POMPE INUTILI Comments

for Silvina Rodrigues Lopes
Nobody's born; it would make no sense
to call the placental remains
enveloping a bunch of organs
whose action is all but predetermined
somebody.

Only the dead truly
exist. They wrote or didn't
write books, love letters,
diaries. No matter: they crossed
our paths, sometimes sat
at the same table, and even believed
in the sweet torture of love.
They had real hands when they touched
the pubescent face they were saying farewell to.
A kiss, though it kissed only wrinkles,
was able to make the mornings less cold.

The dead aren't very good at farewells,
even if they're precise and sincere
as never before in the moment they descend
into the earth and won't let us
partake with them a cigarette,
one last drink, a species of destiny.

The dead are frightfully real.
A whole life is insufficient
for us to kill them all, one
by one, as the most basic metaphysical
hygiene would surely recommend.
And yet they give us the necessary strength
to die more and more, to endure
our rented days, these homes not quite fit
to live in. Because the truth is that other
people are merely the imperfect dead.
They, like us, are a bit too alive.

But perhaps they'll one day write
a poem like this (and it might not even be
a poem, let alone like this) which denotes,
besides the obvious influences, what we might
call a penchant for horror.
For that's what it all comes down to.

The dead know.
Knowledge is useless.
Poetry too.
...
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