CILENE

Texto de autoria de Alceu Natali com direito autoral protegido pela Lei 9610/98. 

HOMENAGEM DE ALCEU NATALI À REGINA CÉLIA DE SANTIS FELTRAN (1944 - 2023)

Você tem três cidades para visitar, E três anos para se ausentar, Não para folgar por tabernas, Nem para existir por mil anos, Apenas para lembrar uma entre os rios de vidas eternas, E meditar um entre as florestas de arcanos, Você tem um par de sapatos a ser tirado, Um busto reclinado para a frente em sinal de respeito, Um silêncio absoluto a ser observado, Um par de palmas de mãos coladas junto ao peito, Livre eternamente da voz extrema de meus lábios insípidos, Feito desfiladeiro escavado, Que repetia por longos tempos e tamanhos indefinidos, Prolixidades que você ouvia com o coração solícito e em sigilo desassossegado, Leve consigo minha paráfrase de uma estrofe antiga, Minha última apoquentação para quem nunca teve uma irmã e amiga da alma,

No céu líquido das noites de verão, Levanto-me tarde na escuridão, Para ser a única estrela, A mais brilhante, Que sua grandeza espelha, Sonhando transformar uma pedra bruta num diamante, Insuspeito da imortalidade de seu Pai, Porém neste inverno diuturno que castiga, Rebaixo-me para você como o malvado cão que sou, O prodígio que todo mal atrai, Trazendo febre e suor para a sofrida humanidade que me adotou,

Você tem mais indignação do que pena, Não sabendo orar, Acendo-lhe um fogo de santelmo para você sentir-se uma helena, Dois pelos irmãos que você pensa que traí, Três pelos pais que você não sabe como perdi, Quatro pelos filhos que você pensa que nunca amei, E um último pela mulher que você não sabe porque deixei, Você tem sido guardiã de humanos e irracionais que engrandeces com aquarelas, E eu um mero protegido sempre vendo-me nas amarelas, Leve para o oriente para onde vais sua vigilância real, E te acompanhará o que é como Deus, Miguel angelical, Jamais irás embora solerte negaceando, Mas pé ante pé de algo maior, E eu seguirei acordando, De pé esquerdo de algo menor, Perdoa minhas zombarias, Perdoa meu desrespeito à sua crença nas três revelações de suas escrituras sagradas, Você é a primeira das três Marias, A primeira das três rainhas magas, Você é antiguerra, A mão do soldado do centro, Onde Deus impera, Onde não adentro.

HOVERING

 Text by Alceu Natali, copyright protected by Law 9610/98

I always halt, I ask myself what satisfaction I can get, Not grounded in reality that fades into oblivion in the shell mound on the other side of the North Star and I remain unresolved, I still try to get the best of both worlds, But I linger, Drifting between Africa and India, Between coming from the northern hemisphere to nest in my homeland, In holes, In ravines, In hollow logs, And only making flowers, Trinkets and even nests, In all human dwellings, Wherever they may be, The sun's slowness below the horizon makes me impatient, And I hurriedly go to call the moons of Jupiter, Of ​​Saturn and other lands that still don't see me, Throughout this universe, And when darkness envelops me, I let go of your arms, I jump in freefall through the vortex of a dream that belongs to somebody else, Until I reach the chasm that closes around my aura, Along my traveled roads of life, And from above you emerge like the great mirror reflecting your lost image, With this woman in long dress, Embraced in a dance for forgotten hours, This woman suspended in the air, As if you had invisible hands holding me above the ground, And my most immense efforts, With eyes and ears, Barely manage the slightest movement, The slowest camera, Everything hovers, Like a subtle mist above the swamps, In its mysterious time that seems to stop the night, In its silence of indefinite extension that seems to hold the soul of all dead generations, Thus, Indifferent to happiness, And resigned to the indeterminism of its existence, I feel the approach of inexorable vultures, Slowly circling over me, Sniffing my body of a color, Fading my consciousness to black and white.

BETTER WITH THE NINE OF YOU

 

Text by Alceu Natali, copyright protected by Law 9610/98

Nobody, but two women who live with me, knows what I’ve been going through, under pressure and mentally attacked high and low, from the four cardinal points. What the hell of a decade it’s been. I keep on bluffing, but I just can't win. I bet the devil would never walk in my shoes. Jung said loneliness is dangerous and addictive. When you realize the peace that exists within it, you no longer want to deal with people. I do like that and I've become a junkie as I’ve lost all my relatives and friends. None of them are left. And today I’m on my own, a complete unknown, but not like a rolling stone, I still have direction home. But if Lilian was alive and heard me complaining about one of my problems at home she would say that any man in my place would have his head in the bottle, his heart in a case, at a bar confessing his sins and drowning his sorrows which can swim. Living a life like this is like a walking dead's life. My long lonely nights without sleeping a wink is worse than lucid nightmares, if they weren’t for you, my nine sweet ladies, Deirdre Clancy, my soulmate, my everything, Fiona Byrne, spokesperson for my soul, Nessa Lynch, the guardian of all of us, Siobhan Rafferty, the convergence inspiration in a cancer hospital, Maire Tiernen, a tenacious magician who can turn my life into a handmade paradise, Grainne Lyons, the fearless warrior who commands armies of billion soldiers, Ciara Sweeney, our emeritus translator of the alien ad infinitum language, Aisling Healy, my angel of the morning who lifts my spirits, alive and kicking. I still have high hopes that there is still time for us all to be together in the Bachir’s Circle, in the Mulberry Valley, in What To Do When The Sun Is Too Cold, and at the Convergence.

