November's mists

wandering through
November's mists
I search
for a light
that light
that dwelled in your
eyes

but your eyes
veiled in
November's mists
do not
look for me
anymore

and their sullen laments
rising no more than
a gentle dirge
walk me blindly
through
November's mists
the greatest requiem
of them all

and even if I
find a way
to keep from shivering
as I call your name
I hear no more
than my own words
drowning in circles
and tainted
in November's mists

Into starlight.

Small music from broken windows

a poem is a city filled with streets and sewers
filled with saints, heroes, beggars, madmen,
filled with banality and booze,
filled with rain and thunder and periods of
drought, a poem is a city at war,
a poem is a city asking a clock why,
a poem is a city burning,
a poem is a city under guns
its barbershops filled with cynical drunks,
a poem is a city where God rides naked
through the streets like Lady Godiva,
where dogs bark at night, and chase away
the flag; a poem is a city of poets,
most of them quite similar
and envious and bitter...
a poem is this city now,
50 miles from nowhere,
9:09 in the morning,
the taste of liquor and cigarettes,
no police, no lovers, walking the streets,
this poem, this city, closing its doors,
barricaded, almost empty,
mournful without tears, aging without pity,
the hardrock mountains,
the ocean like a lavender flame,
a moon destitute of greatness,
a small music from broken windows...

a poem is a city, a poem is a nation,
a poem is the world...

and now I stick this under glass
for the mad editor's scrutiny,
the night is elsewhere
and faint gray ladies stand in line,
dog follows dog to estuary,
the trumpets bring on gallows
as small men rant at things
they cannot do.

- Charles Bukowski

Into twilight.

Driftwood

the world has gone
cold
drowning
as sadness pours
from your eyes

and in this silent darkness
this never fulfilled
dawn
you shiver and listen
to the trickling waters
of sadness

no murmurs
no dreams
no candles dying out
and a rope of silence
is all you grasp for

but you live
and you breathe
as you wait

for
even broken
you have a heart
and you count the pieces
of the most beautiful
driftwood

Into starlight.

This is the sea

"Sick in my soul I tried to face the ordeal of seeking forgiveness. From whom? What God, what Christ? They were myths I once believed, and now they were beliefs I felt were myths. This is the sea, and this is Arturo, and the sea is real, and Arturo believes it real. Then I turn from the sea, and everywhere I look there is land; I walk on and on, and still the land goes stretching away to the horizons. A year, five years, ten years, and I have not seen the sea. I say unto myself, but what has happened to the sea? And I answer, the sea is back there, back in the reservoir of memory. The sea is a myth. There never was a sea. But there was a sea! I tell you I was born on the seashore! I bathed in the waters of the sea! It gave me food and it gave me peace, and its fascinating distances fed my dreams! No Arturo, there never was a sea. You dream and you wish, but you go through the wasteland. You will never see the sea again. It was a myth you once believed. But, I have to smile, for the salt of the sea is in my blood, and there may be ten thousand roads over the land, but they shall never confuse me, for my heart's blood will ever return to its beautiful source."

- John Fante

Into starlight.

At dawn's last breath

give me a desk
a desk
a pen
and a notebook
to chronicle eternity
even if there's no one beyond it

no attentive reader
or subtle censor
no infuriated student
or drunken lecturer

I am judgemental
or so they tell me
but I wonder who's there to judge
if the cells are empty
and I see nothing
but hangmen
with bibles under their belts

sooner or later
walking into this room
-they'll know why no more than me-
I shall be asked to rise
for the calling of the noose
its shadow dangling loosely
in the morning sun
that is still too weak to break
the cold and sweetness
of dawn's last breath

- do you have any requests?
but one, sir
- speak up
raise a flower on my blood
if you will

Into twilight.

