Honey and Poison Selected Poems

This is the first comprehensive selection in English of the poetry of one of Portugal's finest contemporary writers. Condensed and intimate, sometimes slyly secretive, Pedro Tamen's poems encapsulate moments of passion, revelation, wit, and love while also conveying a sense of history and place. This work reflects the land and emotions of a country that has moved from dictatorship to democracy over the past three decades.

from Poems for Every Day (1956)

`Green time of poplars and willows and rivers unknowing, and of gentle banks...'

9

(1)

`At that time living was the best thing in the world'

9

(1)

`Time'

10

(1)

`Here is what the dogs made: detritus. Let us lift our feet'

11

(2)

from Blood, Water and Wine (1958)

`Now the hills descend at their ease in endless footpaths'

13

(1)

`Excuse me, dear Lady, but why do you mourn'

13

(1)

`With true calm we slowly sweep away the air'

14

(1)

`What runs now through the grass, has in its very footprints'

14

(1)

from Lapinova's First Book (1960)

`From out of you the chalice is raising'

15

(1)

`And now -- your skin'

15

(1)

`The foot of night stands on its feet'

16

(1)

from Poems to This (1962)

`On ne badine pas avec l'amour'

17

(1)

`I shall not speak'

17

(1)

Soccer Days

18

(1)

`The hidden things in which we've erred'

18

(1)

Finale

19

(2)

from Daniel in the Lion's Den (1970)

`Already past late and before too soon'

21

(1)

`I say of you empty shells -- not hollow'

21

(1)

`Air currents are ripping

22

(1)

`The sea is far away, but it is we who are its wind'

22

(1)

`I talk. I speak to you of blues and greens'

23

(1)

`I have nothing more for you each day'

23

(1)

`Let's sleep here just a little'

24

(1)

`Slowly watering the flowers of laughter'

24

(1)

from Written from Memory (1973)

Vol de nuit

`I cling to your hand as though having a name'

25

(1)

`Graduated in law and solitude'

25

(1)

`On telling me your name springs are born'

26

(1)

`Night of the seventh night, when stars shining'

26

(1)

`Born you were where the horses sate their thirst'

27

(1)

`You, woman of the lake, are of the wind and forge'

27

(1)

`What green or yellow, what alteration'

28

(1)

`I neither speak of words in themselves nor of chrysanthemums'

28

(1)

from Forty-Two Sonnets (1973)

`My wife of parma violets and cities'

29

(1)

`Of autumns mild as a sun seen rising'

29

(1)

`Love and lovemaking and making love grow'

30

(1)

`About your right leg I am divided'

30

(1)

`If it's from our hands the dawn releases us'

31

(1)

`Inside springtimes doubtful and impotent'

32

(1)

from Now, To Be (1975)

`Go down slowly, till you reach limbo'

33

(1)

`The light that shines from stones, from the interior of stone'

33

(1)

`A dog lingering at the stoop'

34

(1)

from The Circulatory System (1978)

`Of snow I know nothing, nor of sun'

35

(1)

`Sorcerer lemon: painful purge'

35

(1)

`From out of moons and wheat fields I search a name'

36

(1)

from Horace and Coriace (1981)

`Where were you when it struck four o'clock'

37

(1)

`It's eight days now, and I was eight years old'

38

(1)

`I, neither having father nor mother, do dishevelled'

38

(1)

`On remarking small tremblings'

39

(1)

`Now abandoned without any feeling'

39

(2)

from Within Moments (1984)

1-65

41

(12)

from Delphus Opus 12 (1987)

`In all the earth so intense'

53

(1)

`Breast, centre, knot: place'

53

(1)

`It lies between the Phaedriades more placid'

54

(1)

from After Seeing (1995)

Anti-Durer

55

(1)

The Navigators

55

(2)

from The Pennant of Charon (1997)

`I have neither major character faults'

57

(1)

`The automobiles sleep. In the disco'

57

(1)

`What has been done is equal to what is done'

58

(1)

`What lights await our being'

58

(1)

`What you don't know doesn't exist'

59

(1)

`What you don't know now, you will never'

59

(1)

`She doesn't exist -- we exist in her'

60

(1)

`Arriving at the end of the road, you see from afar'

60

(1)

from Unspeakable Memory (2000)

`My death, I cannot give it to you'

61

(2)

from Previously Unpublished Works (1965--1991)

It's Day

63

(1)

Ode

64

(1)

Not One More Word

64

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Honey and Poison Selected Poems

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