WOMEN IN BLACK

Text by Alceu Natali, copyright protected by Law 9610/98

Outside she dresses in mourning with diatomic derring-do, She is chic, Charming, Downright stunning, Inside she hides herself with no chromatic flamboyance, She is all mystery, All sortilege, All complexily adultery, She shows up in bizarre dreams some men have once in a blue moon, She is sinister with the left hand, Remote viewing with clairvoyant eyes, Magical with an intuitive mind, She lets her pleated skirt fall between her knees and feet, She is sharp, Scholarly, Erotically classy, She raises the lampshade skirt between her tighs and navel, She is bold, Crazy looking, And has a learnt by heart chat, A hasty man will not spare that woman wearing a nightgown-like dress, Available for love anywhere, Not even that both ways swinger with sunglasses and clad in rompers, Willing to win the body slipped in a suit with a head covered by a top hat, Outside she is impermeable and hangs on to black heat, She is steadfast, Almost inexpugnable, She deconstructs herself in colors, Inside she pierces through and radiates white light, She is loyal, Almost angelical, But does not discompose the monochromatic artifices, She is the very bizarre dreams some men have once in a lifetime and another in death, A sudden appearance, An enigmatic behavior, A surprising vanishing, She lowers her pleated skirt between her tights and shins, Knotty treatment, Stepping on, She rises the wrinkled skirt between her knees and groins, Remarkable restraint, Extroverted volition, Freed from compromise, She is fun, The oportunist man will not dismiss the exotic woman with a hat and transparent clothes, Standing by for a smart talk, Not even the teenager with braided hair, Ready to dovetail the one with a big bow tie on her frontal waist and with a look of oh, drive me crazy.

SEASON'S GREETINGS

 

Text by Alceu Natali, copyright protected by Law 9610/98

Where are you spending Christmas? On the mountains? In my immense longing for you? This distance unable to speak with our eyes, won't stop us from exchanging fake gifts. I did wish Jesus really existed and was born on this 25th of December, celebrating the resurrection of a Babylonian god. I couldn't grow up like him, and for much longer than his brief childhood, My wasted years are lost in the time he didn't have, and like him, my life can't escape the mythological cave. You know more than a little about this. In how many of my dreams have you been? In how many of my thoughts and promises? Only god knows that this may be the last time I intend to deceive myself. Only he decides when my luck ends, as he does with death. Only I can decide when I must reinvent myself before the scythe lady comes to take me for a ride underground. Where are you you spending New Year's Day? On the ocean plains? In my messianic expectations? I'll make vows of change, I'll pay for the new and the old, Take down my tree on the sixth day, Of the kings who lost their primacy at the Council of Nicaea, I wish I had been born in your place, And you wouldn't exist to be disappointed with me.

A BIG SHINING COMET THAT CROSSED OUR SKIES ONLY ONCE

All reviews written by Alceu Natali with Copyright protected by Brazilian law 9610/98 (POSTED ON WWW.AMAZON.COM USA ON NOVEMBER 16TH, 2008)   

In 1983 Big Country was among the next big things: the ones that would make the grade like, for instances, U2 (War, Under A Blood Red Sky), Cocteau Twins (Head over Heels), Depeche Mode (Construction Time Again) and others, and among the ones that would never make it, such as  Aztec Camera (High Land, Hard Rain), Spandau Ballet (True), Thompson Twins (Quick Step and Side Kick) and many others. Unfortunately, Big Country remained among the latter. Their 1st album, The Crossing, is a masterpiece. Steeltown, their 2nd, was not as good as their 1st, but it did have some great songs like Steeltown, Where the Rose Is Sown, Come Back to Me, and Just A Shadow. The Seer, their 3rd album, was not as good as their 2nd and it did not have great songs. And the story of Big Country ends here. What they produced after their 3rd album is not worthwhile commenting about. That is a shame. They were doing even better than The Who, the band that produced the best debut album of pop-rock history, followed it up with two fair to middling albums and made us wait four years for their next great album (Tommy). Big Country's 2nd and 3rd albums were a little bit better than The Who's 2nd and 3rd. Once The Who delayed four years to prove they were not an one album hit wonder, I thought I could hope Big Country would eventually surprise me with their Tommy someday. When I first heard The Crossing I was a 100% sure they were going to be one of the real things, really. I am very sorry they were not. And even more sorry that Stuart Adamson, the band leader and responsible for Big Country's initial success, took his life by his own hand in 2001 at the age of 43. Sad. I will review here only the 10 tracks contained in the original release of 1983. 1. In A Big Country opens the album superbly, heralding a great collection of songs is just born, just like the 1st track of Sgt. Peppers does. 2. Inwards is an incredibly good song that gives the album a sense of perfect continuation, a sense of assurance, pleasure and a desire for more, making you feel like staying in all night with a song like this. 3. Chance is among the best ballads I ever listened to. The instrumental break just after the first verses and repeated later has a westernized Japanese-like sound that makes it unique. 4. A Thousand Stars has an U2-like texture, sounding a little like the 2nd track but faster, thus giving it a sense of emergency. 5. The Storm has the taste of a great movie sound track, suitable for a western saga. 6. Harvest Home is an altruistic song, with a sense of glory and victory, as if it is joyfully celebrating a struggling achievement. 7. Lost Patrol also reminds me of a movie sound track that gives me both a sense of danger and triumph. 8. Close Action is another great ballad, it is Big Country playing The Beatles. 9. Fields Of Fire (400 Miles) is the other side of the coin that has In a Big Country. It is not a Sgt. Pepper reprise. It is a new Sgt. Pepper. Fantastic. 10. Porrohman is the true example of how a big band must end a classic album.

