the night

I love the night with passion. I love it the way you love your country, or your mistress, with an instinctive love, a deep love, an invincible love. I love it with all my senses, with my eyes that see it, with my nostrils that breathe it, with my ears that hear the silence of it, with my whole flesh, caressed by its shadows. Larks sing in the sun, in the blue air, the warm air, the light air of clear mornings. But the owl takes refuge in the night, a black blotch that crosses the black space, and, with joy, intoxicated with the vast blackness, he lets out his cry, vibrant and sinister.
The day tires me out and bores me. It is brutal and noisy. I get up with difficulty, I get dressed with weariness, I go out with regret, and each step, each movement, each gesture, each word, each thought exhausts me as though I were lifting a crushing burden.
But when the sun goes down, a joy swirls about me, a joy overruns my entire body. I wake up, I come to life. With each moment that darkness advances, I feel completely different, younger, stronger, more alert, happier. I watch it get thicker, the vast, gentle darkness that falls from the sky. It engulfs the city like an unstoppable, impenetrable flood, it covers up, wears away and destroys colors, shapes, and enfolds the homes, monuments and living things with its imperceptible touch.
At that point, I have the urge to shout for joy like a screech owl, to run across the rooftops like a cat. And an impetuous, invincible desire to love lights up inside my veins.
I go, I walk, now in the darkened suburbs, now in the woods near Paris, where I hear my brothers and sisters, the beasts and their predators, lurking about.
Anything you love too violently always ends up killing you. But how can I explain what happened to me? How can I even make you understand what I might tell you? I do not know, I do not know anymore. I only know what it is. Here goes:
Yesterday, then - was it yesterday? - yes, without a doubt, at least it wasn't any earlier, another day, another month, another year, - I do not know. But it must be yesterday, since another day did not break, since the sun did not reappear. But since what time has this night continued? Since what time? ... Who will tell me? Who can know it, ever?
And so, yesterday, I went out as I do every evening, after my dinner. It was very beautiful outside, very gentle, very warm. Making my way down toward the boulevards, above my head I watched that black river, loaded with stars, cut into pieces in the sky by the rooftops along the street which twisted this stream of heavenly lights and made it ebb and flow like a genuine river.
Everything was distinct in the buoyant air, from the planets down to the gaslights. So great was the fiery brilliance up above and in the town that the shadows themselves took on a glow. Gleaming nights are more joyous than long, sunny days.
On the boulevard the cafés were flickering. People laughed, passed by, ordered drinks. I went inside the theater for a few moments. Which theater? I do not know anymore. The light was so bright inside, it made me unhappy, and I went back out with my spirits depressed by that shock of brutal lighting bouncing off the gilt edges of the balcony, by the artificial glitter of the enormous luster of crystal, by the wall of lights along the ramp, by the gloom of this false, garish clarity. I made it to the Champs-Elysées, where the music cafés seemed like roaring fireplaces amid the foliage. The chestnut trees looked painted, smeared with yellow light, like phosphorescent trees. And just like pale, shining moons, like lunar eggs fallen from the sky, like vibrant, monster pearls with their sea-shell clarity, mysterious and regal, the electric glass fixtures made the gas lines pale by comparison, the conduits of dirty gas as well as the garlands of colored glass. I stopped under the Arch of Triumph to look at the avenue, the long, admirable, starry avenue, going to the heart of Paris between two lines of flame, and the stars! The stars up there, the unknown stars, scattered only by chance around the deep void, where they take on peculiar shapes, which fill us with so much reverie, which provoke us to dream.
I entered the Bois de Boulogne and stayed there a long while, very long. Then I was seized by a singular chill, an unforeseen and powerful emotion, an epiphany of thoughts which bordered on madness.
I walked around a long time, a very long time. Then I came back.
What time was it when I passed back under the Arch of Triumph? I do not know. The city had fallen asleep, and clouds, large, black clouds slowly spread out over the sky.
For the first time I felt that something weird was going to happen, something new. The weather seemed to be turning cold, the air to be thickening; it seemed that the night, my well-beloved night, was starting to weigh upon my heart. The avenue was deserted now. All alone, two patrolmen were walking near the taxi station, and on the pavement barely illuminated by the gas valves which seemed to be dying, a line of vegetable trucks was headed for Halles. They went slowly, loaded with carrots, turnips and cabbage. Their drivers were sleeping, unseen, and the horses all walked at the same pace, following the vehicle ahead of them, noiseless, upon the wooden pavement. Before each light along the sidewalk, the carrots flashed in their redness, the turnips flashed in their whiteness, and the cabbages flashed in their greenness. And they passed by, one after the other, those vehicles, red with the red of fire, white with the white of silver and green with the green of emeralds. I followed them, then I turned onto Royale Street and came back to the boulevards. Nobody else, no more lighted cafés, only a few stragglers in a hurry. I had never before seen Paris so dead, so deserted. I pulled out my watch. It was two o'clock.
