Desejo

em mim descalça, vulnerável
como um alvo próximo, ferida
nos joelhos e nas coxas. Pelo tacto
nos conhecemos, é essa luz
oblíqua que nos cega. E te pertenço
e me pertences como
a lâmina
à bainha, a chama
ao pavio.

A lua está cheia esta noite
Absoluta ela
Me enche, clareia, consome

Meus poros suam o luar cheio
Molho lençóis
Ouço músicas mágicas
E tenho em minha cama mais que a mim

Gozo amores arqueados
Memórias em transe
Incêndio
Olhos vadios

E a lua algema a mim e a ele
E ilumina, nele, meu desvario
Ele não sabe
Ele não sabe que dentro desta mesma noite
De luz cheia, o meu desejo
Galopa.

Tão gentil de distante, tão macia aos olhos
vacuda, gordinha,
de segredos bem escondidos
estende-se à distância
procurando ser terra
quem sabe possa
acontecer o milagre:
folhinhas verdes
flor amarela
ventre redondo
depois é só esperar
nela desaguam todos os rapazes.

Benguela, 83

agora dicionários
cada vez mais breves.
De noite,
os teus cabelos emigram
como espigas de incenso. Há gerânios
pisados entre os dedos, dálias
virgens sufocadas
na epiderme.
As palavras
só conhecem o limbo, a rigorosa
película da sede.

in:Uma colina
para os lábios(1993)

o mar, a mor
te. Vertical
o desejo.

Queria morrer
Em seus braços
Com o seu suor escorrendo
Pelo meu corpo...

Queria morrer
Ao seu lado
Com a sua vida animando
Os meus últimos suspiros...

Queria morrer
Amando
Pois assim não viveria
À espera da sua volta,
Sonhando com com o seu amor!

Queria morrer
Com a lembrança
Para não buscá-lo jamais!

Queria morrer
Enrodilhada
Em suas pernas,
Em seus braços,
E então não sofreria mais
Essa falta
Que você me faz.

Queria morrer
Feliz
E abandonar essa vida vazia...

Queria morrer
Assim
Já que não posso viver
Com você!

Eu não quero chegar em casa nunca,
a caminho, no abrigo do teu colo,
sonhando... no balanço do automóvel,
que nos leva a um destino inalcançável.

O tempo pára, o espaço cristaliza-se,
e o carro é lar, e leito, e colo, e beijo...
No ocaso de teu beijo, eu me infinito
e esqueço da procura em que me perco.

De encontro aos vidros, saltam fachos vários,
como se objetos de desejos vastos,
onde meus gestos não se satisfaçam.

Aproxima-se o instante em que me apeio,
vai a carruagem, dobra a esquina, e sigo
noctívago das horas --- a teus passos.

Anda vem..., porque te negas,
Carne morena, toda perfume?
Porque te calas,
Porque esmoreces,
Boca vermelha --- rosa de lume?

Se a luz do dia
Te cobre de pejo,
Esperemos a noite presos num beijo.

Dá-me o infinito gozo
De contigo adormecer
Devagarinho, sentindo
O aroma e o calor
Da tua carne, meu amor!

E ouve, mancebo alado:
Entrega-te, sê contente!
--- Nem todo o prazer
Tem vileza ou tem pecado!

Anda, vem!... Dá-me o teu corpo
Em troca dos meus desejos...
Tenho saudades da vida!
Tenho sede dos teus beijos!

Ó deusa, que proteges dos amantes
O destro furto, o crime deleitoso,
Abafa com teu manto pavoroso
Os importantes astros vigilantes:

Quero adoçar meus lábios anelantes
No seio de Ritália melindroso;
Estorva que os maus olhos do invejoso
Turbem damor os sôfregos instantes:

Tétis formosa, tal encanto inspire
Ao namorado Sol teu níveo rosto,
Que nunca de teus braços se retire!

Tarda ao menos o carro à Noite oposto,
Até que eu desfaleça, até que expire
Nas ternas ânsias, no inefável gosto.

Quero ficar no teu corpo feito tatuagem
Que é pra te dar coragem
pra seguir viagem
Quando a noite vem
E também pra me perpetuar em tua escrava
Que você pega, esfrega, nega
Mas não lava

Eu quero brincar no teu corpo feito bailarina
Que logo te alucina
Salta e te ilumina
Quando a noite vem
E nos músculos exaustos do teo braço
Repousa frouxa, murcha, farta
Morta de cansaço

Eu quero pesar feito cruz nas tuas costas
Que te retalha em postas
Mas no fundo gostas
Quando a noite vem
Eu quero ser a cicatriz risonha e corrosiva
Marcada a frio, ferro e fogo
Em carne viva

Corações de mãe
Arpões, sereias e serpentes
Que te rabiscam o corpo todo mas não sentes

Não te amo, quero-te: o amor vem dalma.
E eu nalma --- tenho a calma,
A calma --- do jazigo.
Ai! não te amo, não.