In A Big Country

Inwards

Chance

A Thousand Stars

The Storm

Harvest Home

Lost Patrol

Close Action

Fields Of Fire

Porrohman

If I ONLY COULD

 Texto de autoria de Alceu Natali com direito autoral protegido pela Lei 9610/98

I spent all night long tossing, Turning and questioning, Racking my brains and my nonconformity, Searching for and anew, But nothing can be done about it, If I only could speak with God, I would make a deal with him, Lest your ruddy countenance turns into pale, Lest your look creeps out, So that you do not need to run, To stumble and fall, This feeling is pain that drives one insane but it does not hurt in me, Because I do not know how deep a bullet lies, This lament is a feeling that rationalizes with no reason, Because I know how impromptu fate surprises, I can spend the rest of my life, Racking my memories, But not knowing how to avoid my longing that I should long for before, I have tried to speak with God, To make a deal with him, But he would not listen to my begging, And his divinity was profane instead, And without any agreement, He left, And rose to the sky, This moment is late pain that only now suffers in me, Because I do not know what from the past is left in your heart, This torment is death that frightens but it does not die in me, Because I know how suddenly this ephemeral life is passed by and away.

ESTE VÍDEO FOI COLORIDO À MÃO POR 2.130 CRIANÇAS

SPECTRAL MORNINGS

Texto de autoria de Alceu Natali com direito autoral protegido pela Lei 9610/98. 

My morning glory, Has a Lord attitude, My morning story, Oxford is your patibulum, In Paris I danced the last tango, In Liverpool I sang beyond the grave, Eternal strawberry fields, Eternal surreal gave me birth, At the gates of our last dwelling-places, Wilde, Keats, And Yeats are yours, At the windows of narrated art, Woolf, Lessing, And Austen are mine, My aureole-like morning, Moss gathered in honey water, Does not gather moss on a rolling stone, My spectrum rises to the sky, In Prague my heart is Rilkean, In Grangemouth a Cocteau twin, Unparalled voice of Joycean verse, Unparalled flavor of Bordeaux wine, In the room of the first prayer to knowledge, I hope I die before I get too old, In the last portion of my existence, I hope I fade away before I die, My spectral morning, This state machine over your helpless beauty, Dies during an out-of-the-body flight, My glory is on the ground with no surprises, In America my pride is black, In Ireland it speaks in the name of love, The two of us in the street without a name and a gutter, The two of us with no one and no fear, I still smile in a troubled night, The sun must go down to rise again, I still float downstream into paradise in a sweet dream, The moon must spin to balance the earth, My glorious mornings, Mornings to where the spectra point, The future was a question made by curious voices, The future is what they made of it yesterday.

TIME TRAVEL

Text by Alceu Natali, copyright protected by Law 9610/98

REAL TIME TRAVEL: DEPARTING IN 2021 AND ARRIVING AT OXMANTOWN ROAD IN DUBLIN, IRELAND, IN 1903. 

BELOW YOU CAN READ AND LISTEN TO THE ORMONTOWNE'S ABSTRACT AND SONGS. 

THE ABSTRACT NAMED 'CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH A SHADOW OF THE PAST' IS A REFERENCE TO THIS REAL TIME TRAVEL, TO THE PAST, WHEN THIS ROAD HAD ONLY SMALL FACTORIES AND WAS COMPLETELY DESOLATE. I MANAGED TO GET THE PICTURE OF THIS ROAD  WHEN I WAS THERE IN 1903 (SEE PICTURE ABOVE). THE PHOTO WAS TAKEN WITH THE BACK TO WHAT IS NOW THE KILDARE STREET.