Some force was driving me, a need to walk. So I went up to the Bastille. Up there I realized that I had never seen a night so dark, since I could not even make out the Column of July, whose wizardry wrought in gold was lost in the impenetrable darkness. A vault of cloud, as thick as the universe, had drowned the stars, and appeared to be sinking to earth to demolish it.
I came back. There was not a soul around me. On the Plaza du Château-d'eau, however, a drunk nearly ran into me, then he vanished. For a while I heard his uneven and reverberating steps. I walked. At the heights of Montmartre a carriage passed by, descending towards the Seine. I called out to it. The coachman did not answer. A woman was begging near Drouot Street: "Mister, please listen..." I quickened my pace to avoid her outstretched hand. Then, nothing else. In front of the Vaudeville, a rag man was rummaging around the gutter. His little lantern floated on ground level. I asked him, "What time is it, my good man?"
He growled, "How should I know? I have no watch."
Then all of a sudden I noticed that the gaslights were out. I know that they get turned off very early, before daybreak at this time of year, as an economic measure, but the day was still far off, so far from appearing!
"Let's go, to Halles," I thought to myself, "there at least I will find some sign of life."
I started my trek, but I wasn't even able to see which way I should turn. I advanced slowly, as if in the woods, recognizing the streets by counting them.
In front of the Crédit Lyonnais, a dog growled. I turned onto Grammont Street and I got lost. I wandered a bit, then I recognized the Stock Exchange by the iron grills which surround it. All of Paris was asleep, in a deep, frightening sleep. In the distance, however, a carriage rolled along, a lone carriage, perhaps the very one which had passed in front of me just before. I sought to join up with it, walking towards the noise of its wheels, across the solitary streets, the black streets, black, black like death.
I got lost again. Where was I? How stupid to extinguish the gas this early! Not one passerby, not one straggler, not one beggar, no caterwauling of cats on the make. Nothing.
So where were the street patrols? I said to myself, "I am going to yell, then they will come." I yelled. No one responded. I called out more loudly. My voice fled away, without an echo, weak, muted, crushed by the night, by this impenetrable night.
I shouted, "Help! Help! Help!"
To my desperate call there was still no answer. What time was it now? I pulled out my watch, but I didn't have any matches. I heard the light tick-tock of the little mechanism with an uncanny, bizarre joy. It seemed to be alive. I was less alone. What a mystery! I set to walking again, like a blind man, and, feeling the walls with my walking stick, I continually kept my eyes trained on the sky, hoping that day would come at last. But the space above was black, completely black, more deeply black than the city.
What time could it be now? I was walking, it seemed, since forever, because my legs were buckling under me, my lungs were gasping, and I was suffering horribly from hunger.
I decided to ring at the first garage door I came to. I pulled on the copper ringer, and the bell rang inside the sonorous house; it rang strangely, as if its lively noise were the only living thing in this house.
I waited, nobody answered. Nobody opened the door. I started to ring again, I kept waiting, - nothing!
I was scared! I ran to the next residence, and twenty times in a row I made the bell ring inside the dark hallway where the concierge must have been sleeping. But he did not wake up, - and I walked on further, pulling or pressing with all my strength the rings or buttons, striking with my feet, my stick and my hands the doors which were stubbornly closed to me.
And all of a sudden, I realized that I was arriving in Halles. Halles was deserted, without a sound, without a movement, without a car, without a man, without a bundle of vegetables or flowers. - It was empty, motionless, abandoned, dead!
I was overcome by fear, - horrible. What was happening? Oh, my God! What was happening?
I left. But the time? The time? Who will tell me the time? There was no clock chiming in the bell towers or monuments. I thought, "I am going to open up the glass on my watch and touch the needle with my fingers." I pulled out my watch... it was not ticking anymore, it had stopped. Nothing more, nothing more, nothing more astir in the city, not a glimmer, not a rustle of sound in the air. Nothing! Nothing more! Not even the distant roll of the carriage, - nothing more!
I was at the docks, and a glacial chill rose from the river. Was the Seine still flowing?
I wanted to know. I found the steps and I walked down... I did not hear the current bubble beneath the arches of the bridge... More walking... then some sand... some silt... then the water... I wet my arms... the water ran... it ran... cold... cold... cold... nearly frozen... nearly solid... nearly dead.
And I was quite aware that I would never have the strength to get back out... that I was going to die there... me also, from hunger - from exhaustion - and from cold.


