by yourself

In the secular night you wander around
alone in your house. It's two-thirty.
Everyone has deserted you,
or this is your story;
you remember it from being sixteen,
when the others were out somewhere, having a good time,
or so you suspected,
and you had to baby-sit.
You took a large scoop of vanilla ice-cream
and filled up the glass with grapejuice
and ginger ale, and put on Glenn Miller
with his big-band sound,
and lit a cigarette and blew the smoke up the chimney,
and cried for a while because you were not dancing,
and then danced, by yourself, your mouth circled with purple...


Margaret Atwood

they eat out

In restaurants we argue
over which of us will pay for your funeral

though the real question is
whether or not I will make you immortal.

At the moment only I
can do it and so

I raise the magic fork
over the plate of beef fried rice

and plunge it into your heart.
There is a faint pop, a sizzle

and through your own split head
you rise up glowing;

the ceiling opens
a voice sings Love Is A Many

Splendoured Thing
you hang suspended above the city

in blue tights and a red cape,
your eyes flashing in unison.

The other diners regard you
some with awe, some only with bordom:

they cannot decide if you are a new weapon
or only a new advertisement.

As for me, I continue eating;
I liked you better the way you were,
but you were always ambitious.


Margaret Atwood

true stories

I

Don’t ask for the true story;
why do you need it?

It’s not what I set out with
or what I carry.

What I’m sailing with,
a knife, blue fire,

luck, a few good words
that still work, and the tide.

II

The true story was lost
on the way down to the beach, it’s something

I never had, that black tangle
of branches in a shifting light,

my blurred footprints
filling with salt

water, this handful
of tiny bones, this owl’s kill;

a moon, crumpled papers, a coin,
the glint of an old picnic,

the hollows made by lovers
in sand a hundred

years ago: no clue.

III

The true story lies
among the other stories,

a mess of colours, like jumbled clothing
thrown off or away,

like hearts on marble, like syllables, like
butchers’ discards.

The true story is vicious
and multiple and untrue

after all. Why do you
need it? Don’t ever
ask for the true story.


Margaret Atwood

variation on the word sleep

I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head

and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear

I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and as you enter
it as easily as breathing in

I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.


Margaret Atwood

postcards

I'm thinking about you. What else can I say?
The palm trees on the reverse
are a delusion; so is the pink sand.
What we have are the usual
fractured coke bottles and the smell
of backed-up drains, too sweet,
like a mango on the verge
of rot, which we have also.
The air clear sweat, mosquitoes
& their tracks; birds & elusive.

Time comes in waves here, a sickness, one
day after the other rolling on;
I move up, it's called
awake, then down into the uneasy
nights but never
forward. The roosters crow
for hours before dawn, and a prodded
child howls & howls
on the pocked road to school.
In the hold with the baggage
there are two prisoners,
their heads shaved by bayonets, & ten crates
of queasy chicks. Each spring
there's race of cripples, from the store
to the church. This is the sort of junk
I carry with me; and a clipping
about democracy from the local paper.

Outside the window
they're building the damn hotel,
nail by nail, someone's
crumbling dream. A universe that includes you
can't be all bad, but
does it? At this distance
you're a mirage, a glossy image
fixed in the posture
of the last time I saw you.
Turn you over, there's the place
for the address. Wish you were
here. Love comes
in waves like the ocean, a sickness which goes on
& on, a hollow cave
in the head, filling & pounding, a kicked ear.


Margaret Atwood

you FIT into me

you fit into me
like a hook into an eye

a fish hook
an open eye


Margaret Atwood

timidamente, sem coração

Algumas pessoas vendem o seu sangue. Tu vendes o teu coração.
Era isso ou a alma.
A parte difícil é tirar a maldita coisa para fora.
Uma espécie de torção. Como abrir uma ostra,
a tua espinha, um pulso,
e depois, upa! Está na tua boca.
Viras-te parcialmente do avesso
como uma anémona do mar a cuspir um seixo.
Há um “plop”quebrado, o som
de vísceras de peixe a cair num balde.
E ali está, um enorme coágulo vermelho escuro
do passado ainda-vivo, a cintilar inteiro no prato.
Vai passando de mão em mão. É escorregadio.É deixado cair.
Mas também degustado. Muito grosseiro, diz um. Muito salgado.
Muito amargo, diz outro, fazendo uma cara.
Cada um é um gourmet instantâneo,
e tu ficas a ouvir isto tudo
a um canto, como um empregado de mesa recém-contratado,
a tua mão tímida e habilidosa na ferida escondida
no fundo da camisa e peito,
timidamente, sem coração.


Margaret Atwood, trad. Maria Sousa

gone mad

Gone mad is what they say, and sometimes Run mad, as if mad is a different direction, like west; as if mad is a different house you could step into, or a separate country entirely. But when you go mad you don't go any other place, you stay where you are. And somebody else comes in.


Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace

o sol (que) não perdoa

São um erro,
estes braços e pernas
que já não funcionam

Quebraram-se agora
e não há lugar para desculpas.

A terra não nos consola,
só te cobre
se tens a decência de permanecer calado.

O sol não perdoa,
olha e segue o seu caminho.

A noite penetra-nos
através dos acidentes que temos
infligido um ao outro.

A próxima vez que perpetremos
o amor, temos que
decidir primeiro quem vamos matar.


Margaret Atwood, trad. Jorge Sousa Braga

outras pessoas do meu sitemeter

«poemas sobre o bater do coração»

toma:

One night I will say to it:

Heart, be still,

and it will.

