Teresinka Pereira: Brazilian-American poet, President of the International Writers and Artists Association (IWA), President of the International Congress of the Society of Latin Culture. She received from the Knights of Malta Sovereign Order of St. John of Jerusalem the hereditary title of "Dame of Grace", signed by the Grand Prior S.O.S.J. Dom K. Vella Haber (Malta, January 8, 1997). January 1999 she was appointed Senator of the International Parliament for Safety and Peace. Dr. Teresinka Pereira received, in 1985, the noble title of Dame of Maggistral Grace from Dom Waldemar Baroni Santos, Prince of Brazil, for her literary merits. Teresinka received a Ph.D. in Romance Languages from the University of New Mexico, USA, and in 1997 received the Doctor Honoris Causa degree from the University Simon Bolivar, in Colombia. In 1972 she received the National Prize for Theater in Brazil, in 1977 she was nominated Poet of the Year by the Canadian Society of Poets, and in 1992 was nominated Personality of the Year by the Brazilian Writers Union. She was awarded a golden "Laurel Wreath" as "Laureate Woman of Letters" from the United Poets Laureate International (UPLI). In 1994 she was the winner of the Su-Se Ru International Literary Magazine Company Prize in Korea, and in Greece, she was the winner of the Prize City of Athens. Also in 1994 was elected Director of International Affairs of the Society of Latin Culture. Since 1989 she is a member of the North American Academy of Spanish Language, correspondent of the Royal Spanish Academy.
Could anyone believe
that Aliens are
modern Knights
from their distant planet
visiting our Earth
in order to research
how humans live,
with their head full of hair,
full eyelids covering
their eyes when sleeping?
We are afraid of them
because they look naked,
although they seem to be
very civilized and be able
to read our minds, maybe
taking knowledge
of our fears!
In feeble voice
without the necessary energy
to say neither true
nor a lie
but a difficult “goodbye”
with stressed letters
scratching the throat,
grumbling an “I don’t know”
and leaving by the path
without looking back.
“Goodbye” is always
an assault to our
most intimate emotion.
It is like stopping
in the middle of the road
not knowing where to go.
Metaphors may fill you with themes.
They are not vain words
because if you take the wine
of your own invention, it will become rain
and water for the arid desert
of your soul.
Besides this you use again
the childhood games
to kill the night with fear
which torments like an avantgarde
baroque thirst or a twisted catharsis
stripping in your hands
the attraction of thousands pleasures
never touched before…
But I don’t care for any of this:
I am a ballerina without music
My pupils look at the monitor
and all I see are questions
I do not know how to answer.
In an igneous flight
lyric birds take off from my mouth
and have no place to go.
Maybe the eagle, —without its role
of symbol— may fly with a winning life,
going through the windows and doors
from town to town until it reaches
the sea, and gets free.
But here we are trapped in the
desperation of a useless thought,
and cannot conquer time, this
transparent enemy, hidden in itself,
devouring our strength.
How to write about this flow
of infidelity, without crying,
without feeling the hands empty,
counting the days that
go fast running before us all?
Poetry has life
and future,
is soul and skin,
hope and nostalgia.
I sigh every minute
of the day
looking at
the immensity
of the sky
that covers us
and I make myself
the master of the night.
Today I will not work,
I will just live.
I decreed that my testimony
of this week will be
my liberation
from this hard duty
of being present
in the planet.
Rigorously I confirm
that I am lightning
in the surprised museum
of this city.
Today I discovered that
I have centuries marked
in my genes and that
my polymorphism
is vain but authentic.
I am not surprised that
today I feel of more
importance than the sunset.
