Tuesday, March 11, 2025

Lila Ripoll - "Naufrágio" / "Shipwreck"

Olá, caro/as leitore/as. Ofereço-lhes a minha primeira tradução para inglês da obra da poeta, brasileira, porto-alegrense, e comunista Lila Ripoll. Não conheço muito da vida dela, portanto vocês têm que esperar mais informações biográficas e literárias. Por enquanto, têm a coisa mais importante: o poema em si. Como sempre, esta tradução é um rascunho.

Até breve, camaradas.

DAS

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"Naufrágio"
Lila Ripoll


Uma sombra cobriu meu sonho,
desceu à terra, foi para o mar.
Vivo um pouco em cada barco
que naufraga silencioso,
sem chamar.

Um amor morou no meu peito,
cresceu sem medo, mas se escondeu.
Estou sempre em cada estrela,
que brilha um pouco e se apaga,
como eu.

Os meus braços estão quebrados,
sem ânsias novas para prender.
Rotas velas no mar alto,
levam sangue derramado,
sem morrer.


-----


"Shipwreck"
Lila Ripoll


A shadow fell upon my dreams,
descended to earth, went to sea.
I live briefly on each boat
that runs aground silently,
unnoticed.

A love dwelled in my chest,
grew fearlessly, but hid itself away.
I am forever in every star
that shines briefly and goes out,
like me.

My arms are broken,
without new cravings to grasp.
Torn sails on the high sea
lead to spilled blood
without dying.

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Tools for surviving whatever this is

Things are so fucked right now that I don't have it in me to get into any of it, y'all. Instead, I'll just make a few brief remarks on some things that are currently buoying my spirits.

-The poetry of Brazilian communist Lila Ripoll, which I read a little of each night before bed and will begin translating here soon.

-The music of Ayloss, particularly his projects Mystras and Auriferous Flame. His strident anti-fascism means more than ever these days.

-Feeding the handsome black and white cat that comes by once or twice a day. We call him Kino. He doesn't really want anything to do with us, but it's nice looking out for him anyway.

-Darjeeling tea. I drink a lot of tea, and a lot of kinds of tea; when it comes to black tea, I've been a Ceylon partisan for a while, but after finding some particularly good Darjeeling offerings from Upton Tea Imports, I've been really enjoying it as a change of pace.

-Neko Atsume 2, because it's the most pleasant cellphone-related thing in the universe.

-Film photography. I never learned how to take a proper photo with a real camera, but I worked in a photo lab over 20 years ago (where I didn't learn how to develop film manually, either), and I've been shooting film more or less ever since. I use cheap, simple cameras―the Reto Ultra Wide and Slim has been my favorite for the past three years—shoot on Catlabs or Lomography film, and get it developed and scanned at FLATS. I should probably post some of my photos to this blog.

And a whole lot more, believe it or not. Shit is hard and about to get way harder, but fuck caving in under the weight of it all and letting the fascists win. I hope y'all are holding up, and that you've found your own things to enjoy as the world threatens to devolve into the stupidest, ugliest kind of fascism. Stay safe, and stay free.

P.S. I wrote this almost a month ago and apparently didn't include a title. I'm updating it on March 10, 2025, with tags and a title.