Translated by Kathleen Mccaul Moura. Read her contextualizing piece, ‘We Are Favela!’, in the London Review of Books.
Le pauvre monde est sujet à l’erreur.
Laurent Tailhade, “Ballade (touchant la variété des jugements humains)”
For the viaduct you see the valley of the anhanga,
The ‘devil’, with his horns and tail:
a gap under the great leafed palms
that slice with their blades the tunneled wind;
the Municipal Theatre has a beautiful neoclassical facade,
the marriage kiss
of Eros and Pysche, interlaced, the belle epoque of the Italians
Not anarchists, but maybe, oh yes, artists,
that maybe read D’Annunzio with pleasure;
the fountains where carousing street kids
have nothing vile, nor of Verlaine. They live
in the tunnels of the metro, office-boys and
manila envelopes,
tarred tiles in the square of decadent
Memory:
In ’84 it wasn’t only a matter of
throwing Figueiredo out,
or another puppet in uniform, to vote badly,
about everything;
a beautiful place to fill with people and say:
‘Enough’, or ‘we are fed-up’ with the prayers
of the Diana of the woods, queen of the drunken
nutters,
of the Vale, end daughter of Jean-Antoine Houdon (17 etc),
the same smart-ass smile of the old Voltaire:
‘il faut cultiver notre jardin” – gardeners of
shit.
Christian preachers in the square with tongues of
fire
— prayers: blessings; gypsies that grab you and there’s; that arises from the depths.
diaphanous, that rises behind the horizon.
The palm leaves moves them,
like your hair, against the wind,
that takes away the noise and the uselessness
of your opinion on the things of this world.
Le pauvre monde est sujet à l’erreur.
Laurent Tailhade, “Ballade (touchant la variété des jugements humains)”
Do viaduto você divisa o vale do anhanga,
o “demônio”, com seus chifres e cauda:
um hiato sob as palmeiras de folhas amplas
que fatiam com suas lâminas o vento encanado;
no Municipal há o beijo de enlace neoclássico
de Eros e Psiquê; a belle époque dos italianos
nada anarquistas, mas talvez, oh sim, artistas,
que talvez lessem D’Annunzio com prazer;
os chafarizes onde farreiam moleques de rua
não têm nada de torpe, nem de Verlaine. Vivos
túneis do metrô, office-boys e envelopes pardos,
azulejos pichados no Largo da decadente Memória :
em 84 no Vale não era só escorraçar Figueiredo
ou outro fantoche de farda; votar mal, sobretudo;
um belo lugar pra se encher de gente e dizer:
“Chega”, ou “estamos fartos”, com a bênção
da Diana dos Bosques, rainha dos bêbados loucos
do Vale, e filha de Jean-Antoine Houdon (17 etc),
o mesmo do sorriso maroto do velho Voltaire:
“il faut cultiver nôtre jardin” — jardineiros de merda.
Pregadores cristãos na praça com línguas de fogo
— bênçãos das pombas dos Correios — dentro
de ternos surrados; ciganas te agarram e há uma luz,
diáfana, que surge ao fundo no horizonte.
As folhas das palmeiras se movem,
como seus cabelos, contra o vento
que leva embora os ruídos e a inutilidade
da sua opinião sobre as coisas deste mundo.