Guy de Maupassant, Short Stories

olhem, não sei, mas se não é por ele que gosto tanto da noite, não sei porque é

attention please

aqui

rosas e arame

Quando já não pudermos mais chorar e as palavras forem pequeninos suplícios e olhando para trás virmos apenas homens desmaiados, então alguém saltará para o passeio, com o rosto já belo, já espontâneo e livre, e uma canção nascida de nós ambos, do mais fundo de nós, a exaltar-nos!

Tu sabes se te quero e se fomos os dois abandonados, abandonados para uma bandeira, para um riso que sangre, para um salto no escuro, abandonados pelos lúgubres deuses, pelo filme que corre e desaparece, pela nota de vinte e um pedais, pela mobília de duas cadeiras e uma cama feita para morrer de nojo. Minha criança a quem já só falta cuspir e enviar corpo e bens para a barricada, meu igual, tu segues-me; tu sabes que o caminho é insuportavelmente puro e nosso, é um duende gritando no telhado as ervas misteriosas, é um rapaz crescendo ao longo dos teus braços, é um lugar para sempre solene, para sempre temido! E o Rossio é uma praça para fazer chorar. Salvé, ó arquitectos! Mas choremos tanto que será um dilúvio. Automóveis-dilúvio. Sobretudos-dilúvio. Soldadinhos-dilúvio. E quando essa água morna inundar tudo, então, ó arquitectos, trabalhai de novo, mas com igual requinte e igual vontade: vinde trazer-nos rosas e arame, homens e arame, rosas e arame.


Mário Cesariny

coisas bonitas que até dão gosto chorar

lust - let's raise our glasses

A reply to those dishonest journalists who twist phrases to make the Idea seem ridiculous;
to those women who only think what I have dared to say;
to those for whom Lust is still nothing but a sin;
to all those who in Lust can only see Vice, just as in Pride they see only vanity.

Lust, when viewed without moral preconceptions and as an essential part of life’s dynamism, is a force.

Lust is not, any more than pride, a mortal sin for the race that is strong. Lust, like pride, is a virtue that urges one on, a powerful source of energy.

Lust is the expression of a being projected beyond itself. It is the painful joy of wounded flesh, the joyous pain of a flowering. And whatever secrets unite these beings, it is a union of flesh. It is the sensory and sensual synthesis that leads to the greatest liberation of spirit. It is the communion of a particle of humanity with all the sensuality of the earth.

Lust is the quest of the flesh for the unknown, just as Celebration is the spirit’s quest for the unknown. Lust is the act of creating, it is Creation.

Flesh creates in the way that the spirit creates. In the eyes of the Universe their creation is equal. One is not superior to the other and creation of the spirit depends on that of the flesh.

We possess body and spirit. To curb one and develop the other shows weakness and is wrong. A strong man must realize his full carnal and spiritual potentiality. The satisfaction of their lust is the conquerors’ due. After a battle in which men have died, it is normal for the victors, proven in war, to turn to rape in the conquered land, so that life may be re-created.

When they have fought their battles, soldiers seek sensual pleasures, in which their constantly battling energies can be unwound and renewed. The modern hero, the hero in any field, experiences the same desire and the same pleasure. The artist, that great universal medium, has the same need. And the exaltation of the initiates of those religions still sufficiently new to contain a tempting element of the unknown, is no more than sensuality diverted spiritually towards a sacred female image.

