the inventory of goodbye

I have a pack of letters,
I have a pack of memories.
I could cut out the eyes of both.
I could wear them like a patchwork apron.
I could stick them in the washer, the drier,
and maybe some of the pain would float off like dirt?
Perhaps down the disposal I could grind up the loss.
Besides -- what a bargain -- no expensive phone calls.
No lengthy trips on planes in the fog.
No manicky laughter or blessing from an odd-lot priest.
That priest is probably still floating on a fog pillow.
Blessing us. Blessing us.

Am I to bless the lost you,
sitting here with my clumsy soul?
Propaganda time is over.
I sit here on the spike of truth.
No one to hate except the slim fish of memory
that slides in and out of my brain.
No one to hate except the acute feel of my nightgown
brushing my body like a light that has gone out.
It recalls the kiss we invented, tongues like poems,
meeting, returning, inviting, causing a fever of need.
Laughter, maps, cassettes, touch singing its path -
all to be broken and laid away in a tight strongbox.
The monotonous dead clog me up and there is only
black done in black that oozes from the strongbox.
I must disembowel it and then set the heart, the legs,
of two who were one upon a large woodpile
and ignite, as I was once ignited, and let it whirl
into flame, reaching the sky
making it dangerous with its red.


Anne Sexton

pequena tosse, pequeno amor

Como já foi dito:
O amor e a tosse
não podem ser disfarçados.
Nem mesmo uma pequena tosse.
Nem mesmo um pequeno amor.


Anne Sexton

em tempos de cuarentena, tens um pouco de cada

you, doctor martin

You, Doctor Martin, walk
from breakfast to madness. Late August,
I speed through the antiseptic tunnel
where the moving dead still talk
of pushing their bones against the thrust
of cure. And I am queen of this summer hotel
or the laughing bee on a stalk

of death. We stand in broken
lines and wait while they unlock
the doors and count us at the frozen gates
of dinner. The shibboleth is spoken
and we move to gravy in our smock
of smiles. We chew in rows, our plates
scratch and whine like chalk

in school. There are no knives
for cutting your throat. I make
moccasins all morning. At first my hands
kept empty, unraveled for the lives
they used to work. Now I learn to take
them back, each angry finger that demands
I mend what another will break

tomorrow. Of course, I love you;
you lean above the plastic sky,
god of our block, prince of all the foxes.
The breaking crowns are new
that Jack wore.
Your third eye
moves among us and lights the separate boxes
where we sleep or cry.

What large children we are
here. All over I grow most tall
in the best ward. Your business is people,
you call at the madhouse, an oracular
eye in our nest. Out in the hall
the intercom pages you. You twist in the pull
of the foxy children who fall

like floods of life in frost.
And we are magic talking to itself,
noisy and alone. I am queen of all my sins
forgotten. Am I still lost?
Once I was beautiful. Now I am myself,
counting this row and that row of moccasins
waiting on the silent shelf.


Anne Sexton

maria who WAS mad

Anna who was mad,
I have a knife in my armpit.
When I stand on tiptoe I tap out messages.
Am I some sort of infection?
Did I make you go insane?
Did I make the sounds go sour?
Did I tell you to climb out the window?
Forgive. Forgive.
Say not I did.
Say not.
Say.

Speak Mary-words into our pillow.
Take me the gangling twelve-year-old
into your sunken lap.
Whisper like a buttercup.
Eat me. Eat me up like cream pudding.
Take me in.
Take me.
Take.

Give me a report on the condition of my soul.
Give me a complete statement of my actions.
Hand me a jack-in-the-pulpit and let me listen in.
Put me in the stirrups and bring a tour group through.
Number my sins on the grocery list and let me buy.
Did I make you go insane?
Did I turn up your earphone and let a siren drive through?
Did I open the door for the mustached psychiatrist
who dragged you out like a gold cart?
Did I make you go insane?
From the grave write me, Anna!
You are nothing but ashes but nevertheless
pick up the Parker Pen I gave you.
Write me.
Write.


Anne Sexton

woman with girdle

Ó mãe

aqui no teu colo,
tão bom como uma taça cheia de nuvens,
a mim, a tua criança gulosa
é me dado o teu peito,
o mar embrulhado em pele,
e os teus braços.
Raízes cobertas de musgo
com novos rebentos a nascerem
para me fazerem cocegas até ao riso.
Sim, estou casada com o meu ursinho
mas ele tem o teu cheiro
e também o meu.
O teu colar que eu toco
é todo olhos de anjo.
Os teus anéis que brilham
são como a lua no charco.
As tuas pernas que abanam para cima e para baixo,
as tuas queridas pernas cobertas de nylon
são os cavalos que eu cavalgarei
para a eternidade.

