Poetry International Poetry International
Poem

Manuel de Freitas

GRIMY BITS OF VINYL

It must have been the most-played record:
the Fifth Symphony, conducted
by Klemperer. The mornings
and afternoons promised a better
future, virtuous habits,
which I soon forgot. I was already eyeing
Ana’s tavern,
which filled my bedroom window.
I feared the shadows, silence,
feeling in each footstep the monster
inside me. And I read, so as not to think,
discredited French writers.

I loved it so much that one day
I grabbed the record and broke it
to bits – tiny bits of vinyl –
so that they’d hurt even more.
I’m not sure why, but I kept
the stiff cardboard jacket,
that lugubrious allegory of childhood.
And the remains of the record ended up
in the stream next to my parents’ house.

Later on the stream, flanked by weekend
vegetable patches, was strangled by an implacable
housing development, the provincial version
of a gated condominium, in a world
with ever more doors.
As for Beethoven, buried like the frogs
by invisible killing hands,
he almost ceased to move me.

What moves me now, years
later, is to realize I did to that record
the same thing I do over and over
to the bodies I think I love:

I shatter them, very slowly, so that
they’ll keep on hurting a little more.

PEDAÇOS DE VINIL COM LAMA

PEDAÇOS DE VINIL COM LAMA

Devia ser o disco mais ouvido:
a Quinta Sinfonia, numa gravação
de Klemperer. As manhãs
e as tardes auguravam um futuro
melhor, prendados costumes
que depressa perdi. Já então olhava
para a taberna da Ana,
enchendo a janela do meu quarto.
Tinha medo da sombra, do silêncio,
adivinhando em cada passo o monstro
que me habitava. E lia, para não pensar,
desacreditados escritores franceses.

Um dia, de tanto o amar,
peguei no disco e quebrei-o
em pequenos pedaços de vinil
– para doerem mais, melhor.
Mantive, não sei bem porquê,
a dura capa de cartão,
essa fúnebre alegoria da infância.
E o que sobrou do disco foi parar
ao ribeiro junto à casa dos meus pais.

Mais tarde, o ribeiro com hortas
de domingo à volta foi sufocado pelo terror
de um aldeamento, versão provinciana
de condomínio fechado, num mundo
em que são cada vez mais as portas.
Beethoven, esse, quase deixou
de me comover, soterrado como as rãs
pelas mãos invisíveis de quem mata.

O que me comove, passado tanto
tempo, é perceber que fiz a esse disco
o mesmo que faço e volto a fazer
aos corpos que julgo amar:

parti-los, muito devagar, para
que doam sempre um pouco mais.
Close

GRIMY BITS OF VINYL

It must have been the most-played record:
the Fifth Symphony, conducted
by Klemperer. The mornings
and afternoons promised a better
future, virtuous habits,
which I soon forgot. I was already eyeing
Ana’s tavern,
which filled my bedroom window.
I feared the shadows, silence,
feeling in each footstep the monster
inside me. And I read, so as not to think,
discredited French writers.

I loved it so much that one day
I grabbed the record and broke it
to bits – tiny bits of vinyl –
so that they’d hurt even more.
I’m not sure why, but I kept
the stiff cardboard jacket,
that lugubrious allegory of childhood.
And the remains of the record ended up
in the stream next to my parents’ house.

Later on the stream, flanked by weekend
vegetable patches, was strangled by an implacable
housing development, the provincial version
of a gated condominium, in a world
with ever more doors.
As for Beethoven, buried like the frogs
by invisible killing hands,
he almost ceased to move me.

What moves me now, years
later, is to realize I did to that record
the same thing I do over and over
to the bodies I think I love:

I shatter them, very slowly, so that
they’ll keep on hurting a little more.

GRIMY BITS OF VINYL

It must have been the most-played record:
the Fifth Symphony, conducted
by Klemperer. The mornings
and afternoons promised a better
future, virtuous habits,
which I soon forgot. I was already eyeing
Ana’s tavern,
which filled my bedroom window.
I feared the shadows, silence,
feeling in each footstep the monster
inside me. And I read, so as not to think,
discredited French writers.

I loved it so much that one day
I grabbed the record and broke it
to bits – tiny bits of vinyl –
so that they’d hurt even more.
I’m not sure why, but I kept
the stiff cardboard jacket,
that lugubrious allegory of childhood.
And the remains of the record ended up
in the stream next to my parents’ house.

Later on the stream, flanked by weekend
vegetable patches, was strangled by an implacable
housing development, the provincial version
of a gated condominium, in a world
with ever more doors.
As for Beethoven, buried like the frogs
by invisible killing hands,
he almost ceased to move me.

What moves me now, years
later, is to realize I did to that record
the same thing I do over and over
to the bodies I think I love:

I shatter them, very slowly, so that
they’ll keep on hurting a little more.
Sponsors
Gemeente Rotterdam
Nederlands Letterenfonds
Stichting Van Beuningen Peterich-fonds
Ludo Pieters Gastschrijver Fonds
Lira fonds
Partners
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