THIS ROAD WAS FOUNDED BY THE VIKINGS IN THE 12TH CENTURY.  AT THAT TIME THEY WERE CALLED 'OSTMEN'. NOWADAYS THE NAME OF THE ROAD IS OXMANTOWN. THE VIDEO SHOWS THE DUBLIN BUS ROUTE 172 DRIVING ALONG THE MODERN OXMANTOWN ROAD TOWARDS KILDARE STREET. 

THERE WE GO

I'M ON A TRAIN TO DUBLIN. I'LL BE THERE IN A COUPLE OF HOURS. WHEN I GET THERE WE'LL CELEBRATE OUR NUMINOUSNESS ON YOUR ORMONTOWNE ROAD. DON'T STOP PLAYING. PLAY ON AND ON LEST OUR IMAGINATION DAYS ARE GONE. WE'LL NEVER SEE OUR HISTORIES COME TO AN END. EVEN OUR PROLOGUES WILL SEEM BOUNDLESS. WHAT HAPPENED IN 1903 DOES NOT SURPRISE ME, AS YOU KNOW WE TRAVELLED TO THE PAST MORE THAN A FEW TIMES, AND ONLY ONCE TO THE FUTURE, BUT THAT'S ANOTHER STORY. WHAT AMAZES ME IS MEETING WITH YOU AGAIN IN THE BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY, AND NOT IN OUR PRESENT DAYS, THE FIRST 22 YEARS OF THE 21ST CENTURY. THAT'S SOMETHING I CAN'T UNDERSTAND, EVEN THOUGH YOU LIKE THINGS THAT CAN'T BE EXPLAINED. YOU KNOW WHAT? WHOEVER IS READING THIS WILL THINK THAT I AM NUTS. BUT YOU'RE MY BOLTS! GOOD PUNNING, AIN'T IT? OK, JUST FAIR TO MIDDLING. RIGHT NOW SOMETHING CROSSED MY MIND. WHO'S THE SCREW DRIVER THAT FASTEN US TOGETHER? COINCIDENCE? CHANCE? WHAT ABOUT SYNCRONICITY? YEAH, THAT WOULD BE AS WASTING TIME AS TRYING TO FIND THE MEANING OF LIFE. FORGET IT! YOU'D BETTER KEEP ON PLAYING. MUSIC IS THE ONLY THING THAT MAKES LIFE WORTH LIVING. YOU KNOW, PEOPLE SAY MUSIC CAN CHEER YOU UP AND EASE YOUR MIND AND SOUL.. BUT IT TURNS OUT THAT SOME OF THEM INVENTED IN MY DREAMS TOSS AND TURN ME IN THE STILL OF THE NIGHT, GET ME OUT OF MY BRAIN ON THE 5:15, OUT OF MY BRAIN ON THIS TRAIN TO DUBLIN. YOU MIGHT AS WELL UNRAVEL THE MYSTERIES OF THOSE CREATIVE AND AMAZING JOURNEY DRIVERS. AFTER ALL, I'VE NEVER MISSED A TRAIN YOU'RE ON, HAVE NEVER BROKEN ITS RHYTHM, NEVER TOOK IT IN VAIN.

LOOKING THROUGH A GLASS ONION

Text by Alceu Natali, copyright protected by Law 9610/98

How does it feel like to be dead? How does it feel like making me feel like I've never been born? Now that a yellow matter custard is dripping from your fucked up and dead bitch dog's eye? What else the semolina pilchard has to brine? What else the Hare Krishna elementary penguin has to sing? Now that you let your face grow long? How does it feel like to be crooked? How does it feel like making me feel like I've never been straightened up? Now that you sunbathe in cast iron sand beach shores? What does it itch you there? What do you have left to give? Now that you let your knickers down? You´re a fucking pornographic priestess. You´re a fucking ecclesiastical bawd. You´re a fucking pedophile sacristan. You can no longer hide your dovetail joint in your pussy. And what a place to stick it up! How does it feel like to be a pruning? How does it feel like making me feel like I've never been flourished? Now that you are just a bent backed turban? Now that you can only fix holes in the ocean? Now that you let your onion stink? Where´s the next pigsty the piggy will stir up the dirt? You´re a fucking pornographic priestess. You´re a fucking ecclesiastical bawd. You´re a fucking pedophile sacristan. You can no longer close the door the thief will break you down. And what a place to steal!

