As I’ve probably said, I’m a bit of a philistine when it comes to poetry, but the book I am reading on-and-off at the moment, “atirar para o torto” by margarida vale de gato* “dá água pela barba” and my dictionary is taking a real beating. Translating this one in full because there are so many unknowns in it that I lost track. Words outlined in orange are the ones I had to look up
This galaxy will soon be a glowing coal
Our earth sparks - I think this
In the environ** of the street, feeling faint
Words beating in my head
About the cone*** of this planet - oh
warming marble with only one iris****
Fertilising the egg of the moon, steep
curdled, wounded***** red.
I'm going
when i arrive to lock myself out, key
inside, to sleep with the beasts in the dew
and just one bottle - I ought to break it
by the neck to heal
with a ruby in my mouth and anaesthesia
the bluff or another apocalypse
Incidentally, I happened upon a thesis published online where the author cites this poem in full as evidence of “an apocalyptic tone adopted recently in portuguese poetry”
*Should be in title case, I know, but she writes it in lower case on the cover so maybe it’s deliberate, I dunno.
**This is a pretty terrible translation since enlevo is more like enchantment, rapture, that kind of thing but I can’t quite find an english word that works in context. This is why I am not a professional translator!
***Another surprising one. The umbra and penumbra of an eclipse form cones, so she might be referring to that but it’s not clear to me
****I want “iris” to mean the little squiggle of colour inside an old-school marble, but I don’t see any evidence of that online.
*****Coalho was the only word I really didn’t know but it’s hard to see what she’s getting at here. Ingreme usually means steep but can be a high point, coalho means coagulate but can also be a thistle flower of all things. So maybe she means the blood moon looks like a thistle high up in the sky…. nah… i don’t see it.
Luso 