Psalm to the angel of history

Translated from the Portuguese by the author

If it’s any consolation,
plummeting messenger, some of the
dead had pasture for birds,
their sleep denied, naive to suppose
that the graveless man
he of the burnt lungs, the violated daughter, will
get up all emotional from their ditch
to revoke their orders

do not forget me
my blood shall fill the air
you breathe, etc
as if
there were memoryless time and it
were much help indeed to glue
these pieces: just lay them down
and once again in
72 other pieces they
break,
schlemiel
off a cheap vaudeville, with broken
vessels and misunderstandings
(and it’s maybe because
we don’t understand each other
that through a pile of rubble
only may one reach the sky)

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Adriano Scandolara is a poet and translator from São Paulo, Brazil. A former member of the poetry collective and journal escamandro, he is the author of two books, Lira de Lixo and PARSONA.