Ó mãe,
depois deste colo de infância
nunca irei avançar
para o mundo das pessoas grandes
como um estranho
uma invenção,
ou vacilar
quando alguém
for tão vazio como um sapato.


Anne Sexton, trad. Maria Sousa

you get so alone at times that it just makes sense

«That’s what I do: I make coffee and occasionally succumb to suicidal nihilism. But you shouldn’t worry — poetry is still first. Cigarettes and alcohol follow.»


Anne Sexton, A Self-Portrait In Letters

diz a anne sexton

«If you put your ear close to a book, you can hear it talking to you.»

fiquei à escuta à escuta à escuta à

gostas de mim?

"Gostas de mim?"
Perguntei ao blazer azul.
Sem resposta.
O silêncio saiu ruidosamente dos seus livros.
O silêncio caiu da sua língua
e sentou-se entre nós.
e obstruiu a minha garganta.
E trucidou a minha confiança.
Despedaçou cigarros para fora da minha boca.
Trocámos palavras cegas,
e eu não chorei,
e eu não implorei,
mas a escuridão encheu os meus ouvidos,
a escuridão atacou o meu coração,
e algo que tinha sido bom,
uma espécie de oxigénio bondoso,
Transformou-se em gás de forno.

"Gostas de mim?"
Que absurdo!
Que raio de pergunta é essa?
Que raio de silencio é esse?
E porque é que eu ando a rondar,
intrigada com o que é que o silêncio dele disse?


Anne Sexton, trad. Maria Sousa

tendo vinte-e-dois-anos-nas-cuecas

Veste uma camisa limpa antes de morrer, disseram alguns russos.
Por favor, nada com baba, nódoas de ovo, sangue
suor , esperma.
Queres-me limpa, Deus,
por isso vou tentar obedecer.

O chapéu com que me casei,
servirá?
Branco, largo com um pequeno bouquet de flores falsas.
É antiquado, com tanto estilo como um percevejo,
mas fica bem morrer em algo nostálgico.

E vou levar
a minha bata de pintar
lavada vezes sem conta, claro
manchada com cada cozinha amarela que pintei.
Deus, não te importas que eu leve todas as minhas cozinhas?
Elas contêm o riso da família e a sopa.

Como soutien
(precisamos de o mencionar?)
O preto acolchoado que irritava o meu amante
quando eu o despia.
Dizia “para onde foi tudo?”

E levarei
a saia de grávida do meu nono mês
uma janela para a barriga do amor
que deixou cada bebé sair como uma maçã,
as aguas a rebentar no restaurante,
fazendo uma casa barulhenta onde eu gostaria de morrer.

Como roupa interior escolherei algodão branco,
as cuecas da minha infância,
pois era uma máxima da minha mãe
que as meninas boas apenas usavam algodão branco.
Se a minha mãe tivesse vivido para o ver
teria posto um cartaz de “Procura-se” nos correios
para as pretas, vermelhas, azuis que eu usei.
No entanto, seria perfeitamente agradável para mim
morrer como uma boa menina
a cheirar a Clorox e a Duz.
Tendo dezasseis-anos-nas-cuecas
morreria cheia de perguntas.


Anne Sexton, trad. Maria Sousa

her kind

I have ridden in your cart, driver,

waved my nude arms at villages going by,

learning the last bright routes, survivor

where your flames still bite my thigh

and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.

A woman like that is not ashamed to die.

I have been her kind.

Anne Sexton

palavras e ovos devem ser tratados com cuidado

Tem cuidado com as palavras,
mesmo com as milagrosas,
Pelas milagrosas fazemos o nosso melhor,
por vezes elas enxameiam como insectos
e deixam não uma picada mas um beijo.
Podem ser tão boas como dedos.
Podem ser tão de confiança como a rocha
onde espetas o rabo.
E podem ser malmequeres ou feridas.

Mesmo assim, estou apaixonada pelas palavras.
São pombas a cair do tecto.
São seis laranjas sagradas sentadas no meu colo.
São as árvores, as pernas do verão
e o sol, a sua cara impetuosa.

