Tobacco Kiosk by Fernando Pessoa

Tobacco Kiosk by Fernando Pessoa

Probably my favorite poem of all time.

Some Chocolate

Isn’t it funny: that dreamy state of mind?

Nostalgia, regret, wandering

into the past. It doesn’t really exist,

 

you know? Outside of our minds,

of course. It comes and goes as ideas;

The way life might have been—

 

A year ago,

A month ago,

Yesterday?

 

I am stuck in a dream with experiences real

and unreal, woven together

in the illusionary web of time.

 

I have met Borges as Borges.

I met Zarathustra and scoffed at the Superman.

I stood at the edge of absurdity with Camus,

 

and anguished over Abraham with Kierkegaard.

I have done all

and none of these things.

 

I have lived, and dreamt, and slept

a thousand lifetimes. Words scribbled

on a piece of paper. Words that will mean

 

nothing. Words that mean everything

right now. All we have are moments.

The rest is a dream;

 

The rest is a lie.

A Man

“Forgive me Lord for I have sinned,”

said the man. A faded blue coat

hung loosely over his arm.

The church was musty and desolate;

the man desperate and afraid.

He had not been in a church since he was a kid–

he had not wanted to return.

 

He entered the confession box. A rat

scampered out but he didn’t notice.

He brushed off the seat, noticed the dirt

that now covered his hand, and sat down.

“Forgive my heart and my mind. Forgive me

for this wasted life. If I only knew…”

He paused and coughed harshly,

 

“Forgive me for Katie, it shouldn’t have been.

Forgive me for cruelness–then and now and always.

Forgive me for my bastardization,

Forgive me for my masturbation.

I’m only human.

Not some worldly power

bent on mass annihilation.

Not some animal

who eats, shits, and sleeps.

I’m only human.”

 

He fumbled in his coat for an old handkerchief

to brush away the tears

that began to streak down his cheeks.

 

“No one told me what to believe.

No one told me that life was like this.

Where were You, when I needed help?

Where were You, all-powerful, all-good,

Almighty God,

when my wife died in labor with my son,

who died two months later, in my arms?

Where were You, in my loneliness.

Where are You now? I stand on your doorstep,

my mortality no longer a fiction to me.”

 

Half expecting an answer, the man waits.

But there never was an answer.

 

A smile creeps across the man’s face,

Tears still streaming from his eyes,

“I suppose I’ll never know.

I’m only human.”

Why

Through the times,

I pass time by:

Just sitting here or there

Wondering why?

Why to live,

And why to die?

Why to laugh,

or even, why to cry?

I wonder why people lie,

I wonder why people try.

I wonder why, why rhymes with so many words.

Who I am, and why I am–

But these things I surely cannot know.

Life is wondering,

And why is certainly the question.

Life makes it possible

to wonder why.

To disagree,

Or to be a skeptic.

I wonder why everyday,

Why people act a certain way.

Question things that you have heard,

And WHY they are being told to you.

Who, and what, and when and where,

How can they even compare?

To the reasons behind the action or place,

The person or the face.

Why is the reason we are here today.

Why is the reason there is a tomorrow.

Why is the reason there was a yesterday.

I wonder why.

“I am nothing
I shall always be nothing
I cannot wish to be anything.
Aside from that, I have within me all the dreams of the world.”

Fernando Pessoa