A n a r c h i c _ U n i v e r s e ®

Poetry from Poems Daily©

The three poems from "A Clean Shirt of It" translated from Portuguese by Idra Novey are here. The Portuguese version is in a link inside the link. Copyright Idra Novey© 2007, Paulo Henriques Britto ©2003, www.poems.com©.

This link is for educational purposes only.

Poetry for a Good Measure

Paulo Henriques Britto - Poet Laureate

Seek and thou shall find. I was looking for a link of mine in Technorati. That I found not. I found instead a collective blog, O Indivíduo, in which Pedro Sette Câmara lends his voice to lusophone poetry.
This link presents Paulo Henriques Britto and Fernando Pessoa.

Are you ready? Click here, read and listen please.

O que tinha que ser - Tom e Vinícius

I am a night person. Running behind, I apologize. The name of one of my top five songs, music and lyrics is O quê tinha que ser, by Tom Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes. Tom was a maestro playing in bars in an alley in Copacabana. Whatever one can find when one has children. I saw him play only once, here at the Hollywood Bowl. Then I saw him at the end of his life, heavy like me, sitting at a BBQ-restaurant, an elegant all you can eat, drinking beer on tap, smoking, more red meat. He came here and died on Immaculate Conception, December 8.

Vinicius de Moraes was one of the youngest ever diplomats in Itamaraty. While Tom was married to Teresa for a looong time, Vinicius would move on. I saw him when I was a teenager, in 1965 or 1966. Although raised in a Catholic school, having learned Latin, although raised traditionally, Vinicius was irreverent. The other diplomats felt spiteful, I guess. Mommy and I used ot argue this point. She'd say he was a shame to Brazil. I'd say he did more for Brazil than any of the others, except the Baron who sliced a big chunk of Bolivia for us, Barão do Rio Branco. Mommy argued he drank and never wore a suit to work. Vinicius died peacefully in his bathtub, in Bahia.
I used to cry for George Harrison while one of his daughters would cry for Paul. Vinicius wrote about the sof-boiled egg-sucking mouth of Paul's. I can see that; like trying to say "Le chapeau pointu."

Here are the lyrics, by Vinicius. I'll translate them to the best of my ability tomorrow. Look for the video in thepost right after Links, please.

reproduced for educational purposes only. ©
O que tinha de ser

(Tom Jobim e Vinícius de Moraes)

Int.: Em
Em
Porque foste na vida
E7
A última esperança
Am
Encontrar-te me fez criança
B7
Porque já eras meu
Em
Sem eu saber sequer
C
Porque és o meu homem
B7
E eu tua mulher
Em
Porque tu me chegaste

Sem me dizer que vinhas
E7 Am
E tuas mãos foram minhas com calma
C
Porque foste em minh'alma
Am
Como um amanhecer
B7 E (Em)
Porque foste o que tinha de ser

Du Contraire

My mother used an expression for people who showed any opposition to her ideas or statements.  Unfortunately, it was " a spirit of a pig."  Maybe ahead of time, she foresaw the "chauvinistic pig" of the 60s.  Oinc-Oinc.
There is another expression in Portuguese "do contrário".  That is "a contrarian."

My sister and I used to fight, not that much, but she was a du contraire, like the boys here at home. I have barely finished a sentence and there  comes a "No, woi£∞™¢0$%#^%#$!$ipr!"  Burns me up.

We are friends although her tolerance for social talk is no more than fifteen minutes. She's a dermo-pathologist. No night calls, get it?  The patients can always wait. The patient won't complain ever. 

She reserves her limited energy for extreme cases.  I disperse my energy in futile causes.  I wrote this poem in 1997.  This is  free rhyme  and my translation.  The  Poet  Laureate is busy translating someone holier than  me.

Two Sisters

Because blood is thicker than water

Let salty tears dissolve
past fraternal quabblling i
n the red sea--
hermetic genetic which
unites us --it's been years.

Let us dissolve them in an embrace
sweet, crimson, viscous,
tender. Secretive
From me to you and
From you to me.

Sweet blood weighs
more than water -
salt water or not,
(may your heart
sink not at the burden
of unwanted memories.)

Keep, O Sister! Like I
keep love belonging to you,
spread in rooms here and
overseas,
infinite as the tracks left
in the sand
by ants in a park in Rio.

