MaverickMagazine

Elide V. Oliver

Elide V. Oliver professes Brazilian Literature and Writing in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis USA. Her recent publications include a review of Fernando Pessoa and Co., Selected Poems by Fernando Pessoa, translated by Richard Zennith and Portuguese Literary & Cultural Studies, published by the Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture. University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, as well as The Third Bank of the River. Time-flow and Paternity in João Guimarães Rosa (with reflections on Carlos Drummond de Andrade and James Joyce), published by The Modern Humanities Research Association, Portuguese Studies, London.

 Articles by this Author

Or perhaps the magic of it,
how right they seem afterwards.
Why didn't I think of that before?

Dustsceawung

From where the dead observe us
we know nothing; inhabitants
not of one undiscovered country,

GALLA PLACIDIA IN BLU


        It is old the cold ground, the mound
        Stranger to the Viking soul
        Who sails on a boat
        And ends consumed in fire,
        The pyre of scented sandal
        Turns into ashes blood and bone

BRANDING


        Robbers, slaves and runaways,
        Toilers in the mines, convicts condemned
        Disfigured faces until Constantine
        forbade the hot iron on hands
        or arms. Vagabonds with large Vs, Fs
        for fray makers, Rs for rouges;
        From R to 'slave' on cheek or
        forehead, as Cain without Cain's
        wrath, wrath with wrath,

    It is not the tempestuous waters, sudden tsunamis,
    whirlpools of darkness and fear
    where contorted bodies strive in vain
    to keep heads above, fatigued arms
    that let go broken beams in a final dive,

ABOUT LIFE ON MARS

    There is the assertion that the residues
    Found in Mars' meteorites - minerii - were life
    Some four billion years ago.
    The possible traces of life are miniscule disks
    Incrusted on the surface. One wonders barnacles
    Or bigger beings on the crust,
    As Earth life gathers together in vain