Drummond - Eu, Etiqueta - I, Label

 

 

Carlos Drummond de Andrade

Trad. livre : LdeM

Eu, Etiqueta / I, Label

In my pants is glued a name
That is not mine of baptism or of archives
A name... strange
My jacket brings note of drink
That I put never in the mouth, in that life,
In my shirt, the cigarette mark
That I don't smoke, until today didn't smoke.
My stockings speak about products
That I never tried
But they are communicated to my feet.
My tennis is coloured proclaims
Of some thing no proven
By this fitting room of long age.
My handkerchief, my clock, my key chain,
My tie and belt and brush and comb,
My glass, my cup,
My bath towel and soap,
Mine this, mine that.
From the head to the beak of the shoes,
Are messages,
Speaking letters ,
Visual screams,
Orders to use, abuse, repeat.
Custom, habit, urgency,
Indispensability,
And they do of me itinerant man-announcement,
Slave of the announced matter.
I am, I am in the fashion.
It is hard to walk in the fashion, although the fashion
Is to deny my identity,
To change it for thousand, monopolizing
All the registered marks,
All of the logos of the market.
With that innocence resigns of being
Me that before was and knew me
So diverse from others, so myself,
A thinker being full of feelings and lonely
With other several beings and conscious
Of their human, invincible condition.
Now I am announcement
Sometimes vulgar sometimes bizarre.
In national language or in any language
(Any, mainly.)
And in this I rejoice,
I find glory
Of my annulment.
I am not - see it ! - contracted announcement.
I am that tenderly pays for
To announce, to sell
At bars parties beaches pergolas swimming pools,
And well on view I exhibit this
Global label in the body that gives up
Of being garment and sandal of an essence
So vivid, independent,
That fashion or I bribe some commits her.
Where will have thrown away
My taste and capacity of choosing away,
My such personal idiosyncrasies,
so personal that in the face it mirrored
And each gesture, each glance,
Each crease of the clothes
is recorded in an universal way,
I leave the print shop, not from house,
Of the shop window they remove me, they put me back,
Pulsating object but object
That offers as sign of other
Static objects, tariffed.
For showing me like this, so proud
Of being no myself, but industrial article,
I ask that my name rectifies.
No longer it suits me man's title.
My new name is Thing.
I am the Thing, thinglike.

Trad. livre by LdeM

http://leoliteraturaescrita.blogspot.com

original poem in: http://pensador.uol.com.br/frase/MjAyODM0/