word(s) of the day ...

"If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word."

(T.S. Eliot, From "Ash-Wednesday")

the saying and the (un)said ...

"It may be that, like things which speak to themselves in their language of things, language does not speak of things or of the world: it may speak only of itself and to itself .... Certain realities cannot be expressed, but, and here I quote from memory, 'they are what is manifested in language without language saying it.' They are what language does not say and hence says. (What is embodied in language is not silence, which by definition says nothing, nor is it what silence would say if it were to speak. If it were to cease to be silence, and instead be ...) What is said in language without language saying it is saying (that is to say?): what is really said (that which makes its appearance between one phrase and another, in that crack that is neither silence nor a voice) is what language leaves unsaid ...."

(Octavio Paz, The Monkey Grammarian. Trans. Helen R. Lane)

night

a red rose, in the full moon light ...

... a broken heart, on a starless night

Copyright © 2012 Marco Alexandre de Oliveira

message

I wanted to write you a message,
but I had nothing to say.
I felt so sad,
I felt so bad,
but I wanted to write you a message,
so I wrote something anyway ...

Copyright © 2012 Marco Alexandre de Oliveira

monumovementality*

Copyright © 2012 Marco Alexandre de Oliveira

*excluded from esque, Issue 3 (REVOLUTIONESQUE)

http://www.esquemag.org/

crisis ...

"Languages are imperfect because multiple; the supreme language is missing. Inasmuch as thought consists of writing without pen and paper, without whispering even, without the sound of the immortal Word, the diversity of languages on earth means that no one can utter words which would bear the miraculous stamp of Truth Herself Incarnate .... But then, esthetically, I am disappointed when I consider how impossible it is for language to express things by means of certain keys which would reproduce their brilliance and aura -- keys which do exist as a part of the instrument of the human voice, or among languages, or sometimes even in one language  .... We dream of words brilliant at once in meaning and sound, or darkening in meaning and so in sound, luminously and elementally self-succeeding. But, let us remember that if our dream were fulfilled, verse would not exist -- verse which, in all its wisdom, atones for the sins of languages, comes nobly to their aid."

(Stéphane Mallarmé, "Crisis in Poetry." Trans. Bradford Cook)

the formula ...

Copyright © 2011 Marco Alexandre de Oliveira 

red ink ...

"So what are we doing here? Let me tell you a wonderful, old joke from Communist times. A guy was sent from East Germany to work in Siberia. He knew his mail would be read by censors, so he told his friends: 'Let’s establish a code. If a letter you get from me is written in blue ink, it is true what I say. If it is written in red ink, it is false.' After a month, his friends get the first letter. Everything is in blue. It says, this letter: 'Everything is wonderful here. Stores are full of good food. Movie theatres show good films from the west. Apartments are large and luxurious. The only thing you cannot buy is red ink.' This is how we live. We have all the freedoms we want. But what we are missing is red ink: the language to articulate our non-freedom. The way we are taught to speak about freedom— war on terror and so on—falsifies freedom. And this is what you are doing here. You are giving all of us red ink."

(Slavoj Žižek, "We are the Awakening." Speech given at Zuccotti Park to the Occupy Wall Street movement on Saturday, October 8, 2011)

"Em uma velha piada da antiga República Democrática Alemã, um trabalhador alemão consegue um emprego na Sibéria; sabendo que todas as suas correspondências serão lidas pelos censores, ele diz para os amigos: 'Vamos combinar um código: se vocês receberem uma carta minha escrita com tinta azul, ela é verdadeira; se a tinta for vermelha, é falsa'. Depois de um mês, os amigos receberam a primeira carta, escrita em azul: 'Tudo é uma maravilha por aqui: os estoques estão cheios, a comida é abundante, os apartamentos são amplos e aquecidos, os cinemas exibem filmes ocidentais, há mulheres lindas prontas para um romance – a única coisa que não temos é tinta vermelha.' E essa situação, não é a mesma que vivemos até hoje? Temos toda a liberdade que desejamos – a única coisa que falta é a 'tinta vermelha': nós nos 'sentimos livres' porque somos desprovidos da linguagem para articular nossa falta de liberdade. O que a falta de tinta vermelha significa é que, hoje, todos os principais termos que usamos para designar o conflito atual – 'guerra ao terror', 'democracia e liberdade', 'direitos humanos' etc. etc. – são termos FALSOS que mistificam nossa percepção da situação em vez de permitir que pensemos nela. Você, que está aqui presente, está dando a todos nós tinta vermelha."

(Slavoj Žižek, "A tinta vermelha". Tradução de Rogério Bettoni)

to make a (Dadaist) poem ...

