Sobre o amor

Dia desses minha irmãzinha noivou. Ela pediu pra eu escrever palavras bonitas, como costumo fazer pras ocasiões especiais da família. Acabei esquecendo, mas no dia, com o clima todo de festa, sentei e escrevi. De coração. Saiu isso, com pequenas modificações aqui. Vai meu tributo a ela que é uma flor de pessoa e um amor de irmã. Sempre foi.

Discurso do noivado da May

No universo que vivemos, como já diria Lavoisier, nada se perde, nada se cria, tudo se transforma. E essas transformações criam energias que fluem, voam, nos atravessam, nos formam, nos abandonam. E não o magnetismo, nem o calor, uma das energias mais fortes que existem é definitivamente o amor. Temos o amor próprio, que implica a auto preservação. Igualmente, há o amor pelos outros, em todos os aspectos que ele pode ter: pela nossa família, que sempre nos dá apoio, conforto e carinho; amor pelo próximo, pessoas a quem podemos ajudar de alguma forma. Por fim, uma das manifestações mais interessantes do amor, e a que nos motiva estarmos juntos no dia de hoje, é o sentimento nobre que reúne duas almas afins.

Por um acidente do destino, por uma escolha, através de pessoas-pontes, que nos ligam a outras e passam, somos atraídos e repelidos, somos levados e podemos conduzir. Sorrimos e abraçamos. Dançamos de acordo com a música, ora freneticamente frevoliando, ora quase milimetricamente pra lá e pra cá no ritmo da valsa. Ora vagarosa, languidamente ao choro dos violões um tango argentino. E nesse sorrir e nesse dançar, o mundo girando, surge a paixão.

E a paixão como um rio em cheia, passa e arrasta, destrói, reconfigura. Logo ao baixar, fecunda as margens, traz a fartura e alimenta. O rio bravo da paixão, sentimento este que de tão forte pode romper diques e queimar como o sol do meio-dia, enternece e se transfigura em uma nova coisa. Vira amor. Amor de companhia, de conversas juntos, de telepatia.

Porém, não devemos ter a ilusão doce que apenas coisas boas vão brotar com o amor. Mesmo se for um mar de rosas, certamente terá os seus espinhos. E como um jardineiro fiel, o grande segredo jaz em vivenciar tais espinhos, retirar as folhas velhas, amareladas, discutir, regar constantemente e encontrar alternativas. Ceder e se impor. Balancear o yin e o yang. Conhecer a si mesmo e ao outro. Entender seus limites e querer sempre ultrapassá-los juntos. Acreditar sempre. Eu, por exemplo, acredito no amor que hoje todos nutrem por esse casal. Acredito no amor que um dedica outro, que salta aos olhos, firme e seguro. E acredito acima de tudo que serão muito felizes.

Shakespeare manda lembranças

Doce Yago, de olhos pequenos
Vindo das baixas patentes, querendo mais, mostrando os dentes.
Faz de mim, seu mouro, a sua vendeta.
Escarnece de mim, e me abre os olhos, ao mesmo tempo que me ama.

Um lencinho, sujo de sangue. Queres mais?
Não seria o lencinho de Desdêmona?
Abre-se como um leque, isto e aquilo.
Nem é preciso olhar com muito cuidado.
Está tudo ali, pronto pra ser visto, confirmado
pelas testemunhas invisíveis, pelos fantasmas
que rondam.

Se enche de ódio, mouro, sua Desdêmona amada te desdenha.
Faz a suspeita pingar em gotas, vermelhas, pútridas.
Ela leva flores para o vaso, flores que não são as tuas.
Mas ela leva para o vaso de Emilia, e diz que as flores a pertecem.
Doce beijo de Desdemônia.

Sente o ar te faltar, infiel?
Sente meus dedos enganados, apertando a sua carne tenra?
Dê seu último suspiro e se despeça como a quem os anjos vêm buscar.

***
Acorda Otelo suando. Foi tudo só um sonho. Só um sonho ruim.
Dorme tranquila, querida Desdêmona. Não foi hoje. Não hoje.

The flood - a homage

This text establishes a dialog with Katie Melua's The Flood. You could listen to it while reading.

