Micuçú's Journal
Introduction
1. Elizabeth Bishop
2. Traces of Origin
3. Remembering History
4. Letter to Auntie
5. A Police Report
6. The Burgler of Babylon
Contents
Introduction
The following collection of poems you are about to read grew out of Elizabeth Bishop's ballad, "The Burglar of Babylon." It focuses on the main character, Micuçú - his life and death. These verses will attempt to engage and indulge in both the reflections and introspection by Micuçú and the officer who shot him.
These poems also represent a test of some my own basic hunches of the social life in the favelas and Brazil, as well as aiming to understand and make sense of the complexity of race relations in Brazil.
I hope that this reaction to the texts I read brings about an interpretation that is as valid as any critical commentary in the conventional academic format. These poems might not be as polished as I would like but I hope that you will enjoy the sentiment between the words, as well as of words, and the suggestion of a single word.
1.
Elizabeth Bishop
A strayed poet
full of verse
arrives on top of the slopes,
seeking order,
seeking the flowering--
the extension of herself that ought
to have come
in a city of
such miraculous light.
What are the memories
she collects?
The color, sounds and smells
under her window,
away
from water.
For a moment she
thought she was
Cabral, discovering a new
part of the globe:
a warm smelly street,
so mellow, intimate
for people. Here
things last,
and a corner is a resting place
for busy people.
Such keen binocular
eyes also see
The yellow sun was ugly,
Like a raw egg on a plate--
Slick from the sea.
a cause for deep
silent shame.
If I lived
I too would curse
the sun,
with my mouth
so sweet and bitter,
full of Hershey's Special Dark.
Who wants to live that long
on the hill of Babylon?
The low hill dug
from Petrópolis
where your farmhouse nests.
I was a squatter
child, not one
who wades
gigantic waves of light
and shades or plays
at digging holes.
I wander and forage the hills,
and steal and kill
by wit (though I seemed a nice boy)
Micuçú, an enemy of society,
a snake too dark, too dangerous
and coy.
2.
Traces of Origin
It starts first
with the odd
places, places to live
called Chicken
or Catacomb,
buildings and nests brooding
on top of air,
squatter houses free
of rent--
habitations set
superficially on trampled fields:
small two-rooms affairs,
unpainted brown,
or fragile red--
rusted roofs
(that are hot to look at),
and an oil drum to catch
rainwater runoff.
Then
the odd jobs.
I got rocks to till,
with the family too big
too poor for books--
sure you can't learn
soon enough but
to bury the dead
and to dance to the songs
of beer bottles clonking away
on the table:
a bottle of Demon
Rum encourages blood
to flow through
my veins again.
3.
Remembering History
I never wanted our black,
our aura
to mingle this way.
But there was the skin,
the smell of skin:
the bumps and scratches
that would enrage
me.
The memories
in the dark
when I touch my nose,
pinch my lips into a dull
tulip
and say sorry for my face,
have settled
like dirt,
between my knuckles
and cannot be washed away.
Money sets
us apart, but
color
distorts,
separates us
from the one self
we recognize,
and to which we remain
close.
4.
Letter to Auntie
Even on the dull
mosquito-biting days,
my head beats
with fever,
some fever
that rises in whirlwind
and beats like a fish
away from water.
This sentence
of boredom,
of idleness and long
waits,
is my imminent homelessness:
washed this way
that way
like brown coconuts
on the shore.
I don't belong here
between rusted bars.
Tall and toothless
with a loud man's voice,
a dreamer I say,
not just
full time crazy, criminal:
locked like a monstrous object.
5.
A Police Report
They say he was
mean,
a burglar, a murderer,
a cause for deep disrespect.
Big and Strong,
rough and ready,
a good soul
with the laugh of a free-
man:
He was guarding his freedom
fenced out each night
like a goat
waiting for the slaughter
house. Til
that disturbed pool of blue
locked in his eyes,
rocking to rest
in an instant stillness.
The bright lights,
cheers
and flies
fluttering over his
open stomach.
On these hills
life is two-dimensional.
Somehow we don't share
each other's past;
And I cut
it away and divide
with mathematical precision,
which all my life
I sought to avoid.
There were real tears
when he got shot.
Tears of babies
outside at sunset,
the night,
the fields
growing dark.
Tears of men
in the middle of great
achievement,
men who longed
to be the first men
in the world,
who longed to do
penance
for the entire race
since they feel the lack
of sympathy,
an early impatience
given to despair,
and now indifference.
A curious neutrality
of perception, of pain
and I wanted to cry
with all the rage
when something
receives a scratch
or a dent
and we know
it is all destroyed.
6.
The Burglar of Babylon
By Elizabeth Bishop
On the fair green hills of Rio
There grows a fearful stain:
The poor who come to Rio
And can't go home again.
On the hills a million people,
A million sparrows, nest,
Like a confused migration
That's had to light and rest,
Building its nests, or houses,
Out of nothing at all, or air.
