A COUNTRY DRESSED UP FOR  PROPRIETY'S SAKE, USING ITS NECKTIE TO BLOW ITS NOSE, BY MISTAKE.

WHEN IT ALL HAPPENED... 

CHIADO

You studied at the Naval School, but they did not give you a pilot’s license because of your near-sightedness.  Frustrated, you expressed your sorrows in verse:

I studied to be a seaman

but I put on my glasses and remained on dry land. 

But before you sink in dry land, let me ask you:

 “O’Neill?  What kind of name is that?”

 “I am the son of an Irish lord.  I will take possession of those emerald estates when my father kicks the bucket. This waiting makes me impatient, since I am very fond of Irish coffee and of the shamrock...”

We laugh, then, marching side by side, we start on our way toward the Chiado (T.N.: Area of downtown Lisbon). We could have stopped and sat for a while at A BRASILEIRA. Its mirrors and modernist panel make that coffee house very seductive. But, now and then, the environment there is spoiled by the presence of Inspector Seixas, a known torturer for the State Security Police (PIDE), who is either displaying his truculence or showing off his band of new recruits who recently got out of the army.  So we decide that it’s more healthful to go down Garrett Street.  On the left side, slightly below the Sá da Costa Bookshop, there’s the CAFÉ CHIADO.

And so, here we go, you hopping from side to side as if there were little puddles on the sidewalk and always with that syncopated manner of expressing yourself. If you were a pianist, you’d be a stacato champion.

The first room at the CAFÉ CHIADO seems like an aquarium with some interesting little fish.  One of them, stretched on a wicker chair, is António Maria Lisboa, the surrealist poet.  I know of your quarrels with this crew who write according to formula and I’m curious as to what you’re going to do. You raise your hands in a gesture of greeting.  Perhaps the last greeting, since Lisboa is suffering from tuberculosis, and he is just hanging around waiting for death to come, the poor guy...

The second room is very large and gloomy.  There, on the right side, there’s an orgy going on in a large panel entitled Roman Orgy, a painting which occupies most of the wall.  Sitting right under the panel are two well-known Mários who are surrealists, one is Cesariny and the other is Leiria.  I’m a close friend of the latter.  You make believe you don’t see them and they make believe they don’t see you.  I can’t contain myself:

“How come, Alexandre.  You were such good friends and you did such interesting things together.  I can still remember those collages you did for the Ampola Miraculosa (The Miraculous Flask).”

You stop, hold my arm, and ask:

 “Did you know that I was the first to buy and read the History of Surrealism, by Maurice Nadeau?  That I was the one who dared Mário Henrique Leiria, Vespeira and José Augusto-França to do something similar here to shake our Portuguese sluggishness? That’s how the Lisbon Surrealist Movement was born.  Did you know that?”   

 “Yes, I know that. And that’s why I can’t understand your quarrel.  Why? Why?”

 “Because two or three of those opportunists wanted to turn the Movement into an instrument of indoctrination.  Poetry has to be practical truth, I can’t stand indoctrinations.

 Then, in syncopated, loud and clear syllables:

“in / doc / tri / na / tion / !”  

We go into the third room of the Café Chiado, quite bright, with a frosted glass ceiling, probably an old foyer between two buildings.  That’s where the students hang out.  Mimeographed poems by SIDÓNIO MURALHA and other neo-realist poets are handed out and travel from table to table.  You look down your nose at that type of proletarian heroism.

 “That’s not how you make political poetry.”

 “Then, how do you make it?”

 “Come to my house and I’ll show you.”

 “When?”

THE DOVE

And so, I go to his place. It’s a third floor walk-up in the residential district of Arco do Cego. I ring the bell and a woman wearing thick eyeglasses opens the door. Can it be your sister? No, I suppose not, since you quarreled with your father and you are now staying at your uncle’s.  She must be your cousin.  Whatever.  She looks at me in a very suspicious manner and then screeches out your name: Alexandre, Alexandre! You appear at the end of the corridor, run up to me, grab my arm and lead me to your room.