Não te amo, quero-te: o amor é vida.
E a vida --- nem sentida
A trago eu já comigo.
Ai! não te amo, não!

Ai! não te amo, não; e só te quero
De um querer bruto e fero
Que o sangue me devora,
Não chega ao coração.

Não te amo. És bela; e eu não te amo, ó bela.
Quem ama a aziaga estrela
Que lhe luz na má hora
Da sua perdição?

E quero-te, e não te amo, que é forçado,
De mau, feitiço azado
Este indigno furor.
Mas oh! não te amo, não.

E infame sou, porque te quero; e tanto
Que de mim tenho espanto,
De ti medo e terror...
Mas amar!... não te amo, não.

ON AN ANKLE

A SONNET BEARING THE IMPRIMATUR
OF THE INQUISITOR-GENERAL
AND OTHER PEOPLE OF DISTINCTION AND DECENCY

I had a revelation not from high,
But from below, when thy skirt awhile lifted
Betrayed such promise that I am not gifted
With words that may that view well signify.

And even if my verse that thing would try,
Hard were it, if that work came to be sifted,
To find a word that rude would not have shifted
There from the cold hand of Morality.

To gaze is nought; mere sight no mind hath wrecked.
But oh! sweet lady, beyond what is seen
What things may guess or hint at Disrespect?!

Sacred is not the beauty of a queen...
I from thine ankle did as much suspect
As you from this may suspect what I mean.

Red living flakes of demon snow
Poison-relate the sinning air
To atom-clear red sick flowers who
Rootless jut out of Night and There

Relation being itself a clutch
Upon the throbbing veins in seeing
So the surviving over-much
Is not contiguous to being

Yet philter-aureole or lay
Sung round the rites of altared vice
The poppies of o'er-memory may
Spin cobweb-circles lusting thrice

Around the phallic selfness stood
Midway from intellect to sense
Round whose void a tongued mist thrust-dense
To the cut lips gives conscious blood

In a red bacchic surge of thoughts that beat
On the mad temples like an ire's amaze,
In a fury that hurts the eyes, and yet
Doth make all things clear with a blur around,
The whole group's soul like a glad drunkard sways
And bounds up from the ground!
Ay, though all these be common people heaping
To church, from church, the bridal keeping,
Yet all the satyrs and big pagan haunches
That in taut flesh delight and teats and paunches,
And whose course, trailing through the foliage, nears
The crouched nymph that half fears,
In invisible rush, behind, before
This decent group move, and with hot thoughts store
The passive souls round which their mesh they wind,
The while their rout, loud stumbling as if blind,
Makes the hilled earth wake echoing from her sleep
To the lust in their leap.

No matter now or past or future. Be
Lovers' age in your glee!
Give all your thoughts to this great muscled day
That like a courser tears
The bit of Time, to make night come and say
The maiden mount now her first rider bears!
Flesh pinched, flesh bit, flesh sucked, flesh girt around,
Flesh crushed and ground,
These things inflame your thoughts and make ye dim
In what ye say or seem!
Rage out in naked glances till ye fright
Your ague of delight,
In glances seeming clothes and thoughts to hate
That fleshes separate;
Stretch out your limbs to the warm day outside,
To feel it while it bide!
For the strong sun, the hot ground, the green grass,
Each far lake's dazzling glass,
And each one's flushed thought of the night to be
Are all one joy-hot unity.

Io! Io! There runs a juice of pleasure's rage
Through these frames' mesh,
That now do really ache to strip and wage
Upon each others' flesh
The war that fills the womb and puts milk in
The teats a man did win,
The battle fought with rage to join and fit
And not to hurt or hit!
Io! Io! Be drunken like the day and hour!
Shout, laugh and overpower
With clamour your own thoughts, lest they a breath
Utter of age or death!
Now is all absolute youth, and the small pains
That thrill the filled veins
Themselves are edged in a great tickling joy
That halts ever ere it cloy.
Put out of mind all things save flesh and giving
The male milk that makes living!
Rake out great peals of joy like grass from ground
In your o'ergrown soul found!
Make your great rut dispersedly rejoice
With laugh or voice,
As if all earth, hot sky and tremulous air
A mighty cymbal were!

But these are thoughts or promises or but
Half the purpose of rut,
And this is lust thought-of or futureless
Or used but lust to ease.
Do ye the circle true of love pretend,
And, what Nature, intend!
Do ye actually ache
The horse of lust by reins of life to bend
And pair in love for love's creating sake!
Bellow! Roar! Stallions be or bulls that fret
On their seed's hole to get!
Surge for that carnal complement that will
Your flesh's young juice thrill
To the wet mortised joints at which you meet
The coming life to greet,
In the tilled womb that will bulge till it do
The plenteous curve of spheric earth renew!