• ***

"Broken people get recycled
And I hope that I will"

The boy feels trashy all over. Heart, body, mind. He doesn't feel sick, neither broken. He is just figuring out, adding one to one. He is trying to derive some logics out of so much nonsense. He is afraid of the process, as recycling means destruction followed by rebuilding. But he hopes.  

Sometimes we're thrown off our pathways
What I thought was my way home
Wasn't the place I know

He doesn't feel completely lost. But he looks around and does not make out the place where he is standing. He is no longer that smiling boy, since he was pushed out of the platform, into the tracks. Luckily, there was no train. There was just some reaching hands, helping him out. But he dropped something there. Something he just cannot remember what.

I'm certain nothing's certain

What we own becomes our prison

We are imprisoned in our reactions, thinks the boys. He had named his diary prison notebooks for a good reason. He had always been free, so free, but free inside a cage, in a cage of fears and hopes. Of vices and habits. Of expectations and disillusionments. He knew he was not a barbecue afternoon nor a day on the beach. But he knew he was something not to be cast aside. He learned (the hard way, or tried anyway) about no certainties, no tomorrow-I-know's. 

My possessions will be gone
Back to where they came from

He was aware, poor boy, he had nothing. But he played having a house and a pet named rex. He played he could hold his breath for more than 3 hours, or that he could breathe without feeling any smell. He saw himself with a car, a table at the smartest restaurant in town. And he saw himself living in More's Utopia, or Anarres. Mattapoisset. He could almost touch the deprivation of whatever he called his.  

Blame, no one is to blame

As natural as the rain that falls

Here comes the flood again

He hears the distant thunders roaring. They make a long noise, so frightening, yet, distant. He sees and hears the raindrops falling and splashing on the dirty soil. The clouds gathering and darkening, one against the other. The wind chills his spine and the drops lick his face and he knows all that storm is beautiful and is home and he is there, in the middle of it and it's inside him and he does not feel guilty. It was nobody's fault. It was just life.

See the rock that you hold onto

Is it gonna save you

When the earth begins to crumble?

He tries to hold to something and the current is strong. He is swimming forward, sideways. He is looking for a fixed point but the flow of water comes and washes everything. He tries to stand up but he is dragged here and there along with rocks and debris of what had been before a neat, grandiose set of edifices. He sees only fractions of what was and what he had dreamed of.   

Why do you feel you have to hold on?
Imagine if you let go

And he sees it first time crystal clear. He stares at beyond and releases a scream. He doesn't know if that scream emptied him or if it was a sign there was nothing else in there. He understands what is easier. What is the best way to suffer less. He stops swimming. The fight is no longer in his nerves, his limbs rest. Nothing in his eyes. The sparks turn to embers, which turn to a dead bonfire. His heart beats but it makes no sound and there is no pulse. Darkness envelops him. But there is a light. Some annoying warmth lingers. 

Blame, no one is to blame

As natural as the rain that falls

Here comes the flood again

He tries to put a face to the enemy. The boy is so afraid and his fear is eating him for dessert. He feels some bites in his thighs. His groin hurts. He is devoid of his virility, he is a boy no more. He is just an angel. A fallen angel. He despised the laws of universe. He forgot where he had come from. And more rain, more fire, more cold, is this hell?

Wash away the weight

That pulls you down

Ride the waves

That free you from the dusk?

The storm is giving way to some feeble sun rays. The boy sees himself floating. The water is calm, there is nothing touching him, but the wetness and the perception of himself, whose body is immersed but whose face is burned by the timid sun. Some bird flies by and he tries to reach it. He moves almost imperceptibly and his delicate movements create small waves on the water around him, crescent circles getting away from him. A cloud again but now he can sense the silver lining. Is that a rainbow?

Don't trust your eyes

It's easy to believe them

Know in your heart

That you can leave your prison

The boy feel the water is lowering. He can smell the mud, he still cannot stand up, his body is still hurt. But he feels energies filling him, overflowing, he is invigorated and his face is placid. A surge of hope striked him as a lightning. He is euphoric almost, or is this an enchantment, a sweet illusion? He tries to listen to the world around since his eyes are so deceiving. He is half blind, blinded by his prejudices and his dramatic personality. He builds new words and rehearses speaking it. A new language. One where freedom can mean something. Where he is no longer helplessly in love, hopelessly involved. He is protected. Inknower. No shields or cocoon.

