As part of this fall’s Lusosphere portfolio, we’re publishing accompanying work online. This translation feature highlights the work of two Brazilian poets, Eliane Marques and Leonardo Tonus. Work appears in both the original Portuguese and in English.
“A body on the sand” by LEONARDO TONUS, translated by CAROLYNE WRIGHT
“Federal Intervention” by ELIANE MARQUES, translated by TIFFANY HIGGINS
Music by ABRAHAM KATZ
Northern Israel-Palestine
The chunk of the ball
On the cracked blacktop
And our torsos so covered
In sweat nearby the sea
Swells and the smell seeps
Into our hair and the air
By MEGAN PINTO
Say Chicken Little was right, that the sky
is falling. What I want to know is,
will the moon fall too? Will it bounce softly
like swiss cheese, or will it crumble
like a stale cookie? Do skies bruise?
Do they ache? And is the sky
a metaphor for all the ills and evils
of the world? A testament
to how the earth can only hold so much
pain and grief? But why
would God send a chicken? Would you listen
to a chicken? Is the chicken a metaphor
for Jesus? Did the Bible mention this
and somehow I missed it? Is this because
in 6th grade my teacher made me promise Jesus
my virginity in a gift basket? Actually, if the sky falls,
Memory: a man cradles his son onshore,
pressing warm sea breeze on his tiny rebellion.
If men gave birth, what would become of gods?
Breaching beyond
the break wall, opening
the open sea like a long polished wound,
baffling the wind
with a force mustered from currents
where free is
two things—
unfathomable as the drowned book,
barnacled as if born and raised
between Aphrodite and the devil’s thumb
a whale heaves out a whale-tail
flaunting sunken love at the sunned earth
The rain had just finished saying, This block is mine.
The kind of rain where you could sleep through two breakthroughs and still have enough left to belly sing in the ambrosial hour.
Blood pellets in the dusk & dashes of hail were perfect for finding new stashes; that is to say, visitations were never announced.
A broken umbrella handle posed a question by the day care center.
In conversation with A Hill in the South Bronx, by Perla de Leon
Estoy buscando un árbol que me de sombra
Porque el que tengo me lo van a cortar
Coro de bomba
This building stands,
the last tree to be cut down
in a garden of brick and steel
made desert of rubble and dust.
21 de septiembre de 2017: “pero estamos vivos”
One: home
Two: home dos tres dos tres two: Mother.
One lápiz. One pen. One ocean between us. Six: Home.
By TINA CANE
Lucid dreaming is not a job but a steady occupation
I do not have a big dream they are only little dreams
and right now I cannot think of one
My father read the paper while my mother scrubbed the floor
I pay a woman $100 a week to help me keep my house clean
Josey picks me up at work in a car we bought
together, car she dug out of frozen slush for hours.
She picks me up and gives me roses. Valentine’s Day.
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