Victor Requião

A quite different beginning, what I common say "expose the inner side of things". "What thing?" you may ask, your thing, mine, ours!

I had (until some days ago) never intended to be part of this new ideia of sharing with other people my thoughts and reflections, like the "blog" term is being used. But here I am, letting this new way happen, sometimes words in English (like now) and Portuguese. And so it goes, simply...

Just for now a little bit of the unsocial style of Álvaro Campos (F. Pessoa) which I appreciate very much...

Lisbon Revisited

No: I don't want anything.
I already said that I don't want anything.

Don't come to me with conclusions.
The only conclusion is dying.

Don't bring me your aesthetics!
Don't talk to me about morality!
Get your metaphysics out of here!
Don't preach complete systems to me, don't give me the ranked conquests
Of the sciences (of the sciences, my God, the sciences!) ­
Of the sciences, the arts, of modern civilization!

What harm have I done to all the gods?

If they hold the truth, let them keep it!

I am a technician, but I have technique only inside technique.
Outwith that I am mad, with every right to be so.
With every right to be so, did you hear me?

Don't pester me, for the love of God!

You'd like me married, futile, everyday and taxable?
You'd like me the opposite of this, opposite to something or other?
If I were somebody else, I'd do you all a favour.
Like this, the way I am, just be patient with me!
Go to the devil without me,
Or let me go to the devil on my own!
Why do we have to go together?

Don't grab me by the arm!
I don't like people grabbing me by the arm. I want to go alone.
I already told you I'm on my own!
Ah, how you bore me with your wanting me to keep you company!

Oh blue sky ­ the same one from my childhood ­,
Eternal truth void and perfect!
Oh gentle Tagus ancestral and silent,
Small truth in which the sky is reflected!

Oh sorrow revisited, former Lisbon of today!
Nothing can you give me, take from me, nor be anything that I feel.
Leave me in peace! I won't be long, I never take very long ...
While the Abyss and the Silence keep me waiting, I want to be alone!

Álvaro Campos