Pulse

This that recedes

will come near to us

on the other side of the day.

Autumn: a single leaf

eaten by light: and the green

gaze of green upon us.

Where earth does not stop,

we, too, will become this light,

even as light

dies

in the shape of a leaf.

Gaping eye

in the hunger of day.

Where we have not been

we will be. A tree

will take root in us

and rise in the light

of our mouths.

The day will stand before us.

The day will follow us

into the day.

Paul Auster

todos os poemas

Interior

Grappled flesh

of the fully other and one.

And each thing here, as if it were the last thing

to be said: the sound of a word

married to death, and the life

that is this force in me

to disappear.

Shutters closed. The dust

of a former self, emptying the space

I do not fill. This light

that grows in the corner of the room

has moved.

Night repeats. A voice that speaks to me

only of smallest things.

Not even things - but their names.

And where no names are -

of stones. The clatter of goats

climbing through the villages

of noon. A scarab

devoured in the sphere

of its own dung. And the violet swarm

of butterflies beyond.

In the impossibility of words,

in the unspoken word

that asphyxiates,

I find myself.

Paul Auster

todos os poemas

White Nights

No one here,

and the body says: whatever is said

is not to be said. But no one

is a body as well, and what the body says

is heard by no one

but you.

Snowfall and night. The repetition

of a murder

among the trees. The pen

moves across the earth: it no longer knows

what will happen, and the hand that holds it

has disappeared.

Nevertheless, it writes.

It writes: in the beginning,

among the trees, a body came walking

from the night. It writes:

the body's whiteness

is the color of earth. It is earth,

and the earth writes: everything

is the color of silence.

I am no longer here. I have never said

what you say

I have said. And yet, the body is a place

where nothing dies. And each night,

from the silence of the trees, you know

that my voice

comes walking toward you.

Paul Auster

todos os poemas

Desterrar

I.

Com tuas cinzas, as que mal

foram escritas, obliterando

a ode, incitadas raízes, alheio

olho - com mãos imbecis te arrastaram

à cidade e lá te ataram neste

nó de gíria, e deram

nada. Tua tinta aprendeu

a dureza do muro. Banido,

mas sempre ao coração

do incômodo silêncio, triscas as pedras

da terra não vista, e ajeitas teu leito

entre os lobos. Cada sílaba 

é ato da sabotagem.

...

Paul Auster

todos os poemas

Tradução: Caetano W. Galindo

Unearth

I.

Along with your ashes, the barely

written ones, obliterating

the ode, the incited roots, the alien

eye - with imbecilic hands, they dragged you

into the city, bound you in

this knot of slang, and gave you

nothing. Your ink has learned

the violence of the wall. Banished,

but always to the heart 

of brothering quiet, you cant the stones

of unseen earth, and smooth your place

among the wolves. Each syllable

is the work of sabotage.

...

Paul Auster

todos os poemas

Raios

I.

Raízes agonizam entre vermes - o crivo

Da hora convive no peito de um pardal.

Entre ramo e espira - a palavra

Apequena seu ninho, e a semente, ninada

Por lindes mais simples, não vai confessar.

Apenas o ovo gravita.

II.

Em água - minha ausência em aridez. Uma flor.

Uma flor que define ar.

No poço mais fundo, teu corpo é estopim.

III.

A casca não basta. Engasta

Lascas redundantes e troca

Pedra por seiva, sangue por eclusa em fuga,

Enquanto a folha se fura, se malha

De ar, e tanto mais, sulcada

Ou envolta, entre lobo e cão,

Por quanto mais há de estacar

A vã vantagem do machado?

...

Paul Auster 

todos os poemas

Tradução: Caetano W. Galindo

Spokes

I.

Roots writhe with the worm - the sift

Of the clock cohabits the sparrow's heart.

Between branch and spire - the word

Belittles its nest, and the seed, rocked

By simpler confines, will not confess.

Only the egg gravitates.

II.

In water - my absence in aridity. A flower.

A flower that defines the air.

In the deepest well, your body is fuse.

III.

The bark is not enough. It furls

Redundant shards, will barter

Rock for sap, blood for veering sluice,

While the leaf is pecked, brindled

With air, and how much more, furrowed

Or wrapped, between dog and wolf,

How much longer will it stake

The axe to its gloating advantage?

...

Paul Auster

todos os poemas