CHARMING PENELOPE IN PAINTINGS: CHESSBOARDING

 

Text by Alceu Natali, copyright protected by Law 9610/98

SHE IS WEARING A PLAID DRESS FOR A COSTUME PARTY. WHEN I WAS YOUNG I HAD A PLAID PANTS WITH BIGGER SQUARES. I GOT THE ATTENTION OF IRON LADIES, OF RED AND OF THE NIGHT, EVEN OF A KING UNDER A QUEEN’S SKIRT, OF NUNS, PRIESTS, BISHOPS AND ARCHBISHOPS, KNIGHTS WHO ALWAYS MADE THE L MOVE, PAWNS, INDICA SATIVA AND HYBRID CANNABIS TOASTING MY HEAD. THE CHARMING AND CHESSBOARDING PENELOPE FROM MINAS GERAIS, HOWEVER, IS MORE DISCRETE AND ONLY ATTRACTS PLAYERS FROM LE JEU PLAISANT DE DAMES, JEU FORCÉ, FIERGES, ALQUERQUE, EL-QIRKAT, DUODECIM SCRIPTA, PENTE GRAMMAI, PETTEIA, AND HAS THE COURAGE TO CHANGE AND SACRIFICE HERSELF TO PROTECT TIAO GAVIAO. TOGETHER WE COULD OVERCOME ALL THIS. WHO KNOWS ON THE SPORA ORIONIS! THERE IS STILL TIME, EVEN IF IT IS OUR GREATEST ADVERSARY, BUT REMINDING THAT IT DOESN'T EXIST, WE ARE TOGETHER AGAINST INEXISTENCE, STILL HAVING TRANSCEDENCE IN OUR FAVOR!

ANYTHING YOU WANT

Text by Alceu Natali, copyright protected by Law 9610/98

A lifetime lived, A whole Sisyphus work started over, At full brilliance, All demigods' friends, All the united and translucent suns of pale gold, Which I am still allowed to see, Reviving, They are yours, All those colossal waters, Going down, Through twisted paths, From the top of rapids to infinity, Among so indecipherable sortileges, How eternal moment of venture, Adored be all of you, I return them to your eyes, All the moonlights running the hours over sighs, Sweet harp's preludes, Over your body's singleness, Lighter than a magnolia leaf, Fallen from the sky in the night dissolved in stars, June moon silvering the fields, Whiteness of light in the silent mornings, I return them to your memories, All the cold fear that flows in my veins, All my fire that burns feverishly and remains unseen, Everything that cools me down and drives me crazy, That lifts me up and knocks me down, They are all love I give to you, From the bottom of my heart.

CHARMING PENELOPE IN PAINTINGS: THE SPIDER WALK

Text by Alceu Natali, copyright protected by Law 9610/98. Photo by Cecilia Silveira Macedo, copyright protected by Law 9610/98

She swims like a pro, but she won't admit it. Despite being over half a century old and facing all the health complications that old age brings, she still maintains that enviable resilience. She said she can pull off that scene of the girl descending the stairs backwards like a spider in the famous director's cut of The Exorcist (watch the original scene in the video below). Amazing! The most spectacular is this photo she took of herself next to the huge glass wall overlooking the balcony and the woods across the street, with a symmetrical reflection upside down in the living room. How did she manage to do that at home all by herself? This photo deserves a lively danceable song by The KC & The Sunshine Band to kick off another hard working week with a bang.

THE SPIDER WALK

The KC & The Sunshine Band 

THE FLOWER, THE STAR, AND THE UNSPEAKABLE

 

Text by Alceu Natali, copyright protected by Law 9610/98

The title of this idle talk sounds much like my play The Whore, The Junkie And The Nun. Anyway, I am sure it won’t cost any life here or somewhere else. Paul Dirac once said: ‘Pick a flower on earth and you move the farthest star’. I wished I could share that with an unspeakable. I call him so because he is sort of a fake nameless humanoid creature living within the surrounding woods in the fiction movie The Village, in which the elders used to refer to it as "Those We Don't Speak Of", to scare the youngers and the children out and keep them within the limits of the village and away from the woods inhabited by the dreaded red clad legendary monsters. I reached out to the unspeakable by phone through some of the contacts we had in common. He said: “Look, we have to meet. We cannot talk about your and my secrets by phone. Your efforts to effect disclosures are noble but they won’t be permitted. And not for the reasons you think”. Well, I thought to myself, what reasons of mine he knows I bear in my mind and which do not fit his. We met and before I could say any word he told me a long and weird story which I regarded as being a hilarious lie. But I did not say anything to him and kept listening, But then he made astonishing statements: “What nobody understands is why you haven’t killed yourself yet. My dad knew about some of this way back in the 60’s. No one would do anything about it. So he took his revolver, ate his gun, and blew his head off”. Now, this guy was a five star unspeakable. I just told him I was sorry about his dad and left. I had had enough. On my way back home I was wondering why I should kill myself. I had been caught by a congenetial desease, a lethally acquired one, three attempts of murder by criminals and finally this not less lethal virus. They all spared my life. Therefore, instead of taking my life with my own hands, I let my love go out to the flowers and to the stars, to the prostitutes, the addicted to drugs and those dedicated to God. And why not mainly to those we wish we didn’t even have to think of?

