Anne Sexton
(1928 - 1975)
INDEX:
LINKS:
Sites with many poems ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲
"18 days without you" (poemas)
John Mitchell Site - 14 poemas
Anne Sexton lendo os seus poemas ◙ ◙
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eight years old
When he was
a little boy
Yesterday I
found a purple crocus
It is
special
Who are we
anyhow?
Alleluia
they sing.
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PASQUA PROTESTANTE
a otto anni |
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God loafs around heaven,
without a shape
but He would like to smoke His cigar
or bite His fingernails
and so forth.
God owns heaven
but He craves the earth,
the earth with its little sleepy caves,
its bird resting at the kitchen window,
even its murders lined up like broken chairs,
even its writers digging into their souls
with jackhammers,
even its hucksters selling their animals
for gold,
even its babies sniffing for their music,
the farm house, white as a bone,
sitting in the lap of its corn,
even the statue holding up its widowed life,
but most of all He envies the bodies,
He who has no body.
The eyes, opening and shutting like keyholes
and never forgetting, recording by thousands,
the skull with its brains like eels--
the tablet of the world--
the bones and their joints
that build and break for any trick,
the genitals,
the ballast of the eternal,
and the heart, of course,
that swallows the tides
and spits them out cleansed.
He does not envy the soul so much.
He is all soul
but He would like to house it in a body
and come down
and give it a bath
now and then.
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La terra
Senza immagine
Dio vaga in paradiso
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Some women marry houses.
It's another kind of skin; it has a heart,
a mouth, a liver and bowel movements.
The walls are permanent and pink.
See how she sits on her knees all day,
faithfully washing herself down.
Men enter by force, drawn back like Jonah
into their fleshy mothers.
A woman is her mother.
That's the main thing.
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Casalinga
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The Ballad Of The Lonely Masturbator
The end of the affair is always death.
Finger to finger, now she's mine.
Take for instance this night, my love,
I break out of my body this way,
Then my black-eyed rival came.
She took you the way a women takes
The boys and girls are one tonight.
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La ballata della masturbatrice solitariaLa fine della tresca è sempre morte. Lei è la mia bottega. Viscido occhio, sfuggito alla tribù di me stessa l’ansimo non ti ritrova. Fo orrore a chi mi sta a guardare. Che banchetto! Di notte, da sola, mi sposo col letto.
Dito dopo dito, eccola, è mia. E’ lei il mio rendez-vu. Non è lontana. La batacchio come una campana. Mi chino Nel boudoir dove eri solito montarla. M’hai preso a nolo sul fiorito copriletto. Di notte, da sola, mi sposo col letto.
Metti ad esempio, stanotte, amor mio, che ogni coppia s’accoppia rivoltolandosi, di sopra, di sotto, in ginocchio s’affronta spingendo su spugna e piume l’abbondante duetto. Di notte, da sola, mi sposo col letto.
Così evado dal corpo, un miracolo irritante. Come posso mettere in mostra il mercato dei sogni? Son sparpagliata. Mi crocefiggo. Mia piccola prugna è quel che m’hai detto. Di notte, da sola, mi sposo col letto.
Poi venne lei, la rivale occhi neri. Signora dell’acqua si staglia sulla spiaggia, con un pianoforte in punta di dita, parole flautate e pudore su labbra. Mentre io, gambe a X, sembro lo scopetto. Di notte, da sola, mi sposo col letto.
Lei ti prese come una donna prende Un vestito a saldo dall’attaccapanni, e io mi spezzai come si spezza un sasso. Ti rendo i libri e la roba da pesca. Ti sei sposato, il giornale l’ha detto. Di notte, da sola, mi sposo col letto.
Ragazzi e ragazze son tutt’uno stanotte. Sbottonan camicette, calano cerniere, si levan le scarpe, spengono la luce. Le creature raggianti sono piene di bugie. Si mangiano a vicenda. Che gran banchetto! Di notte, da sola, mi sposo col letto.
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The Ballad Of The Lonely Masturbator
The end of the affair is always death.
Finger to finger, now she's mine.
Take for instance this night, my love,
I break out of my body this way,
Then my black-eyed rival came.
She took you the way a women takes
The boys and girls are one tonight.
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LA BALADA DE LA MASTURBADORA SOLITARIA
Al final del asunto siempre es la muerte.
Dedo a dedo, ahora es mía.
Toma, por ejemplo, esta noche, amor mío,
De esta forma escapo de mi cuerpo,
Entonces llegó mi rival de ojos oscuros.
Ella te agarró como una mujer agarra
Muchachos y muchachas son uno esta noche.
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The correct
death is written in.
A subway
train is
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EL ASESINO
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We are
America.