There’s a bed, a desk, bookshelves and a metal cabinet with large drawers that slide on rollers.   You open one of them; it contains dozens of folders.   You pull out six or seven of them and an number of poems present themselves, by Mayakovsky, Neruda, Aragon, Éluard and his catalyzing Liberté, je dis ton nom! There’s also an unknown author (at least to me) named Bertolt Brecht. I’m amazed:  here’s poetry organized as if it were a business activity. The German fellow, Brecht, is astonishing, I’m enthralled by his conciseness. So much so, that one week later I will write six poems, Brechtian style, in just one sitting, one of them lamenting Comrade Stalin’s death. And you’re going to like my verses and insist that I continue.  But it’s all in vain; I’m more inclined to write prose...  

“Listen, O’Neill. Those fellows’ poetry can’t be monopolized like that, it has to be made available to everybody.”

 “I think so, too!”

And that’s how we came up with the idea of an underground publication with militant poetry. It will be called  A POMBA (THE DOVE) honoring Picasso. You’ll take care of the translations.  I’ll take care of the printing since my father has a mimeograph in his office in Restauradores Square. I print everything at night and he doesn’t even notice it... 

What about the launch of the paper?  I propose the following:

“Since we’re dealing with a launch, let THE DOVE take off from the second balcony  of the Tivoli Theater for a landing on the audience in the orchestra seats, during one of those cultural movie sessions on late Thursday afternoons.  It’ll be a flock in a beautiful flight...”

You hesitate:

 “I don’t think the guys of the Opposition will approve the idea.”

 “Don’t worry.  I’ll take care of that.”

And that’s what I do.  I talk to one of the leaders of the MUD JUVENIL *; I tell him about our plan and show him the poems. A few days later, he advises me that the Directors are against the idea; that agitation is one thing, poetry is something else, they shouldn’t be mixed.  Supposedly, they know better...

You seem to know them better than I do, O’Neill, even though you’re just a fellow traveller, rather than a militant... But if it’s agreed between us, then it’s to be done, and to hell with the know-it-alls... At the last minute, just to appease the guys at the JUVENIL, you suggest that I include in THE DOVE my own poem about Stalin’s death.  I agree to do it, but I sign it with a pseudonym, since I have no suicidal tendencies...

On a certain Thursday afternoon, there we are in the Tivoli’s second balcony. The theater is dark and, just as the last scene comes on the screen, we release the strings and THE DOVES begin their flight toward the audience below.   But there’s a little accident:  you fumble with a pile of “doves” and let it fall on the head of a spectator.  Below, someone bellows:

“Hey, what the hell...?!”

PASSPORTS

Still in ‘53 I decide to get married and you, of course, are one of the invited guests.  You know that my wife and I have just returned from a trip around Europe.  You take me aside and ask me, very secretively:

 “Are your passports still valid?”

 “Yes, they are.”

“Then, get out while you can, because things are really going to get rough around here.”

We are really thinking of taking off to Brazil, but I know that something else is at the root of your anxiety.  Nora Mitrani, the French surrealist, comes though Lisbon in 1949.  You meet, enjoy each other’s company, fall in love, l’amour fou sometimes happens outside romantic novels... Upon returning to Paris, Nora invites you to go there and stay with her.

“You come to Paris, stay here and then we see...”

You apply to the Lisbon authorities for a passport.  But someone in your family, who doesn’t want you to go after the French woman,  uses his connections with the PIDE to prevent you from getting the document.  And the passport is denied.  What the hell kind of country is this where the police have the power to interfere with a love affair?

Your rage, your frustrated love, are expressed in Um Adeus Português (A Portuguese Farewell):

No, you could not remain with me
tied to the wheel where I rot away
we rot away
tied to this bloody paw that hesitates
almost medidates
and then rushes through the tunnel howling

from an old pain

...

you are from the city where life hangs

by a thread of pure chance

where you live or die not of asphyxiation

but at the hands of pure business ventures

without the false currency of good and evil

At this turning point so tender and yet so painful
 that your absence will be and is even now
I say good-bye
and like a teenager
I stumble full of tenderness
for you.

“Alexandre, I can understand your being worried about our passports, judging from your experience, but take it easy, relax!”

ADVERTISING

In 1958, in Brazil, I manage to get your book No Reino da Dinamarca (In the Kingdom of Denmark). Then in 1960, I received Abandono Vigiado (Defection under Surveillance). In 1962, Poemas com Endereço (Poems with an Address). In 1965, Feira Cabisbaixa (The Downhearted Fair).  In 1969, De Ombro na Ombreira (Shoulder against the Doorpost).  And in 1972, Entre a Cortina e a Vidraça (Between the Curtain and the Windowpane). Such production makes me wonder:

Does this fellow really earn a living writing poetry?  I can’t believe it!

