Thursday, December 11, 2008

Cleaving Pessoa



Salutations to Pessoa

“But it’s all fragments,
fragments, fragments…”
—Fernando Pessoa


Every time — I read Pessoa
I think — how much better
He is — than Allen Ginsberg
More magically — realistic with
his fragmented — heteronyms
than Ginsberg — could ever be
In America — New York City
more like — Third World New Orleans
Now shrunk city — after the hurricane
Despite art deco — Chrysler & Empire State
Buildings looming up — the envy of our Neocon Empire
Hardly comparable to — the Portuguese Empire
Its Sebastianesque — 15th century grandeur…

Fernando Pessoa—strolling down Rua do Ouro
Along with Madame Blavatsky—Aleister Crowley
alias Master Therion — Alberto Caeiro Alvaro de Campos
Ricardo Reis — Bernardo Soares the semi-heteronym
author of the sprawling —disquieting fictional diary

Richard Zenith — the Translator
Walt Whitman — The Good Gray Poet
Eduardo Lanca — Dr. Pancracio
Dr. Gaudencio Nabos — Charles Robert Anon
Alexander Search — author of Documents of Decadence
Jean Seul, Ophelia Queiroz — Antonio Mora
Baron of Teive — Thomas Crosse the critic
Antonio de Seabra — another critic
Sher Henay compiler —Sensationalist Anthology
Crosse — Raphael Baldaya the astrologer
Maria Jose — the 19-year-old hunchback
Spawning — hopeless love letters

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