America,
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LOS BOMBARDEROS
La bomba se abre como una caja de zapatos.
¿Dónde están tus méritos, |
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Oh you brown
bacon machine, in the closet of my mind and count hogs in a pen, brown, spotted, white, pink, black, moving on the shuttle toward death just as my mind moves over for its own little death.
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CERDO
Por la noche estoy tendida en mi cama
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SONG FOR A RED NIGHTGOWN
No. Not really red, but the color of a rose when it bleeds. It's a lost flamingo, called somewhere Schiaparelli Pink but not meaning pink, but blood and those candy store cinnamon hearts. It moves like capes in the unflawed villages in Spain. Meaning a fire layer and underneath, like a petal, a sheath of pink, clea as a stone.
So I mean a nightgown of two colors and of two layers that float from the shoulders across every zone. For years the moth has longed for them but these colors are bounded by silence and animals, half hidden but browsing. One could think of feathers and not know it at all. One could think of whores and not imagine the way of a swan. One could imagine the cloth of a bee and touch its hair and come close.
The bed is ravaged by such sweet sights. The girl is. The girl drifts up out of her nightgown and its color. Her wings are fastened onto her shoulders like bandages. The butterfly owns her now. It covers her and her wounds. She is not terrified of begonias or telegrams but surely this nightgown girl, this awesome flyer, has not seen how the moon floats through her and in between.
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VERSI PER UNA CAMICIA DA NOTTE ROSSA
No, non proprio rossa, ma del colore di una rosa che sanguina. E' un fenicottero sperduto, da qualche parte detto Rosa Schiaparelli e non direi rosa, ma color sangue caramella cuoricini di cannella. Ondeggia come mantelli negli impeccabili villaggi di Spagna. Direi una falda di fuoco e disotto, come un petalo, una guaina rosa, tersa come pietra.
Direi una camicia da notte di due colori e di due falde che fluttuano dalle spalle le membra fasciando. Per anni la tarma li ha bramati ma questi colori sono cinti da silenzio e animali larvati ma brucanti. Si potrebbe immaginare piume e non averne cognizione. Si potrebbe pensare alle puttane e non figurarsi le movenze di un cigno. Si potrebbe immaginare il tessuto di un'ape, toccarne i peluzzi e avvicinarsi all'idea.
Il letto è devastato da tali dolci visioni. La ragazza è. La ragazza spicca aleggiando dalla camicia da notte e dal suo colore. Ha le ali legate sulle spalle come bendaggi. Adesso la farfalla la possiede, copre lei e le sue ferite. Non l'atterriscono begonie o telegrammi ma certo questa camicia da notte ragazza, questa mirabile creatura alata, non si avvede di come la luna l'attraversi fra due falde galleggiando.
Traduzione di Rosaria Lo Russo, in Poesie d’amore.
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The night of my cousin's wedding I wore blue. I was nineteen and we danced, Father, we orbited. We moved like angels washing themselves. We moved like two birds on fire. Then we moved like the sea in a jar, slower and slower. The orchestra played "Oh how we danced on the night we were wed." And you waltzed me like a lazy Susan and we were dear, very dear. Now that you are laid out, useless as a blind dog, now that you no longer lurk, the song rings in my head. Pure oxygen was the champagne we drank and clicked our glasses, one to one. The champagne breathed like a skin diver and the glasses were crystal and the bride and groom gripped each other in sleep like nineteen-thirty marathon dancers. Mother was a belle and danced with twenty men. You danced with me never saying a word. Instead the serpent spoke as you held me close. The serpent, that mocker, woke up and pressed against me like a great god and we bent together like two lonely swans.
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COME BALLAVAMO
La sera del matrimonio di mio cugino ero vestita di blu. Avevo diciannov'anni e ballammo, Padre, andammo in orbita. Un movimento ondulato come d'angeli in vasca da bagno l'ondeggiamento di due uccelli infuocati l'ondeggìo lento del mare in bottiglia, sempre più lentamente ondulante. L'orchestra suonava "Come ballavamo la sera delle nostre nozze", nelle volute del walzer mi portavi rigirandomi come la mensola in cucina, ed eravamo cari, tanto cari. Ora che sei rigido inutile come un cane cieco, ora che non puoi più scrutarmi, la canzone mi risuona nella testa. Puro ossigeno fu lo champagne che bevemmo e il tintinnìo dei bicchieri nel nostro cin cin. Lo champagne respirava come un sub e i bicchieri furono cristallo e la sposa e lo sposo avvinghiati nel sonno, come una coppia alle vecchie maratone danzanti. Mamma ballò con venti uomini, faceva la bellona. Tu ballavi solo con me, senza dire una parola. Ma il serpente parlò quando m'hai stretta più forte. Quel serpente, beffardo si destò al contatto s'eresse come un grande dio. E noi, l'una dell'altro i colli reclini attorcigliammo come due cigni solitari.