"Take a newspaper.
Take some scissors.
Choose from this paper an article the length you want to make your poem.
Cut out the article.
Next carefully cut out each of the words that make up this article and put them all in a bag.
Shake gently.
Next take out each cutting one after the other.
Copy conscientiously in the order in which they left the bag.
The poem will resemble you.
And there you are--an infinitely original author of charming sensibility, even though unappreciated by the vulgar herd."

(Tristan Tzara, "Dada Manifesto on Feeble & Bitter Love." Trans. Barbara Wright)

Ashley Brown In Memoriam 1923-2011

Who was Ashley Brown?  Ashley Brown was not a clown who rode to town in a coffin.  He was a literary man, a man of letters, a cultured man.  He was an extraordinary, ordinary man of the 20^th century.   He was born in another time, in another era.  He was a child of nickelodeons: one for a nickel, two for a dime.  He was the sound of silent cinema.  His fingers tapping away on the piano, his eyes staring away at the screen.  He was a scholar.  A professor.  He knew something about everything.  He knew a lot about a little too.  He knew almost everyone, it seemed.  Flannery O’Conner. Elizabeth Bishop. Elizabeth Spencer (I’d never heard of her).  He decided to phone D.H. Lawrence after he found his name in the phone book.  He had tea with T. S. Eliot, and a mad tea party with Ezra Pound, who used to call him Ash Wednesday, by the way.  To me, he was just Vovô Ashley.  He would give my dad a heart attack. His pats would almost break my back.  I could not take it but there I was, there, there, back, once more, for more.  With his so ons and so forths, he could go on and on, there, there, and so on, and so forth, everywhere we would go.  We used to go to Nonnah’s.  We used to have lunch every Saturday at Yesterday’s, where a giant man in a cowboy hat with a mustache took a bath in a giant bathtub.  He had always been an old man.  He told me to watch out for the little green man, before crossing the street.  He was funny.  He had quite a sense of humor.  He was a kind, simple kind of man.  A very gentle, gentleman.  His glasses were a spectacle.  He was a quiet, meditative man.  He would overcome death on occasion.  He had a hole in his head and a whole lot of ideas, about everything and everyone.  Henry James’ illumination at the train station.  James Joyce’s evolution from lyric to epic to drama. The Waste Land is no waste of time.  “Now, what are you reading these days?” He would ask me.  He was interesting and interested in things. He had an amazing book, music, art collection.  Paul Klee will stay at my place, ok?  Ashley Brown lived in a townhouse downtown on Gregg St.  He would sit at his window sipping away his Earl Grey.  He was an American with English manners.  He had an aristocratic air about him.  At dinner he would serve me a glass of Ginger Ale.  Before bed he usually had a night cap.  At the end of his life he lived in a Glass House, where you can always see who comes to call, where everything hanging from the ceiling and on the walls stays where it is as if by magic, where he slept nights in a glass bed, under glass sheets, where who he was would sooner or later appear etched by a diamond … or maybe not.   He ended up at Still Hopes.  There was still hope, there, there, and so on and so forth. He passed away one day, into the silence without a sound, not with a bang or a whimper.  He was a great one, Ashley Brown, and I will ever be a grateful grandson. 

Marco Alexandre de Oliveira 

(Read by Marc Minsker)

Rutledge Chapel

University of North Carolina

13 October 2011

o que passa?

o tempo todo 
o tempo passa 
passa o tempo
de passagem

passa sempre
o presente
de repente
está passado

o futuro
demora …
e agora,
o que passa?

passa o homem
passa fome
pouco come
desde ontem

hoje mesmo
passa mal
passa como
animal

nunca passa
desse estado
está sem tempo
está sem espaço ...

as pessoas
então passam
e os passos
são pesados

passa tudo
tão depressa
se espera
nada passa

tudo passa
todo tempo
toda hora
eu me lembro

o tempo todo
o tempo passa
passatempo?
passa nada ...

Copyright © 2011 Marco Alexandre de Oliveira 

espaçotempo

o tempo, sendo tempo, está sendo tempo, por um tempo, no espaço, além do espaço, sendo tempo um espaço de tempo, além do tempo, sendo espaço, um tempo de espaço em que passa um espaço de tempo, sendo tempo por um tempo no espaço ... 

Copyright © 2011 Marco Alexandre de Oliveira 

partir

coração partido
o pedido de perdão
não cola


Copyright © 2011 Marco Alexandre de Oliveira

L’esprit nouveau ...

"Même s’il est vrai qu’il ny a rien de nouveau sous le soleil, il ne consent point à ne pas approfondir tout ce qui n’est pas nouveau sous le soleil. Le bon sens est son guide et ce guide le conduit en des coins sinon nouveaux, du moins inconnus.

