"Respitory & Disaster" (Pessoa XXX.)

Bare black branches dangling skeins of untruth;
the turtle turns on its own.
The smell of tar the gleam of turquoise cubefruit
as traffic through construction t'ward unknown
goals crawls. Our robots scan the skies; [sky's]
our autumn swords gavotte in freezing rain.
I watch the biohazard sign, and lies
on television surge. The clang of pain
covers ev'rything. A tale told ill
is black ice forming. We had only hoped
the worst would miss us, we did not yet feel
united with the murk in which we groped:
this human malaise, 5sycei wound for measure's [measures]
bourn, tar cuisine and turquoise pleasures.

    "A Good Dull Mule" (Pessoa XXXI.)

When in the chronicle of wasted time
the under-kingdoms rage of consciousness
a moment or an age, their cardboard clime
finds one who scoffs, essentially countryless.
Where paper-blurrers run the show, there's scant escape.

Steel were the shapes i dreamed;
upon such stith as clouds i wrought each shape.
Despite the stigma of print, my rathe slates gleamed
as truculent as sweet. Will be remembered
march in formation troops, or wrecks conceived
at launch? Steel shapes appear, as recently dead
as words i cast on the wind, fast disbelieved.
How few are they who understand him yet
olive corduroy walls choose not to get.