Empty at Sea
Who loves time like I do this clamouring morning
that moves away and makes me feel
empty at sea?
Who devours this breath of air so mouth soothing,
so wave-like,
water bells to my ears?
(B. 1938)
Armando Silva Carvalho was born by the wildest Atlantic coast. His lyricism is not an easy one. He is a poet of hardness and harshness, of fully acknowledged beauty and of desire. In his poetry there is the sea and the world. Sun, love, pain, hunger and wonder go through it.
Armando Silva Carvalho, who sadly died in June 2017, was born in Olho Marinho, Óbidos, north of Lisbon, and had a Law degree from the University of Lisbon. Throughout his life he worked as a lawyer, a teacher and in advertising. He was a poet, a novelist, an essayist, a translator and a contributor to several newspapers and literary magazines.
Lisboas - roteiro Sentimental (2000), Três Vezes Deus (in collaboration with Ana Marques Gastão and António Rego Chaves) (2001), O Amante Japonês (2008), Anthero Areia & Água (2010), De Amore (2012)
Who loves time like I do this clamouring morning
that moves away and makes me feel
empty at sea?
Who devours this breath of air so mouth soothing,
so wave-like,
water bells to my ears?
I abandon you each night,
Exchange you for others,
For myself,
Or for the easy sleep that has always deceived me
Since childhood.
I became philosophical long ago,
My sonnets dried out in the nervous pen of my senses.
The languid and long birds of desire
– Which were neither languid
Nor long –
Flew off from my dreams for evermore.
So much singing from machines, transports
And transplants.
The most varied changes in status, infection,
Sex, age.
The rain lay insolently down on the ground
of the afternoon like a bitch whose pups were killed.
And poisonous milk spills from her teats.
Like darts.
Let them go, bird, sail, soul, life,
There will be in this loss
A moveable rational
(the words that are put in my mouth)
For decoding the course of the internal river of time
Where I exposed myself a naked, unwitting child,
Trying to regain the mornings of the world.
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