Mais n’y a-t-il rien de nouveau sous le soleil ? Il faudrait voir.

Quoi ! on a radiographié ma tête. J’ai vu, moi vivant, mon crâne, et cela ne serait en rien de la nouveauté ? À d’autres!"

(Guillaume Apollinaire, "L’Esprit nouveau et les poètes")

"Even if it is true that there is nothing new under the sun, the new spirit does not refrain from discovering new profundities in all this that is not new under the sun. Good sense is its guide, and this guide leads it into corners, if not new, at least unknown. 

But is there nothing new under the sun? It remains to be seen.

What? My head has been x-rayed.  I have seen, while I live, my own cranium, and that would be nothing new?"

(Guillaume Apollinaire, "The New Spirit and the Poets"." Trans. Roger Shattuck.)

"Mesmo que seja verdade que não há nada de novo sob o sol, não se admite de maneira nenhuma que não se aprofunde tudo o que não é novo sob o sol.

O bom-senso é seu guia e este guia o conduz a ângulos senão novos pelo menos desconhecidos.

Mas não há nada de novo sob o sol?  Seria preciso ver.

Ora! Tiraram uma radiografia de minha cabeça.  Eu vi, estando vivo, meu crânio e isto não seria uma novidade? Ora essa!" 

(Guillaume Apollinaire, "O espírito novo e os poetas." Trans. Gilberto Mendonça Teles.)

  

new under the sun ...

"Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun? One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose. The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits. All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full: unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again. All things are full of labor; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us. There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after."

("Ecclesiastes, Or The Preacher."  The Holy Bible. King James Version) 

"Farolismo" / "Showoffism" ...

"Escritor de nome disse dos meus amigos e de mim que ou éramos gênios ou bestas. Acho que tem razão. Sentimos, tanto eu como meus amigos, o anseio do farol. Si fôssemos tão carneiros a ponto de termos escola coletiva, esta seria por certo o 'Farolismo'. Nosso desejo: indicaremos o caminho a seguir, bestas: náufragos por evitar."

(Mário de Andrade, "Prefácio interessantíssimo", Paulicéia desvairada.)


"A famous writer said about me and my friends that we were either geniuses or jackasses. I think that he is right.  We feel, I as well as my friends, the desire to be showoffs.  If we were sheep to the point of forming a collective school, this would surely be 'Showoffism.'  Our desire: to illuminate. The extreme left in which we have stationed ourselves will not permit halfway solutions.  If we are geniuses: we will point the road to follow; if we are jackasses: shipwrecks to avoid."

(Mário de Andrade, "Extremely Interesting Preface." Hallucinated City. Trans. Jack E. Tomlins)

contrabandista! / smuggler!

"Dom Lirismo, ao desembarcar do Eldorado do Inconsciente no cais da terra do Consciente, é inspeccionado pela visita médica, a Inteligência, que o alimpa dos macaquinhos e de toda e qualquer doença que possa espalhar confusão, obscuridade na terrinha progressista. Dom Lirismo sofre mais uma visita alfandegária, descoberta por Freud, que a denominou Censura. Sou contrabandista! E contrário à lei da vacina obrigatória."

(Mário de Andrade, "Prefácio interessantíssimo", Paulicéia desvairada.)


"Sir Lyricism, when he disembarked from the El Dorado of the Unconscious at the pier of the Land of the Conscious, is inspected by the ship's doctor, Intelligence, who cleanses him of quirks and of all sickness whatever that might spread confusion and obscurity in this progressive little land.  Sir Lyricism undergoes one more visit from the customs officials, a visit discovered by Freud who called it Censure.  I am a smuggler! I am against the vaccination laws."

(Mário de Andrade, "Extremely Interesting Preface." Hallucinated City. Trans. Jack E. Tomlins)

interessantíssimo / extremely interesting !!!

"Todo escritor acredita na valia do que escreve. Si mostra é por vaidade. Si não mostra é por vaidade também."

(Mário de Andrade, "Prefácio interessantíssimo", Paulicéia desvairada.)


"Every writer believes in the worth of what he writes. If he shows it, it is out of vanity. If he does not show it, it is also out of vanity."

(Mário de Andrade, "Extremely Interesting Preface." Hallucinated City.  Trans. Jack E. Tomlins)

alma-gêmea

alma gêmea,
o meu corpo geme
ao te (re)encontrar

Copyright © 2011 Marco Alexandre de Oliveira

anti-social types ...

"The poet, the artist, the sleuth—whoever sharpens our perception tends to be antisocial; rarely 'well-adjusted,' he cannot go along with currents and trends. A strange bond often exists among anti-social types in their power to see environments as they really are."

(Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage)