José Régio is a portuguese poet. This is one of my favorites poems.
"come this way" — some say with sweet eyes
opening their arms, and certain
that it would be good if I would listen
when they say: "come this way"!
I look at them with languidly,
(my eyes filled with irony and tiredness)
and I cross my arms,
and I never go that way...
this is my glory:
to create inhumanity!
to accompany no one.
— for I live with the same unwillingness
with which i tore my mother's womb
no, I won't go that way! I only go where
my own steps take me...
if to what I seek to know no one can answer
why do you repeat: "come this way"?
I rather crawl thru muddy alleys,
to whirl in the wind,
like rags, to drag my bleeding feet,
than to go that way...
if I came to this world, it was
only to deflower virgin forests,
and to draw my own footsteps in the unexplored sand!
all else I do is worth nothing.
how can you be the ones
that give me impulses, tools and courage
to overcome my own obstacles?
the blood of our ancestors runs thru your veins,
And you love what is easy!
I love the Far and the Mirage,
I loves the abysses, the torrents, the deserts...
go! you have roads,
you have gardens, you have flower-beds,
you have a nation, you have roofs,
and you have rules, and treaties, and philosophers, and wise men.
I have my Madness!
I hold it high like a torch burning in the dark night,
and I feel foam, and blood, and chants on my lips...
God and the Devil guide me, no one else!
everyone's had a father, everyone's had a mother;
but I, who never begin or end,
was born of the love between God and the Devil.
ah! don't give me sympathetic intentions!
don't asks me for definitions!
don't tells me: "come this way"!
my life is a whirlwind that broke loose,
it's a wave that rose.
it's one more atom that ignited...
I don’t know which way I’ll go,
I don't know where I'm going to,
- I know I'm not going that way!
Original version (Portuguese):