Traduzione di Rosaria Lo Russo, in L’estrosa abbondanza.
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My God, my God, what queer corner am I in? Didn't I die, blood running down the post, lungs gagging for air, die there for the sin of anyone, my sour mouth giving up the ghost? Surely my body is done? Surely I died? And yet, I know, I'm here. What place is this? Cold and queer, I sting with life. I lied. Yes, I lied. Or else in some damned cowardice my body would not give me up. I touch fine cloth with my hands and my cheeks are cold. If this is hell, then hell could not be much, neither as special nor as ugly as I was told.
What's that I hear, snuffling and pawing its way toward me? Its tongue knocks a pebble out of place as it slides in, a sovereign. How can I pray? It is panting; it is an odor with a face like the skin of a donkey. It laps my sores. It is hurt, I think, as I touch its little head. It bleeds. I have forgiven murderers and whores and now I must wait like old Jonah, not dead nor alive, stroking a clumsy animal. A rat. His teeth test me; he waits like a good cook, knowing his own ground. I forgive him that, as I forgave my Judas the money he took.
Now I hold his soft red sore to my lips as his brothers crowd in, hairy angels who take my gift. My ankles are a flute. I lose hips and wrists. For three days, for love's sake, I bless this other death. Oh, not in air - in dirt. Under the rotting veins of its roots, under the markets, under the sheep bed where the hill is food, under the slippery fruits of the vineyard, I go. Unto the bellies and jaws of rats I commit my prophecy and fear. Far below The Cross, I correct its flaws. We have kept the miracle. I will not be here.
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NEL PROFONDO MUSEO
Dio, Dio mio, in che angolo strano mi sono cacciata? Sono morta o no? Il sangue che scorre dal palo, i polmoni in affanno, morta per le peccata di tutti, dalla bocca amara l'anima mia esalo? Sicuro, sono morta? Veramente il corpo è andato? Eppure, lo so, ci sono. Ma dove sono qua? Freddo e strano, sono infernetichita. Ho simulato. Sì, simulato, o per stramaledetta viltà il mio corpo non mi ha renduta. Allora tocco fra le mani l'abitino e le guance infreddolite. Se questo è l'inferno, l'inferno mi par poco, né così tipico né così brutto come dite.
Cos'è quella cosa che mi sento grufando raspare vicino? La lingua che scosta un sassolino e lo boccia mentre scivola dentro sovrana. Come faccio a pregare? Sta ansimando, è un odore con una faccia che sembra pelle d'asino. Mi slappa le ferute. Mentre tocco la sua testolina: è ferito, deduco. Sanguina. Ho perdonato assassini e prostitute e ora aspetto come il vecchio Giona non già deceduto né vivo, carezzando una bestia maldestra. Un ratto. Mi assaggia coi denti, con la pazienza di una cuoca che sa a mente la ricetta. Gli perdòno ciò che ha fatto come perdonassi il mio Giuda per i soldi che cucca.
Ora porto alle labbra le sue rosse tenere piaghe. Ai suoi fratelli, turba di angeli pelosi, mi sacrifico. Ho caviglie scanalate, perdo fianchi anche e polsi. Per tre giorni un'altra morte santifico, per amor dell'amore. Oh, non in aere, in polvere. Sotto le vene marce delle sue radici, sotto i mercati, sotto un letto di pecore dove collina è cibo, sotto i frutti fradici della vigna, io scendo. Dentro mascelle e panze di ratti rimetto la mia profezia e l'orrore. Molto sotto la Croce, correggo le sue deficienze. Abbiamo mantenuto il miracolo. Per ancora poche ore.
Traduzione di Rosaria Lo Russo, in Poesie su Dio.
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FOR THE YEAR OF THE INSANE
a prayer
O Mary, fragile mother, hear me, hear me now although I do not know your words. The black rosary with its silver Christ lies unblessed in my hand for I am the unbeliever. Each bead is round and hard between my fingers, a small black angel. O Mary, permit me this grace, this crossing over, although I am ugly, submerged in my own past and my own madness. Although there are chairs I lie on the floor. Only my hands are alive, touching beads. Word for word, I stumble. A beginner, I feel your mouth touch mine.
I count beads as waves, hammering in upon me. I am ill at their numbers, sick, sick in the summer heat and the window above me is my only listener, my awkward being. She is a large taker, a soother. The giver of breath she murmurs, exhaling her wide lung like an enormous fish.
