Relatório

I.

I am talking to you of the situation
or at least I hope to, given time.
I can see the fire from my station.

In Pisa, smoke haunts the pine
as the madman dwells in his cage
thoughts bound by terza rhyme

Chinese dictionary though unscathed
danger + opportunity
lucid symbols, the swarming page

paradise / sin + scarcity
each sign there pristine,
disfiguring the apple tree

an axe sent to wipe it clean,
a path carved through pestilence
by the firelight machine.

As pessoas vão morrer, me arrepende
mas no podemos parar
una fabrica porque ha un accidente.

The form strains, traveling too far.
The sailor, a widower, haunted by the shade,
tends to his olive grove: a living scar

the mark of those led astray
through dark woods they now burn
where fire leads the way.

ii.

Estou falando com você da situação
ou espero, com tempo.
Eu posso ver o fogo da minha estação.

The poet then, from his tower,
sold words spreading fire
over airwaves, into minds.

usura no clear demarcation
cotton / factory / money / gun
history made conspiracy:

Only a crisis, real or perceived, produces any change.
The actions depend upon the ideas lying around.
The fire and its industry, carried south.

Santiago, Plaza Nuñoa, under Arucacia trees
Guedes [Snr. Ministro] young then among the dead
leaves lying around, not far from the stadium.

Es el mundo me dicen
no te preocupes
es el año 1979.

R$200 per month [$35 em termos reais]
for the destitute, no order without profit
for the sick, no progress without loss.

Eu sei… a vida não tem preço.
Simple words, unpoetic:
a description there of hell.

iii.

Here they are, the cannibals
in the mastery of heat and gold
which famine now betrays.

Columbus, avid reader
sailed for Cipangu
on Marco Polo’s word.

Europium, terbium,
samarium, lanthanum.
Silver gelatin

Salgado’s photograph,
the mine at Pelada.
We are on the eve of genocide.

¢20 for the journey
down into the mouth of hell.
We lose our guide, the fire speaks:

Não falam nossa lingua.
Não tem dinhero.
Não tem cultura.

The visionaries set sail for the end
of the world, guided by the circular
logic of investment and return:

The heart eaters consume
because the heart eaters consume
what the heart eaters consume.