cristina néry
amidst the arching figs
and the black comb of a dead capricorn and
a blind moon a rose-coloured maple
and a mosaic peacock.
my lungs are like salt poles
for jingling bells perfume my brain
under the vault of a dagger
and my shoulders in olive-oil.
let a bird make my heart drunk with flutes
and a wondrous word if the springs
and a magnificent lark
and a sudarium.
and an island in orange where the white fish
want the scenery of cherries and the water hymns of honey.
let me wear forever a city
the foam bowls and princes in bloom
for rose-trees burn on the tongue
and a golden night swimmer.
a purple must coral for a hallway
of my damp seeds
and the sumptuous butterflies.
in the ointment orbits
sumptuous butterflies spill
and the possessive head of a river
and a night of low-pitch lyres
and throat roots.
a planet like a lyrical apple
and the burning of the flesh
by black-gloved queens.
on my shoulders are horses going down the river
and the red concertinas of gipsy parades
the food of the moon.
on the cervical of a leopard swollen muscles are the poem’s angles
i accomplish the tree of glass
as if licking an eternal cell.
there is a parable in small violins and the must of prayers.
i decorate the falcons balconies with the copper of bell-hoods and clay
and lay myself to grow inside a cocoon.
i clean after the labours of a tender shell
in the hour of gills and barley fields.
Cristina Néry Monteiro is one of the founding members of the “Oficina de Poesia” Group, since 1995, and is a member of the Editorial Board of Oficina the Poesia, the poetry magazine. In 2005 she founded the Poetry Group "Sarau dos Danados", and she is at present a member of the experimental and poerformatic group “Aranhiças e Elefantes”, with regular collaboration in their blog. She has worked for the theatre with director Celso Cleto and has translated Willy Russel’s Educating Rita into Portuguese (A Educação de Rita), which was first performed in 2002; she also translated Sylvia Plath’s ‘Three Women’ (As Três Mulheres), and wrote the play Monólogo para Mariana Alcoforado.
Cristina Néry is author of O Ciclo das Sedas (preface by Graça Capinha, Palimage, 2005), A Sepultura das Romãs (forthcoming) and As Histórias do Céu da Boca (forthcoming), a book of children’s stories, and published the micronarrative “O vício da cabeceira” on-line (Minguante, n. 10 [Maio, 2008]).
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