Margaret Atwood

(maria), incendiária

In the burned house I am eating breakfast.
You understand: there is no house, there is no breakfast,
yet here I am.

The spoon which was melted scrapes against
the bowl which was melted also.
No one else is around.

Where have they gone to, brother and sister,
mother and father? Off along the shore,
perhaps. Their clothes are still on the hangers,

their dishes piled beside the sink,
which is beside the woodstove
with its grate and sooty kettle,

every detail clear,
tin cup and rippled mirror.
The day is bright and songless,

the lake is blue, the forest watchful.
In the east a bank of cloud
rises up silently like dark bread.

I can see the swirls in the oilcloth,
I can see the flaws in the glass,
those flares where the sun hits them.

I can’t see my own arms and legs
or know if this is a trap or blessing,
finding myself back here, where everything

in this house has long been over,
kettle and mirror, spoon and bowl,
including my own body,

including the body I had then,
including the body I have now
as I sit at this morning table, alone and happy,

bare child’s feet on the scorched floorboards
(I can almost see)
in my burning clothes, the thin green shorts

and grubby yellow T-shirt
holding my cindery, non-existent,
radiant flesh. Incandescent.


Margaret Atwood

I can’t tell you my name:

You don’t believe I have one

I can’t warn you this boat is falling
You planned it that way

You’ve never had a face
But you know that appeals to me

You are old enough to be my
Skeleton: you know that also.

I can’t tell you I don’t want you
The sea is on your side

You have the earth’s nets
I have only a pair of scissors.

When I look for you I find
Water or moving shadows

There is no way I can lose you
When you are lost already.


Margaret Atwood

this is a photograph of me

It was taken some time ago.
At first it seems to be
a smeared
print: blurred lines and grey flecks
blended with the paper;

then, as you scan
it, you see in the left-hand corner
a thing that is like a branch: part of a tree
(balsam or spruce) emerging
and, to the right, halfway up
what ought to be a gentle
slope, a small frame house.

In the background there is a lake,
and beyond that, some low hills.

(The photograph was taken
the day after I drowned.

I am in the lake, in the center
of the picture, just under the surface.

It is difficult to say where
precisely, or to say
how large or small I am:
the effect of water
on light is a distortion

but if you look long enough,
eventually
you will be able to see me.)


Margaret Atwood

the woman who could not live with her faulty heart

I do not mean the symbol
of love, a candy shape
to decorate cakes with,
the heart that is supposed
to belong or break;

I mean this lump of muscle
that contracts like a flayed biceps,
purple-blue, with its skin of suet,
its skin of gristle, this isolate,
this caved hermit, unshelled
turtle, this one lungful of blood,
no happy plateful.

All heart float in their own
deep oceans of no light,
wetblack and glimmering,
their four mouths gulping like fish.
Hearts are said to pound:
this is to be expected, the heart's
regular struggle against being drowned.

But most hearts say, I want, I want,
I want, I want. My heart
is more duplicitous,
though no twin as I once thought.
It says, I want, I don't want, I
want, and then a pause.
It forces me to listen,

and at night it is the infra-red
third eye that remains open
while the other two are sleeping
but refuses to say what it has seen.

It is a constant pestering
in my ears, a caught moth, limping drum,
a child's fist beating
itself against the bedsprings:
I want, I don't want.
How can one live with such a heart?

Long ago I gave up singing
to it, it will never be satisfied or lulled.
One night I will say to it:
Heart, be still,
and it will.


Margaret Atwood

late night

Late night and rain wakes me, a downpour,
wind thrashing in the leaves, huge
ears, huge feathers,
like some chased animal, a giant
dog or wild boar. Thunder & shivering
windows; from the tin roof
the rush of water.

I lie askew under the net,
tangled in damp cloth, salt in my hair.
When this clears there will be fireflies
& stars, brighter than anywhere,
which I could contemplate at times
of panic. Lightyears, think of it.

Screw poetry, it’s you I want, your taste, rain
on you, mouth on your skin.


Margaret Atwood

não me confundas

Se o céu é um lugar bom e preferível à terra, porque é que matar boas pessoas é mau? Não lhe estariam a fazer um favor, porque assim chegariam lá mais cedo?

S. pensou sobre a teoria do assassínio, mas não durante muito tempo. Ela achava que eu não estava a falar a sério.

Deus é o bom nas pessoas, dizia ela de tempos a tempos.

Como vitaminas no leite? Perguntava eu. E se todos morrêssemos seria o fim de Deus?
Não, dizia ela. Não sei. Preciso de um cigarro. Não me confundas.


Margaret Atwood, trad. Maria Sousa

para cozinharem o vosso homem

Qualquer receita de biscoitos serve, mas acrescentem gengibre extra, se quiserem resultados mais animados; e as nossas leitoras que escolheram este método geralmente querem! Passas fazem bons olhos e umbigos, mas podem usar aquelas drageias pequeninas prateadas desde que tenham cuidado para não partir os dentes com elas.

Quando tirarem o vosso homem do forno podem ter problemas em segura-lo, os homens feitos desta maneira são capazes de se fazer à estrada, com motas ou sem elas, a roubar lojas de conveniência, a tatuarem-se, e ao pé-coxinho cantarem “Run! Run! As fast as you can! You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man! ” Atar um cordel à perna antes de ir ao forno pode ajudar, mas, enfim – na nossa experiência, não por muito tempo. Há uma coisa boa a ser dita sobre este método: estes gajos são deliciosos, suficientemente bons para comer.


Margaret Atwood, trad. Maria Sousa