White Ghost Bikes

At first it looks like a piece of art, tethered for display -
A delicate use of white paint has covered the whole frame,
Wheels, chain, pedals, and brakes.
The D-lock keeps the back wheel safe
From thieves, if they would dare steal a shrine.
The handlebars, curved like a Rams horn,
Rest on the roadside railings.
It gathers glances from drivers at the lights;
They scan from red to white and read,
This marks the place where he lay dead.

33, with a wife and child who lay asleep
At home. His frame fell flat, then crushed
Under the weight of a lorry turning left.
The wing-mirrors didn’t catch
His thighs push off in a low gear.

He’d contacted his wife by text
As he handled the back roads,
Telling her the new shorts she bought him chaffed,
And wondered if she’d help him slide them off
When he got home.
Instead, they pulled down the zip to show her his face.

Youth Today

The problem with the youth today
is that they’re too much like their folks.
Back in my day, I packed a knife
amongst my pens and showed it off
to my closest friends, just for jokes.

The first time I saw a gun was at home,
I also saw someone die on my road.
We’re just ten years behind the States
Wake up. You know that’s utter shit,
It must be at least twenty-six.

Loucura (a translation)

I am made from Fado,
living the poem that is sung,
My soul is absorbed into my voice -
only the souls of the earth know how to hear.
Cry! Cry! Poets of the land!
Branches from the same tree, we are together in life.
If you weren’t all by my side in sorrow,
then this wouldn’t be Fado.

Cry! Cry! Poets of our land!
My voice is full of pain,
It is because of you that I feel this way.
Our singing, our suffering.
But without you by my side, this wouldn’t be Fado

Translation By Mark Farinha


original Portuguese...

Loucura

Sou do fado! Como sei!
Vivo um poema cantado, de um fado que eu inventei.
A falar, não posso dar-me,
mas ponho a alma a cantar, e as almas sabem escutar-me.
Chorai, chorai, poetas do meu país,
troncos da mesma raíz, de vida que nos juntou.
E se vocês, não estivessem a meu lado, então, não havia fado,
nem fadistas como eu sou!
Esta voz, tão dolorida, é culpa de todos vós
poetas da minha vida.
É loucura! Oiço dizer, mas bendita esta loucura, de cantar e de sofrer.
Chorai, chorai, poetas do meu país,
troncos da mesma raíz, de vida que nos juntou.
E se vocês, não estivessem a meu lado, então, não havia fado,
nem fadistas como eu sou!


Written By Carlos do Carmo
Performed by Mariza

Half Of Me (extract)

You weren’t there that night,
I didn’t feel you around.
The lights were off last night.

Midnight talks had broken down,
The echoes of warm breath rose through
The floor, claiming words but not sound.

I tried hard instead to hear the cat’s mew
Over the pounds of disagreement,
Which I could never sleep through.

(When the neighbours from Tashkent
Went at it, hammer, sickle, and tongs,
I never understood their accent,

Which helped me sleep.) I tried listening to songs,
All sorts, blaring into my ears, but the bass
Of your voice would rattle my lungs

And I would hear nothing else.
My fault for wanting that futon;
Three inches of foam between the floor and my face.

Some mornings I’d wake to my ears being bitten
By the pistol pops of a cowboy’s gun below me.
You were watching Rawhide again.