Closer and closer comes the hour of my death as I rearrange my face, grow back, grow undeveloped and straight-haired. All this is death. In the mind there is a thin alley called death and I move through it as through water. My body is useless. It lies, curled like a dog on the carpet. It has given up. There are no words here except the half-learned, the Hail Mary and the full of grace. Now I have entered the year without words. I note the queer entrance and the exact voltage. Without words they exist. Without words one may touch bread and be handed bread and make no sound.
O Mary, tender physician, come with powders and herbs for I am in the center. It is very small and the air is gray as in a steam house. I am handed wine as a child is handed milk. It is presented in a delicate glass with a round bowl and a thin lip. The wine itself is pitch-colored, musty and secret. The glass rises on its own toward my mouth and I notice this and understand this only because it has happened. I have this fear of coughing but I do not speak, a fear of rain, a fear of the horseman who comes riding into my mouth. The glass tilts in on its own and I am on fire. I see two thin streaks burn down my chin. I see myself as one would see another. I have been cut in two.
O Mary, open your eyelids. I am in the domain of silence, the kingdom of the crazy and the sleeper. There is blood here and I have eaten it. O mother of the womb, did I come for blood alone? O little mother, I am in my own mind. I am locked in the wrong house.
August 1963
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PER L'ANNO DELLA DEMENZA
preghiera
O Maria, fragile madre, adesso ascoltami, ascoltami adesso anche se non capisco le tue parole. Un rosario nero con Cristo d'argento si adagia fra le mie mani, si sconsacra perché io non ci credo. Ogni grano è rotondo e duro fra le dita, un angioletto nero. O Maria, concedimi la grazia di questa conversione, anche se sono brutta, anche se sono sommersa dalla pazzia, dal mio passato. Ho anche le sedie ma mi sdraio per terra. Sono vive solo le mani che toccano i grani. Snocciolando parole la lingua s'intreccia. Una principiante: la mia bocca aderisce alla tua, lo sento.
Come le onde mi schiaffeggiano i grani che conto derelitta, nella calura estiva, derelitta, la conta mi ammorba e la finestra che mi sovrasta è la sola che ascolta il mio ciocco di carne che borbotta. E' la consolatrice e elargisce. Come un pesce enorme dona il respiro e esalano i polmoni, mormorando.
S'avvicina, s'avvicina l'ora della mia morte mentre mi rifaccio il trucco e torno come prima come prima dello sviluppo, quando portavo i capelli lisci. E' così la morte. C'è nella mente il Viuzzo Morte ed io ci sguazzo. Il mio corpo è inutile. Si arrende. Come una cagna sullo stoìno acciambellata, inerte. Qui non ci sono parole, tranne l'imparaticcio avemmariapienadigrazia. E ecco entro nell'anno senza parola. L'entrata è assurda ed esatto il voltaggio. Esistono senza parola. Senza parole si può toccare e ricevere il pane senza fare nemmeno un suono.
O Maria, tenera medichessa, portami polveri e erbe perché sono esattamente nel cuore. E' troppo piccolo e l'aria è grigia come fossi in una casa a pressione. Mi versano vino come si versa latte a un bambino, offerto in un delicato bicchiere dalla coppa rotonda e dal bordo sottile, un vino impeciato che sa di stantìo e di segreto. Il bicchiere si solleva e s'avvicina alla bocca da solo. E io lo vedo e lo capisco Solo perché è successo. Ho paura, paura di tossire ma non dico niente, paura della pioggia e del cavaliere che galoppa e s'avvicina per entrarmi in bocca. Il bicchiere s'inclina da solo e io prendo fuoco. Vedo due rivoli sottili colare bruciandomi il mento. Vedo me stessa spezzata in due. Un'altra e me stessa.
O Maria, sbatti le palpebre. Sono nel dominio del silenzio, nel reame dormiente dei pazzi. Qui c'è il sangue, e l'ho mangiato. O madre dell'utero, sono venuta qui solo per il sangue? O mammina, sono dentro della mia mente. Sono rinchiusa nella casa sbagliata.
Agosto 1963
Traduzione di Rosaria Lo Russo, in Poesie su Dio |
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Up from oysters and the confused weeds, out from the tears of God, the wounding tides, he came. He became a hunter of roots and breathed like a man. He ruffled through the grasses and became known to the sky. I stood close and watched it all. Beg pardon, he said but you have skin divers, you have hooks and nets, so why shouldn't I enter your element for a moment? Though it is curious here, unusually awkward to walk. It is without grace. There is no rhythm in this country of dirt.
And I said to him: From some country that I have misplaced I can recall a few things... but the light of the kitchen gets in the way. Yet there was a dance when I kneaded the bread there was a song my mother used to sing... And the salt of God's belly where I floated in a cup of darkness. I long for your country, fish.