Don't trust your mind

It's not always listening

Turn on the lights

And feel the ancient rhythm

He is home again, he roams from room to room, turning on all the lights. He wants to be enlightened. He is afraid of the darkness inside him, and out. He doubts his reasonings, his self-control. It is so unstable. He is emotional from head to toe and sense tries to strive somehow. He is all drama and explosion and fireworks and he dives in, two feet in... he thinks and the more he thinks the slower his thought fly and are his neuropaths clogged? He is helped by songs new and old, is he dancing? He is moving awkwardly, to and fro, is he lending his body to any otherworldly creature? He thumps his feet and shouts go away! But one thump follows another and he is clapping also. He is a vessel, unsteered. 

Don't trust your eyes

Its easy to believe them

Know in your heart

That you can leave your prison

He repeats it like a chorus. He wants to believes those words so badly. Is he saying them because he belives them or because he is trying hard to do so? He notices he was so sure about the darkness but the lights and freedom (from himself or whatever, whoever else) are so unclear, blurred, frameless. 

Blame, no one is to blame

As natural as the rain that falls

Here comes the flood again

Or not... Or definitely not.

Trégua em Tróia

Estrofe

Canto, ó Elena, a sua ode!
Pegue um instrumento e zás!
Não carece ser a lira.
Faz da minha letra melodia.
Dialoga, então, comigo em verso
ou prosa. Deixa que meus textos
sejam água, fluindo. Umidecendo.
Responde com detergente,
e da mistura, bolhas de sabão;

Antístrofe
Dai ao homem aquilo que ele busca.
Reciproque um pouco mais.
Jogue um pouco de tempero.
Ler por ler é nada? Ser por ser,
tampouco. O bálsamo do poeta,
estará nos olhos de quem vê.
Estará no coração de quem sente.
Poeta é afinal um pouco louco,
que se acha quase vidente.

Epodo
Mas eu não sou poeta, nem de brincadeira.
As palavras brotam em mim, qual erva daninha.
Todo texto fala de mim, mesmo quando fala de você.
Porque eu não sou, nem quero ser, nada objetivo.
Vivo e respiro imagens, metáforas, sonhos e desejos,
Quero amar, aprender, viver, voar.
Quando a voz retorna aos ouvidos num eco torto,
que não é eco posto que é nova melodia, elogio, sua inspiração.
Poderia eu desejar ardentemente algo mais?

Reconstituição do Crime

Do algoz

Sente o coração acelerado,e mais e mais.
Cada batida do tambor retesa toda fibra
do seu ser em festa, uma a uma.
O álcool inebria os sentidos, tudo parece mais
vivo.
As cores ganham novos matizes, as formas se derretem
no ar?
Os pés em movimentos velozes, tentam acompanhar o ritmo
da música que vem de todos os lados.
Gritos e risadas, é festa. É carnaval.
Sempre é, quando há diversão, libertas que será também.
As mãos voam para o céu, apontam para aquele, ou aquela?
Elas se esfregam com sofreguidão, são cavalos selvagens,
Cotovias no cio.
A felicidade o/a preenche, e escorre por todos os poros.
Se sente grande, enorme, completo.
O suor escorre da nuca pela sua espinha, provocando
cócegas não planejadas. Sua como se fosse todo água,
não apenas os 70%. Mãos molhadas, suor da cerveja, gotas de malte.
Olhos perdidos no show, sorriso aberto.
As mãos doidinhas se enlaçam no tecido da roupa, precariamente se secando.
Se e quando, ele/a percebeu, já era tarde demais.
Feito bombeiro descendo no mastro, escorregando, pouco a pouco
A umidade brincando de lubrificante, a gravidade, essa danada!
E num movimento, o choque.
As mãos nuas. Euforia interrompida.
Vão-se os anéis. Ficam os dedos.

