"Because love proved useless.
And eyes don't cry."
More Perihelion:
Bob Sward's Writer's Friendship Series
translated from the Portuguese by Len Sousa
Seven-Sided Poem
When I was born, a crooked angel,
The houses spy the men
The tram passes by full of legs:
The man behind the moustache
Lord, why did you abandon me
World world vast globe
I ought not tell you,
José
What now, José?
You have no wife,
what now, José?
Key in hand
If you screamed,
Alone in the dark
Shoulders Support The World
There comes a time when we no longer say: my God.
Women knock at the door in vain, don’t open it.
Old age matters little, what is old age?
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the kind who live in shadows,
said: Go, Carlos! Be gauche in life.
chasing after women.
Perhaps if the afternoon were blue
there wouldn’t be so many desires.
white black yellow legs.
Why so many legs, God, my heart asks.
But my eyes
never ask a thing.
is serious, simple, and strong.
Almost never talks.
Has a few, close friends,
that man behind the glasses and the moustache.
if you knew I wasn’t God?
if you knew I was weak.
if my name were Job
it would be a rhyme, not a solution.
World world vast globe
vaster still is my heart.
but this moon
but this congac
gives us heartache like the devil.
The party’s over,
the lights are off,
the crowd’s gone,
the night’s gone cold,
what now, José?
what now, you?
you without a name,
who mocks the others,
you who write poetry
who love, protest?
what now, José?
you have no speech
you have no affection,
you can’t drink,
you can’t smoke,
you can’t even spit,
the night’s gone cold,
the day didn’t come,
the tram didn’t come,
laughter didn’t come
utopia didn’t come
and everything ended
and everything fled
and everything rotted
what now, José?
Your sweet words,
your instance of fever,
your feasting and fasting,
your library,
your gold mine,
your glass suit,
your incoherence,
your hate—what now?
you want to open the door,
but no door exists;
you want to die in the sea,
but the sea has dried;
you want to go to Minas
but Minas is no longer there.
José, what now?
if you moaned,
if you played
a Viennese waltz,
if you slept,
if you tired,
if you died…
But you don’t die,
you’re stubborn, José!
like a wild animal,
without tradition,
without a naked wall
to lean against,
without a black horse
that flees galloping,
you march, José!
José, where to?
A time of absolute purity.
A time when we no longer say: my love.
Because love proved useless.
And eyes don’t cry.
And hands only weave in rough work.
And the heart is dry.
You stay alone, the light goes out,
and in the dark your eyes glow enormous.
You’re convinced, you no longer know suffering.
And you expect nothing from friends.
Your shoulders support the world
and it weighs no more than a child’s hand.
The wars, famines, and talks in buildings
only prove that life goes on
and not all have freed themselves yet.
Some, finding the spectacle barbarous,
prefer (the delicates) to die.
There comes a time when there’s no point in dying.
There comes a time when life is an order.
Merely life, without perplexity.
Len Sousa is a 22-year-old writer at work on a series of new Rimbaud translations. He recently received his BFA from Emerson College studying under poets Jonathan Aaron and Bill Knott. His poetry has appeared in issues of The Alembic, Gangsters In Concrete ,The Emerson Review, and Gauge Magazine. This is his first published translation.