Home > Work > The Alphabet in the Park: Selected Poems
1 " All I could offer, unblemished, weremy tears in response to beauty or fatigue. "
― Adélia Prado , The Alphabet in the Park: Selected Poems
2 " Day escapes me, the hour, all the hours;I write a poem and delude myself that I've escaped sadness. "
3 " Night! Make yourself useful and cover me with sleep.Me and the thought of death just can't get used to each other.I'll tremble with fear until the end.And meanwhile, everything is so small.Compared to my heart's desire,the sea is a drop. "
4 " Love has rhythms which are not those of sadness:the shape of waves, impulse, running water. "
5 " All my life I've resisted Plato, with his broad shoulders,his crippled Republic where poets are exiled. "
6 " How lovely you are!I want to excavate you until I findwhere you keep so much feeling. "
7 " He looked like an angel, speaking of wisdom. . .Helios, I called him, you're that luminescent,your body acting out your spirit. "
8 " I sleep a drunken sleep,judging the beauty of the world negligible,craving something that neither dies nor withers. "
9 " Tyrant purple goes straight for the heart,crazy for dawn. "
10 " I want something sweet like that,something which says: that's her.So I won't be afraid of posing for a picture,so I'll be handed a poem on parchment. "
11 " I am beginning to despairand can see only two choices:either go crazy or turn holy. "
12 " I want love, superior love.I can tolerate only seven sorrows. "
13 " Poets before me have cried, and better, and more beautifully,and more deeply, and not just for the death of the king,but for mine, yours, their own,for the miserable condition of being human. "
14 " If you're not careful, love will catch you,eat you up, drench you. "
15 " I want passion from life. "
16 " Suffering belongs to no language. "