Da vítima

Me lembro quando era apenas mais um entre muitos.
Não tinha nada de especial, nenhuma pedra, nada.
Muitos vinham me ver, mas eu continuava ali, no único lugar
que conhecia.
Estático. Temendo o desconhecido ali fora, mas com desejo
de ser expedicionário.
Dias, noites.
Sinto uma mão, me apalpando com cuidado e quando vejo,
liberdade.
Socorro! Mas é tão bom. Cores, luzes, cheiros, tudo. Sou carregado,
direita esqueda sobe e desce.
Mas que mundo grande, meu deus!
Tento me comunicar, em vão. Sou assim mudo.
E enlaçado, sigo.
Um dia, é festa. Eu sinto orgulho. Me sinto passivamente feliz,
um pouco parasita do regozijo alheio.
Sou símbolo. Sei disso. Sou acessório, embelezo, complemento.
Estou igualmente inebriado. São tantos movimentos e sensações.
Sou parte e de repente
O abismo.
Sempre tive medo do abismo. E quando me vejo novamente.
Estou sozinho.
O fundo do poço é assim? Cheio de confete e serpentina?
As latas vazias e pisadas, garrafas plásticas, eu imaginava.
É tão frio aqui. Tão aterrador.
A festa não faz mais sentido. Como pude ser tão negligenciado assim?
Perdido. Na vida.
Vão-se os anéis, ficam... quem ficam? Os dedos?
Antes só do que mal acompanhado.

Do cúmplice (ou herói?)

A festa corre feito um rio, com corredeiras e calmaria.
Tudo é novo, ainda que mais do mesmo.
Alegria sincera, deveras incompleta, sine qua non.
Uma amizade, compartilho risadas. Estou bem.
Seu colar de contas se parte, explode alegria!
Seu anel perde a pedra verde, dizem que verde é esperança.
Onde está a pedra verde?
Cansado, horas de pulos e gingado. Como cobra, serpenteando na pista.
A amiga pegando o trem e outro, viajando pelo salão, ela exulta.
Olhos no palco, no povo, no chão.
Onde está a maldita pedra verde?
Onde está o que eu não vejo aqui?
Falta algo.
Escuto um grito.
Não, escuto um brilho.
Vejo ao meu lado, no chão, um anel.
Ele está solitário. Como eu (não estava, nem deveria estar
mas o cansaço, por alguns segundos, uma nuvem cobre meu sol).
Naquele mesmo segundo, nossas almas se tocam.
Ou a minha reflete na sua superfície metalizada.
Lacan e seus espelhos.
Um impulso, me controlo.
É meu? Não.
Melhor deixar a vida como ela está. Pra que mudar?
Me subverto. Abaixo e pego. Ele se aninha na palma da minha mão.
Uma aliança?
Mas ele não alia mais nada. Ele está fora de contexto. Ele é apenas um anel.
Como agulha no palheiro, achei pelo em ovo.
Mas o que fazer?
Mais fácil deixar ele escorrer como areia por entre meus dedos. e que outra pessoa o ache
e seja assombrado pelo seu passado, seja responsável pelo seu presente.
Droga! Estou colocando ele no meu dedo?
Ele vira minha aliança comigo mesmo. Falamos a mesma língua e não estamos mais solitários.
Sozinhos não.
Vão-se os anéis. Ou vem. Tanto faz os dedos.
Seu futuro?
A Deus pertence. Mais vale mais um pássaro na mão, que dois no chão.

The philosophy of the bridge: quantum and God's dice

I was checking the blogs I follow and I was so amazed when I read a friend's and he was mentioning me and my blog in his post. I was honored and felt like I needed to expand more on what he called my theory of connections. It is not so common to find essay-type texts here, but I couldn't help it. One day I may be able to answer him why we have connected.
Let me start with some name-giving and I will get some Wikipedia help for that:

“	My greatest concern was what to call it. I thought of calling it ‘information’, but the word was overly used, so I decided to call it ‘uncertainty’. When I discussed it with John von Neumann, he had a better idea. Von Neumann told me, ‘You should call it entropy, for two reasons. In the first place your uncertainty function has been used in statistical mechanics under that name, so it already has a name. In the second place, and more important, nobody knows what entropy really is, so in a debate you will always have the advantage.	”
—Conversation between Claude Shannon and John von Neumann regarding what name to give to the “measure of uncertainty” or attenuation in phone-line signals

There is the physical attraction that can be involved in some or most of human connections, but how can we deal with some feelings when we are not at all physically attracted to someone but s/he just puts us in contact with some mysterious part of the universe, of ourselves. We just think that the person is interesting for what s/he believes, how s/he acts or doesn't. We just can't help considering them intriguing, mindblowing.