The fish replied: You must be a poet, a lady of evil luck desiring to be what you are not, longing to be what you can only visit.
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IL PESCE CHE CAMMINAVA
Da valve d’ostriche e da scompiglio d’alghe, dalle lacrime di Dio, da maree che sfigurano, egli venne. Un cacciatore di radici divenne e respirava come un umano. Scarmigliato uscì dalle sterpaglie e fu conosciuto dal cielo. Io gli stavo appresso e lo guardavo. Chiedo scusa, disse, ma tra di voi ci sono i subacquei, avete ami e reti, allora perché io non dovrei entrare nel vostro elemento per un momento? Anche se camminare qui è strano e mi sento insolitamente goffo, e sgraziato. Non c'è ritmo in questo paese di polvere.
Ed io gli dissi: di un certo paese da cui fui smarrita posso rievocare qualcosa... ma la luce di cucina intanto l'impedisce. Eppure c'era una danza quando impastavo il pane, c'era una canzone che mia madre soleva cantare... E il sale della pancia di Dio dove galleggiavo in una tazza di tenebre. Ho nostalgia del tuo paese, pesce.
E il pesce replicò: tu devi essere una poetessa, una signora di mala fortuna, che desidera essere quel che non è, che si strugge per essere soltanto una figura.
Traduzione di Rosaria Lo Russo, in Poesie su Dio |
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For the Year of the Insane
a prayer
Closer and
closer
O Mary,
tender physician,
I have this
fear of coughing
O Mary, open
your eyelids.
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PER L'ANNO DEI
FOLLI preghiera
"O Maria,
fragile madre,
Conto i grani
come se fossero onde
Sempre più
vicina
O Maria, tenero
medico, vieni con polveri ed erbe
Io ho questa
paura di tossire
O Maria, apri
le tue palpebre,
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My faith is a great weight hung on a small wire, as doth the spider hang her baby on a thin web, as doth the vine, twiggy and wooden, hold up grapes like eyeballs, as many angels dance on the head of a pin.
God does not need too much wire to keep Him there, just a thin vein, with blood pushing back and forth in it, and some love. As it has been said: Love and a cough cannot be concealed. Even a small cough. Even a small love. So if you have only a thin wire, God does not mind. He will enter your hands as easily as ten cents used to
bring forth a Coke. |
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I am not
lazy.
Oh angels,
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Unknown Girl In A Maternity Ward
Child, the
current of your breath is six days long.
Down the
hall the baskets start back. My arms
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1.
I am thirty this November.
You are still small, in your fourth year.
We stand watching the yellow leaves go queer,
flapping in the winter rain.
falling flat and washed. And I remember
mostly the three autumns you did not live here.
They said I'd never get you back again.
I tell you what you'll never really know:
all the medical hypothesis
that explained my brain will never be as true as these
struck leaves letting go.
I, who chose two times
to kill myself, had said your nickname
the mewling mouths when you first came;
until a fever rattled
in your throat and I moved like a pantomine
above your head. Ugly angels spoke to me. The blame,
I heard them say, was mine. They tattled
like green witches in my head, letting doom
leak like a broken faucet;
as if doom had flooded my belly and filled your bassinet,
an old debt I must assume.
Death was simpler than I'd thought.
The day life made you well and whole
I let the witches take away my guilty soul.
I pretended I was dead
until the white men pumped the poison out,
putting me armless and washed through the rigamarole
of talking boxes and the electric bed.
I laughed to see the private iron in that hotel.
Today the yellow leaves
go queer. You ask me where they go I say today believed
in itself, or else it fell.
Today, my small child, Joyce,
love your self's self where it lives.
There is no special God to refer to; or if there is,
why did I let you grow
in another place. You did not know my voice
when I came back to call. All the superlatives
of tomorrow's white tree and mistletoe
will not help you know the holidays you had to miss.
The time I did not love
myself, I visited your shoveled walks; you held my glove.
There was new snow after this.
2.
They sent me letters with news
of you and I made moccasins that I would never use.
When I grew well enough to tolerate
myself, I lived with my mother, the witches said.
But I didn't leave. I had my portrait
done instead.
Part way back from Bedlam
I came to my mother's house in Gloucester,
Massachusetts. And this is how I came
to catch at her; and this is how I lost her.
I cannot forgive your suicide, my mother said.
And she never could. She had my portrait
done instead.
I lived like an angry guest,
like a partly mended thing, an outgrown child.
I remember my mother did her best.
She took me to Boston and had my hair restyled.
Your smile is like your mother's, the artist said.
I didn't seem to care. I had my portrait
done instead.
