POEMAS DE "CHAVE DE IGNIÇÃO"
traduzidos para inglês por Brian Strang



Olá amigos! The second installment in this blog is work by Ruy Ventura (b. 1973), a poet from the Alto Alentejo region of Portugal. He has published several books in Portugal, including Architecture of Silence, Seven Capitals of The World, How To Leave A House and Breath Instruments. The following work is a selection from Ignition Key (2009). He has published poetry books in Spanish, organized anthologies, done translations, written many essays and has an interesting poetry blog called Estrada do Alicerce.






Here’s what Ruy has to say about his poetry:



Poetry being a counterliterature, an edifying element of a countercultural demand, the art produced by one who writes will always have an element of confrontation. First, a confrontation with language and, at the same time, an instrument of communication. Later, a permanent struggle with the society that uses this language and expels from its body all the strange and estranging presences. And in the end, an uninterrupted battle against the expressive tradition of a community.
This does not mean that poetry should be an uprooted art. A writer has roots in the land to which s/he belongs, is conscious of the presence of these roots, knows how to use them to live and braces one’s self against the storms and earthquakes of existence. Despite this, everything tears away, exposes itself, subverts—because the writer knows the distance between poetry and versification, between the marvelous and monotony, between mystery and previsibility, between rupture and continuity.
In the poems I have been writing I try to describe destroying description, to narrate destroying narration. More than a poet, I consider myself an investigator of the inversion of the material and immaterial world that surrounds me. In my opinion, poetry is not good for representing reality nor for relating (historicizing) the world-view of human beings, but just—and this is enough—to present the ruptures, gaps and the open retreats in the crust that sustains us and gives form to our animated corporeal form. Aboard a tangible/visible material or an intangible/invisible reality, I try to make my poetry a concretization of the ineffable and, simultaneously, the revelation of “spirituality” of the concrete world. To concretize the concrete or spiritualize the ineffable is to piss into the ocean, making poor and destroying art. Butchering the words of a Spanish poet, we must ally ourselves with the existent, but dead, the inexistent, but alive. Neither concrete nor abstract are properly poetry, said Vitorino Nemésio. Poetry will always be “an other “ an “I-don’t-know-what;” it will always belong to the domain of the indeterminate.
Like any other that writes, I am one who has been contaminated. I don’t speak of influences the way Bloom does, which oozes hierarchy—and, in the end, all writers create their own ancestors, as Jorge Luis Borges writes. The Brazilian poet Márcio-André says it well: “Contamination does not begin by exchanging hierarchies between a contaminator and a contaminated; in truth, both are mutually contaminated. … we can only be contaminated by something that is already in us, insofar as that is a possibility.”
Nothing exists, everything coexists. Bernardo Soares was right.









from Ignition Key / Chave de ignição







“…when one is born, there isn’t yet a traveler. Heavy tears are the first drops of Spirit. … Dispersed lights wait for the only pauses permitted, and the living kingdom, lowering to crematorium fire of the bellies, breathes into a new form.”

Maria Gabriela Llansol
from A Falcon in The Fist






trip / viagem










queimo tudo dentro deste quarto—

no lugar onde o teu corpo

parte.

o campanário permanece.

a alma renasce

com a poeira.

faz parte da serra

— a que chega, a que fica, a que

abala com o abrigo

escavado na rocha—.

a pedra recebe o teu corpo.

desaparece. apenas um rasgo

entre dois líquenes

recorda a fundura

das células.



queimo tudo—nesta casa.

os sinos pontuam o sono.

— a melodia cresce.











I burn everything in this room—

in the place where your body

splits.

the bell tower remains.

the soul is reborn

with dust.

becomes part of the mountains

—that arrives, stays,

shakes with a shelter

dug in the cliff—.

the rock receives your body.

disappears. just a tear

between two lichens

records the depth

of the cells.



I burn everything—in this house.

bells punctuate sleep.

—melody rises.










abro a porta. entro sem ver

nessa dança que divide o coração.

a terra protege-nos do frio.

desvia dos olhos essa fome

com que fomos edificando

o sangue, a alma.



cozinhamos sombras e segredos.

colocamos a cinza sobre o corpo

para acendermos o fogo e a memória.



a cinza lava essa imagem, a nossa

imagem sem cor, sem nome—

ardendo sobre as águas.



guardo neste braço a luz do dia.

sobre a pele, a noite dissolve

o mundo inteiro—sedimentos

(acumulados sobre a morte)

que dividem a voz e a tristeza.



alimento-me dessa escuridão.

tento trazer para dentro da caverna

fragmentos de pão e de paisagem.



a sombra invade-nos

quando menos esperamos.

a luz vai gravando sobre a porta

a legenda da voz que alcançámos.



que dança divide o coração?

a água atravessa a fome e o movimento.

a cinza devolve à terra

este corpo (sem cor, sem nome).



o fogo enegrece as paredes do templo.

só assim conseguimos escutar a derradeira canção—

ecoando noite e dia

nos alicerces do medo.











