MANUEL BANDEIRA
(1896-

Translated , with the help of Yolanda Leite,
by JOHN NIST
MODERN BRAZILIAN POETRY, AN ANTHOLOGY
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1962

POETICA

I am sick of limited lyricism
Of well-behaved lyricism
Of public-servant lyricism
With its time-clock card
And its clearkly protocol
And its ass-kissing flattery of the boss.

I am sick of halting lyricism
That has to look up in the dictionary
The vernacular meaning of a word.

Down with the purists!

I want all the words
Chiefly the universal barbarisms
I want all the constructions
Chefly the syntactical ones of exception
I want all the rhythms
Chefly the unnumbered.

I am sick of flirting lyricism
Of political lyricism
Of rickety lyricism
Of syphilitic lyricism
Of all lyricism which surrenders
To anything which is not its true self.

After all, that is not lyricism
That is only bookkeeping
A table of co-sines
A handbook for the perfect lover
With a hundred models of letters
And the different ways to please the ladies.

I prefer the lyricism of madmen
The lyricism of drunkards
The difficult and poignant lyricism of drunkards
The lyricism of Shakespeare´s fools.

I will have nothing more to do
With a lyricism which is not freedom.

PNEUMOTHORAX

Fever, lung-coughing blood, gasping, and night-seats.
A whole life that could have been, but was not.
Cough, cough, cough.

He sent for the doctor:
— Sat thirty-three.
— Thirty-three… Thirty-three… Thirty-three…
— Breathe.

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .   .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 

— You have a hole in the left lung and seepage into the right.
— Well, doctor, isn´t possible to try a pneumothorax?
— No. The only thing you can do is play an Argentine tango.


MOMENT IN A CAFÉ

When the funeral procession passed by
The man who were in the café
Tipped their hats oh, so mechanically
In perfunctory and absent-minded salute to the dead
For they themselves were all turned toward life
They were swallowed up in life.
They were relying upon life.

One of them, swept off his hat
In the long and slow arc of a gesture
And stared at he hearse:
For this man knew that life is a fierce and simless agitation
That life is a treason
And he paid his respects to the flesh which passed by
Forever freed from the dead soul.


ABSOLUTE DEATH

To die.
To die body and soul.
Completely.

To die without leaving the sad remains of flesh,
Without leaving the bloodless mask of wax,
Surrounded by flowers,
Which will rot away — so happy! — one day,
Bathed in tears
Born less from grief than from the shock of death.

To die without leaving perhaps even a pilgrim soul…
On the way to heaven?
But what heaven can fulfill your dream of heaven?

To die without leaving a furrow, a trace, a shadow,
Without leaving even the remembrance of a shadow
In any human heart, in any human thought,
In any human skin.

To die so completely
That one day when somebody sees your name on a page
He will ask: “Who was he?...”

To die still more completely:
Without leaving even this name.


APPLE

From one angle I see you just like a dried-up breast
From another just like a belly from whose navel still hangs the
         umbilical cord

You are red as the divine love

Inside you in the little seeds
Palpitates a prodigious life
Infinitely

And you remain so simple
Beside a knife
In a poor hotel room.

PROFUNDAMENTE

When last night I feel asleep
At the feast of St. John
There was much merriment and noise
Stacatto banging of rockets and lights of Roman candles
Voices songs and laughter
Near the kindled bonfires.

In the middle of the night I awoke

And could no longer hear voices and laughter
Only vagrant balloons
Drifted here and there
Oh, so silently
And from time to time
Only the clatter of the streetcar
Bored through the silence
Like a tunnel.
Where were those who a mere moment ago
Were dancing
Were singing
Were laughing
Near the kindled bonfires?

— They were all asleep
They were all lying down
Sleeping
Oh, so profoundly.

When I was sic years old
I could not see the end of the feast of St. John
Because I fell asleep.

Today I can no longer hear the voices of that time
My grandmother
My grandfather
Totonio Rodrigues
Tomasia
Rosa
Where are they all?

— They are all asleep
They are all lying down
Sleeping
Oh, so profoundly.


ROUNDEL OF THE LITTLE HORSES

The little horses running,
And we, the big horses, eating…
And your beauty, Esmeralda,
Finally drove me mad.

The little horses running.
And we, the big horses, eating…
And the sun outside so bright,
But in my heart night is falling.

The little horses running,
And we, the big horses, eating…
Alfonso Reyes going away,
And so many people staying behind.

The little horses running,
And we, the big horses, eating…
Italy bragging and bullying,
And Europe coming apart at the seams…

The little horses running,
And we, the big horses, eating…
Brazil busy politicking,
My God! Poetry dying…
And the sun outside so bright,
And the sun so bright, Esmeralda,
But in my  heart — night is falling!


I AM GOING AWAY TO PASARGADA

I am going away to Pasargada
There I am friend of the king
There I have the woman I want
On the bed that I shall choose
I am going away to Pasargada.

I am going away to Pasargada
Here I am not happy
There life is an adventure
I such a non-mattering way
That Joan the Mad Woman of pain
Queen and pretended insane
Is relative once removed
From the daughter-in-law I never had.

