Fear is present on street corners,
behind unshaven faces
and gaudy make-up.

Man is afraid of his own shadow.
What fear is this, poet?
What kind of bogeyman is this,
so that we may
build a barricade, join hands
and face him confident of our
neighbor's courage?

What fear is this that terrorizes man
and intelligence, crushing that most
sublime of existences that is liberty?
Can it be that men got lost among the monsters
created by their own imaginations?
How long will they stand shackles
that smother creativity
and force us to deny what we believe
and say what we don't want?

(June, 1977)

THREE ACT POEM

I

In an age of examples
I refuse to accept as a rule
any exception whatsoever.

II

I don't fear crises, but rather the
proprietors of the truth.
The prophets don't frighten me,
but industrialized gods threaten me.

III

Cloisters have lost their meaning.
Watergate was revealed
and costume balls are out of style:
Why doesn't everyone unmask?

(Pittsburgh, August 1978)

STUMBLINGS

My lines stumble
on a lack of love and on privation,
on lament and subservience,
on perquisites and the limitation
of a time without coexistence.

My lines stumble
on cowardice, on emotion
on the disappointment of not transforming
each poem into a struggle for freedom
where each line could celebrate
love expanding.

(June 1977)

SUFOCATED

In life's missteps
appearances suffocate me.

Corruption and arbitrariness
violate my dignity.

Integrity no longer
serves as a guarantee and "word of honor"
is suspiciously received.

I am ashamed of the moral pollution of
the world
that my children will have to face.

When my time comes,
I'll leave with the hope
that they can avoid
the suffocating of tomorrow's poets.

(February 1978)

SOLITUDE OR THE SPIRIT OF EVIL?

In mysticism,
the spirit of good or evil
possesses man's body.

In big Cities,
solitude, like a spirit of evil,
predominates in all ages.

And solitude has given rise to
hate, jealousy, corruption
and hypertension, too.

(November 1977)

WHEN THE DUST SETTLES

When the dust settles
everything will be different:
the sum will shine again
and love repressed will overflow.

– No one will be master of anyone –
Solidarity will govern
with no punishment
and nothing will break it up.

– We'll get together and pardon -
When the dust settles
everything will be different.

(Austin, May 1979)

OH HOW I MISS

Oh how I miss
the days of oil lamps,
courting on the cathedral's square
childhood games
and neighbor girls.

Poets and serenaders
no longer sing of dawn
with the moon a witness
and a guitar as companion.

Oh how I miss
love without money
the strong smell of wet earth
flirting in Chile Street
"Café society" and ice-cold beer.

I no longer know what will become of this life
in this other world so worldly.

I don't know anymore what will be of man
this other machine-city
in the glow of radioactivity.

What will become of this society
created for consumption
a slave of ambition
and which no longer knows how to love
to the sound of the surf.

(Austin, May 1979)

MIRROR AND STEAM

On the mirror fogged up
by the hot shower's steam,
I sketched with my finger tips
- as one who tries to feel
the velvet petal of a rose –
two critical eyes.

Before I could complete um sketch
the steam erased my first stroke.

– My sketch put up no resistance.

I don't wish for my poems
a like existence.

Let them speak! Struggle! Cry!

Let them be the essence of life.

(June 1977)

POETICS

In the life of poetry
there can be no laziness
or inertia: Each word felt,
reveals the mystery
of the truth contained in the poems.

(June 1977)

ANIMATED WORD

Some day I'll animate
my dream with a breath
of creation.
Some day I'll mold
the words and poems
will be only of love.

(June 1977)

SEARCH

Masquerading in life
man seeks to find himself
and, in the multitude, he hides
his own solitude.

(April 1978)

SUNDAY

It is a sad Sunday afternoon.

I don't see pretty girls anymore
On the square or on church pews.

The windows are closed.

People are isolated
and the streets deserted.

The benches on the square
are empty.

I no longer see young couples kissing
and walking hand in hand in the sunlight. Love is warmer under the cold light
of the moon at Lovers Lane,
where the sound of the sea
beats time for bodies
sweating, pressed together, confined
in the sparse space
of cars, seeking to learn to love.

(Austin, February 1979)

BIRD ROCK

I no longer see gulls
on Rio Vermelho's rocks.
My eyes no longer rest
on that serene flight
and that dive indicating
good fishing. They've gone.
Newspapers report
the deaths of gulls
in Arembepe and Brittany.
Here from titanium, there from oil
leaked into the waters of the sea.
Of what value is progress
if I can no longer
contemplate the gulls
on the Bird Rock
of my childhood?

(March 1978)

ENCHANTED DREAM

Chaplin enchanted us all
and dreaming departed
as simply as a silent film.

(December 1977)

EPITAPH

From the dampness
of the fertile earth
I'll try to hear
the sound of the trumpet
and apogee of humanity.

I'll try to fertilize
the soil where roses
are to bloom
to be given
to loving couples
who try to rediscover love.

(February 1978)

THE AWAKENING OF THE FUTURE

(For Rafael, my son)

In your child's lively eyes,
in your serious face,
my son, I project my hopes
for a better world
on your first birth day.

I fear, and I confess, for the future
that is being built for your generation.
I would like to mold it safe
and without suffering,
so that your tomorrow
can be as in my mind:
tranquil as the setting sun.

(January 1978)

WING FOR LOVE

One day I'll place wings
on your white dress
and like an angel you'll
float in space and
hover, like a hummingbird, drawing
from the lips you want
the nectar you need
to feed your love.

(February 1978)

FEELING AND TOUCHING

Air flees from my lungs
as hands compress my chest.
For each step taken, each minute passed,
brings me closer to the meeting
time between the real and the dreamed.

What is reality if not
the daily routine, the vanity
of wanting to be, the happiness of moments,
feeling and touching?

What would dreams be if not
the desire to perpetuate,
the meeting with happiness
and being able, without restriction,
to love?

(February 1978)

POSSESSION

I felt, in my breast,
the beat of a drum:
I prefer blinding passion
to defaced hypocrisy.

I prefer your warmth,
to bragging
(among friends)
while my soul decries
broken resistance
and moments suffered.

I am your love,
even full of faults.

(June 1977)

PARDOM, LOVE

Love,
I'm sorry for the rose I didn't give you
for the smile I hid.
Forgive me for no longer knowing how to cry
for those moments when I
couldn't smile
at my weaknesses and for not
Knowing how to love as I should.

(Pittsburgh, June 1979)

SOLITUDE

In the melancholy of the dawn
I felt all the poetry of your hands
and the promise of your glance
of a woman loved. Beneath the cold rain
we wandered barefoot hand in hand
on the fine sand
since in our hearts
there is no place for solitude.

(Austin, March 1979)

EXORCISM

I exorcised from myself
my accumulated love
in a spasmodic sensation,
oscillating vertebrae
in a bedroom dance
capable of moving mountains.

I seeded the organic
depths and perpetuated,
in seconds of happiness, the species.

(February 1978)