Song of Calamity

was setting a red khmer for two
(candlelight, decorated, i and
maria da graça)
and that was when she disrepressed.

the eyes of the woman, spaces,
mouth three angles, slicing:
—it’s all coming down.

all what? all nothing

in the flash flood long horses
roll by windows undergarments stripped
of their malice roll by a girl rolls by
descending the force of the water
rolls deep spinning tops roll by the neighborhood gossip rolls by
with her dog
alluvium.

the body of maria
reads the bible and asks for forty more days.
she wants to hear the specialist on tv
say that certain dews have simply
become unrehabilitable.

she wants to go for a walk on the island with me
—so much water inspiration—
she wants to see waves, eat roast beef,
play with clay. she asks me
and she goes like this: . the island is pretty.
let’s go let’s go see the suicides.

i say no. there’s no shelter:
at night the black water eats the river,
and presidente vargas avenue swallows
novelists and other amplitudes.
my little eye deviates
from a lawyer passing by
(his tie was already brown),
stares into the silence of the man selling
umbrellas in catumbi.

a crowded bus dragging along
scares maria da graça
on tv it’s so easy to have mercy
loving the people behind the pane.

a poet rolls by hydrographing his deluge
a car with a loudspeaker rolls by, saying i love you, georgette,
give me one more chance
in short circuit

so many clothes hung out
on the sambadrome grates in july
washed out.

but soon soon there will be a dormancy parade.
in the vicinity of sequins / transversal pass the people.
our civilization of ataraxic avenues
(so well paved by fenians, democrats
and lieutenants of the devil).

transversal i pass the people
th[e] flash flood hasn’t swept all my papers away.
i can still smile; i have all the required documents.
i can be afraid, can have hiccups and, most of all, hangovers.
after maria da graça
i go.

the government’s fault, the monsoon’s fault,
whoever it was that didn’t reeducate the walls
for the peeling, the going away, the demolition’s fault.
the masks’ fault, for getting their fill of fun
after maria da graça
i go.

after all coming down
only the people who’ve died aren’t going.
all what? all nothing

in the earthquake’s shaking
arms don’t reach plummet
somersault triple backflip.
to whom do the buildings bend?

children hidden under their desks,
the way the educational videos taught them.
vienna, tokyo, new delhi, paramaribo,
the earth stirs, bridges fall, maria’s breasts fall,
the ceiling falls, the hill weeps, fire licks,
the ball goes on.
with whom do the buildings dance?

bogotá, beirut, islamabad, warsaw,
the hours pass, the tv says, 8 hours of collapse,
∞ falling. what do the gods say, and the horoscopes?
casablanca, rome, lima, lisbon, porto-novo,
death has come to show us her face
which is the same as all the others.

quito, moscow, minsk, doha, brussels, beijing,
we are a mote in her eye, death
wants to blow us out of her retina.
ottawa, astana, baku, nassau, bandar seri begawan,
ouagadougou,
break, dance.

maria wants to shake up the skeleton
of the ruins of paris, london, berlin.
we’re only happy when we’re abroad.
she poses passes dances an x.

she says what’s easy is being different, be
cause wherever you go calamitous things are recognizable:
death by drowning, medical error, electric shock,
closed movie theater, all over the world, it’s what happens most.
maria laughs, maria da graça, at her own reason.

the water here carries euripides all the way to our window.
he says oh my god what a tragedy
and disappears over near athens.
maria has a delicious laugh, shakes your flesh.
it’s all coming down. all what?

the wind blows hard, it snows furiously, in honiara,
people try to defend themselves,
hands over their eyes, march forward, bratislava,
sanaa, dublin, maseru, riga, jakarta:
volcano with a pretty name freezes our steps.
typical music, night, the light of sirens: seven nightclubs.
children play the statue game,
hide-and-seek,
dead-alive.

robo-girl reads the forecast with a smile.
in budapest, amsterdam, maputo, tripoli,
it may start raining again. light drizzle
of a tv without a signal, white noise.
the story is over. rewind:

was setting a bombing for two
(the light, a present from me
and maria da graça),
it’s all coming down.
all what? all nothing

on top of debris
ugly women say i love you
to anyone who passes by.

there’s hope,
even though a tidal wave
is on its way, pulling everything back before.
after, sarajevo, buenos aires, belmopan,
tsunami.

buildings still standing, on the beach, manama, bujumbura,
they fish their residents out of the river in the streets.
merciful, they throw the gloomy ones back in the water,
which runs off,
n’djamena, p’yǒngyang, roseau, seoul.

a car with a bumper sticker reading
“no limits”
shatters against our window.
riyadh, dhaka, dakar, kabul.

the water smells like blood
but it’s only the rust from the pipes.

there are already monks in the mountains
singing the bricks’ funeral:
freetown, belgrade, victoria, nairobi,
kingstown, damascus, monrovia, lilongwe.

tight grip of grout, on the inside, arrhythmia.
the monks are looking at me with puppy faces.
character is destiny, i bet they’re saying.
bridgetown, bamako, sofia, nicosia, moroni.

ay we will all be condemned.

maria da graça follows the crying song:
georgetown, amman, cairo, hanoi, la la la.
knows nothing of geographies, furtive angel.
that’s why she’s never lost. she has a virus;
she doesn’t hurt like us, in epidemics.
she never says she’s putrefying.

there’s a star in the sky, bigger every day.
it vibrates, like it’s the sound in space up there.
maria tells me not to point
if you point at a star you’ll get a wart on your finger.

and the cockroaches
will they survive?

santiago, santo domingo, san josé, são tomé, san marino, san
salvador, what has become of hagiography? where are the armies of the lord
of armies with their moralizing bombs
when you need them most?

famine spreads. invades ruins, museums, bookstores.
famine makes soup out of rocks, books, screens. it makes men raw,
women in black and white, colored bile. it’s not healthy to eat the bible;
god is not edible.

robo-girl on tv eats the cocaine
she was so lovingly saving up
for her daughters, just in case this really is
the end. that’s why there’s no more news:
white news on the glass, light drizzle.
the story’s over. rewind:

was setting something for two
when the world came down.
the world did what? came down.

maria da graça has been swept away by the water.
a block has formed a drum between the concrete
houses. after maria da graça
i dig.
i go
down rua da glória after the rain, only
the little star in the sky keeps me company.
i don’t point at it. no one sings

bodies in rigorous relativity
teach dilacerated lessons. maria doesn’t hurt
like us. the arm bro
ken, in silence,
as though saying goodbye or needing
to take a breath before the next round of nostalgia.
seems like she’s dancing an x there on stakes.

i can smile, i still have my papers.
there’s not a living soul to check them.

i smile, criminally

the fragrant desolation
earth vaunts
after rain.

the star in the sky has grown.
it’s already a second sun.
here comes the sun, maria da graça,
and i say: it’s alright.
all what?

__

Victor Heringer, “Canção da calamidade” from Automatógrafo. Rio de Janeiro: 7Letras, 2011.