And ye, that wed to-day, guess these instincts
Of the concerted group in hints
Yourselves from Nature naturally have,
And your good future brave!
Close lips, nude arms, felt breasts and organ mighty,
Do your joy's night work rightly!
Teach them these things, O day of pomp of heat!
Leave them in thoughts such as must make the feat
Of flesh inevitable and natural as
Pissing when wish doth press!
Let them cling, kiss and fit
Together with natural wit,
And let the night, coming, teach them that use
For youth is in abuse!
Let them repeat the link, and pour and pour
Their pleasure till they can no more!
Ay, let the night watch over their repeated
Coupling in darkness, till thought's self, o'erheated,
Do fret and trouble, and sleep come on hurt frames,
And, mouthing each one's names,
They in each other's arms dream still of love
And something of it prove!
And, if they wake, teach them to recommence,
For an hour was far hence;
Till their contacted flesh, in heat o'erblent
With joy, sleep sick, while, spent
The stars, the sky pale in the East and shiver
Where light the night doth sever,
And with clamour of joy and life's young din
The warm new day come in.


Lisbon, 1913.

EPITHALAMIUM

I

Set ope all shutters, that the day come in
Like a sea or a din!
Let not a nook of useless shade compel
Thoughts of the night, or tell
The mind's comparing that some things are sad,
For this day all are glad!
'Tis morn, 'tis open morn, the full sun is
Risen from out the abyss
Where last night lay beyond the unseen rim
Of the horizon dim.
Now is the bride awaking. Lo! she starts
To feel the day is home
Whose too-near night will put two different hearts
To beat as near as flesh can let them come.
Guess how she joys in her feared going, nor opes
Her eyes for fear of fearing at her joy.
Now is the pained arrival of all hopes.
With the half-thought she scarce knows how to toy.
Oh, let her wait a moment or a day
And prepare for the fray
For which her thoughts not ever quite prepare!
With the real day's arrival she's half wroth.
Though she wish what she wants, she yet doth stay
Her dreams yet merged are
In the slow verge of sleep, which idly doth
The accurate hope of things remotely mar.

No more, no more of church or feast, for these
Are outward to the day, like the green trees
That flank the road to church and the same road
Back from the church, under a higher sun trod.
These have no more part than a floor or wall
In the great day's true ceremonial.
The guests themselves, no less than they that wed,
Hold these as nought but corridors to bed.
So are all things, that between this and dark
Will be passed, a dim work
Of minutes, hours seen in a sleep, and dreamed
Untimed and wrongly deemed.
The bridal and the walk back and the feast
Are all for each a mist
Where he sees others through a blurred hot notion
Of drunk and veined emotion,
And a red race runs through his seeing and hearing,
A great carouse of dreams seen each on each,
Till their importunate careering
A stopped, half-hurting point of mad joy reach.

Now will her grave of untorn maidenhood
Be dug in her small blood.
Assemble ye at that glad funeral
And weave her scarlet pall,
O pinings for the flesh of man that often
Did her secret hours soften
And take her willing and unwilling hand
Where pleasure starteth up.
Come forth, ye moted gnomes, unruly band,
That come so quick ye spill your brimming cup;
Ye that make youth young and flesh nice
And the glad spring and summer sun arise;
Ye by whose secret presence the trees grow
Green, and the flowers bud, and birds sing free,
When with the fury of a trembling glow
The bull climbs on the heifer mightily!

The bridegroom aches for the end of this and lusts
To know those paps in sucking gusts,
To put his first hand on that belly's hair
And feel for the lipped lair,
The fortress made but to be taken, for which
He feels the battering ram grow large and itch.
The trembling glad bride feels all the day hot
On that still cloistered spot
Where only her nightly maiden hand did feign
A pleasure's empty gain.
And, of the others, most will whisper at this,
Knowing the spurt it is;
And children yet, that watch with looking eyes,
Will now thrill to be wise
In flesh, and with big men and women act
The liquid tickling fact
For whose taste they'll in secret corners try
They scarce know what still dry.

This is the month and this the day.
Ye must not stay.
Sally ye out and in warm clusters move
To where beyond the trees the belfry's height
Does in the blue wide heaven a message prove,
Somewhat calm, of delight.
Now flushed and whispering loud sally ye out
To church! The sun pours on the ordered rout,
And all their following eyes clasp round the bride:
They feel like hands her bosom and her side;
Like the inside of the vestment next her skin,
They round her round and fold each crevice in;
They lift her skirts up, as to tease or woo
The cleft hid thing below;
And this they think at her peeps in their ways
And in their glances plays.

Look how over her seeing-them-not her maids
Smile at each other their same thought of her!
Already is she deflowered in others' thoughts.
With curious carefulness of inlocked braids,
With hands that in the sun minutely stir,
One works her hair into concerted knots.
Another buttons tight the gown; her hand,
Touching the body's warmth of life, doth band
Her thoughts with the rude bridegroom's hand to be.
The first then, on the veil placed mistily,
Lays on her head, her own head sideways leaning,
The garland soon to have no meaning.
The first then, on the veil placed mistily,
Fit close the trembling feet, and her eyes see
The stockinged leg, road upwards to that boon
Where all this day centres its revelry.