Sketching the Mirror / Delineando o Espelho

A Heart’s Warm Beat (One Single impression)

The twisting of branches
My growing arms
Towards the sky reaching
In search of love
And love is beauty
And beauty is.

When time is but a distraction
To all I’ve seen and known
Spaceless timeless me
Lost throughout infinity

Forgetting where I came from
To find me back again
Where clocks refuse to tick
Forever in a glimpse

For here is there is everywhere
I’ve ever tried to be
And what I am I wear like clothes
Coz’ I’m a sparkly rain drop
Assured that there's a me
But what life keeps on whispering
Is that we are the sea

-
Read more poems on One Single Impression

Wendy

21x29 cm / graphiti pencil

I had started this drawing awhile back and then had to put it aside due to a muscle strain on my right hand while practicing the piano. Some weeks ago my hand started to recover and it is with great relief that I am managing my way back into ordinary life. I’m glad I finished it since I really wanted to post it here. There’s such a warm vibe to her pics that being able to capture that positivity can be great fun.

-

Portrait of Wendy

27x35 cm / oil on canvas

kpauli has some of the best pictures on flickr. I took one of these pictures and tried to paint a portrait out of it. Hope I'll make it better next time around.

Dexter and the scary sight / Dexter e a vista assustadora

A little playing with my new box of charcoals.

The Treasure Within (One Single impression)

I’d love to put in words
Those feelings that reside
Within the smallest gestures
Unfolding inner life

They wash our eyes with truth
And make each moment fresh
As if the fabric of reality
Made known its hidden threads

Dismantling our sureness
Our grip to steady comfort
Once we get to see our shoes
From another’s point of view

I quite feel as an abstraction
Made concrete in your dear thoughts
As your dear thoughts are abstractions
Of the world view that you’ve got

The bigger picture seems not one
Of morality or judgment
If who you are you chose to be
Gulp the path to where that leads
-

Read more poems on One Single Impression

Yellow and Gray

17x35 cm / oil on canvas

Hail the sunny spotlights, on the window, glaring my consciousness, fading in tones, a sudden loss of crimson. Finally I’ll find you waiting, wanting my shell, my need to empty. Overboard goes the part that makes faces, that laughs and cries and knows not what. My possession is hope, the bravery of days, faith. I’m not afraid and mission accomplished, or so, or not. After all, much is much and all is none. And my baby shivers cold weather, knows not when to hide, may you be my sunshine.

Entregar-se

Meu querido adesivo
Repleto de luz e carente olhar
Naufraga no peito imenso estupor
Tingindo a alma com peso
De um verso de amor
Que sangra e chora
E grita e busca
Sorrir sem receio
Sem medo

De ter, de não ter
Ou não encontrar
Destino poente
Sentido
Pra valsa de anseio
Que rege o mundo
Põe todos numa dança
De passos aflitos

Despido mergulho em sonho
Vestido de osso e carne
Correndo atrás da parte que canta
Que sente e quer tudo abraçar
É a sede do belo que guia meu norte
Mas não como escape, e nem como fuga
E sim um local de morada
Aonde encontro um lar
-

Staring at the Ceiling (Writers Island)

Your motionless eyes
Glimpse beauty in silence

With pupils immersed
Amidst traceless words

While smiling in the absence
Of where from and where to

They surf to the slopes
Of contemplative moods

When pacing such input
One mission they gaze

To hug the impalpable
And shout the unspeakable

For seeking beyond
The things that have names

Your motionless eyes
Hold great love and warmth

To embrace the world
And meaning bring forth

girl near water fountain

21x29 cm, pencil/graphite

Beyond the "I" and "We" (Writers Island)

Sometimes I ask myself: “How much of me is accessible to another? How much of another is accessible to me? What are the limits and how far can the interaction between two beings go? I can touch someone’s hand; feel the shape of their bodies, use language and gesture to communicate emotions and abstractions. I can yet look deep into their eyes and be convinced that there is a soul behind the eyes, one that thinks, feels and works independent of my relations to it or feelings towards it.

To look into the eyes of a person you love wholeheartedly is bound to be an emotionally deep way of absorbing what spoken words could only partially sustain, such is the immediacy and directness by which the eyes portray us. But then, not even that seems to be enough. And if sexual intercourse demonstrates full potential for both physical and emotional exchange, our brains usually can only take in so much of the experience. It’s as almost as if there was a mental threshold preventing us from surpassing the personal level of experience. Could I ever see life though the eyes of another? Merge so completely with another as to not being able to separate the parts from the whole? Feel below one’s skin and see into one’s thoughts?

One of the fascinating features of human consciousness is that it exists on so many levels, and can be exercised in so many ways. And while a transpersonal assertion may sound idealistic in one way or another, I bet it’s anything but. It’s also funny to think that if we’re not fully tangible to others, no more are we fully tangible to ourselves. Such makes the quest for the ego shattering experience of great value to processing our world view beyond the tight spaces of a single minded framework. Easier said than done.

-

Click on the badge for more on the Island

Drawings / Desenhos

This is a recent effort to improve my drawing skills. There’s something very lovely about facial expression, its complexity and ability to communicate subjectively. It really has a dictionary of its own. Sometimes I feel as if a thousand words could not capture with enough accuracy the subjective impression that one gets in the blink of an eye when looking into the face of another. Yes, words sometimes fail me in this strive for squeezing feelings through a pencil, in such a way that diversifying artistic means becomes a necessary process.

