...
THE START
2000

The farm occupies a unique place in my dreamland. I often visualize Dora as a lotus leaf with the edges of a banana tree. Next to Dora is I, a lotus seed, lean and sharply sculptured by the mountain winds. Lost in translation, I am held dearly in the middle of my Mum's palm. 
    So when He tells me stories from the farm, building the landscape of that dreamland, I can never grasp how I grew on this side of the world. I would pass Dora every morning on that walk through the farmland on the way to our blue hut. It was in that hut that Mum would close her gentle fire and breathe. 
    After the unjust scoldings from the inner city few, lost in translation, we covered our faces and hands with blankets as the town passed through us. Even at One, stumbling along cobbled Belo streets holding Mum’s hand I knew she would not mind if I began to surface, all those wonderful things from the darkness.

Eternity waits, amongst the feeling that time isn’t anymore. The apprehension of this plane's plateau, much like the weight of paint she left splattered on my chest.

✦

Forgotten—I am
In the dream of it all
Lisboa seems to remember

✦

I felt Fernando's palavras like a cool awakening from the Levantar. That one where he said something like, in his Pessoa’s ways; “I, A poet—no ambition could be. This simply Is my way Of staying alone”

✦

I left alone the skies of tonight, in the darkness of tomorrow. Opening the blinds, I see the place that houses this moving soul. In the shadows of Lisboa (I am placed). Taking in the breath of Pessoa in every eye that meets mine. In the change of it all I spill a cup of wine over the book I am making. I laugh, then write some strange verse about it.


✤

I arrived as the darkness swallowed the sky. The rain falls on the tin roof of the bus terminal in a way that smells of home
—yet I am far from.

✦

I fell asleep and woke up in Betim, cascaded by trees, green as ever. Washed by fresh rain. An hour nap passed in a second after falling in love with her cousin. What a beautiful horizon she had. Forgotten already. This ancient chiseled soul cries old tears with its first steps back on the cobbled streets of Belo Horizonte.

✦

Maybe the rainforest loves
in a way that will never change.
Maybe the way I love,
Is much like
How the breath of trees.

✦

Dora, I feel your step
in the shadows of each one I take

✦

This soul, or whatever name you may choose, with no age knows the wind well for it springs from the same womb. Never showing its true face, it sleeps silently.

✦

With the eyes—watching
No thought could feel what this hospital means.
Here I am unsure, still. Necessarily.
The wind plays with the leaves outside this tiny tin world I sit, drinking acai—it is enough.

✦

Naturally, my pace fit that of an old lady, who I walked alongside perfectly as we passed two men squabbling and wobbling. She starts speaking to me in Portuguese. I look into her eyes feeling what she’s saying nodding my head. Sim sim, a few words trickle into the great pool …drogas…cabeza

✦

Someone once told me 
Paedophiles reincarnate as mosquitos.

✦

When I reached the top of the hill I rested for a while. Sat on the orange chairs in remembrance of the way I move. My bag and things found the floor, then my palms met the same fate. They supported my legs swinging into the clouds. 

Gunshots interrupt the moment. My shoulders jolt to see a few boys running and laughing down the street. Only plastic it was but very real was the feeling. One of them ran over “Você faz Capoeira?” Sim, eu faço, my rusty lips replied, followed by the best macaco I’ve ever done. As I returned upright his bright moon eyes were enlightened. I continued to move with the freedom of a language unbound. 

We spoke for a bit then I think I told him ‘Never stop playing’. Regardless he smiled and ran off. As did I but in a way that made life breathe again. “Thats Why”

✦

This is the year I die many times. In the city of god. Humbly not. Sat in a stare with the cooling mirror that stares back. This new wind has wound something inside I will never unbind. Many times I have cried but never like this in the circle of it all.

✦

The gods cracked open the skies, with a whip from the Gate. Followed by a bellowing roar that sent the wolves into a frenzy. I sit in this armchair, still—listening to the landing rain with my eyes closed.

I may take a nap but it won’t be too long a dream for the washing needs hanging soon. 

I woke up laughing, wiping the dribble from my sleeve. I am tired again, once more, way more than should be. Food has filled my bones. Arroz e feijão. Food I will never lose the taste of.

✦

The silence of the trees cradles me like a newborn. 
The cries of the city don’t reach this gentle nature. 
Eu Tenho Todo 
O Tempo Do Mundo.

✦

The boy awaiting his mum to take the picture, smiled at the passing butterfly that appeared from behind his ear. She quickly took the picture hoping to frame it later at home but it had already fluttered away. The camera blinked at the back of the boy's head as he took in the trees reflected on the lake. She deleted the picture and watched the rippling light reflect on the canopy above, smiling at her son's bliss.

