A Fábrica do Poema [English translation]

I dream the poem of ideal architecture

Whose very own cement lining

Secures word for word, I became an expert in extracting

Sparks from gravel and milk from stones.

I wake up;

And the whole poem comes apart, thread by thread.

I wake up;

The building, stone and lime, flitters

Like a lightweight paper loose at wind's mercy and it soars,

Ashes of a body emptied of any meaning

I wake up, and the poem-mirage fades

Deconstructed as if it never had been.

I wake up! eyes leaden with the mush of souls

And deafened ears,

This is how I emerge from the successive sleeps:

Gone are the rings of smoke and opium

And I'm left with dumbfounded fingers.

Metonymies, alliterations, metaphors, oxymorons

All vanished in the maelstrom.

It shouldn't be of much help to lurk about

The phantom summit of the watchtower

Neither the simulation of sinking into sleep.

Not even truly sleeping.

For the key-issue is:

Under which mask will all that's repressed return?

• Artist:Adriana Calcanhotto
• Album:A Fábrica do Poema (1994)