The next several posts will be about business and being a writer in the business world. This little rant and celebration was written when I was a copywriter at Saatchi & Saatchi, writing glossy brochures for IBM. Not a bad gig, actually, though you couldn’t have told me that at the time. I still love Pessoa, all of them.
–
Divided Life
Friday morning,
subway car, gray
faces in fluorescent
light roaring
through darkness,
nothing connected
to nothing. Don’t
think I can
face another week
without a fresh-
ness, oh something
to keep me breathing
faintly I swing
past Shakespeare &
Company late
for work as
usual shaking the rain
off bright
inside and looking
for poetry even a
page a line just
one clean breath of air
the window opening ahhh,
the cool breeze hmmmmmmmmmm
all over my face, can’t
STAND what I see on the shelves
these days, poetry
a business like everything
else American and then
I find him –
Pessoa… A line.
Then another. The window
opens! Yes! oh YES!
Fernando! You wild Portuguese!
Ahoy! Ahoy-hoy-hoy-hoy-hoy
back at you Fernando!
And there’s five of them
beating in the same throat!
All five Fernandos!
He’s insane! Even better!
And my heart is thumping
and my future belongs
to myself for an hour
as I march to the counter,
wake up the student (sack
crinkling like Christmas!)
and I’m off again and gallumphing
through puddles for another
day of divided life, raincoat
flapping, Pessoa madness
charming my lucky heart split
cracked! open and singing.