Aqui está um esforço recente de melhorar minhas habilidades de desenhar. Existe algo muito amável quanto às expressões faciais, sua complexidade e capacidade de comunicar subjetivamente, quase como se tivesse um dicionário próprio. Algumas vezes sinto como se mil palavras não conseguissem captar com precisão suficiente a impressão subjetiva passada num piscar de olhos quando fazemos uma leitura do rosto de alguém. Sim, as palavras me falham nesse anseio por espremer sentimentos através de um lápis, de tal maneira que diversificar os meios artísticos se torna um processo necessário.

The Density of Foam (Sunday Scribblings)

The lack of grip
And things to hold
Have brought me to
A world unknown

So very far
From what was grasped
A flaming road
To nothingland

Where all is great
And glooming sad
For what may come
And never has

We’ll ride the slope
And sink with fire
To face this trench
Its cause: desire

Yet there is hazard
In the art of being
A fragile mix
Of pulsing light

Exposing will
In anxious needs
To burst expression
Or swallow dry

How one must squeeze
The bending notes
That bounce off walls
Like fleeting ghosts

Then die away
Amidst thin air
As if their sparks
Had not been there

It’s not about
Their short-lived sing
Nor what could make
Them come to be

But that they were
And were with passion
For notes that ring
Are notes set free


More reads on Sunday Scribblings

Expanding (Writers Island)

With muscles sinking into bed
We’ll ride a train to slumberland
Where all is what the mind evokes
An incoherent maze that holds
Free journeys into wonderlife
Its puzzling sea of endless mights
Holds depth to those in it immersed
An altered state for which to yearn

The crossing of a limbo
That one place in between
The realms of our awareness
A portal left unseen
To float straight through the ceiling
And sail on soaring clouds
The sky is not the limit
If one knows not the bounds

-

Click on the badge to check out more on the Island

Award

Thanks Clare for such a beautiful award (love the picture by the way). It was really kind of you to pass this on and it feels great to be receiving such an inspiring award from such an inspiring person. I do intend to pass this on as well as soon as I have a bit of time to step foot in blogland again. It’s a great honor, thank you!

Sunbeams

While most of you are eager to enjoy the blooming onset of spring, down here in the Brazilian coastline…

The heat of day
Is cooking me alive
Sedating my mood
And tanning my thoughts
While they melt in an oven
With dripping vowels
On crispy rimes

The clock’s in
Slow-motion
A lack of emotion
When time decides
To take a nap
Beneath the shades
Of compact steam

There’s a sticky atmosphere
Where I long to disappear
As summer takes its toll
In making me feel tired
Sleepy and worn out
Fatigued below
A leaching sun

Nurturing the Unspeakable

Feel the wind
Blowing void
An empty touch
Caressing skin

I spread my arms
And fold my soul
While hugging streams
Of oxygen

As lightness floats
These waves of sighs
Are bound to fuel
A finer high

That smiles in warmth
And teaches growth
By twitching flesh
And clenching throats

When showing us
That a fine tool for strive
Involves us feeling
Dissatisfied

Self-portrait in Switzerland / Auto-retrato na Suíça

No, I’ve never been there, but would like to go someday. This is my first work on canvas, and I think I’ll stick with them from now on. Manipulating paint seems much easier with the proper material. Painting has always been to me a reflection of how I feel about life, and as my feelings change, so does the artwork inspired by them.

Não, eu nunca estive lá, mas gostaria de ir algum dia. Este é meu primeiro trabalho com tela, e acho que vou ficar com elas de agora em diante. Trabalhar com tintas é mais fácil quando se tem um material apropriado. A pintura tem sido pra mim um reflexo dos meus sentimentos sobre a vida, e à medida que estes sentimentos mudam, também muda a arte inspirada por eles.

Waterfall / Cachoeira (Sunday Scribblings)

Painted in December 2007 while visiting some friends in the countryside. / Pintado em dezembro 2007 enquanto visitava alguns amigos no interior.

Rocks turned into
Soft pin cushions
Massaged beneath
The frosty streams

Of purple shades
And hidden thoughts
While memories glimpsed
A twilight dream

More on Sunday Scribblings

O Acaso

Samba que samba
Na beira do rio
Sem medo de água
Sem medo do frio

Na vida, uma risada
Curiosa caminhada
Surpreendem-me os destinos
Desvios contínuos

Mostrando-me bem de perto
Que em controle não estou
Tenho força, tenho vontade
Mas me leva uma correnteza aparte

Silenciosa em seu percurso
Lentamente impondo um rumo
Suspirando que pra tudo existe um lugar
E que existe um lugar pra tudo que há


*This poem is about the silent power of chance (if there is such a thing), how we can never be in complete control of our surroundings and how we must not fear the unexpected, for the course of nature leads all things to the places where they belong.

All That Comes to Be (Writers Island)

From where things start
To where things stop
Connecting life
It loops and dangles

If you choose your view
From a certain angle
A pile of shit
Is life on hold

A book with stories
Waiting to be retold
It feeds the earth
That feeds the plants

That feed the animals
That feed me
We’re all attached
To a soil that breeds

Just like the period
At the end of every phrase
A droplet of what drives us
Is much of what remains


Check out more on the Island by clicking on the badge!

Chlorophyll

Do plants dream?
Or ever sleep at all?
And if I were a plant
Breathing to the pace
Of glaring moon and sun
How would life seem to me...
More or less of what?