actoúnico

Já a luz se apagou do chão do mundo,
deixei de ser mortal a noite inteira;
ofensa grave a minha, que tentei
misturar-me aos duendes na floresta.
De máscara perfeita, e corpo ausente,
a todos enganei, e ninguém nunca
saberia que ainda permaneço
deste lado do tempo onde sou gente.
Não fora o gesto humano de querer-te
como quem, tendo sede, vê na água
o reflexo da mão que a oferece,
seria folha de árvore ou sério gnomo
absorto no silêncio de uma rima
onde a morte cessasse para sempre.

António Franco Alexandre em Duende

Mas até desta imaginação me devo despir. Passou o momento em que o futuro nos pertencia, por estar todo preso neste presente. Mas sei que se esse futuro for só humano, a pessoa e o tempo se separarão. A aranha que tomou alguma pétalas secas de hortênsia na sua teia, produziu por si própria, e pela atenção com que a observei,
um instante
que terá de certeza o seu lugar no futuro,
no desvendar do segredo da linguagem.

de Maria Gabriela Llansol em Finita

from Gonzales in Solo Piano

i refresh your memory continuously.
i do not want you to die. you could
sit there. remember, we loved in that
chair. remember? you stare back blankly
as captives do. you’re not

there. i am here. the house is quiet
with all the noise you no longer make.

somewhere you’re upstairs, being happy
i suppose. i am left, not without you,
but with the loneliness that was mine
long before you loved it away.

i get to know it again. its butter choking taste, the
knifeline words delivered on the poem’s edge,
no, on the white walls spiteful as ever in the
lurking shadows grinding teeth. afraid as ever.
then the saltiness of sleep.

the morning mirror whispering suicide letters
in consolation for the deadness
that just awoke.

no, you could never love this.

you did well to leave.

–

anna s. buckley

[…]

All around me that midnight’s
Giant clock of frost. And somewhere
Inside it, wanting to feel nothing,
A pulse of fever. Somewhere
Inside that numbness of earth
Our future trying to happen.
I look up – as if to meet your voice
With all its urgent future
That has burst in on me. Then look back
At the book of printed words.
You are ten years dead. It is only a story.
Your story. My story.

- Ted Hughes (on his relationship with Sylvia Plath)

I have that feeling, I have had it now for some days, and I credit it. But in what does it differ from those that have abused me ever since I was born? No, that is the kind of bait I do not rise to any more, my need for prettiness is gone. I could die to-day, if I wished, merely by making a little effort, if I could wish, if I could make an effort. But it is just as well to let myself die, quietly, without rushing things. Something must have changed. I will not weigh upon the balance any more, one way or the other.I shall be neutral and inert. No difficulty there. Throes are the only trouble, I must be on my guard against throes. But I am less to them now, since coming here.

Malone dies - Samuel Beckett