By AIRTON PASCHOA*
five short pieces
[crow's beak]
I make it known, to anyone who may be interested, that I spent my life listening to him say that he was in the crow's beak... Not that he wasn't healthy or expected imminent death; it was simply the staff that freed him from commitments, from everyday to Sunday, like visiting his brother who lived nearby; simply the way of declining all invitation; to say he couldn't; who knows another day. Maybe he sensed that the crow could peck him at any moment and in any place, and at those times it was better to be home, God knows, I don't know. I only know that to the negative curve, delicious in its local rawness, and certainly cultivated by the old rustic tree since time immemorial, better said, colonial times, to the curvilinear, precious negative, and which it took me a lifetime to understand, corresponded the sly smile of the offspring... and of condescension, what did it matter? because the fact is that he didn't give a damn, as long as they didn't bother him, they left him alone, that is, at home. And there he stayed, waiting for the crow, while the woman left with her beak, first with the children, then alone, when they started to grow up and join in with their father. This does not absolve me of the guilt of having seen little of him, when he was really riding the crow's beak, but I believe that he understood like no one else the eldest son, who was also born attacked at the foot of the dark manor and who has only brooded over what he brooded over. he between one peck and another, he who knew neither men nor gods and kept only for himself the fire that perhaps animated him.
the golden calf
Thinking about the calf's death...? he dropped the reticent question in passing, whenever he saw us brooding in a corner. It was only much later, as an adult and educated, that I was able to estimate what impact the disastrous advent in the life of a poor farmer could represent, as the Father and the Father of the Father and the Father had been — he had left, in the end, only with the suitcase and the anathema on the loin. From besieger to besieged, he didn't hit the jackpot in the big city, just like he skipped the easy rhyme, and could leave us nothing, to his chagrin, except the tired schism and the poetic expression, as perennial almost as the Poet's bronze. Well, thinking about it, I've done nothing in my life but think about the death of the heifer's death.
twinned
Moaned softly... intermittently... hours on end. What it was? not doing well? is something hurting? And the old man replied to half the understanding, breaking his wrist in the air near his ear, as if to ward off mosquitoes. And why are you moaning? - Because its good.
I wish, from the bottom of my heart, to repeat loud and clear: every life condenses a truth, - implicit or explicit, manifest or unconfessed truth. As for justifying it, I saved the beautiful commonplace that unearthed this land. But I'm not old enough to be denied. The moaner was crazy.
In any case, vice or vice, I had to admit, the work of mischievous weather, that there is no comfort like moaning softly. Does not the song of painless pain, in continuous bass, evoke poetry? It was the closest he came to his son, who is now an old man and a maniac.
against the grain
To Taisa
Huge, thick, crusty, capable of covering (and leaving) the haunted face of the child. I learned later that it was portinari's hand — without any value, however, very real, unreal. It was the only contact he had with art. Growing up the boy, the hand gave up haunting. A work of time, I could argue, whose coat tends to decorate, but I look at mine, small as the letters, and it's up to me to cry over it, incapable of covering my face.
[jazimigo]
I make it known, to as many as it may concern, that I change myself like not everyone else. I change myself but I keep writing and I know I won't go very far, miserably, I remain there attacked in the dungeon-and-mouth of the old torture trunk, aware that such a gesture is from my lord, that this other belongs to the illustrious lady who gave birth to me , that that other distinguishes such from the most worthy loved ones, poorly said unknowns, X and Y chrome we are from the same genetic dictatorship.
I let anyone who is interested in Prague know that every tomb, whether we dislike it or not, is familiar.
*Airton Paschoa is a writer, author, among other books, of see ships (e-galaxia, 2021, 2nd edition, magazine).