Art and war are the great manifestations of sensuality; lust is their flower. A people exclusively spiritual or a people exclusively carnal would be condemned to the same decadence—sterility.

Lust excites energy and releases strength. Pitilessly it drove primitive man to victory, for the pride of bearing back a woman the spoils of the defeated. Today it drives the great men of business who run the banks, the press and international trade to increase their wealth by creating centers, harnessing energies and exalting the crowds, to worship and glorify with it the object of their lust. These men, tired but strong, find time for lust, the principal motive force of their action and of the reactions caused by their actions affecting multitudes and worlds.

Even among the new peoples where sensuality has not yet been released or acknowledged, and who are neither primitive brutes nor the sophisticated representatives of the old civilizations, woman is equally the great galvanizing principle to which all is offered. The secret cult that man has for her is only the unconscious drive of a lust as yet barely woken. Amongst these peoples as amongst the peoples of the north, but for different reasons, lust is almost exclusively concerned with procreation. But lust, under whatever aspects it shows itself, whether they are considered normal or abnormal, is always the supreme spur.

The animal life, the life of energy, the life of the spirit, sometimes demand a respite. And effort for effort’s sake calls inevitably for effort for pleasure’s sake. These efforts are not mutually harmful but complementary, and realize fully the total being.

For heroes, for those who create with the spirit, for dominators of all fields, lust is the magnificent exaltation of their strength. For every being it is a motive to surpass oneself with the simple aim of self-selection, of being noticed, chosen, picked out.

Christian morality alone, following on from pagan morality, was fatally drawn to consider lust as a weakness. Out of the healthy joy which is the flowering of the flesh in all its power it has made something shameful and to be hidden, a vice to be denied. It has covered it with hypocrisy, and this has made a sin of it.

We must stop despising Desire, this attraction at once delicate and brutal between two bodies, of whatever sex, two bodies that want each other, striving for unity. We must stop despising Desire, disguising it in the pitiful clothes of old and sterile sentimentality.

It is not lust that disunites, dissolves and annihilates. It is rather the mesmerizing complications of sentimentality, artificial jealousies, words that inebriate and deceive, the rhetoric of parting and eternal fidelities, literary nostalgia—all the histrionics of love.

We must get rid of all the ill-omened debris of romanticism, counting daisy petals, moonlight duets, heavy endearments, false hypocritical modesty. When beings are drawn together by a physical attraction, let them—instead of talking only of the fragility of their hearts—dare to express their desires, the inclinations of their bodies, and to anticipate the possibilities of joy and disappointment in their future carnal union.

Physical modesty, which varies according to time and place, has only the ephemeral value of a social virtue.

We must face up to lust in full conciousness. We must make of it what a sophisticated and intelligent being makes of himself and of his life; we must make lust into a work of art. To allege unwariness or bewilderment in order to explain an act of love is hypocrisy, weakness and stupidity.

We should desire a body consciously, like any other thing.

Love at first sight, passion or failure to think, must not prompt us to be constantly giving ourselves, nor to take beings, as we are usually inclined to do so due to our inability to see into the future. We must choose intelligently. Directed by our intuition and will, we should compare the feelings and desires of the two partners and avoid uniting and satisfying any that are unable to complement and exalt each other.

Equally conciously and with the same guiding will, the joys of this coupling should lead to the climax, should develop its full potential, and should permit to flower all the seeds sown by the merging of two bodies. Lust should be made into a work of art, formed like every work of art, both instinctively and consciously.

We must strip lust of all the sentimental veils that disfigure it. These veils were thrown over it out of mere cowardice, because smug sentimentality is so satisfying. Sentimentality is comfortable and therefore demeaning.

In one who is young and healthy, when lust clashes with sentimentality, lust is victorious. Sentiment is a creature of fashion, lust is eternal. Lust triumphs, because it is the joyous exaltation that drives one beyond oneself, the delight in posession and domination, the perpetual victory from which the perpetual battle is born anew, the headiest and surest intoxication of conquest. And as this certain conquest is temporary, it must be constantly won anew.

Lust is a force, in that it refines the spirit by bringing to white heat the excitement of the flesh. The spirit burns bright and clear from a healthy, strong flesh, purified in the embrace. Only the weak and sick sink into the mire and are diminished. And lust is a force in that it kills the weak and exalts the strong, aiding natural selection.

