that there’s no need to count
the syllables anymore, or repeat the words of the poem,
To know what love means.

Then, I would give you the poem where you came from,
like the empty box of memory, and I would take you
By my hand, counting the steps of love.

Nuno Júdice

Fernando Pessoa

He was born in 1888 in Lisbon and died in 1935 and he was probably the most influent poet of portuguese literature, writing under the name of four different characters (himself, Alberto Caeiro, Alvaro de Campos and Ricardo Reis).

There will never be enough words to describe a poet like this. The poems tell everything. I'm posting first the original and then the english translation. I promise to post more of his poems in the future.

Se depois de eu morrer (Alberto Caeiro)

Se depois de eu morrer, quiserem escrever a minha biografia,
Não há nada mais simples
Tem só duas datas — a da minha nascença e a da minha morte.
Entre uma e outra cousa todos os dias são meus.

Sou fácil de definir.
Vivi como um danado.
Amei as cousas sem sentimentalidade nenhuma.
Nunca tive um desejo que não pudesse realizar, porque nunca ceguei.
Mesmo ouvir nunca foi para mim senão um acompanhamento de ver.
Compreendi que as cousas são reais e todas diferentes umas das outras;
Compreendi isto com os olhos, nunca com o pensamento.
Compreender isto com o pensamento seria achá-las todas iguais.

Um dia deu-me o sono como a qualquer criança.
Fechei os olhos e dormi.
Além disso, fui o único poeta da Natureza.

Translation:
If, After I Die

If, after I die, they should want to write my biography,
There's nothing simpler.
I've just two dates - of my birth, and of my death.
In between the one thing and the other all the days are mine.

I am easy to describe.
I lived like mad.
I loved things without any sentimentality.
I never had a desire I could not fulfil, because
I never went blind.
Even hearing was to me never more than an accompaniment of seeing.
I understood that things are real and all different from each other;
I understood it with the eyes, never with thinking.
To understand it with thinking would be to find them all equal.

One day I felt sleepy like a child.
I closed my eyes and slept.
And by the way, I was the only Nature poet.

Sou um evadido (Fernando Pessoa)

Sou um evadido.
Logo que nasci
Fecharam-me em mim,
Ah, mas eu fugi.

Se a gente se cansa
Do mesmo lugar,
Do mesmo ser
Por que não se cansar?

Minha alma procura-me
Mas eu ando a monte,
Oxalá que ela
Nunca me encontre.

Ser um é cadeia,
Ser eu é não ser.
Viverei fugindo
Mas vivo a valer.

Translation:
I am the escaped one

I am the escaped one,
After I was born
They locked me up inside me
But I left.

If we get tired,
Of the same place,
Of the same being
Why not to get tired?

My soul seeks me,
Through hills and valley,
I hope my soul
Never finds me.

To be one is prison,
To be me is not to be.
I will live runing away
But I live for real.