AROUND - A TRIBUTE TO ALL VICTIMS OF BRUMADINHO

  Text by Alceu Natali, copyright protected by Law 9610/98

I found a dead tanager in my backyard, Greyish blue, On a sunny day, Decorated and hardened wings, Closed to the body, It was a grown-up, Had no signs of violence, Must have been poisoned or made ill, Since nobody sees a bird die of an old age, I kept an eye on it for a while, Just like a mother watching her son sleeping, I gave it a worthy funeral, Surrounded it with flowers on the soil, And like calisthenics, Rays of sunlight were redirected to my garland, Silenced the space, Made the fauna in the neighborhood shine, I came in, Turned on the TV, Another tragedy is announced, People dead, People missing, Things lost, Many tears of blood that no longer fit the eyes, Will rattle hanging on the necks of survivors, Like the dark beads of tears of all Saints Marys as they have nobody else to turn to, It is a major calamity, They will talk about it for several days, Until it is forgotten, And when the earth is on the other side of the sun, And I am at this side lest I remember what happened over there, Grass will grow on my little bird´s grave, And cover it with everlasting affection, The earth will be back to where I am, And I will not be able to avoid her reminding me of what was left from that misfortune, Scarce lives without the slightest passions, As though they took anothers robes and disrobed in the marketplace, And at the edge of the rivers where the lover´s sweet songs are now voiceless, And for a long time sadness will grieve in their muddy waters, And every time the moon makes a lap around the nights, I have my omens that, Sooner or later, I will steer toward those who came to this world to make us happy and those who came only to make us mourn.

HARLEM'S ANGELS

Written by Alceu Natali with copyrights protected by Law 9610/98. 

I SPENT A WEEK IN THE SO-CALLED ALL-BLACK NEIGHBORHOODS IN THE USA, IN NEW YORK AND CHICAGO, WHERE I WAS THE ONLY WHITE PERSON, AND I WAS TREATED LIKE ANY HUMAN BEING, JUST AS ONE EXPECT, WHICH MUST BE DISGUSTING TO RACISTS, BECAUSE THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A WHITE OR BLACK NEIGHBORHOOD. THERE ARE ONLY NEIGHBORHOODS OF HOMO SAPIENS, MADE OF THE SAME MATTER, THE FIRST MOLDED BY IGNORANCE AND ANIMAL PRACTICES, THE SECOND STILL BEARING THE MARKS OF SLAVERY.

When the heart of the Big Apple asks me to stay, The eyes of Manhattan sparkle, The blackness of the night sky disappears, It's the ivory pomp that shines, When I transport you to Tobago' Harlem, Calypso dances the night and sleeps with your caress, The light of your smile ignites in the darkness, It's your ebony path tracing the universe of your features, When you take me to Harlem in Chicago, I feel like a single island, As you wish, Bathed by the dark waters of a lake, Your reverence doesn't distinguish my color, When I sleep and wake I'm greeted as sir, Of citizenship, Enough of Your Lordship, And who would have guessed, With so many good African-American suitors, You would still choose me, When I bring you back to New York's Harlem I'll put you up at Birdland on 53rd, Jazz opens the night and stays awake until the last customer, Soul food washed down with blues, Our most intimate company is good news, My Angel Lady has eyes of ebony diamond, If it depends on the one who gave her home its name, The old Dutch Haarlem, I might even take a chance, And call you my modern princess, How good it is to daydream just for a moment!

VS

ZHONGGUÓ 30 YEARS AGO

 Written by Alceu Natali . Copyright protected by Law # 9610/1998

 