There was a church where I grew up
with its white cupboards where they locked us up,
row by row, like puritans or shipmates
singing together. My father passed the plate.
Too late to be forgiven now, the witches said.
I wasn't exactly forgiven. They had my portrait
done instead.
3.
All that summer sprinklers arched
over the seaside grass.
We talked of drought
while the salt-parched
field grew sweet again. To help time pass
I tried to mow the lawn
and in the morning I had my portrait done,
holding my smile in place, till it grew formal.
Once I mailed you a picture of a rabbit
and a postcard of Motif number one,
as if it were normal
to be a mother and be gone.
They hung my portrait in the chill
north light, matching
me to keep me well.
Only my mother grew ill.
She turned from me, as if death were catching,
as if death transferred,
as if my dying had eaten inside of her.
That August you were two, by I timed my days with doubt.
On the first of September she looked at me
and said I gave her cancer.
They carved her sweet hills out
and still I couldn't answer.
4.
That winter she came
part way back
from her sterile suite
of doctors, the seasick
cruise of the X-ray,
the cells' arithmetic
gone wild. Surgery incomplete,
the fat arm, the prognosis poor, I heard
them say.
During the sea blizzards
she had here
own portrait painted.
A cave of mirror
placed on the south wall;
matching smile, matching contour.
And you resembled me; unacquainted
with my face, you wore it. But you were mine
after all.
I wintered in Boston,
childless bride,
nothing sweet to spare
with witches at my side.
I missed your babyhood,
tried a second suicide,
tried the sealed hotel a second year.
On April Fool you fooled me. We laughed and this
was good.
5.
I checked out for the last time
on the first of May;
graduate of the mental cases,
with my analysts's okay,
my complete book of rhymes,
my typewriter and my suitcases.
All that summer I learned life
back into my own
seven rooms, visited the swan boats,
the market, answered the phone,
served cocktails as a wife
should, made love among my petticoats
and August tan. And you came each
weekend. But I lie.
You seldom came. I just pretended
you, small piglet, butterfly
girl with jelly bean cheeks,
disobedient three, my splendid
stranger. And I had to learn
why I would rather
die than love, how your innocence
would hurt and how I gather
guilt like a young intern
his symptons, his certain evidence.
That October day we went
to Gloucester the red hills
reminded me of the dry red fur fox
coat I played in as a child; stock still
like a bear or a tent,
like a great cave laughing or a red fur fox.
We drove past the hatchery,
the hut that sells bait,
past Pigeon Cove, past the Yacht Club, past Squall's
Hill, to the house that waits
still, on the top of the sea,
and two portraits hung on the opposite walls.
6.
In north light, my smile is held in place,
the shadow marks my bone.
What could I have been dreaming as I sat there,
all of me waiting in the eyes, the zone
of the smile, the young face,
the foxes' snare.
In south light, her smile is held in place,
her cheeks wilting like a dry
orchid; my mocking mirror, my overthrown
love, my first image. She eyes me from that face
that stony head of death
I had outgrown.
The artist caught us at the turning;
we smiled in our canvas home
before we chose our foreknown separate ways.
The dry redfur fox coat was made for burning.
I rot on the wall, my own
Dorian Gray.
And this was the cave of the mirror,
that double woman who stares
at herself, as if she were petrified
in time -- two ladies sitting in umber chairs.
You kissed your grandmother
and she cried.
7.
I could not get you back
except for weekends. You came
each time, clutching the picture of a rabbit
that I had sent you. For the last time I unpack
your things. We touch from habit.
The first visit you asked my name.
Now you will stay for good. I will forget
how we bumped away from each other like marionettes
on strings. It wasn't the same
as love, letting weekends contain
us. You scrape your knee. You learn my name,
wobbling up the sidewalk, calling and crying.
You can call me mother and I remember my mother again,
somewhere in greater Boston, dying.
I remember we named you Joyce
so we could call you Joy.
You came like an awkward guest
that first time, all wrapped and moist
and strange at my heavy breast.
I needed you. I didn't want a boy,
only a girl, a small milky mouse
of a girl, already loved, already loud in the house
of herself. We named you Joy.
I, who was never quite sure
about being a girl, needed another
life, another image to remind me.
And this was my worst guilt; you could not cure
or soothe it. I made you to find me.
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For my lover, returning to his wife
She is all there.
She has always been there, my darling.
Let's face it, I have been momentary.
She is more than that. She is your have to have,
has placed wild flowers at the window at breakfast,
done this with her legs spread out
She has also carried each one down the hall
I give you back your heart.
for the fuse inside her, throbbing
for the pale flickering flare under her ribs,
the curious call
She is so naked and singular
As for me, I am a watercolor.
