(translation) poems, herberto helder

Herberto Hélder was born in Funchal, Madeira, in 1930. In 1964, alongside António Aragão, Herberto would create the first anthology of experimental poetry in the Portuguese language, which punctuated an enormous shift in Portuguese poetic literature. He died in 2015.He wrote the poems above in his book, Servidões, a book also never translated into English.

(Droplet) no peace at all.

Children picking up our bonesWill never know that these were once   As quick as foxes on the hill; And that in autumn, when the grapes   Made sharp air sharper by their smell   These had a being, breathing frost; And least will guess that with our bones   We left much more, left what still is   The look of things, left what

Happy Together (1997)

In spirit of support for Hong Kong’s recent and on-going social struggle, I decided to review one Cantonese work that had the vastest artistic influence over myself and my own creative method, and that work is, without an inkling of doubt, Wong Kar Wai’s Happy Together, made in 1997. This film proved to be the

(Memnos II) – A Silence In Which No One Sings

        I’d like to think that, if you made it to this point, you hold the glory that my poem holds not, as you withstood it. I don’t particularly like anything I produce these days, but this one was a delicate endeavor to iron-out. Written over nearly two months, revised hundreds of times, wholesomely deleted

(Memnos I) – Alluvium

        I was vanished; A most egotistical subterfuge, but naught without its proper cost. Approaching my date of birth by last December, I suffered a massive plunge in my mental integrity, followed by some level of tragedy, anguish, and some sparse instances of recuperation. This is most common to me since my early childhood, yet,

Protected: A woman. (english poetry)

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

⌉|⌈ – Für Alina

In 1976 — a year hardened by a big exodus within European confines, Alina, then eighteen years of age, left Tallin, Estonia, for a more promising life in England. Shipping in embrace with her father, she left only her mother, who was left in solitude. Arvo Pärt, by then a long-time friend of the family,

⌉|⌈ – Irrigation, friends.

        Leaned against the customary elm tree, some would take aim at nouvelle psychologies, others would echo life-bound lessons at the bottom of a plastic beer cup. If elation existed on summary, little else would be needed to describe the happiness blooming from friendship. I’d spent my few years of breath on fighting prejudice and

⌉|⌈ – Sunken Soul, debris.

“Sad is what I am — what I will always be,  an artist is born in form of a shipwreck,  and henceforth, that same sunken soul  shall live from scavenging the debris.”           Existence is often homogenous with the ebb of an ocean — composed of movements, violent thrusts against the shore, soothing hymns that

⌉|⌈ – Four Chestnut Kings

Four Chestnut Kings When I read poetry, it’s not customary to do it in one sitting, since verse can be overbearing at times, especially when the verse in question is condensed with a large amount of information or emotional overdraws. So, to break that cycle of lyricentric text, I will make a little break and