I open the door. enter without seeing

in that dance that divides the heart.

the land protects us from the cold.

diverts from our eyes that hunger

with which we are edified

the blood, the soul.



we cook shadows and secrets.

we place ash on the body

to light fire and memory.



embers wash the image, our

image without color, without name—

burning over the waters.



I hold in this arm the light of day.

over the skin, night dissolves

the interior world—sediments

(accumulated over death)

that divide voice and sadness.



I feed on this blackness.

try to bring into the cavern

fragments of bread and countryside.



shadow invades us

when we least expect it.

light is etching over the door

an inscription of the voice we reach.



what dance divides the heart?

water crosses hunger and movement.

ash returns to land

this body (without color, without name).



fire blackens the walls of the temple.

the only way we can hear the final song—

echoing night and day

in the foundations of fear.














a serenidade acolhe-nos.

solene, a serenidade acolhe-nos—

como uma tempestade.

o mar devolve esse clamor que nos atravessa.

a noite satisfaz a cidade e o alimento.

faz-nos desaparecer em qualquer encosta virada a poente.



habitamos o espaço

reunido e multiplicando

a linguagem que preside ao desespero.



solene, apenas a ventura—

interior à luz, como a catedral

depois de uma tarde de trovoada

(ressurreição ou deslumbramento):

a mesma carne, o mesmo sopro

na respiração do inverno.



a serenidade recolhe-nos

dentro da tempestade.

reúne palavras e objectos

que ninguém lê

mas todos compreendem.



dissolve assim o arquipélago.

o mar dissolve o clamor que nos entende.

o vento abre a janela

para que possamos respirar.











serenity welcomes us.

solemn, serenity welcomes us—

like a storm.

the sea returns this clamor that crosses us.

night satisfies the city and the food.

it makes us disappear in any shelter against the dust.



we inhabit the space

reunited and multiplying

the language that presides over despair.



solemn, just the venture—

lighted interior, like a cathedral

after an afternoon of thunder

(resurrection or hallucination)

same flesh, same breath

in winter’s breathing.



serenity gathers us

inside the storm.

rejoins words and objects

that no one reads

but everyone understands.



this is how the archipelago dissolves.

clamor that understands us dissolved by the sea.

wind opens the window

so we can breathe.












a dor conhece a paisagem

nesse lugar onde uma lágrima

(esta alegria)

desce com o sangue—



procura o melhor lugar

para os objectos na inundação da alma.



não será preciso transformar em árvore

o corpo que construímos.

a raiz cresce na viagem que satisfaz o medo

na temperatura deste mapa

onde somos legenda e deserto.



a dor conhece esta paisagem.

uma nuvem desce para sul.



altera a casa—e o mundo.











pain knows the countryside

in that place where a tear

(this happiness)

drips with blood—



it looks for the best place

for the objects in the inundation of soul.



it will not need to turn into a tree

the body we’ve constructed.

the root grows in the trip that satisfies fear

in the temperature of this map

where we are inscription and desert.



pain knows the countryside.

a cloud descends southward.



it changes home—and the world.














projectamos este filme na memória.

como num vitral, a noite transfigura-nos.

acolhe-nos sem ser preciso desvendar

esta alegria (beleza ou deslumbramento).



a serra ilumina este rosto

entre o alicerce e a transcendência da fala.

alumiamos a terra

para chegarmos a essa fonte.

multiplicamos a imagem.

ao longe, as cores desaparecem.

as formas descem nos objectos

como mistério ou ansiedade.



projectaremos este filme.

entre terra e céu. o corpo cresce



como um pinhal

plantado há sete dias.











we project this film onto memory.

like stained glass, night transfigures us.

receives us without removing the blindfold

from this happiness (beauty or hallucination).



the mountains light this face

between the foundation and transcendence of speech.

we illuminate the land

to arrive at this source.

we multiply the image.

far away, colors disappear.

forms descend on objects

as mystery or anxiety.



we project this film.

between earth and sky. the body grows



like a pine forest

planted seven days ago.



Fonte:
http://sunintosea.blogspot.com/2010/07/ola-amigos-second-installment-in-this.html
15/7/2010