✦

Even when the soil calls, 
must you hold onto this dream so tight. 
Such that a pebble sends ripples.

✦

Now I see, some poetry is too precious to be written. I can describe this new wind in as many ways as I know, but until I allow it to know I these are nothing but concrete words. Let the rising goosebumps dissolve all. 

✦

To touch. 
To enjoy. 
To hold. 
To squeeze.
—The sugar syrup drips much like the flower

✦

He hands me the light and only then when I reach out does he understand what I asked, he smiles and gets back to gardening rocks. It’s about half way burnt, filling the open air with only a faint smell of sandalwood. For me at least. A waste in some way but I’d go as far to say it fills the moment just right as I take in the day with the open lake and my new lizard friend.

                                                                                                 poof

        I light

               a match


                                           poof

                                                   …the wind blows




↓
THE INITIATION
12.05.2025

The driver was bombing it 90 at midnight and I decided, you know for fun, that that was the best time to switch seats. I mean I was being pissed on by the rainstorm leaking through the roof, so it was only fair. Holding on for dear life. Grippin the back of the seats like a bison. I was dropping everything. Laughing and then shushing myself for the sleeping bodies around. (Delirium has creeped its way up my crooked spine). All the time ‘small town boy’ is blasting in my ears and I can do nothing but fall into the next window seat. I look up and see the whole night sky littered with dying stars. We shared a few moments. 
    Returning from the stank door at the back of the bus, the clouds now covered the sky. The sentiment for the tin can tour was there but it didn’t last long. Maybe I’ve died already And this is what it feels like to journey through the planes.

✦

Taking in the smell of burning lavender from the pot of someone who already knows. I will never leave, or at least a part of me won’t. It’s found place amongst the fallen mango painted dirt paths, the cicada shells left behind, and the bamboo! Oh the BAMBOOOOO. 

How can this be? 
I’ve only just stepped foot. 
The smell. The noise of it ll. 
The fear of insects!!!

✦

The incense had enough and fell out of the tray. The wind closed the large wooden window doors. Sitting amongst the signals of jazz. There’s JAZZ in the forest, I tell you! 

A ventania she called it. 

✦

Filling the pouches with soil. 
The sun burnt off my clothes. 
Filling the pouches with soil. 
The mosquitos bite. 
Filling the pouches with soil. 
Thunder rumbles. 
Now it rains above.

✦

The wind chimes, bamboo of course, crossed with feathers knock against the waterfall edge of my inner garden. 
Those rocks yesterday, seemingly sky fallen, had a whispered greeting that stole my love's love.
—And at last the cachoeira beat the drum on my back. 
A black frog used my foot as a launch pad in the climb. I left the group for a moment to step on bamboo in the forest, looking for my staff, none could withstand. 

✦

Cultive o silêncio said the sign amongst the trees. Have you been here before? said the man who’s left it all. The naked tehuti stood on one leg. In balance with the growth. He lays at peace with the smoking pot next to his bed surrounded by his animals and paintings.

✦

Her silence matched my rhythm, it’s been a while—or not, I can’t tell the time anymore. We all watched fireflies (the earth stars she called them). What a winter trade. Sat on the knuckles of this montanha. Again time slipped. It’s around 10 past morning, the thunder rattles through the bed. The rain is leaking through, it ripples into the metal tin, holding a rhythm well.

We spoke for—about
               all that good stuff

✦

The sky no longer needs to cry. The bamboo grows much taller than I ever will. How could it be that I am part of this? Such wonder, that even in front of you I cannot stop the melting of what I was. 

✦

To the peak we went, as the clouds rose. Slowly. The bamboo needed to dry. When we got back she rested her head on the large bench, closing her eyes for a while—slowly enough. 

✦

Although I cannot see the work of the soil beneath (this masterpiece) I trust that it’ll hold these feet and trees. I know this without my need for belief, for it is where I am from. And it is where I will return. 

✦

Listening to the sound of her voice, reminded the wind to blow through the mango tree. We could grab a big van and go out to the country, where the hills hide. Each day with nothing to decide and nowhere to run to. We’d lie awake each night watching the stars die. Wouldn’t it be just right.

✦

So this is what it’s like to grab life by the hips 
and dance…

✦

Cascaded by the cachoeira I fell into,
in a way that cannot be said
except through capoeira.

