Álvaro de Campos

So many gods! They’re like books—you can’t read everything, you never know anything. Happy the man who knows but one god, and keeps him a secret. Every day I have different beliefs— Sometimes in the same day I have different beliefs— And I wish I were the child now crossing The view from my window of the street below. He’s eating a cheap pastry (he’s poor) without efficient or final cause, An animal uselessly raised above the other vertebrates, And through his teeth he sings a ribald show tune . . . Yes, there are many gods, But I’d give anything to the one who’d take that child out of my sight. March 9, 1930

Ah Margarida, If I gave you my life, What would you do with it? I’d take my earrings out of hock, Marry a blind man, And live on a tree-lined block. But Margarida, If I gave you my life, What would your mother say? (Her mother knows me inside out.) She’d say you’re a fool, Without a doubt. And Margarida, If I gave you my life Literally, by dying? I’d go to your funeral, firmly believing You’d gone mad To try to love by not living. But Margarida, If this giving of my life to you Were merely poetry? In that case, forget it, The deal’s off, Because I don’t sell on credit. Dictated by the Naval Engineer Sr. Álvaro de Campos in a state of alcoholic unconsciousness.