Paulo Henriques Biritto
Genesis
The world begins in the eyes,
spreads across the face, down the chest
and back, fills the abdomen,
assails the legs and arms, and ends
at the fingertips
the world begins with the eye
of a hurricane, trickles between rocks,
sprays with the wind, the air,
seeps into layers of the earth,
and is consumed by fire
the world begins like an eye
open, without lashes or lid,
only iris and pupil, sunk
in a deep orbit, where it slides
and disappears in the blink of an eye
Snake Charmer
Between the unsuspecting lines of story,
an insidious idea insinuates itself,
as if to suggest another text,
more alive, radical and honest,
about a slender, venomous truth
beneath the thickly covered paper
and almost imprenetrable now-
Fortunately,
a final recourse remains:
to stop, turn back. Make common paper
of palimpsest. Now continue,
Pick up the sweet flute of literature.
"When asked in an interview how he saw himself among different generations of writers and schools of poetry in Brazil, Britto said, 'to be honest, I've never fit well in any one camp.' Like the Greek, philosopher Diogenes, Paulo Henriques Britto is very much a citizen of the world. His poetry speaks of the particulars of Brazil but also of a lifetime committed to the world of human thought that transcends the limits of a single nation of language.” - Indra Novey from the introduction of The clean shirt of it poems by Paulo henriques britto