In the 90's I went to China several times. They say that in the last 25 years this nation has changed a lot, which I believe will be the greatest world power, perhaps in another 20 or, at most, 30 years. Even some American sci-fi, futuristic and time-travel films like Looper, set in 2044's USA, and 2074's Zhōngguó, prophesy, China is the future. If one day I go back there, definitely not for work, I don't expect to support the same series of hilarious episodes from more than 25 years ago, which advanced in 5 seasons, and impelled me, with pleasure, to reduce them to spoilers, word that is in vogue, although vogue is out of fashion. Guangzhou, the Canton of the Portuguese, was the stage for my Avant Premiere. I had a problem when I arrived, too small for this great land of despicable inconveniences. My suitcase was left there in Bangkok. The airline promised to deliver it to the hotel in two days. Later, I would find that this promise was nothing like the word-of-mouth invitations we usually receive around here: 'Drop by my place anyday', hoping you'll never show up. The hotel I booked was very close to the airport. I could get there on foot, but as it was raining heavily, I took a taxi, and I was caught by the only smart ass I could find among more than a billion simpletons and sweet slanted eyes. He charged me 10 dollars to drive less than 500 meters. Bad feelings: Lost luggage and a cheating taxi driver. I had appointments on the next day, and I needed to change clothes and buy toiletries. The hotel receptionist recommended a mall nearby. I walked about four blocks to reach the small two-story building. It had everything I needed. I just didn't know if the pants I picked fit. I passed along the ways looking for a fitting room, but I couldn't find it. I asked a young woman who appeared to be a saleswoman for help. No one spoke English or Portuguese there, and I spoke neither Mandarin nor Cantonese. Apparently, she understood my gestures. She nodded, explained in Chinese, but she didn't point to any direction. I had the strangest feeling that she was saying something like, ''you should put on one leg at a time, lift your pants up to your waist and button them.'' I kept wandering, looking in all directions. I went back to the men's clothing section, and at the end of the hall I saw a Chinese man choosing a pair of pants. This one could definitely show me where the men's private cabin was. Suddenly, he took off his pants and was down to his underwear and calmly tried on various models, while the comings and goings of customers and salespeople, men and women, ignored him. I began to realize that the saleswoman's explanation was not as strange as I thought. That scene reminded me of the American proverb: 'When in Rome do as the Romans do'. So, there I was, in a public space, in a shirt, socks, shoes and boxer shorts, taking my time, why hurry?, to find the pants that best fit my body. I was the only Westerner in that department store. The chinese people just looked at my face. They'd all seen many men in underwear in public many, many times. I wondered where women tried on underwear and tops, panties, bras, dresses, skirts and blouses. I discovered, through an Aristotelian syllogism alone, that the mall had no dressing rooms or bathrooms. Wearing only his underwear was the minor premise. The major one was another Chinese man, next to me, trying on a swim trunks in the blink of an eye. I used my reason because any kind of gesture asking for the location of a toilet could be risky. It was too early to be excited about the freedom of bodily expression, naked for incomplete, in a culture I was just beginning to probe. It was difficult to resist the temptation to hang around in the women's section, waiting, unscrupulously, to witness what I was tired of seeing, in broad daylight, in some corners of the Forest Garden near home and on the benches of London's Hyde Park. Fatigue, due to the long 22-hour trip, alerted me that duty was calling me. I arrived at the hotel, exhausted, collapsed into bed, got a good night's sleep, and woke up feeling refreshed for my first day at work in the middle country. This is the meaning of China. This story goes way too far. You ain't seen nothing yet!

INCARNATION

 

Text by Alceu Natali, copyright protected by Law 9610/98

GOODBYE TO MY MOTHER, CANDIDA B. Z. NATALI  

1927 - 2024

INCARNATION 

Adiemus, Adiemus!

Come closer, all of you who are from Italy and Portugal.

Do you want French or Brazilian children?

Open your eyes, because you are already in paradise.

Blessed be this land that welcomed you.

Adiemus, Adiemus!

Enter a Spanish woman's house without her daughter knowing.

Ask mothers, grandmothers, and their dogs, both alive and dead

Do you want Houdinian illusions or candid divinations?

Keep your eyes closed, because you are in a dream

Blessed be this sleep that rests you

Adiemus, Adiemus!

Dare to intrude on a funeral of the black aristocracy in Paris

Ask to have your coffin deported from the old to the new world

Do you want submissive or freed children?

Open your eyes because slavery has been abolished.

Blessed be this miscegenation that has beheld you.

Adiemus, Adiemus!

Be amazed by the purple velvet that covers all the walls.

Say goodbye to ballet and foreign language lessons.

Do you want children of kings or workers?

Close your eyes to those who disinherited you.

Blessed are those who have become your brothers.

Adiemus, Adiemus!

Sing with your hands raised to the sky.

Make all the castanets of the Spanish gypsies click.

Do you want to dance flamenco and baião at the same time?

Open your eyes to the lush green.

Blessed be the yellow of our flags.

Adiemus, Adiemus!

Leave the stormy skies

Come to the fertile soils

Your children are all foreigners

Embark on the same slave ships

And land on the water, on the land, and on the fire promised to mortals

LET IT BE AND LET IT BLEED

  Text by Alceu Natali, copyright protected by Law 9610/98

Paul, What?, You asking me for wise words and unlocked boxes stuffed with perfumed pastilles, Like full of air fussies!, What about that mouth thing?, What is this setup of a Catholic wax worker hanging wicks to make candles to God and the Devil? If you face hard times and need to go upstairs for a ride, Count me out, No fellatio on me, Please, And it is no use supplicating to Virgin Mary, Her bowels are an exclusive asset of the holy spirit, As for Jo Jo, The male one you said he thought he was a woman, Well, He is really a she, Always keeping all the doors open, She only closes them for her literary verve if you pull her leg, But you can rest your weary body on her lap, The basement where she lives has plenty of space, In addition to medicinal herbs and compassion for the unfortunate, Now, If she is right on those 365 days of a lap around the sun, Full of luxury gushing blue blood, Then try Bernie the Turkey, Wronged member of Tupiniquim snobbery, And not so badly lacking a scrotum torn apart by Mademoiselle Decô, Shooting for a second-hand would-be Barbarella, The one who didn't read you and didn't like you, Who throws away your book because she didn't like the cover, Paul, If you need a shoulder to cry on, Shed your tears on Aristocles' scapula, He can have a chat with your whimpers in his corpus platonicum, Now, If you need someone to dream on, Sleep with Graciliano, And show him your knack to unite in imagination and outside of it, If you need someone to feed on, Play a song for your soul, But don't irritate it with John Gilbert’s New Shit, If you need to get bloody damn high, Ask Mr. Tambourine Man to play a song for you, Now if you need someone to cream on, Take Bozo's invitation, Feel free to go to his share of the housing assistance paid with your money to exchange fluids with a woman without or with a penis, I'm in doubt as it is said the fascist is a limp-dick, If you need someone to bleed on, Let it be, Adelio's knife was just another sham.