Lust is a force, finally, in that it never leads to the insipidity of the definite and the secure, doled out by soothing sentimentality. Lust is the eternal battle, never finally won. After the fleeting triumph, even during the ephemeral triumph itself, reawakening dissatisfaction spurs a human being, driven by an orgiastic will, to expand and surpass himself.

Lust is for the body what an ideal is for the spirit—the magnificent Chimaera, that one ever clutches at but never captures, and which the young and the avid, intoxicated with the vision, pursue without rest.

Lust is a force.


Valentine de Saint-Point, Futurist Manifesto of Lust

blue prelude

Love Streams, John Cassavetes, 1984

é que esta coisa da lucidez aleija

sou introvertida

as coisas que vejo
colam-se-me à alma
como chiclete
se me comovo, engulo
as próprias lágrimas
quando me rio,
o meu sangue borbulha, e
mesmo as palavras,
alimento-me delas
de resto, estou sempre esfomeado
se o mundo coubesse dentro de mim,
já teria morrido de indigestão
em contrapartida, extroverto tudo o que ingiro e,
por vezes, até sou notavelmente feliz


Bénédicte Houart, Vida: Variações II

das demasidas lágrimas engolidas, demasiadas ainda poucas

(d)o corpo que perdemos na noite

Aqui estou. Vespertina, vespertina.
Às quatro e meia e um minuto
a sentir-me tão distante
pequenina, pequenina.

Nem ponto já. Ou ambígua.


Helga Moreira, Tumulto


oh boy

não te iludas

© Nan Goldin

noites pesadas, estas

e eu sem chocolate em casa

lâminas e punhais

Não haverá futuro — e haverá
somente esta lâmina
de quartzo lacerando
a carne amarrotada. E haverá
somente este punhal
de cinza cravado
entre almofadas inúteis
e lençóis vazios.


Albano Martins

futuro - foi o que inventaram para estragar o presente

the inventory of goodbye

I have a pack of letters,
I have a pack of memories.
I could cut out the eyes of both.
I could wear them like a patchwork apron.
I could stick them in the washer, the drier,
and maybe some of the pain would float off like dirt?
Perhaps down the disposal I could grind up the loss.
Besides -- what a bargain -- no expensive phone calls.
No lengthy trips on planes in the fog.
No manicky laughter or blessing from an odd-lot priest.
That priest is probably still floating on a fog pillow.
Blessing us. Blessing us.

Am I to bless the lost you,
sitting here with my clumsy soul?
Propaganda time is over.
I sit here on the spike of truth.
No one to hate except the slim fish of memory
that slides in and out of my brain.
No one to hate except the acute feel of my nightgown
brushing my body like a light that has gone out.
It recalls the kiss we invented, tongues like poems,
meeting, returning, inviting, causing a fever of need.
Laughter, maps, cassettes, touch singing its path -
all to be broken and laid away in a tight strongbox.
The monotonous dead clog me up and there is only
black done in black that oozes from the strongbox.
I must disembowel it and then set the heart, the legs,
of two who were one upon a large woodpile
and ignite, as I was once ignited, and let it whirl
into flame, reaching the sky
making it dangerous with its red.


Anne Sexton

se eu fosse uma música

podia muito bem ser esta

é que ouves isto e pensas na outra que já dizia

when you grow up your heart dies

corações malditos #2

The ancient Greeks had an expression (quoted by Plutarch as a Parable of Pythagoras) that translates as "Eat not the heart." It meant not to consume oneself with troubles or worries, which could be almost as devastating as eating one's heart.

James Rogers Dictionary of Cliches


tábem deixa

corações malditos

«pena é não haver um manicómio para corações, que para cabeças há muitos.»


