José Luís Peixoto Quotes

one day, when tenderness has become the single rule of the morning,/ I will wake in your arms. perhaps your skin will be overly gorgeous./ and the light will include the impossible understanding of love.

~ José Luís Peixoto

the poem doesn’t have stanzas, it has a body, the poem doesn’t have lines,/ it has blood, the poem is not written with letters, it’s written/ with grains of sand and kisses, petals and moments, shouts and/ uncertainties.

~ José Luís Peixoto

Beyond the clouds, above people, beneath the skin, inside people, we’re waiting for you. We see you now, as you read. We’ll see you when you stop thinking about these words. Above and inside your face, we know your secrets. We know what you hide from yourself. You can’t escape us. We hold your heart in the palm of our hand. If we like, we can squeeze it. If we like, we can crush it. There’s nothing you can do to stop us. Our gaze notices your every single move and your every single word. Say a word now. Make a move. We smile at your words, as we smile at your silence. No one will be able to protect you. No one can protect you now. You’re even less than you imagine. We’ve seen a thousand generations of men like you. It was our pleasure to let them walk on the lines of our hands. It was our pleasure to take everything away from them. We guided entire generations of men through tunnels we built that led nowhere. And when they arrived at nothing, we smiled. You’re just like them. We’re waiting for you above and inside your face. Continue on your way. Follow that line of our hand. We know where that tunnel you walk through will end. Keep on walking. We see you and smile. Beyond the clouds, we are fear. Beneath the skin, we are fear.

~ José Luís Peixoto

Memory is like a curse. We fall into eternity, and memory is a weight that keeps pulling us to where we can never go back to.

~ José Luís Peixoto

I think: perhaps the sky is a huge sea of fresh water and we, instead of walking under it, walk on top of it; perhaps we see everything upside down and the earth is a kind of sky, so that when we die, when we die, we fall and sink into the sky.

~ José Luís Peixoto

Suffering is tossed by handfuls over the multitudes, with most of it falling on some people and little or none of it on others.

~ José Luís Peixoto

I think: perhaps the sky is a huge sea of fresh water and we, instead of walking under it, walk on top of it; perhaps we see everything upside down and the earth is a kind of sky, so that when we die, when we die, we fall and sink into the sky.The Implacable Order of Things

~ José Luís Peixoto