A verdade não é uma especialidade

Para especializados clérigos letrados

Não basta gritar povo é preciso expor

Partir do olhar da mão e da razão

Partir da limpidez do elementar

Como quem parte do sol do mar do ar

Como quem parte da terra onde os homens estão

-  Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen

The language

Robert Creeley

Locate I

love you some-

where in

teeth and

eyes, bite

it but

take care not

to hurt, you

want so

much so

little. Words

say everything.

I

love you

again,

then what

is emptiness

for. To

fill, fill.

I heard words

and words full

of holes

aching. Speech

is a mouth.

O amor é mais forte que a morte vocês diziam

Mas a vida é mais forte que o amor e

A indiferente mais forte que a vida 

- Michel Deguy

moody stricken Ahab stood before them with a crucifixion in his face, in all the nameless regal overbearing dignity of some mighty woe

- Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

Who’s over me? Truth hath no confines.

- Ahab, in Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks.

- Ahab, in Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort 

of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea

- Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

- Ishmael, in Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life

- Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, as featured in Unabomber (2026).

am i skeptical

or simply without discipline

- gianna patriarca

there is something different 

in my nostrils

it is unpleasant

i cannot decipher the lie 

the truth or the memory

- gianna patriarca

a draft of silence

at my shoulders

- gianna patriarca

i am a name and a landscape 

a language and a dialect

- gianna patriarca

The call of memory no longer makes  me sad.

I have no complaints about memories.

In fact, I have no complaints 

about anything,

not even my heart

aching nonstop like a big tooth.

- Nazim Hikmet

The Perfection of Loss

Jane Hirshfield

Like a native speaker

returned

after long exile,

quiet now in two tongues.

The Present

Jane Hirshfield

I wanted to give you something—

no stone, clay, bracelet,

no edible leaf could pass through.

Even a molecule’s fragrance by then too large.

Giving had been taken, as you soon would be.

Still, I offered the puffs of air shaped to meaning.

They remained air.

I offered memory on memory,

but what is memory that dies with the fallible inks?

I offered apology, sorrow, longing. I offered anger.

How fine is the mesh of death. You can almost see through it.

I stood on one side of the present, you stood on the other.

in days of vertigo and hesitation

- jane hirshfield