Then, in 1972, my friend Vasconcelos, old companion from my days at the Café Chiado, on a tourist trip, shows up in São Paulo, where I live. After the customary emotional greetings, I ask him about O’Neill and he tells me:

“He still writes poetry, but he actually makes his living in advertising. He is constantly hopping from one agency to another, and all the agencies want him. He makes all the money he wants, loads of money.”

 “That’s great!  At least he was able to escape from the general hunger and poverty...”

I can see him now.  He is fluent of speech and it’s easy for him to come up with slogans.  Some of them cause an uproar as soon as they are heard. The slogan BOSCH É BOM (Bosch is good) for example.  To the delight of his buddies (poets, advertising people and camp followers) the poet himself invents an obscene play on words:  Boche é brom! (T.N.: The /r/ in “brom” is insinuated in the word “boche” making it “broche,” which is the obscene equivalent of “fellatio.” So it becomes “Broche é bom - fellatio is good”).

There is another very amusing ad that was refused by the sponsors:

In a kapok filled mattress,

you can do it twice without stress...

But among his serious slogans, one ends up becoming a byword on Portuguese beaches.  It’s a warning to careless bathers:

REQUIEM FOR NORA MITRANI

O’Neill write six poems in memory of Nora Mitrani

“Not being able to obtain a passport, the poet never saw Nora Mitrani again.  Did you know that the cute little French girl committed suicide  in Paris, in 1961?”

“Yes, I was aware of it, Vasconcelos.  In l962, I read the requiem written by O’Neill:

Time is no longer important to you,

dear friend.

Now you are dead.

(A suicide?)

Now Pierrot, with his breath of fire

(helping lovers do what they adore)

doesn’t join in the game of our desire

the way he did before.

But that obscure servant
we once created in a love-spell

(I had not yet dedicated to you

my Portuguese farewell...),

runs, very fast, like a flame,

between us (a jumping spree!)

and dares us to bed.

Will you wait for me?  

* * *                   

If only I could tell you: Sit here,
on my knees, let me caress and please you,
let me stroke your silky, my pet,
and then reverse my touch, trying to tease you!

If on the same thread I could string

an infinite necklace of our thrills so as to bring  

my joyful moving fingers to discover

new schemes that are of interest to a lover!

If I could hold you tight within my hand,

this faithful weaver of so many lines,

and invented plots, so vain, so bland,

and  dare someone to guess: What’s inside...?

It would be a fertile lover’s game without an end.

Not this barren gesture of an empty hand!

O’Neill marries and separates

Vasconcelos informs me that O’Neill married Noémia Delgado in 1957 and they were separated in 1971.   They had a son:  Alexandre Delgado O’Neill, who will become known as a great photographer.  He dies after a violent attack of asthma, after forgetting his inhaler at home.

But we’re talking about love not children...Vasconcelos asks me:

“Did you know that I earn a living as a bank clerk?”

 “Of course, I do. You work for the Banco Português do Atlântico, right?”

 “That’s right, I work in the Information Section.  Do you know who Dr. Gouveia is?”

 “I have no idea.”

“He’s one of the bank’s directors.  He’s loaded with money and he’s as reactionary as they come. Well, one fine day, Dr. Gouveia asked me to gather as much information as possible about a certain character named Alexandre O’Neill. I nearly laughed.  The poet was courting Teresa Patrício Gouveia, Dr. Gouveia’s daughter.  They got married last year.  The poet is doing all right.  By posing as a reactionary,  there’ll be plenty of money available...”

“And how is this Teresa?”

“She’s quite a hunk, a beautiful broad.”

“Hell, Vasconcelos, what a vicious tongue!  I’m sure the poet wasn’t taken by the money, nor by the father’s ideology, but by the girl’s beauty. You’ll see.”

Vasconcelos returns to Portugal. I have an urge to reminisce about the time when I was also caught like a fly in Salazar’s foul web.  I reread O’Neill’s books.  It’s all there.  The profile of fear.

Lined up, afraid, we thank fear

for saving us from madness.

Judgment and courage are worth less

And a lifeless life brings no duress

Adventurers with no future for adventure,

lined up, afraid, we battle fiercely

ironic ghosts showing up in  our search

for what we never were, what we will never be.