✦

For you—I sway
In the light of the moon
Unlike the cadeiras

✦

The pink flowers that hang over the dirtbank light the way for the cicada orchestra. Robin, as he had done many times, put the key in the ignition oh my camponeros, I almost forgot you. We sat in the silence of the dust collected over a whole generation in that car, as he fetched his four legged friend. Driving for an hour through the mountains of Minas to an agricultural market. Talking of the cycles and changes. The process of rangers and moon stages that laid flat the old ways of doing. Love is everywhere, he said without words. It creeped through his eye lit stories of this magical unforgotten jungle. A red legged bug leaped itself onto the notebook holding my ink, it paused for a moment as I absorbed its geometry. Again, this place makes you unforget.

✦

The wind waited a few days for its new wave to hit. Go to the mountain if you must, it said—the whole truth and nothing but. I felt it brush against me sideways as I climbed the tree growing upside down. 
    A thin disguise unveils with the quarter moon as a new soul arrives here. We pass a cosmic wink in the back seat that crosses a thousand years of tangled paths. Down the dusty road. Barefoot. Sozinho no mundo do vento.


✦

Whatever will be, will be the book was called. The page turned on its own with clay marked dog-eared ends. I place it down along with my pen, for everyone's dancing by the restaurant and calling a name I haven’t heard in a while. Flying down the path holding this new key in my hand.

✦

Sounds of the birds
Relentless as always
Never forgetting
The constant rain
It’s love pours
All day, and night

✦

This canvas wants to rock me to sleep but something won’t let me. Maybe it’s the chickens barking, or the river running, or the smell of feijão. Either which way the trees know. Two days later I knew it was neither or but a black dot eating away at me from the inside. I let it go. 

✦

The leaf cutting ant makes its life long journey to the sky leaves
Returning with a single leaf
For what?

✦

Some deep inner power bled from those rocks. Not the kind that dominates but one that swims from the recesses of a forgotten life in the mountains. Away from the buzz of it all. I smell my arms falling off. I hear the letters missed out trying to spell the cries of the forest. Its weight sits underneath the roots of my bamboo bag filled with water and mold. 
    I buried it in the forest by the rocks last night. Never to be uprooted again. Until the moment comes in the next life, when my child starts a conversation with the man next door. 

✦

Where earth ends and sky begins
Feet breathe with the birth of heaven
The birds know

The faces of the past lie perfectly still, 
in the mountains that look skyward.

✦

Tomorrow I’ll be gone
But the stones will stay
This I know with certainty!




←THE DEPARTURE




Kasidy took a pen from my left chest, it came out half empty full of callus little bugs that shook away the pain. He names a few with the kind of two frame set back that leads to a new scene. Spider homes lay in the tree that flies come from. Tackling his many names in vain the water washes away. Starry eyed in a story of the land where light kicks back. 
    Knee slaps. Floppy fish that love to jump rocks. For the eyes of the people of course. The demon of the forest watches in broad daylight. Willows of windswept rock murals show the way to the winter cavern. The darkness of this cave wipes away the cypher decoding in my bones. My lost-found brother watching the passing people with shorts that dribble tears to their feet. Hoping and dodging the leak.
    The mechanic enters. Their wobbling shorts, in the passing wind, quickly wave away the neighbours guilt. I almost slipped. The lilac whiff of my unbuttoned shirt joins his little…Can you feel the assumption of energy dying as it bleeds less and less?

✦

The mountains of Caparaó stole something that only now I’m in Rio am I realising it's gone. The theft of whatever it was though—I am pleased. It leaves a perfectly cut shape for something yet to come.

✦

His orange jumpsuit rolled all the way up his shoulder hills. Clothing for a lifetime. Perfect mounds of leaves. He sweeps away the night's desires for booty shorts and loose sandals. Sweeping. All day. All night. He stands for a moment, as the breath of a swooping city wind talks past. One by one he builds into the bricks of this rectangle river cradled by a large salty bath. Its sunrise sprays dry on his autumn skin and nestle into the field of grey hairs that propagate his forearm.

✦

Waiting for eternity
Once again, I place a different pen in my palm
and it dances itself to a new way of scribing life

✦

To leave space 
The wind Demands
           and what if

        The pain it took
        To draw a new cloud
        Meant simply, 
            The erasing of another





...
THE BEGINNING
05.03.2025


The sound of water sits in the silence that cries
For a land I can never return the same.

Lost-found 
amongst ground 
that welcomes bare feet.

the cruel mountainside
my souls aftersun
patiently waiting
Again

plucked mangoes
spring streams
paved ways 

I rediscovered form
In those stones from the sky

a void from birth
this continent shaped

Nothing can be said
beyond
I lost it all
and gained nothing,
for words ceased to assist
in the ways I was grown.  



7.
Yáyá Massemba Maria Bethânia.  
Quitanda. 20038.
Iansã - Ao Vivo Gilberto Gil.  
Gege Produções Artísticas. 1973
9.
Tristeza Baden Powell.  
Edel Germany GmbH. 1966