"This" - by Fernando Pessoa

They say I fake or lie
in everything I write.
No, its symply that
With me imagination
Feels - I don't use
The heart.

All I dream or go through,
All I fail or lose out
On, is like a terrace
Facing something else
Again. And that's the lovely
Thing.

It's why I write
Steeped in things not readily
At hand - free of emotions,
Serious about what isn't.
Feelings? That's the reader
Lot!

(1933 ?)


translated and edited by Edwin Honig and Susan M. Brown