There is awareness involved in whatever move we make towards certain people. Connections are deliberate and they are not interest-free. But sometimes, we are just faced with some examples which makes us wonder.

Let's take one example of a situation that happened in my life and think how chance can perform small "miracles" or "tricks" (still not sure how to call them). Uncertain situations leading to successful connections. Entropy? Quite some time ago I was teaching a morning group of students because their teacher had gotten pregnant (it was a surprise because she was over 40 and her husband had already undergone a vasectomy). I was not supposed to be there in the morning because I had a class at lunchtime on the other side of town. The schools were distant and I live in a city whose traffic ranges from terrible to worse. And the Pope was visiting, so they were deviating traffic, changing routes and I was afraid I would never make it. There was a student in the morning class who would always arrive late and leave just before the class finished. She was quiet and I knew little about her. That day I told the students I would finish the class some minutes before the time and would compensate later, because I had to get across the city. Fine, they said and this girl asked me if I wanted a ride. She was driving to the same region I had to go. We could use her radio to check on the best routes. Could I refuse such an offer? I didn't and we went together. We talked about life and I told her something quite personal, I was sick of living where I was living and I wanted to move. She just nodded. The next class, she told me she had a coworker and he was looking for someone to share an apartment. I got his contacts and went there to meet him. I got a mixed impression, but I was not sure I wanted to live with someone like him: older than me, not my type and strong personality. Threre was no physical attaction there. And I just said I needed to think. That same week, the guy with whom I was living set me up. He locked me outside and left me there on purpose for almost one hour. So, I called that older guy and asked if the offer was still on. There were other people I had talked to, so had him, some other closer friends, even one potential romantic partner. But no, I chose that stranger and was willing to take the risks.
The first months were difficult, he had been living alone for quite some time but we hit off from the start. We used to spend hours talking, from sunset to sunrise sometimes. He taught me so much about life. We never had any romantic involvement and we had like three major fights in over five years. The girl, she left the school and we never met again. She never worked in a project with him again either. She just disappeared, after a considerable change in our lives (mine and my roommie's). Wasn't she something like a bridge who served a certain purpose of putting us together?
I am not saying that there is something like a destiny or written rules but out of 18 million people who live in Sao Paulo, why the heck did I end up with this guy? It's statitics, it's chance but it is also something that had everything to go bad and has been wonderful.
Why out of the thousand books, films and plays people produce all over the world I have contact with these ones I read or I am reading and which form my character and my personality, touch me and make me think? I know people in other continents, their dreams and secrets, but I wouldn't know the name of 5 of my neighbors, if you asked me. So why some people and not others? And being these ones, why not celebrate them? Love them or care for them as well as one can?
You see, Dale, a lot of questions, this is (definitely) not the end.

The present

(On Christmas, I got a present from a dear friend from Finland. It was a notebook in which he put a lot of questions and sections and I am supposed to write there, poems, thoughts, about me, etc. As soon as I finish it, I'll send it back to him. He will have access to a lot of things no one else will, but he let me publish the eventual "good" poems I write there so that the world can also know it. This is the first one)

The boy is crying
but it's not due to teargas
He sees the hope in their eyes
The fear in the cops' eyes
He sees blood oozing on
foreheads
Mother screaming, yelling, not my son
not my
son
He sees it on tv and he
is not sure. They are carrying
a black guy, is he dead?
Then it would just be anywhere
dans les rues, they yell. It's
68 for sure, France.
We have a dream, and it's
the States now and Mr. King Jr.
The boy has been shot before. The
bullets never reached him. But
what about minefields? Radars?
Now we don't have wars, you were not
drafted, were you, boy?
He wants to throw flowers
and open books
but they shut him up with bombs and
laws and shields and laser guns.
You have to run boy!
The shock troop is merciless
they have always been
Paris, Seattle, University of Sao Paulo, Beijing
name a place in this earth and
there you'll find repression.
Let's fight for freedom?
they have been doing it since the
French revolution, and way before, and ever since.
Let's not get philosophical, boy,
and ask ourselves in the fashion of a good old
post-strucutralist
what freedom is. The question
should be
              where. Where is it?
And it, here, means freedom but
you  can also think of hope.