Adélia Prado

noun as verb: go crazy or turn holy
(erin) why do i feel affinity with the madmen, those unable to play nice in the meantime?


from "serendade" by adélia prado
I am beginning to despair
and can see only two choices:
either go crazy or turn holy.




Serenade - by Adélia Prado

Some night under a pale moon and geraniums   /the highway man.  //poetry is reminding
he would come with his incredible hands and mouth   /mm.
to play the flute in the garden.
I am beginning to despair
and can see only two choices:
either go crazy or turn holy.
I, who reject and reprove    /y
anything that’s not natural as blood and veins,
discover that I cry daily,
my hair saddened, strand by strand,
my skin attacked by indecision.
When he comes, for it’s clear that he’s coming,
how will I go out onto the balcony without my youth?
He and the moon and the geraniums will be the same –
only women of all things grow old.
How will I open the window, unless I’m crazy?    /yes. 
How will I close it, unless I’m holy?



Love Song - by Adélia Prado

First came cancer of the liver, then came the man
leaping from bed to floor and crawling around
on all fours, shouting: "Leave me alone, all of you,               / oh _
just leave me be," such was his pain without remission.
Then came death and, in that zero hour, the shirt missing
a button.

I'll sew it on, I promise,
but wait, let me cry first.
"Ah," said Martha and Mary, "If You had been here,
our brother would not have died." "Wait," said Jesus,             /john 11 35 jesus wept
"let me cry first."
So it's okay to cry? I can cry too?
If they asked me now about life's joy,
I would have only the memory of a tiny flower.              / oh _
Or maybe more, I'm very sad today:
What I say, I unsay. But God's Word
is the truth. That's why this song has the name it has.        / 





The Alphabet in the Park: Selected Poems of Adelia Prado  | ggl bks
Wesleyan University Press, 1990 - 63 pgs - transl Ellen Watson