Love projected in books, in
closets, in prose in poems
crooked

Heed this voice!

Hidden in abysses
of æortas,

Let's open our ports
keeping our docks
in a sweet sour hug.

My ventricule, your auricule.
Tell me lo que quieres
We will be sisters to the end

The sole Oiticica Harrisses
Yesterday, today, in
a tomorrow ad infinitum.

Ipanema, 1997

©Anarchic_Universe,2007

Daddy, Sit Me on Your Knee

Daddy, sit me on your knee
Play horse and gallop me
To a better world

I am afraid, Daddy, it's too
Tough to live like this
Daddy, call me once again

Many times till I stop sobbing
Your "honeyzeetiquitah"
Maybe your strong hands could

Wipe away my tears and pain
Daddy, I'm too young still
Not to be able to walk or

Get up from your lap
To have a mind entrapped
In this unresponsive body

Daddy, if all else fails
Can you bring me a box
Of Crayolas with 64 colors

And a built in sharpener?
So at least my imaginary
world can be in technicolor

Meet Paulo Henriques Britto, the Poet Laureate

Of Consciousness as a Kind of Toothache

The precise shape of the chair
against a wall of sullen white
will not surrender any such meaning
as you might possibly divine.
(This hurts.)

Try once again: There is a wholesome chair
against a blissful wall of utter white.
The chair is absolutely still,
and in its sharp starkness of shape
it stands out like a shriek of agony
against the whiteness of the wall.
And that is all.
(This positively hurts.

There are no chairs in Eden,
where words live out their dismal fate
and die for want of solid food.
And in this room of frozen furniture
and wall of white, no meanings dare make entrance
and face the fierceness of wood, the rigor of brick,
the nameless horrors of a silent room
drenched in artificial light.)

This hurts like hell. But there's no balm in Chairland.
no comfort in the vault where meanings lie
and wait until they die.

From Liturgia da Matéria, PHB, 1982.

The poet is ambilingual, as fluent in English as in Brazilian Portuguese. Born in Rio de Janeiro,1951, he spent one year of high school in D.C. In the beginners' class when he started, he was in HP English before the end of his stay. An avid reader of Poe, Pessoa, Joyce, Proust and many others, the Poet Laureate has little time to write. He translates big names, such as : Phillip Roth, Johnn Updike, Don DeLilo, Faulkner, and he is an Elizabeth Bishop specialist. He translated Douglas Adams' first in a series. The number 42 is the latest craze in Brazilian Blogsland. He won the prestigious Portugal-Telecom award for his book Macau in 2003.
There is a book of his poetry coming up, translated into English. Check it out.
PHB in English.

Caetano Veloso might have said that behind a successful man there is a woman, maybe it was Gilberto Gil. The Poet Laureate found his better half in a specialist in Tropicália and MPB, and more from a political anthropological view, Dr. Santuza Cambraia Naves. They have been companions and soulmates since 1986.

Marching Band

Marching Band

The summer has come to an end, fall has begun
Students start preparing for school again
However, one group of students have already been preparing ofr fall
The marvelous marching band season has started two weeks before school
The students warm up on their instruments
From the Sousaphone to the trumpet'And the Saxophone to the flute
All coming together to refresh their memories of their season
Starting with their training of playing

A field show is chosen and the music is immediately memorized
Then comes the part of relearning how to march
From rolling your feet, to stop and goes
We relearn the fundamentals, drills and finally come to the show

The show is learned by pages at a timme, and attaching the music to the drill]
Visuals are added on for the people who are stationary for a couple of sets]
And as the pages were added, the show was a step closer to being finished.
Two weeks before the first competition, the show was finished, but sti messy
We got good awards, and so, we spent the next couple of weeks polishing]

Finally camee the football games
Oh football games were the best
In came the band with their fight song
Playing for the team, they sound like number one

Finally comes the competitions
Blowing our hearts out to make a difference
The tubas with their umpah's
The flutes with thier frills and trills
The trumpets with their melodies
And the percussionists with their beats
All making one big sound to produce music
Awards given for our good performance

End of the season is near
From a marching band to a concert band
Sightreading new music to pay
Awaiting Dysneyland to come
Concert goes on and we make the band sound good

Gabriel Harris-Rouquette
SAMOHI, English HP
January 12, 2007