Lined up, afraid, unable to discuss

the oppressed feelings in our heart,

the madmen and the ghosts we fight are us.

A herd hunted by fear at any cost,

once we lived so close, yet so apart

that the meaning of life, to us, was lost.

Fear also appeared as an operatic production:

Fear will have it all

phantoms of the opera

séances round the clock

miracles

processions

phrases full of courage

perfect little girls

pawnshops you can trust

foxy houses of ill-repute

a number of conferences

conventions galore

wonderful jobs

original poems

and poems like this

highly filthy projects

heroes

(yes, fear will have its heroes!)

real and imagined seamstresses

workers

(a few)

bookkeepers (lots)

intellectuals (the usual)

your voice, perhaps,

maybe my voice,

and certainly their voice

...

It’s all there, the dog’s life we led, with or without poetry:

Loyal dog of poetry

foolish dog in ecstasy

crushed by so  many beatings

feeling sorry for your master

you wear a tie to no avail

while you wag your missing tail...

It’s all there, the “life as usual” that we accepted:

Is poetry, life? Yes, of course!

Depending on the life you lead, the verses come

- and if life is in a rut, no type of poetry

will resist.  The rest is literature,

mixed with libertinage, deceiving idle chatter;
it’s like this:  a silly poet, drinking,

day after day, his black coffee, thinking

of his own worth, that his ideas matter...  

Is poetry, life? Yes, that’s very clear!
In spite of its cost, which is quite severe,

and the fact that death is ever drawing near.

Then, there is the motherland that gave us birth:

Oh, Portugal, if only you were just  three syllables,

beautiful view of the sea,

Green province of Minho, Algarve of limestone,

donkey scraping the surface of the earth.

...

Oh, Portugal, if only you were just three syllables

made of plastic, so much cheaper! 

...

Portugal: an issue that I have with myself,

a blow cutting to the bone, hunger without a break,

a hunting dog that can't locate a partridge,

a sorry nag in disguise,

despondent conversations in public,

I regret it,

I regret it for all of us...

And there's more:

A country dressed up for propriety's sake

Using its necktie to blow its nose, by mistake.

For all these reasons, I am not at all surprised that Alexandre O'Neill makes the following statement:

António Nobre, for all that he might be,

is the greatest Loneliness affecting all of us,

that’s why I like him (have pity on me!)

In May of ‘74, I’m back in Lisbon surfing the waves of revolution.  I notice and find it strange that O’Neill is absent from all the wild goings on.   By mere chance, I run into him in ’76 in the Faz Frio Restaurant, close to the Príncipe Real. After the normal effusive greetings, we talk about old times. He introduces me to Ruy Cinatti, from Timor, a fine poet. He asks me to recite once again my poem about the death of Stalin.

“I’ve already asked the 20th Congress of the Communist Party for permission to recite it.  They think it’s OK. So, Comrade O’Neill, here goes!”

With clownish gestures, I recite the poem that I published in the first and only issue of A POMBA (THE DOVE).

Lots of jokes, lots of drinks, camaraderie.  We will get together a few times, running into each other occasionally in the streets of Lisbon, brief moments, memories, a certain sadness. But we will never be close again; our paths have led us in different directions.

Teresa gives birth to a son, Afonso, your second. You and Teresa separate in 1981.  You choose a new love, Laurinda Bom, who will stay with you until your death in 1986, from heart failure.   In the meantime, you will write a number of poems, among which  there is O Rato e o Anjo (The Rat and the Angel), as if nothing had happened since the revolution of April, ’74.

...

A rat gnaws,

the sound hurts in your ear.

An angel hurts

but in a different sphere.

In this story, it seems uncanny,
there is one missing, two are too many.

The angel drops his pen,

the rat loses its hair

One returns to its pack,

and the other to his lair.

And the Portuguese, with no angel by his side,

 feels that he’s been fed a dose of raticide.

And he cries.

It’s April all over again and sarcasm is returning to its “life as usual.” Lamenting the situation, but reconciled to it.

O’Neill, poet and friend!  Wait there for me for I won’t be around much longer!  In the meantime, while I’m down here, I reread your poems and I’m always shocked:  after all, “salazarism” was not an aggression against our people, as much as it was only a natural secretion of the Portuguese themselves. Very smelly. Very smelly, indeed...

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