#pessoa

Fernando Pessoa, Il libro dell’inquietudine

Fernando Pessoa, Il libro dell’inquietudine

“Fra me e la vita c’è un vetro sottilissimo. Per quanto nitidamente io veda e comprenda la vita, non la posso toccare.”

Fernando Pessoa, Il libro dell’inquietudine

Fernando Pessoa, Il libro dell’inquietudine

“Noi non ci realizziamo mai. Siamo due abissi, un pozzo aperto verso il Cielo.”

Fernando Pessoa, Il libro dell’inquietudine

“Provo amore per tutto ciò, forse perché non ho nient’altro da amare - o forse anche perché niente vale l’amore di un’anima e, se davvero desideriamo dare amore, nulla cambia se lo diamo alla piccola sagoma del mio calamaio o alla grande indifferenza delle stelle.”

Fernando Pessoa, “Il libro dell’inquietudine”

Fernando Pessoa, “Il libro dell’inquietudine”

“Sorreggo sul vecchio tavolo, con occhi stanchi, un’anima ancora più esausta dei miei occhi.”

Fernando Pessoa, “Il libro dell’inquietudine”

…de alguém que olhe nos meus olhos e diga que me ama. Que me abrace de forma que eu não consiga sair dos seus braços e me passe segurança. De alguém me faça rir das coisas bobas que faz ao meu lado. Que me beije de forma inesperada e inesquecível. Que me chame de -minha linda-. Que eu possa ser eu mesma ao seu lado e me sentir perfeita pra fazer ele feliz. Alguém que durma no meu colo enquanto eu faça cafuné. Alguém que eu vou querer pra vida inteira ao meu lado.(L.P.B.)

metamorphesque:

musings on Spring

— Rainer Maria Rilke, The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke | Pablo Neruda (?) | Louise Glück, Vita Nova | Alberto Caeiro, The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro | Vladimir Nabokov, Mary | Etel Adnan, Jebu | Virginia Woolf, A Writer’s Diary | Bangtan Sonyeondan (방탄소년단), 봄날 (Spring Day) | Artwork by Claude Monet

I don’t know if the stars rule the world
Or if Tarot or playing cards
Can reveal anything.
I don’t know if the rolling of dice
Can lead to any conclusion.
But I also don’t know
If anything is attained
By living the way most people do.

Yes, I don’t know
If I should believe in this daily rising sun
Whose authenticity no one can guarantee me,
Or if it would be better (because better or more convenient)
To believe in some other sun,
One that shines even at night,
Some profound incandescence of things,
Surpassing my understanding.

For now…
(Let’s take it slow)
For now
I have an absolutely secure grip on the stair-rail,
I secure it with my hand –
This rail that doesn’t belong to me
And that I lean on as I ascend…
Yes… I ascend…
I ascend to this:
I don’t know if the stars rule the world.

–

Fernando Pessoa trans. by Richard Zenith | Fernando Pessoa & Co.: Selected Poems | Grove Press | New York, 1998

“I failed life even before I had lived it, because even as I dreamed it, I failed to see its appeal. All I felt was the weariness of dreams, and then I was filled with a final, false sensation, as if I had reached the end of an infinite road. I overflowed the bounds of myself although quite where I don’t know, and there I lay stagnant and useless. I am some thing that I once was. I cannot find myself when I feel and if I go looking for myself, I don’t know who it is looking for me. A sense of utter tedium saps my energy. I feel like an exile from my own soul.

I watch myself, I am a witness to myself. My feelings parade past some unrecognizable gaze of mine like things external. Everything about me bores me. Everything, right down to its mysterious roots, has taken on the color of my tedium.

The flowers the Hours gave me were already past their best. All I can do now is slowly pick off the petals, a process grown more complex with the years.

I find the slightest action impossible, as if it were some heroic deed. The mere thought of making the smallest gesture weighs on me as if it were something I was actually considering doing.

I aspire to nothing. Life wounds me. I feel uncomfortable where I am and uncomfortable where I think I could be.

The ideal would be to undertake no more action than the false action of a fountain-rising only to fall in the same place, glittering pointlessly in the sunlight and making a noise in the silence of the night that would set any dreamer dreaming of rivers, an absent smile on his lips.”