A road looking for a map

"Marcos is gay in San Francisco, black in South Africa, an Asian in Europe, a Chicano in San Ysidro, an anarchist in Spain, a Palestinian in Israel, a Mayan Indian in the streets of San Cristobal, a gang member in Neza, a rocker in the National University, a Jew in Germany, an ombudsman in the Defense Ministry, a communist in the post-Cold War era, an artist without gallery or portfolio.... A pacifist in Bosnia, a housewife alone on Saturday night in any neighborhood in any city in Mexico, a striker in the CTM, a reporter writing filler stories for the back pages, a single woman on the subway at 10 pm, a peasant without land, an unemployed worker... an unhappy student, a dissident amid free market economics, a writer without books or readers, and, of course, a Zapatista in the mountains of southeast Mexico. So Marcos is a human being, any human being, in this world. Marcos is all the exploited, marginalized and oppressed minorities, resisting and saying, 'Enough'!"

- 'Subcomandante Marcos', EZLN spokesperson

Into starlight.

Virtually all that you are

I guess you too
have much to tell

I guess you have stories
kept from everyone
and secret cigarettes shared at dusk
with people with whom
you drank and laughed and cried
a few nights away

I guess you’ve loved someone
you pretended to hate
or the opposite
I guess you’ve kissed a stranger
- we’ve all had our fair share –
and have at least
two fears and one desire
that will die alone with you

I guess there’s more
but still I’m asking you:
have you ever been in a room
so filled with hate
you could actually fall back
and not hit the floor?

Into starlight.

Pinned to the hook

"My father had a friend when he was a kid in Texas, in a place called Sulphur Springs. He was kind of the local James Dean, and he used to race the train to the crossing on an Indian motorcycle. He was always talking about getting out of town. That was his big thing: getting out of town. But he always went to the edge of town and turned around and came back. And whenever the train would go through, it would have to slow down to pick up the mail. They had a hook that would come out and catch the mail sack and then keep going. And one day he was racing the train and he met it right at the crossing, and crashed into it. And he was pinned to the hook. But it did take him all the way to the next town."

- Tom Waits

Into starlight.

To a hundred graves and back

I look at this smile
this weathered
broken down
smile
and I think of how much of it
has been left behind through the years
and how you're still nursing it
in silent and tender toil
and I wish
there was more of it for you

but sorrow
sorrow
like an old whore
keeps luring it back
her bony hands
stroking its hair
and glowing
soaked in its dusty remains
while she sings deatlhy lullabies
of a love that bears no promises

I hum these songs myself
and somehow
I look at this smile
and I wish
there was more of it for you

Into starlight.

Muddy Water

Mary, grab the baby, the river's rising
Muddy water taking back the land
The old-frame house, she can't take-a one more beating
Ain't no use to stay and make a stand

Well the morning light shows water in the valley
Daddy's grave just went below the line
Things to say, you just can't take em with ya
This flood will swallow all you've left behind

Won't be back to start all over
Cause what I felt before is gone

Mary, take the child, the river's rising
Muddy water taking back my home
The road is gone, there's just one way to leave here
Turn my back on what I've left below
Shifting land, broken farms around me
Muddy water's changing all I know

It's hard to say just what I'm losing
Ain't never felt so all alone

Mary, take the child, the river's rising
Muddy water taking back my home

Won't be back to start all over
Cause what I felt before is gone

Mary, take the child, the river's rising
Muddy water's changing all I know
Muddy water's changing all I know
Lord, this muddy water is taking back my home

- John Bundrick

Into starlight.

A dog in the manger of mercies

Sunday evening is dissolving
into night
I have a beer in my hand
and Jacques Brel on my stereo
as I hear you call
it's nice of you to call
- no, I swear, it really is -
you ask me how I’m doing
and I can’t tell you
for sure

I guess I could tell you
about the man at the door
and his shadow
that looms over sleepless nights
even though I can’t
see him
and about this
endless
ugly
nameless fever
and the sickly yellow days
it has been spawning
and I could go on about
wanderlust
and trains and planes and cars
about sunsets
and moss-covered stone walls
about the different shapes of love
and its shortcomings

and how I’m subscribing
to my own mythology

I guess I could tell you this and much more
but I say I’m doing fine
and goodbye
trying to forget your silence
wondering if you’re not hurt by mine

You see
I do have Brel on my stereo
and a beer in my hand
so I guess I’m doing fine

Into starlight.

