Category Archives: Poetry

strange octave

16 Monday Feb 2015

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“A bra, a bra for all/ sizes” – May Wong,
a bad girl’s book of animals (1969)

Pity the mermaid, she knows nothing about
cunnilingus. Underwear baffles her.

I’d give up my fins, too, to lick that doubt.
To taste what the other side enjoys. Her

body comes out of the sea at dusk, crawls
through the grasses. There are no runaways.

No one gets to swim free. On the stonewall
of the beach – a house; its alien ways

will vex her. Even the shamans among
her kind can only sing about night skies.

We hope a queer stanza, a strange octave
will lead to wonders, to songs that our tongues

forgot. As if it’s language that denies
us all this, and not us denying love.

​schall’s AMOR EM AZUL E BRANCO

10 Tuesday Feb 2015

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AMOR EM AZUL E BRANCO
Virgínia Schall 		LOVE IN BLUE AND WHITE
translation by ZJC
Nuvens brancas
espumas flutuando os andes
Brancas geleiras
pinceladas impressionistas
descendo sobre os cimos
do Ozorno
Branco em flor
campo de margaridas
ondulando ao vento
Branco-amor
esvoaça em lençois e cortinas
desnudando os corpos no quarto
róseos, ardentes, úmidos e ungidos
Branco enevoado do ar
em cheiro de sêmen-vida
do encontro que exala
e enche a casa
perfuma a brisa e se espalha
por entre as ondas suaves
do marinho Pacífico,
ornando a cena, túrgido e cingido
ao azul celeste da Terra em cio. 		White clouds
foam floating across the Andes
White glaciers
Like impressionist brushstrokes
coming down off the peaks
of the Ozorno
White flowers
a field of daisies
rippling in the wind
White-love
fluttering in the sheets and curtains
they bare their bodies in this room
all rosy, glowing, wet and anointed
White misty air
that smells of vital cum
from the encounter that exudes
and fills the house
with perfumes the breeze spreads
through the gentle waves
of the Pacific ocean,
gracing the world, surrounding the turgid
heat of the blue Earth.

Poet’s Biography:

Besides writing poetry, VIRGINIA TORRES SCHALL is a psychologist, biological scientist (neurophysiology and behavior), and holds a Ph.D. in education. She has been working at Fundacao Oswaldo Cruz (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) since 1981 as a researcher. In 1990, she created the Laboratory of Environmental and Health Education (Department of Biology, Oswaldo Cruz Institute). According to her website she is also currently working at Rene Rachou Research Center (Fundacao Oswaldo Cruz, Belo Horizonte).

teixeira’s VISITA

10 Tuesday Feb 2015

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VISITA
Virna G. Teixeira 		VISIT
translation by ZJC
criado-mudo:
bíblia e
rosário de contas

na cama, ao lado
a nudez
sem nome

Bedside table:
a bible and
rosary beads

In bed
this nakedness
has no name

Poet’s Biography:

Born in Fortaleza, Brazil, in 1971 VIRNA G. TEIXEIRA works as a neurologist in São Paulo, and has published three books of poetry: Visit (2000), Distance (2005) by 7 Letters Press and Transits (2009) by Lumme Editor, as well as several titles of Scottish poetry translations.

shoulder deep (these damning words)

03 Tuesday Feb 2015

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Shoulder deep in the ocean at sunrise —-
night, stars, fish slid around me, my hair swirled

behind. This point in the sand horrifies
me, this point where the tide pulls and the world

wonders if I’ll return to shore or let
myself be dragged forward. There are spirits

in the deep that are hungry for touch, wet
like me in the surf, who know the secrets

of how to survive under such pressure
but have no wish to survive. If only

there was a third option; neither forward
nor back; something to calm this sex-fever.

Brain sick, I cannot choose the land, the sea,
madness, love, silence or these damning words.

XERXES SEX REX

02 Monday Feb 2015

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poppies wept
swept between

the waves at
dawn over the

stone pier mist
increased I

ceased out from
the dune’s salt

tongue past the
creek its pale

waves dragging
rain froth and

downfall and
for a moment

passing through
his hunger-song

I heard a name
a monstrous

palindrome the
gulf’s firth a basin

shaman By then
I’d learned of the

Ampullae of
Lorenzini The

shark is a tune
a pychedelicacy

and you darling red
heart a mere morsel

nape i cannot

21 Wednesday Jan 2015

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It’s not the violence, I tell
you, that draws me in, we’ve

survived worse, it’s
the porno-proud static it’s

the television glow. It’s
the peel unpeeled. Call it

the sense of control. Between
the fox and the wolf I choose

the blood ax, the groove maker,
the conjured claws bared

to the bone. Lonely beasts
have no idea how to ask

to be invited in. I wanted
to knock you to the ground,

sit upon your shoulder
blade, play with your

nape. I cannot
sleep tonight. Foolish

child, the static glows, I
warned you, go shut the door.

consume the rest

21 Wednesday Jan 2015

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— bony hired hands

There is no frieze with
me dancing on it. Renoir,
like Hollywood, passed
me by. I have no spark, no
flint, no wheel to measure
the heavens. There are no
heaven, singular or plural.
What rite, what coven, what
belief would encompass this?
The sextant is broken, the
compass thrown down. Let
the maps drivel three-fold
down the page. What will
clean the mud from these
wounds? What will look upon
this flesh without horror? If
there’s a pastoral scene
with me in it, burn the hay,
salt the earth, let flesh-eating
bacteria consume the rest. I
look for no wily shepherdess,
no bucolic wood-man with
a cock out to here. Even chaos bores.