Portuguese poetry – João Ricardo Lopes

November 14, 2026November 14, 2026

Blindness

BLINDNESS

for Marcus Margrave

I noticed my blindness bit by bit,
when I looked at landscapes and forgot to see,
while at night the letters turned into people
and upon them I lay, unable
to read their face or their exact blood

I must have gone blind slowly, perhaps after
that January when I filled my head with lingering calculations
on the distance and the size
of pain
things were all around me and I smelled them,
I could touch them,
I sensed the keen outline
of their nails, yet without distinguishing them
clearly

I looked at the long rows of poplars crossing
the horizon, I looked at the birds
with their plier-grip upon the light, yet saw nothing:
letters broke with fever across foreheads
and I did not know how to kiss their name
or their laughter

I was going blind
and that much was certain: without my knowing it, dear friend,
I was dying

Poem by João Ricardo Lopes | Translated by Marcus Margrave (2026)

July 22, 2026

The Gypsies’s Fire

THE GYPSIES’S FIRE

to Catarina

in the south of Lanzarote, near Playa Blanca,
in a place they call Los Charcones,
I saw the closest thing on earth
to the moon

the landscape is covered in pyroclasts, in hardened ash,
in dust.
nothing survives here, save the creeping euphorbia
and one or another species of lizard

but at night this desert fills with bonfires,
with small scattered flames
between walls and tents

they say it’s the gypsies’ fire,
no one knows where they come from or where they go.
and I say blessed be they, for they exist

Poem by João Ricardo Lopes from the book Em Nome da Luz (2022 | Translated by Marcus Margrave (2026)

May 15, 2026

Poetry, You ask

.
POETRY, YOU ASK

Abbās Ibn Firnās climbed a towering height and, strapped to two wings,
first, he plunged into the abyss, then he glided over the skies of Córdoba.
tears of joy broke out, praise be to Allah!
centuries later, long before Leonardo, Eilmer also flew,
above Malmesbury Abbey, imitating the craft of birds.
God have mercy on that madman!

poetry, you ask?
always that same death‑defying leap into the void,
and somehow one survives it, again, and again, and again

.
Poem by João Ricardo Lopes | Translated by Marcus Margrave (2026)

May 10, 2026May 10, 2026

Praise

PRAISE

I find my peace descending through the notebook
towards a blank page

besieged by noise and by emptiness, my words
hold themselves in reserve for You, for the radiance of morning,
for the voice that leads me along the tortuous thread
of time

in my fingers I feel the rigor of water, the labor
of soap, Your joy

like grasses greening in the earth, the words flow:
I know men will come with their many blades,
they will come with the fire of their loveless hearts
and that small infinite light may not endure
beyond half a season

but it does not matter.
there was in my wrists the tremor, the miracle
repeated from the days of the beginning
and I know that every poem is born for You, all the green
of humble, useless things
and I know that I am fortunate, because You taught me so

Poem by João Ricardo Lopes | Translated by Marcus Margrave (2026)

May 6, 2026May 7, 2026

My Father

MY FATHER

my father sets stakes in the backyard.
at his age he still lifts the tangled rows of peas,
the strawberries, and the white blossoms of the plum tree,
and later the beautiful, heavy bodies of its fruit.
he crouches, in silence, mending wire threads,
braiding and unbraiding the pumpkin ropes.
sometimes, toward nightfall, he keeps tying
and untying knots,
always crouched, always with his back turned.
if we offer him a word, water, a handful of walnuts,
he raises a hand in quiet protest.
why does my father work so much.
to whom does he wish to pass, with such pain,
his stakes lifted to the sky.
what does his weary tongue say, full of hints,
already hungry – I want to believe – for eternity

.

Poem by João Ricardo Lopes | Translated by Marcus Margrave (2026)

February 10, 2026March 27, 2026

Rembrandt’s sadness

REMBRANDT’S SADNESS

the question was always this:
can someone’s sadness, at any time, in any place,
ever find a way to be satisfied?

we have our doubts about the matter

sadness shares with water the sin of avarice.
first it skips about, then it digs itself in,
and a little further on it hollows out sombre lights
through the hills,
one day it cuts across our path

“you shall not pass,” it writes under its breath,
“you shall not pass”

let us consider the case of Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn

his pain seems limitless, growing from portrait
to portrait, like a river that knows itself unstoppable
in its predatory course

looking into his eyes as they look into the mirror,
we see Saskia and the promissory notes, old age imprinted
in the swellings and the cracks of the skin

what is the size or the depth of his grief?

we have an idea about the matter,
water is a good term of comparison

one day it makes us sink into a delirium of silver‑gelatin paper.
but not even there, not even then, does it show itself fully sated.
sadness will not abide the earth’s crust,
its kingdom lies in the deepest hells,
or even beyond them.

Poem by João Ricardo Lopes

Official Website: https://joaoricardolopes.com

João Ricardo Lopes is a contemporary Portuguese poet and writer.

More about:
https://joaoricardolopes.com/about/

February 4, 2026March 27, 2026

February

FEBRUARY

you will often return to yourself
as one enters places where hearths once burned
and where the smell of smoke lingers
melancholic
and invisible

an autumnal or wintry mustiness
grips your startled hands
and wants to sink them into the earth

so take the necessary precautions

when the tangle of days on your shoulder blade
feels like cement or hatred in its pure state,
leave the house, breathe the grasses, bite their stems
hard

don’t ask why, bite them,
and that’s that