ora vamos lá, "Salutations to Fernando Pessoa" de Allen Ginsberg

Salutations to Fernando Pessoa

Allen Ginsberg

Everytime I read Pessoa I think

I'm better than he is I do the same thing

more extravagantly - he's only from Portugal,

I'm American greatest Country in the world

right now End of xx Century tho Portugal

had a big empire in the 15th century never mind

now shrunk to a Corner of Iberian peninsula

whereas New York take New York for instance

tho Mexico City's bigger NY's richer think of Empire State

Building not long ago world empire's biggest skyscraper -

be that as't may I've experienced 61 years' XX Century

Pessoa walked down Rua do Ouro only till 1936

He entered Whitman so I enter Pessoa no

matter what they soy besides dead he wouldn't object.

What way'm I better than Pessoa?

Known on 4 Continents I have 25 English books he only 3

his mostly Portuguese, but that's not his fault -

U.S.A's a bigger Country

merely 2 Trillion in debt a passing freakout,

Reagan's dirty work an American Century aberration

unrepresenting our Nation Whitman sang in Epic manner

tho worried about in Democratic Vistas

As a Buddhist not proud my superiority to Pessoa

I'm humble Pessoa was nuts big difference,

tho apparently gay - same as Socrates,

consider Michelangelo Da Vinci Shakespeare

inestimable comrado Walt

True I was tainted Pinko at an early age a mere trifle

Science itself destroys ozone layers this era antiStalinists

poison entire earth with radioactive anticommunism

Maybe I lied somewhat

rarely in verse, only protecting other's reputations

Frankly too Candid about my mother tho meant well

Did Pessoa mention his mother? she's interesting,

powerful to birth sextuplets

Alberto Caeiro Alvaro de Campos Ricardo Reis Bernardo Soares & Alexander

----------------------------------------------------------- Search simultaneously

with Fernando Pessoa himself a classic sexophrenic

Confusing personae not so popular

outside Portugal's tiny kingdom (till recently a second rate police state)

Let me get to the point er I forget what it was

but certainly enjoy making comparisons between this Ginsberg & Pessoa

people talk about in Iberia hardly any books in English

presently the world's major diplomatic language extended throughout China.

Besides he was a shrimp, himself admits in interminable "Salutations to Walt Whitman"

Whereas 5'70" height

somewhat above world average, no immodesty,

I'm speaking seriously about me & Pessoa.

Anyway he never influenced me, never read Pessoa

before I wrote my celebrated "Howl" already translated into 24 languages,

not to this day's Pessoa influence an anxiety

Midnight April 12-88 merely glancing his book

certainly influences me in passing, only reasonable

but reading a page in translation hardly proves "Influence."

Turning to Pessoa, what'd he write about? Whitman,

(Lisbon, the sea etc.) method peculiarly longwinded,

diarrhoea mouth some people say - Pessoa Schmessoa.

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publicado na Threepenny Review em 1994.