Monday, June 14, 2010

Brazil 2-1 North Korea

Vinicius de Moraes (1913-1980)



A cidade em progresso

A cidade mudou. Partiu para o futuro
Entre semoventes abstratos
Transpondo na manhã o imarcescível muro
Da manhã na asa dos DC-4s

Comeu colinas, comeu templos, comeu mar
Fez-se empreiteira de pombais
De onde se vêem partir e para onde se vêem voltar
Pombas paraestatais.

Alargou os quadris na gravidez urbana
Teve desejos de cúmulos
Viu se povoarem seus latifúndios em Copacabana
De casa, e logo além, de túmulos.

E sorriu, apesar da arquitetura teuta
Do bélico Ministério
Como quem diz: Eu só sou a hermeneuta
Dos códices do mistério...

E com uma indignação quem sabe prematura
Fez erigir do chão
Os ritmos da superestrutura
De Lúcio, Niemeyer e Leão.

E estendeu ao sol as longas panturrilhas
De entontecente cor
Vendo o vento eriçar a epiderme das ilhas
Filhas do Governador.

Não cresceu? Cresceu muito! Em grandeza e miséria
Em graça e disenteria
Deu franquia especial à doença venérea
E à alta quinquilharia.

Tornou-se grande, sórdida, ó cidade
Do meu amor maior!
Deixa-me amar-te assim, na claridade
Vibrante de calor!


Jang Jin-Song (19??- )

I can't find a photo of him either.

I sell my Daughter for 100 won

Exhausted, in the midst of the market she stood
“For 100 won, my daughter I sell”
Heavy medallion of sorrow
A cardboard around her neck she had hung
Next to her young daughter
Exhausted, in the midst of the market she stood

A deaf-mute the mother
She gazed down at the ground, just ignoring
The curses the people all threw
As they glared
At the mother who sold
Her motherhood, her own flesh and blood

Her tears dried up
Though her daughter, upon learning
Her mother would perish of a deadly disease
Had buried her face in the mother’s long skirt
And bellowed, and cried
But the mother stood still
And her lips only quivered

Unable she was to give thanks to the soldier
Who slipped a hundred won into her hand
As he uttered
“It is your motherhood,
And not the daughter I’m buying
She took the money, and ran

A mother she was,
And the 100 won she had taken
She spent on a loaf of wheat bread
Toward her daughter she ran
As fast as she could
And pressed the bread on the child’s lips
“Forgive me, my child”
In the midst of the market she stood
And she wailed.

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