poems

Bamboo

Even though it is immeasurable
My prison is still tight as skin
but my horizons wide as silences

Although it is incomprehensible
The moment is clear as pain
but the mountain inside cold as ash

Since I have known only one
Many drops fall as from bloodshed
but the fragile division was born as orphan

Nonetheless I was lover of the loneliest desert
Counting the walls that serve as mistakes
but swallowed all the scriptures that read as noise

Thus, metaphorical speaking aside
The clouds raised thoughts as mothers
but motion now seems so still as bamboo

Return to Beyond Language

Tinges of blue

I left the office shy of two o’clock

gaining inside a shudder that could reach

just beyond the boundary of solitude.

I raised this old neck of mine

the sky was me.

Belonging to dreams we no longer dare to glimpse

futures too powerful too bear

fears that out of plain habit

covered me like husks of wisdom.

So eternally blue – with the intensity of an S

similar to the smell of dawn, depths of now

bright as selflessness

blue as sky.

A kind of rejoicing, a mystic’s forgotten book

and the glory of erased words!

TO return, live a thousand sleeps

one more lonely death

varying degrees of godless hours

those dissipated moments

hungry of freedom, so easily obscured.

Bury me in lands of mute plants.

Blind pasts, unimportant futures.

The sky was me, I turned

I had gone away… hands overflowing possibility.

Go back to Beyond Language

Timelessness

Unable to escape this vast dawn

hanging upon me like an atmosphere of chemicals

a mechanical tingling from ages’ past

I’ve collected the motionless quantum of floating seeds
constantly mirroring the pinpoints of valleys

as seen from peaks of departure

I’ve spoken with the dark red shade of tomorrow
perhaps seducing despair to taste my blood

her choice fluttered like a hummingbird’s thought

I’ve fallen in those perimeters of wonder
unfelt timelessness

incapable of resisting the language of rising steam

The old skins of trees invade the territory of sense
while curves vague as clouds

embroil this journey’s end.

Go back to Beyond Language

From the heights above

region of utter (but momentary) silence

one spasm of current, one flick of expectation:

Thundering fingers of light

you yearn to reach high

succumb to every celestial impulse

explore paths in those veins of pain

fury and euphoric in blindness

closing in at last to fulfillment

near-annihilation by its sheer force

forsaken in its brilliance

as the chariot of doom

heralds the advent of change

Then, laugh, laugh in Olympic stride

and close your eyes to the Void inside

Go back to Beyond Language

Corner’s spiral

Come trace each spiral’s end

the emptiness of every word

fullness of rippling chords

wondering, strange wondering

those that once were

where has the smoke of their pipes

traveled?

To them we were distant dream’s child

a rising vapor over their colossal deaths—

serene nocturnal sounds

Gathering ink droplets

over prayer’s whisper

and the fall, rushing leap

bottom deep darkness into

deep immensity’s embrace

Violin growth of love

the stream naturally light

flight upon mountainous sleep

crossing threads of cycles and returning

Entering moment’s origin

returning every minute

arriving over and over again.

City Walls

urban_hermit_poetry

I have abandoned everything

like a monk with weary eyes

I am a hermit within the city walls

Tall towers of light are only columns of dreams

I have fled from the horizon

to study the core

I am tired of all the signs –

In a falling leaf

the whole universe is summarized.

Don’t wake me up!

Let me sleep in my rich delusions

Let me be like dust

that never had a name

it never spoke a word.

Wonder Eye

Could we motion our awe

present it hourly along our way

Could we breathe in astonishment

the minutes streaming by

As the moon today is half-dipped

in the layers of blue crisp sky

We must throw away legions,

innumerable attempts,

since it is mostly rare

that we define existence

by wonder

If we could raise our eyes

as frequently we raise our cups

the impenetrable azure

or the eternal dark

may become one day

our source of belonging

Traveling at night

A black umbrella
my sky
The moon
another street-lamp
Sleeping houses
populate my horizon
Following the curvature of a continent
the window is my pillow
My eyes
magnets attracting
the elements of the unknown.
If the clouds
scatter and break the sky asunder
into a thousand little islands,
If on top of trees
the world below would not be so strange
I would visit every cumulus bay
every rising branch…
How far must a man go
to find out what he seeks?

Do not approach me

I’m surrounded by an atmosphere

not of air but of stone

the vastness of the Existent, breaking

falling upon me like an avalanche of lead

I am compressed, the center of the earth

knows nothing of this tremendous pressure

Exhausted under this weight

words fail, expressions useless

Science’s theorems futile!

The Milky Way hangs on my back

There is no abyss sufficiently deep —

I am the lowest vortex

All objects crush me in their fall

Here’s the dungeon of gravity

Do no approach me…

Heavy Steps

painting_dreams_lost_man

Old and brittle man

walking alone, hands behind back

dragging his feet, stooping his head

as the town of Itacaré swam

in melodies of reggae, seasons of breeze

Poor old man, stumbling amongst thoughts

entreating pain to numb his soul

so as to never suffer harshly

from the whip of regret —

Why does sadness allow me to forgive you;
come here old man

sit by my side, listen to the stars

there are still things your pain

will never mar