Rita Dahl

Translated by the author

 

The city of white stairs

Lisbon, city of white stairs, numberless poets
have descended your stairs, your loin-like stairs,
describing that descent towards
the glimmering blue Tagus with its
hints of yellow. Or they've
sat in the furthest corners
of dark bars wondering why their
lives are so miserable, why their destinies
are too long for something that can't be put into words,
drunk these little cups dry and asked for more, asked why
life hadn't given them a different role to play. And they have
described descending the stairs, described longing for something
unsaid that they would never achieve and, as if to prove these words, they
drink more booze so that they might feel something, even for a moment, even the
oblivion of drunkenness and they write about getting drunk and at the same
time get even drunker. And they drain their cups dry, write verses
on the stairs that lead them down to the Tagus, on other cups that are
still to be emptied so that
this rolling downhill might be forgotten and life might take an
upward curve, like
the idea of flying or the act of flying itself, they rise from their chairs
as if they were just getting up and heading out through the bar door while
the last customers call out their names.

 

Copyright © 2008, Rita Dahl.

Rita Dahl is a Finnish poet whose work has appeared in anthologies and journals in Portugal, Australia, Great Britain, the United States, Nigeria and Canada. Her first collection of poems Kun luulet olevasi yksin was published in 2004 by Loki-Kirjat press. She is Vice President of the Finnish PEN Centre and is working on a book about her travels through Portugal.