já dizia a florbela espanca

do concreto ao abstracto ao nulo

© Louise-Bourgeois

seven unpopular things to say about blood

1
Our mothers bled, and bleed,
and our enemies,
and our enemies’ mothers.

2
It rushes to the finest
nick, romances the blade.

3
It dreams
the primary dream of liquids:
to sleep, horizontally.

4
It is in the surgeon’s heart,
the executioner’s brain.

5
Vampires and journalists
are excited by it; poets
faint on sight.

6
I knew it better as a child,
kept scabs, like ladybirds, in jars.

7
Blood: now mine would be with yours
until the moon breaks orbit
and the nights run cold.


Pat Boran, Grisu nº1


tenham um domingo sangrento. no bom ou no mau sentido, como vos aprouver

herzensschatzi komm, sweetheart come

© Emma Hauck

em fevereiro de 1909, Emma Hauck foi, aos trinta anos, internada no hospital psiquiátrico da universidade de heidelberg, na alemanha, com esquizofrenia. (ufa) morre onze anos depois e é descoberta a colecção comovente de cartas, escritas obsessivamente pela mão da doce Emma - todas elas dirigidas ao perdido marido Mark. pouco se percebe mas repetem-se os «herzensschatzi komm» (sweetheart come) e «komm komm komm» (come, come, come).

olhem, não sei. lágrimas

cartas de amor quem as não tem

So My Lumps,

You’re off, by God! I can barely believe it since I am so unaccustomed to anybody leaving me. But reflectively I wonder why nobody did so before.

All I care about - honest to God - is that you are happy and I don’t much care who you’ll find happiness with. I mean as long as he’s a friendly bloke and treats you nice and kind.

If he doesn’t, I’ll come at him with a hammer and clinker. God’s eye may be on the sparrow, but my eye will always be on you. Never forget your strange virtues.

Never forget that underneath that veneer of raucous language is a remarkable and puritanical LADY.

I am a smashing bore and why you’ve stuck by me so long is an indication of your loyalty. I shall miss you with passion and wild regret. You know, of course, my angelic one, that everything I (we) have is yours, so you should be fairly comfortable.

Don’t, however, let your next inamorata use it, otherwise I might become a trifle testy. And if he takes my former wife and turns her into stress and strife, I’ll smash him bash him, laugh or crash him, slash him, trash him etc.

Christ, I am possessed by language. Mostly bad. (Sloshed, d’yer think?) So now, have a good time. You may rest assured that I will not have affairs with any other female. Anybody after you is going to be disinteresting.

I shall gloom a lot and stare morosely into unimaginable distances and act a bit - probably on the stage - to keep me in booze and butter, but chiefly and above all I shall write. Not about you, I hasten to add. I’ll leave it to you to announce the parting of the ways while I shall never say or write one word except this valedictory note to you.

Try and look after yourself. Much love. Don’t forget that you are probably the greatest actress in the world, you are the best there can be. I wish I could borrow a minute portion of your passion and commitment, but there you are - cold is cold as ice is ice.


escreveu o Richard Burton à Elizabeth Taylor

cartas de amor quem as não tem

My Dearest Gertrude,

You will be sorry, and surprised, and puzzled, to hear what a queer illness I have had ever since you went. I sent for the doctor, and said, "Give me some medicine. for I'm tired." He said, "Nonsense and stuff! You don't want medicine: go to bed!" I said, "No; it isn't the sort of tiredness that wants bed. I'm tired in the face."

He looked a little grave, and said, "Oh, it's your nose that's tired: a person often talks too much when he thinks he knows a great deal." I said, "No, it isn't the nose. Perhaps it's the hair."

Then he looked rather grave, and said, "Now I understand: you've been playing too many hairs on the pianoforte." "No, indeed I haven't!" I said, "and it isn't exactly the hair: it's more about the nose and chin."

Then he looked a good deal graver, and said, "Have you been walking much on your chin lately?" I said, "No." "Well!" he said, "it puzzles me very much. Do you think it's in the lips?" "Of course!" I said. "That's exactly what it is!"

Then he looked very grave indeed, and said, "I think you must have been giving too many kisses." "Well," I said, "I did give one kiss to a baby child, a little friend of mine." "Think again," he said; "are you sure it was only one?" I thought again, and said, "Perhaps it was eleven times." Then the doctor said, "You must not give her any more till your lips are quite rested again." "But what am I to do?" I said, "because you see, I owe her a hundred and eighty-two more."

Then he looked so grave that tears ran down his cheeks, and he said, "You may send them to her in a box." Then I remembered a little box that I once bought at Dover, and thought I would some day give it to some little girl or other. So I have packed them all in it very carefully. Tell me if they come safe or if any are lost on the way.


escreveu o Lewis Carroll à Gertrude Chataway

se eu fosse uma banda sonora

High Society, Charles Walters, 1956