You'd think a breath would end them,
They perch so lightly there.
But they cling and spread like lichen,
And people come and come.
There's one hill called the Chicken,
And one called Catacomb;
There's the hill of Kerosene,
And the hill of Skeleton,
The hill of Astonishment,
And the hill of Babylon.
Micuçú was a burglar and killer,
An enemy of society.
He had escaped three times
From the worst penitentiary.
They don't know how many he murdered
(Though they say he never raped),
And he wounded two policemen
This last time he escaped.
They said, "He'll go to his auntie,
Who raised him like a son.
She has a little drink shop
On the hill of Babylon."
He did go straight to his auntie,
And he drank a final beer.
He told her, "The soldiers are coming,
And I've got to disappear."
"Ninety years they gave me.
Who wants to live that long?
I'll settle for ninety hours,
On the hill of Babylon.
"Don't tell anyone you saw me.
I'll run as long as I can.
You were good to me, and I love you,
But I'm a doomed man."
Going out, he met a mulata
Carrying water on her head.
"If you say you saw me, daughter,
You're as good as dead."
There are caves up there, and hideouts,
And an old fort, falling down.
They used to watch for Frenchmen
From the hill of Babylon.
Below him was the ocean.
It reached far up the sky,
Flat as a wall, and on it
Were freighters passing by,
Or climbing the wall, and climbing
Till each looked like a fly,
And then fell over and vanished;
And he knew he was going to die.
He could hear the goats baa-baa-ing.
He could hear the babies cry;
Fluttering kites strained upward;
And he knew he was going to die.
A buzzard flapped so near him
He could see its naked neck.
He waved his arms and shouted,
"Not yet, my son, not yet!"
An Army helicopter
Came nosing around and in.
He could see two men inside it,
but they never spotted him.
The soldiers were all over,
On all sides of the hill,
And right against the skyline
A row of them, small and still.
Children peeked out of windows,
And men in the drink shop swore,
And spat a little cachaça
At the light cracks in the floor.
But the soldiers were nervous, even
with tommy guns in hand,
And one of them, in a panic,
Shot the officer in command.
He hit him in three places;
The other shots went wild.
The soldier had hysterics
And sobbed like a little child.
The dying man said, "Finish
The job we came here for."
he committed his soul to God
And his sons to the Governor.
They ran and got a priest,
And he died in hope of Heaven
--A man from Pernambuco,
The youngest of eleven.
They wanted to stop the search,
but the Army said, "No, go on,"
So the soldiers swarmed again
Up the hill of Babylon.
Rich people in apartments
Watched through binoculars
As long as the daylight lasted.
And all night, under the stars,
Micuçú hid in the grasses
Or sat in a little tree,
Listening for sounds, and staring
At the lighthouse out at sea.
And the lighthouse stared back at him,
til finally it was dawn.
He was soaked with dew, and hungry,
On the hill of Babylon.
The yellow sun was ugly,
Like a raw egg on a plate--
Slick from the sea. He cursed it,
For he knew it sealed his fate.
He saw the long white beaches
And people going to swim,
With towels and beach umbrellas,
But the soldiers were after him.
Far, far below, the people
Were little colored spots,
And the heads of those in swimming
Were floating coconuts.
He heard the peanut vendor
Go peep-peep on his whistle,
And the man that sells umbrellas
Swinging his watchman's rattle.
Women with market baskets
Stood on the corners and talked,
Then went on their way to market,
Gazing up as they walked.
The rich with their binoculars
Were back again, and many
Were standing on the rooftops,
Among TV antennae.
It was early, eight or eight-thirty.
He saw a soldier climb,
Looking right at him. He fired,
And missed for the last time.
He could hear the soldier panting,
Though he never got very near.
Micuçú dashed for shelter.
But he got it, behind the ear.
He heard the babies crying
Far, far away in his head,
And the mongrels barking and barking.
Then Micuçú was dead.
He had a Taurus revolver,
And just the clothes he had on,
With two contos in the pockets,
On the hill of Babylon.
The police and the populace
Heaved a sigh of relief,
But behind the counter his auntie
Wiped her eyes in grief.
"We have always been respected.
My shop is honest and clean.
I loved him, but from a baby
Micuçú was mean.
"We have always been respected.
His sister has a job.
Both of us gave him money.
Why did he have to rob?
"I raised him to be honest,
Even here, in Babylon slum."
The customers had another,
Looking serious and glum.
But one of them said to another,
When he got outside the door,
“He wasn't much of a burglar,
He got caught six times--or more."
This morning the little soldiers
are on Babylon hill again;
Their gun barrels and helmets
Shine in a gentle rain.
Micuçú is buried already.
They're after another two,
But they say they aren't as dangerous
As the poor Micuçú.
On the green hills of Rio
There grows a fearful stain:
The poor who come to Rio
And can't go home again.
There's the hill of Kerosene,
And the hill of the Skeleton,
The hill of Astonishment,
And the hill of Babylon.
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