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Al mio amante che torna da sua moglie
Lei è tutta là.
Lei è sempre
stata là, mio caro.
Diciamocelo,
sono stata di passaggio.
Lei è molto di
più. Lei ti è dovuta,
ha messo
fiorellini sul davanzale a colazione,
l'ha fatto a
gambe spalancate
Lei li ha anche
portati a nanna dopo cena,
Ti restituisco
il cuore.
al fusibile che
in lei rabbiosamente pulsa,
al pallido
bagliore tremolante sotto le costole,
lo strano
richiamo
Lei è così
nuda, è unica.
Quanto a me, io
sono un acquerello. |
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The Starry Night
That does not keep me from having a terrible need of -- shall I say the word
-- religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars. |
Notte stellata
La città non
esiste
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YOUNG
A thousand doors ago
when I was a lonely kid
in a big house with four
garages and it was summer
as long as I could remember,
I lay on the lawn at night,
Clover wrinkling over me,
The wise stars bedding over me,
my mother's window a funnel
of yellow heat running out,
my father's window, half shut,
an eye where sleepers pass,
and the boards of the house
were smooth and white as wax
and probably a million leaves
sailed on their strange stalks
as the crickets ticked together
and I, in my brand new body,
which was not a woman's yet,
told the stars my questions
and thought God could really see
the heat and the painted light,
elbows, knees, dreams, goodnight.
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Giovane
Mille porte fa,
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I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.
I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.
I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind.
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Una come lei
In giro sono andata, strega posseduta Ossessa ho abitato l'aria nera, padrona della notte; sognando malefici, ho fatto il mio mestiere passando sulle case, luce dopo luce: solitaria e folle, con dodici dita. Una donna così non è una donna.
Come lei io
sono stata. Ho trovato nei boschi tiepide caverne, e pentole e amuleti, tavole e armadietti, infinità di oggetti e sete ho ammassato; per elfi e vermi cene ho preparato: mugolando ho sistemato le cose fuori posto. Una donna così non è capita. Come lei sono stata.
Sul tuo carro, o cocchiere, son salita, a braccia nude ho salutato paesi che passavano, e le ultime strade luminose, ho conosciuto, sopravvissuta alle tue fiamme che ancora rompono le gambe e alle tue ruote che ancora rompono le ossa. Una donna così non ha vergogna di morire. Come lei io sono stata.
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Her kind
I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.
I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.
I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind.
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Tipo essa
Saí, bruxa possuída,
Com autorização da tradutora, Lavínia, reproduzo a tradução para Português encontrada aqui. Agradecido! |
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Her kind
I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.
I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.
I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind.
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He salido al mundo, una bruja poseída, rondando el aire negro, más valiente por ello; soñando el mal, he sobrevolado las casas planas, de luz en luz: pobre solitaria, con mis 12 dedos, enajenada. Una mujer así no es una mujer, lo sé. Yo he sido de ésas.
He encontrado las cuevas tibias del bosque, las he llenado de sartenes, tallas, estantes, de armarios, sedas, de incontables bienes; he preparado la cena de los gusanos y los elfos: llorando, aullando, ordenando lo que estaba mal. A una mujer así no se la comprende. Yo he sido de ésas.
He viajado contigo, carretero, saludando con los brazos desnudos a los pueblos que pasaban, aprendiéndome las últimas rutas de la claridad, superviviente allí donde tus llamas aún muerden mis muslos y crujen mis costillas bajo la presión de tu carreta. Una mujer así no se avergüenza de morir. Yo he sido de ésas. |
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Sleepmonger, deathmonger, with capsules in my palms each night, eight at a time from sweet pharmaceutical bottles I make arrangements for a pint-sized journey. I'm the queen of this condition. I'm an expert on making the trip and now they say I'm an addict. Now they ask why. WHY!
Don't they know that I promised to die! I'm keping in practice. I'm merely staying in shape. The pills are a mother, but better, every color and as good as sour balls. I'm on a diet from death.
Yes, I admit it has gotten to be a bit of a habit- blows eight at a time, socked in the eye, hauled away by the pink, the orange, the green and the white goodnights. I'm becoming something of a chemical mixture. that's it!
My supply of tablets has got to last for years and years. I like them more than I like me. It's a kind of marriage. It's a kind of war where I plant bombs inside of myself.
Yes I try to kill myself in small amounts, an innocuous occupatin. Actually I'm hung up on it. But remember I don't make too much noise. And frankly no one has to lug me out and I don't stand there in my winding sheet. I'm a little buttercup in my yellow nightie eating my eight loaves in a row and in a certain order as in the laying on of hands or the black sacrament.