And how I will exercise!
I will pedal my bicycle!
I will ride the wild ass!
I will climb the greased pole!
I will bathe in the sea!
And when I am tired
I will lie on the banks of the river
And call the nymph of the water
To tell me the stories
That Rose used to tell me
When I was a boy
I am going away to Pasargada.

There´s everything in Pasargada
It´s another civilization:
It has s safe and sure way
To prevent knocking the girls up
It has automatic telephone
It has plenty of dope
It has beautiful prostitutes
For one to make love to.

And when I become sadder
So sad that I have no more hope
And when in the night it comes:
The desire to kill myself
— Ah, there I am friend of the king —
Then I have the woman I want
On the bed that I shall choose
I am going away to Pasargada.


LAST SONT OF THE DEAD END

Dead End which I sang in a couplet
Full of mental ellipses,
Dead End of my sorrows,
Of my doubts and my fears
(But also of my loves,
Of my kisses, of my dreams),
Goodbye, goodbye forever!

They are going to tear down this house.
But my room will remain,
Not like an imperfect form
In this world of appearances:
It will remain in eternity,
Which its books, with its pictures,
Intact, suspended in air!

Dead end of the evergreen thorn,
Of the passions with no tomorrows,
How much Mediterranean light
Did not the purity of the mornings
Harvest upon these stones
With the shining of adolescence!

Dead End of my sorrows,
I am not ashamed of you!
Where you a street of the whores?
They all daughters of God!
And before them there were the nuns…
And you belonged to the poor only
When, poor myself, I came to live here.

Lapa — Lapa do Desterro —,
Lapa which sins so much!
(But when six o´clock strikes,
In the first voice of the bells,
What angelic graces you have:
Like in that voice which announced
To Mary the conception of Christ!)

Our Lady of Carmel,
There from the height of the altar,
Is begging for alms for the poor —
For all the sad women,
Who come at night to seek shelter
In the doorways of the church.

Dead End born in the shadows
Of the stone walls of convents,
You are life, life which is holy
No matter how many its falls.
For this I love you always,
And I sing to you to say:
Goodbye, goodbye forever!


THE MORNING STAR

I want the morning star
Where is the morning star?
My friends my enemies
Hunt for the morning star

Naked she vanished
Vanished with whom?
Seek her everywhere

Call me a man without pride
A man who puts up with everything
What do I care?
I want the morning star

Three days and three nights
I was assassin and suicide
Thief, pimp, forger

O evil-sexed virgin
Tormentor of the afflicted
Two-headed giraffe
Sin for us all sin with us still

Sin with the hoods
Sin with the cops
Sin with the marines
Sin every way possible
With the Greek and with the Trojans
With the priest and with the sexton
With the leper from the isolation ward

And then with me
I will wait for you with amusement parks carnivals rodeos
 I was eat earth and say things
 of such simple tenderness

That you will swoon

Hunt for her everywhere
Pure or degraded to the uttermost vileness
I want the morning star.

 =============================================================================

From
AN ANTHOLOGY OF TWENTIETH-CENTURY BRAZILIAN POETRY.

Sponsored by the Academy of American Poets. 
Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1972.

MY LAST POEM

         Translated by Elizabeth Bishop

I would like my last poem thus

That it be gentle saying the simplest and least intended things

That it be ardent like a tearless sob

That it have the beauty of almost scentless flower

The purity of the flame in which the most limpid diamonds are consumed

The passion of suicides who kill themselves without explanation.

ANTHOLOGY

         Translated byJean R. Longland

Life

Is not worth the trouble and grief of being lived.

Bodies understand each other, but souls, no.

The only thing to do is to play an Argentine tango.

I'm going away to Pasárgada!

I am not happy here.

I want to forget it all:

— The grief of being a man. . .

This infinite and vain anxiety

To possess what possesses me.

I want to rest

Thinking humbly about life and women I loved . . .

About all the life that could have been and wasn't.

I want to rest.

To die.

To die, body and soul.

Completely.

(Every morning the airport across the way gives me lessons

                                                                  in departure.)

When the Undesired-of-all arrives,

She will find the field plowed, the house clean,

The table set,

With everything in its place.

This poem is a cento. The word cento has nothing to do with "hundred"

but comes from the Latin cento, centonis, which means a patchwork quilt. . . .

I had the idea of constructing a poem out of nothing but lines or parts of lines of

mine, the best known or most marked by my sensibility, which at the same time

could function as a poem for a person who knew nothing of my poetry. (From a

letter of Manuel Bandeira to Odylo Costa Filho)

RONDEAU OF THE LITTLE HORSES

         Translated by Richard Wilbur

The little horses trotting

While we're horsing around and eating .

Your beauty, Esmeralda,

Became intoxicating.

The little horses trotting

While we're horsing around and eating .

The sun out there so brilliant

That in my soul — is setting!

The little horses trotting

While we're horsing around and eating …

Alfonso Reyes departing

And all the rest still sitting . . .

The little horses trotting

While we're horsing around and eating . .

Italy shouting defiance

And Europe afraid of fighting . . .

The little horses trotting

While we're horsing around and eating . .

Brazil orating, debating,

Poetry dead and rotting ...

The sun out there so brilliant,

The bright sun, Esmeralda,

That in my soul — is setting!

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