Mas muitas vezes elas falham-me.
Há tanto que quero dizer,
tantas histórias, imagens, provérbios, etc
Mas as palavras não são suficientemente boas,
as erradas beijam-me.
Por vezes eu voo como uma águia
Mas com as asas duma carriça.

Mas eu tento ter cuidado
e ser cuidadosa com elas.
Palavras e ovos devem ser tratados com cuidado.
Uma vez partidos são coisas impossíveis
de reparar.


Anne Sexton, trad. Maria Sousa

Death,

I need my little addiction to you.
need that tiny voice who,
even as I rise from the sea,
all woman, all there,
says kill me, kill me.


Anne Sexton, Letters to Dr. Y

for Sylvia Plath

O Sylvia, Sylvia,
with a dead box of stones and spoons,
with two children, two meteors
wandering loose in a tiny playroom,

with your mouth into the sheet,
into the roofbeam, into the dumb prayer,

(Sylvia, Sylvia
where did you go
after you wrote me
from Devonshire
about rasing potatoes
and keeping bees?)

what did you stand by,
just how did you lie down into?

Thief --
how did you crawl into,

crawl down alone
into the death I wanted so badly and for so long,

the death we said we both outgrew,
the one we wore on our skinny breasts,

the one we talked of so often each time
we downed three extra dry martinis in Boston,

the death that talked of analysts and cures,
the death that talked like brides with plots,

the death we drank to,
the motives and the quiet deed?

(In Boston
the dying
ride in cabs,
yes death again,
that ride home
with our boy.)

O Sylvia, I remember the sleepy drummer
who beat on our eyes with an old story,

how we wanted to let him come
like a sadist or a New York fairy

to do his job,
a necessity, a window in a wall or a crib,

and since that time he waited
under our heart, our cupboard,

and I see now that we store him up
year after year, old suicides

and I know at the news of your death
a terrible taste for it, like salt,

(And me,
me too.
And now, Sylvia,
you again
with death again,
that ride home
with our boy.)

And I say only
with my arms stretched out into that stone place,

what is your death
but an old belonging,

a mole that fell out
of one of your poems?

(O friend,
while the moon's bad,
and the king's gone,
and the queen's at her wit's end
the bar fly ought to sing!)

O tiny mother,
you too!
O funny duchess!
O blonde thing!


Anne Sexton

Give me a report on the condition of my soul.

Give me a complete statement of my actions.


Anne Sexton

estar bêbeda é ser íntima de um louco

Seria agradável estar bêbeda:
infiel à minha língua e mãos,
desistindo de limites
pelo heróico gin.
Bêbeda de morte
é a expressão em que estou a pensar,
insensata,
nem fria nem quente,
Sem cabeça ou pé.
Estar bêbeda é ser íntima de um louco
vou tenta-lo brevemente


Anne Sexton, trad. Maria Sousa

porque estou aqui?

E eu interrogo-me sobre
esta vida inteira comigo,
este sonho que estou a viver.
E podia comer o céu
como uma maçã
mas prefiro
perguntar à primeira estrela:
porque estou aqui?
porque vivo nesta casa?
quem é o responsável?
hã?


Anne Sexton, trad. Maria Sousa

gracefully insane

Even so, I must admire your skill.
You are so gracefully insane.


Anne Sexton

the ballad of the lonely masturbator

The end of the affair is always death.
She’s my workshop. Slippery eye,
out of the tribe of myself my breath
finds you gone. I horrify
those who stand by. I am fed.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.
Finger to finger, now she’s mine.

She’s not too far. She’s my encounter.

I beat her like a bell. I recline
in the bower where you used to mount her.
You borrowed me on the flowered spread.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.
Take for instance this night, my love,
that every single couple puts together
with a joint overturning, beneath, above,
the abundant two on sponge and feather,
kneeling and pushing, head to head.
At night alone, I marry the bed.
I break out of my body this way,
an annoying miracle. Could I
put the dream market on display?
I am spread out. I crucify.
My little plum is what you said.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.
Then my black-eyed rival came.
The lady of water, rising on the beach,
a piano at her fingertips, shame
on her lips and a flute’s speech.
And I was the knock-kneed broom instead.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.
She took you the way a woman takes
a bargain dress off the rack
and I broke the way a stone breaks.
I give back your books and fishing tack.
Today’s paper says that you are wed.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.
The boys and girls are one tonight.
They unbutton blouses. They unzip flies.
They take off shoes. They turn off the light.
The glimmering creatures are full of lies.
They are eating each other. They are overfed.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.


Anne Sexton