It's a ceremony but like any other sport it's full of rules. It's like a musical tennis match where my mouth keeps catching the ball. Then I lie on; my altar elevated by the eight chemical kisses.
What a lay me down this is with two pink, two orange, two green, two white goodnights. Fee-fi-fo-fum- Now I'm borrowed. Now I'm numb.
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A viciada
Patroa da morte,
Com autorização da tradutora, Lavínia, reproduzo a tradução para Português encontrada aqui. Agradecido! |
SUICIDE NOTE
"You speak to me of narcissism but I reply that it is
"At this time let me somehow bequeath all the leftovers
to my daughters and their daughters" - Anonymous
Better,
June 1965
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BILHETE SUICIDA
Você me fala de narcisismo, mas eu respondo que é uma questão da minha vida... Artaud
Nesta hora, permita-me deixar de alguma maneira as sobras para minhas filhas e suas filhas... Anónimo
É melhor, apesar dos vermes falando com os cascos da égua no campo; é melhor, apesar do período das moças pingando seu sangue; é melhor de algum jeito eu me jogar rápido num velho quarto. É melhor (alguém disse) não nascer é melhor ainda não nascer duas vezes aos treze onde o colégio interno, cada ano um quarto, pegou fogo.
Querido amigo, Vou ter que afundar com centenas de outros num elevador de pratos para o inferno. Vou ser uma coisa leve. Vou entrar na morte como a lente de aumento perdida de alguém. A vida está meio aumentada. Os peixes e as corujas estão raivosos hoje. A vida balança pra frente e pra trás. Nem as vespas conseguem achar meus olhos.
Sim, olhos que já foram imediatos olhos que já foram despertos de verdade, olhos que contavam a história toda _ pobres animais burros. Olhos que foram vazados, cabecinhas de prego, tiros azul-claro.
E uma vez com a boca como uma xícara, cor de argila ou cor de sangue, abriam como uma barragem para o oceano perdido e abriam como a forca para a primeira cabeça.
Uma vez minha fome era de Jesus. Ah minha fome! Minha fome! Antes de ficar velho ele andou calmamente por Jerusalém procurando a morte.
Desta vez com certeza não peço compreensão e ainda espero que todos os outros se voltem quando um peixe não-treinado pular na superfície do Lago Echo; quando o luar, sua nota grave elevada, ferir algum prédio em Boston, quando os belos de verdade jazerem juntos. Eu penso nisso, claro, e pensaria nisso muito mais se não estivesse... se não estivesse naquele velho fogo.
Eu poderia admitir que sou só uma covarde choramingando eu eu eu sem mencionar as mosquinhas, as traças, obrigadas pelas circunstâncias a chupar a lâmpada. Mas certamente você sabe que todo mundo tem uma morte, sua própria morte, esperando. Então vou agora, sem doença ou velhice, descontrolada mas precisa, sabendo minha melhor rota, andando naquele burro de brinquedo que montei esses anos todos, sem jamais perguntar “Pra onde vamos?” Nós íamos (ah, se eu soubesse) Pra isso.
Querido amigo, por favor não pense que eu visualizo guitarras tocando ou meu pai arqueando seu osso. Não espero nem a boca da minha mãe. Eu sei que já morri antes _ uma vez em Novembro, outra em Junho. Que estranho escolher Junho de novo, tão concreto com seus peitos e ventres verdes. Claro que as guitarras não vão tocar! As cobras certamente não notarão. Nova York não vai ligar. À noite, os morcegos vão bater nas árvores, sabendo de tudo, vendo o que sentiram o dia todo.
Reproduzo aqui a tradução da Lavínia, que por ela gentilmente me foi enviada. Muito obrigado! |
SYLVIA’S DEATH
for Sylvia Plath .
O Sylvia, Sylvia,
with two children, two meteors
with your mouth into the sheet,
(Sylvia, Sylvia
what did you stand by,
Thief --
crawl down alone
the death we said we both outgrew,
the one we talked of so often each time
the death that talked of analysts and cures,
the death we drank to,
(In Boston
O Sylvia, I remember the sleepy drummer
how we wanted to let him come
to do his job,
and since that time he waited
and I see now that we store him up
and I know at the news of your death
(And me,
And I say only
what is your death
a mole that fell out
(O friend,
O tiny mother, |
Menstruation at Forty
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What is reality? I am a plaster doll; I pose with eyes that cut open without landfall or nightfall upon some shellacked and grinning person, eyes that open, blue, steel, and close. Am I approximately an I. Magnin transplant? I have hair, black angel, black-angel-stuffing to comb, nylon legs, luminous arms and some advertised clothes.
I live in a doll’s house with four chairs,
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