WOLF IN THE BREAST

 

Text by Alceu Natali, copyright protected by Law 9610/98

Under my blouse

There is a heart that beats non-stop

That races at the slightest sign of fear

At the slightest sign of love

If you use it

Just to satisfy your recklessness

You can lower my resistance

But not defeat me

I can cry inside

Without you noticing

Because you don't know how much I can take

Under my blouse

There is a pair of breasts ready to nurse

That rises at the slightest cry

At the slightest touch of affection

If you abuse it

Just to delight yourself

You can even excite me

But you won't conquer me

I can make myself easy prey on the outside

And deceive you

Because you don't know how a wolf devours

Under my blouse

There is a womb that prepares for the future

That feels a chill at the slightest sign of emotion

At the slightest sign of passion

But if you fertilize it and excuse yourself

To escape responsibility

You can attempt to attack my motherhood

But you won't stop me from giving birth

I can tell you that it is not nothing serious

And let you go

Because a she-wolf alone has already raised children capable of forming an empire

FINISH WHAT YOU STARTED AND I'LL BE LIFTED UP FROM THE BROKEN HEARTED

 Text by Alceu Natali, copyright protected by Law 9610/98

Silent ears fond of breaking them, How auspicious is our contingency, Rosebushes on the thornless path, Girded with the balms borrowed from you, Our days seem to be on the edge of tomorrows, My nights are always anxious, waiting for a flood of near-monologues, Perennial this exchanged word, Images on the retinas without imagining them, Predestined the smiles opened by you, Today within reach of yesteryear, Present times meeting long glances by a hair's breadth of surprises, Hidden secrets keen on revealing  them, Mended this broken heart, Hair the color of fire without manipulation, Burning the glances cast by you, Moments beyond eternities, Unexpected complicities due to concerns close to disbelief, Disarmed spirits not afraid of them.

PHYSALAN

Text by Alceu Natali, copyright protected by Law 9610/98

We are brothers in splendor, Why don’t we get our hands and our love together in the open-air nights?, Where we all dwell, Where my co-sisters are like water in your land, With tearful eyes deprived of the twinkling of hanging lamps, Blinded by our Sapiranga peepers, Since the invisible is not unreal, It is just the real unseen, Marvel with me your great joy, Read my light and my two companions, Unveil my mother, Her smallness, So generous to her offsprings, Encouraging me to confess to you, Like your moon that hides one of its sides eternally, My dearest son keeps his fieriest edge always turned towards me, The other two within my reach, Same as Venus and Mars are to your arms, And my other four can surprise you with their burning frosts, My flora rejects the threshold of the universe, While yours repels and is coated with the exuberance of emeralds, Our beech sleeps in violet under a bluish-purple sky, And your flora dawns in topaz looking out an ultra dazzling horizon, Our lives are the same illuminated stages, Living in the same black backgrounds in the pilasters of the proscenium arches.

A NIGHT AT THE PELICANO*

Text by Alceu Natali, copyright protected by Law 9610/98

The low, short summer night falls, Over a sea of ​​roses, Blueish by the moon in the darkness, And calm as a Swiss lake, With scarce flickering lights touching the boats far away on the intangible horizon, And back in the high Middle Ages of the golden years, I, Phobic and phobophobic partner, Am crawled in snakelike steps, Slow and sticky, To the cement track of the Pelicano, surrounded by palm trees, In the open air, In many watercolor garments, I say my prayers, Others sing their songs, And everyone dances to the music that warns, Summer love does not climb the sierra,The girl who asks me to dance cheek to cheek has the venerated symbol of minority, Her hair is beautiful tassels of innocence, Which the breeze kisses and sways, She has the name of the most popular street in my crazy São Paulo City back in the 60's, Way too soon she becomes my first girlfriend, Without ever knowing that she had an affair, The twenty-fifth hour returns everyone to our building named Brazil, But the dawn is just a baby at the breast, The grown-ups, With their carbides, Drag their nets in the warm waters, I stay behind, And rest my head on the lap of another pussy cat whose name has been lost as time went by, This one was not so under adulthood, She knows how to thread her fingers through my locks, Curls her lips over mine, Exhales a mixture of perfume, And the harsh smell of roots and sap, Relaxes the nerves, Puts the brain to sleep, Sets her heart free, And whispers a flirtation in my ear, The courtship will climb the eight hundred meters to the plateau from where we came, And then, Then we let life live its life.

FOOTNOTE

In the 1960s, Pelicano was an open-air dance floor attended exclusively by teenagers. It was located in Long Beach, a municipality near the cities of Santos and São Vicente in the Baixada Santista region.