Headlights burning in daylight

“(…) that the assassins are sick, I will admit, and that the Father-Image is also sick, I will also admit. I’m also told by the God-fearing that I have sinned because I was born a human being and once upon a time human beings did something to one Jesus Christ. I neither killed Christ or Kennedy and neither did Gov. Reagan. that makes us even, not him one up. I see no reason to lose any judicial or spiritual freedoms, small as these may be now. who is bullshitting who? if a man dies in bed while fucking, must the rest of us stop copulating? if one non-citizen is a madman must all citizens be treated as madmen? if somebody killed God, did I want to kill God? if somebody killed Kennedy, did I want to kill Kennedy? what makes the governor, himself, so right and the rest of us so wrong? speech-writers, and not very good ones at that.
(…)
I too have worked for dismal wages while some fat boy has raped fourteen-year-old virgins in Beverly Hills. I’ve seen men fired for taking five minutes too long in the crapper. I’ve seen things I don’t even want to talk about. but before you kill something make sure you have something better to replace it with; (…) as yet, I have seen nothing but this emotional and romantic yen for Revolution; I’ve seen no solid leader or no realistic platform to insure AGAINST the betrayal that has always, so far, followed. if I am going to kill a man I don’t want to see him replaced by a carbon copy of the same man and the same way. we have wasted history like a bunch of drunks shooting dice back in the men’s crapper of the local bar.
(…)
the boys screaming for your sacrifice in the public parks are usually the furthest away when the shooting begins. they want to live to write their memoirs.
(…)
if there is a battle, and I believe that there is, always has been, and that’s what has made Van Goghs and Mahlers as well as Dizzy Gillespies and Charley Parkers, then please be careful of your leaders, for there are many in your ranks who would rather be president of General Motors than burn down the Shell Oil station around the corner. but since they can’t have one, they take the other. these are the human rats of the centuries who have kept us where we are.
(…)
I’m not saying give up. I’m for the true human spirit wherever it is, wherever it has been hiding, whatever it is.
(…)
I am ashamed to be a member of the human race but I don’t want to add any more to that shame, I want to scrape a little of it off.”

- Charles Bukowski

Into starlight.

Motionless

I sit by the window and
motionless
I watch petty little days go by
as petty little people
sing about petty little triumphs

And I watch the petty little people
hovering around
their stench disguised only
by this salty wind
The last breath of an ocean
at the hands of a merciless sun

And I think of
Inverted Cycles of Nature
of butterflies turning into larvae
humming their petty little songs

And I pity the ocean

Into twilight.

The dance

Back from holiday, slowly falling down from daydream...

From a sun too bright and colours too lively to be real, from contrasts and details too remarkable to be elsewhere than on an Impressionist canvas, from a heartland where cats sleep peacefully under trees, in streets where the burning sunlight is tamed by old yellow walls, not far from an ocean that swings from deep blue to pale emerald through moods of a sun that rules everything.

I long for its colours and shades, with impressions engraved in my mind of an amazing dance between the sun, the ocean and the tones of the land.

Maybe we'll meet again someday...

Into starlight.

Food for thought

A quote from Nick Cave, commenting on why he has and continues to refuse to let his music be used on advertising:

'I get letters from people telling me they got married to The Ship Song, or that they buried their best friend to Into My Arms, and I don't want them to look at the TV and see that they buried their friend to a Cornetto ad or something. I feel some sense of responsibility about that, even though they wave enormous sums of money at you. That's where my muse puts her foot down.'

Into starlight.

Sweet Thing

And I will stroll the merry way
And jump the hedges first
And I will drink the clear
Clean water for to quench my thirst
And I shall watch the ferry-boats
And they’ll get high
On a bluer ocean
Against tomorrow’s sky
And I will never grow so old again
And I will walk and talk
In gardens all wet with rain

Oh sweet thing, sweet thing
My, my, my, my, my sweet thing
And I shall drive my chariot
Down your streets and cry
’hey, it’s me, I’m dynamite
And I don’t know why’
And you shall take me strongly
In your arms again
And I will not remember
That I even felt the pain.
We shall walk and talk
In gardens all misty and wet with rain
And I will never, never, never
Grow so old again.

