Alemanha e Gana na POESIA

ALEMANHA
Uma palavra (Gottfried Benn)

Uma palavra, uma frase -jorra dos signos
vida reconhecida, abrupto sentido,
o sol nasce, esferas em silêncio
e tudo choca-se nisso.
Uma palavra, um brilho, asa e fogo,
uma faísca em chama, uma estrela no breu -
e de novo o escuro, monstruoso,
no espaço vazio entre o mundo e eu




Tradução: Viviane de Santana Paulo


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GANA
To The Widow (Adjei Agyei-Baah)


You are the sleepless duck
Who rests on a single leg
Keeps vigil over a silent compound
And wait upon the ancestral spirits
To come for the last morsel of the day

You are the abandoned lover
Who plies the memory lane in acidic tears
Walking the footpath that closes in with weeds
And mull over multiple mouths meowing to be muted

Your bed is that of a bamboo
Denied of warmth by the icy hands of fate
Its discomfort turning you into an early morn bird
That wakes to catch no worm

You are the quivering lamb at the kangaroo court
Around you the predatory pride prowl
The ripen pawpaw by the roadside
That the wayfarer chances upon with joy

You whom tradition mocks with hyena’s laughter:
The wicked witch who killed the breadwinner
The half dark moon that must be caged in the murky skies
And forced to take an oath of innocence
By gulping down bath water from your husband corpse

But you are now the desert cactus
Who once nursed your seeds in the hooves of the passing caravan
And prayed for the rains to water them anywhere they fell
For now your children have returned through the stormy weathers
With a tearful joy for your crackled lips