Poor night's sleep. Tubed it to work this morning, I felt a strong sensation that my brain and body were barely on nodding terms. Not a feeling I liked. As this was going on I was reading (aptly enough) the first few pages of The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa. I've been trying to write something about visiting his house in Lisbon early last year. I've not connected to his poetry particularly yet, but he was a fascinating guy, and fixated with Astrology (as I once was) too. As you walk into the museum they've made of his house you find yourself standing on his horoscope which is carved into the marble floor. He famously wrote poets, not poems. He invented several poets with very different styles -- and cast horoscopes for them all too.

The first section of the Book of Disquiet is called A Factless Autobiography. Actually not a bad description for a blog.

Odd coincidence: Anton called me this morning and mentioned in passing that he'd found his signed copy of Tim's book that had been in storage for about 4 years.

The toad of work squats on me. I feel disquieted. But I have done one good thing today, which is apologise to two friends I have been shoddy to recently. I feel better for it. One was Reuben, and the other Bei Li -- to whom I made a very wounding remark about a month ago. Every time I have seen her since then I have felt ashamed. Making a proper appology over a cup of coffee and a carton of Ribena this morning was a very good thing to do, and she was graceful enough to accept it.

This is the story so far on the Pessoa poem... Bit of a holiday snapshot really.

Pessoa's house
Your shoes eclipse the leo moon
In the doorway; a stone starchart
And you step from his own tenth house
(Auspicious for enduring fame)
Into the poet's empty museum.
Traveller, you stepped from your tram
And you climbed up this hill to observe
His remains, but instead you disturb
Fame's deadness and poems you dislike.
Horoscopes web the outside wall
Not the product of chance and fate
But three careful calculations
Cast for these imagined poets:
Caeiro, de Campos, and Reis.
But there's nothing here to speak of
Nothing upstairs when you get there
But yourself and the character
You have constructed today
Who may or may not be you,
And might already be forgotten.


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