Oh sweet thing, sweet thing
My, my, my, my, my sweet thing
And I will raise my hand up
Into the night time sky
And count the stars
That’s shining in your eye
Just to dig it all an’ not to wonder
That’s just fine
And I’ll be satisfied
Not to read in between the lines
And I will walk and talk
In gardens all wet with rain
And I will never, ever, ever, ever
Grow so old again.
Oh sweet thing, sweet thing
Sugar-baby with your champagne eyes
And your saint-like smile....

- Van Morrison

Into twilight.

After midnight

The summer vibe is finally here. Warmer, longer days, and nights that get you drunk with moonlight and dreaming before a tender ocean sprayed by it. To me, it always feels like a primitive awakening, a sensual strumming of the senses that makes you want to breathe and live the summer to the fullest. Have been taking some time off to do some reading and quiet thinking, giving my mind some space of its own. And some corners of it that seemed asleep for some time seem to be coming back to life. And for better or for worse, I want to keep them that way. How much of us do we leave behind at some points, not knowing how, or when, or why? How many times do we look back at ourselves as long lost friends, grieving for lost innocences and strengths? And do we ever realize how much we left behind?

"It's never too late", I said to myself. It was that amazing hour after midnight, when summer nights bloom to the fullest. I was staring at the ocean, gentle and covered in moonlight. I had old friends beside me.

"In that year there was

an intense visitation

of energy.

I left school and went down

to the beach to live.

I slept on a roof.

At night the moon became

a woman's face.

I met the Spirit of Music."

- Jim Morrison

Into starlight.

Any which way the wind may be blowing...

A fresh breath of air. Just back from Coimbra, after a weekend at the "Queima das Fitas" university festival. Best of all, I was in the loveliest company possible, with my sweet Catarina as my own private tour guide… :) She reunited with friends and her hometown of four years, I enjoyed new sights and sounds, met some very nice people and had my camera ready at all times to capture as much as possible. It was amazing to see all this energy in the air, all day and especially all night long... Wonderful to see the city captured by the spontaneous energy of this amazing, wonderfully insane tribe, shining and spinning for a week that everyone wishes it would never end...

Thank you to all the lovely people who made us feel at home, for your sympathy and kindness and party spirit. Thank you for the great weekend, and I hope you keep on rockin' the whole week long! I'll definitely be back next year! Take care.

There’s nothing ever gained

By a wet thing called a tear

When the world is too dark

And I need the light inside of me

I’ll walk into a bar

And drink fifteen pints of beer

I am going, I am going

Any which way the wind may be blowing

I am going, I am going

Where streams of whiskey are flowing

- Shane MacGowan

Into starlight.

Straight To You

All the towers of ivory are crumbling
And the swallows have sharpened their beaks
This is the time of our great undoing
This is the time that I'll come running
Straight to you
For I am captured
Straight to you
For I am captured
One more time

The light in our window is fading
The candle gutters on the ledge
Well now sorrow, it comes a-stealing
And I'll cry, girl, but I'll come a-running
Straight to you
For I am captured
Straight to you
For I am captured
Once again

Gone are the days of rainbows
Gone are the nights of swinging from the stars
For the sea will swallow up the mountains
And the sky will throw thunder-bolts and sparks
Straight at you
But I'll come a-running
Straight to you
But I'll come a-running
One more time

Heaven has denied us its kingdom
The saints are drunk howling at the moon
The chariots of angels are colliding
Well, I'll run, babe, but I'll come running
Straight to you
For I am captured
Straight to you
For I am captured
One more time

- Nick Cave

Into starlight.

A minute away from snowing...

“It was one of those days when it's a minute away from snowing. And there's this electricity in the air, you can almost hear it, right? And this bag was just... dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes. That's the day I realized that there was this entire life behind things, and this incredibly benevolent force that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid. Ever.”

- Alan Ball, "American Beauty"

For all of those who wake up everyday feeling like changing the world. For a will unbent and unbroken by brown and ugly streams of days rushing away. For dreams that will not drown. For songs that beg to be sung, no matter what. For redemption that walks the streets under our skin. For all of this, and much more...

Into starlight.