Piantao (Crazy)

Source


Here are two ballads to nuttyness. The first is a poem by George Bilgere, and the second is a tango, music by Astor Piazzolla and lyrics by Horacio Ferrer. I coppied the words in English, but the better Spanish version can be found here.


I am well aware that this blog has many fewer readers than Commondreams.org where this poem was copied from, but I liked it. So here it is, reproduced in "Thoughts".


Bridal Shower
by George Bilgere

Perhaps, in a distant café,
four or five people are talking
with the four or five people
who are chatting on their cell phones this morning
in my favorite café.

And perhaps someone there,
someone like me, is watching them as they frown,
or smile, or shrug
at their invisible friends or lovers,
jabbing the air for emphasis.

And, like me, he misses the old days,
when talking to yourself
meant you were crazy,
back when being crazy was a big deal,
not just an acronym
or something you could take a pill for.

I liked it
when people who were talking to themselves
might actually have been talking to God
or an angel.
You respected people like that.

You didn't want to kill them,
as I want to kill the woman at the next table
with the little blue light on her ear
who has been telling the emptiness in front of her
about her daughter's bridal shower
in astonishing detail
for the past thirty minutes.

O person like me,
phoneless in your distant café,
I wish we could meet to discuss this,
and perhaps you would help me
murder this woman on her cell phone,

after which we could have a cup of coffee,
maybe a bagel, and talk to each other,
face to face.

Piantao
by Horacio Ferrer

Recited

The afternoons in Buenos Aires have this... well, you know.
You leave your house down Arenales Avenue.
The usual : on the street and in you...
Then suddenly, from behind a tree,
I show up.

Rare mix of the next to last tramp
and the first stowaway on a trip to Venus:
a half melon on the head,
a striped shirt painted on the skin,
two leather soles nailed to the fet,
and a taxi-for-hire flag up in each hand.

You laugh! But only you can see me:
because the mannequins wink at me,
the traffic lights flash me three lights sky-blue
and the oranges at the corner grocery stand
cast their blossoms at me.
Come on!, that this way, half dancing, half flying,
I remove the melon to greet you.
I give you a little flag and I tell you...

Sung

l know I'm crazy, crazy, crazy...
don't you see the moon rolling through Callao;
a second line of astronauts and children
waltzing around me... Dance! Come! Fly!

I know I'm crazy, I'm crazy, I'm crazy...
I see Buenos Aires from a sparrow's nest;
and I saw you so sad... Come! Fly! Feel!...
the crazy desire I have for you:

Crazy! Crazy! Crazy!
As darkness sets in your porteña loneliness,
by the shores of your bedsheet I'll come
with a poem and a trombone
to keep your heart sleepless.

Crazy! Crazy! Crazy!
Like a demented acrobat I'll dive,
into the abyss of your cleavage 'till I feel
I drove your heart crazy with freedom.
You'll see!

Recited

Let's go flying, my dear.
get on my super sport illusion,
let's run over the cornices
with a swallow in the engine.
From Vieytes they applaud: "Hooray! Hooray!",
the nuts who invented Love,
and an angel, a soldier and a girl
give us a dancing waltz.

The beautiful people come out to say hello.
And crazy, but yours, I don't know!;
I cause a stridency of bells with my laugh,
and finally, I look at you, and sing softly

Sung

Love me this way I am, crazy, crazy, crazy...
climb up into my insane tenderness,
don a wig of larks on your head and fly!
Fly with me now! Come! Fly! Come!

Love me the way I am, crazy, crazy, crazy...
open up your love, we are going to attempt
the crazy magic of reviving...
Come , fly , come! Trai-lai-lai-larara!

Yelling

Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!
She's crazy and I'm crazy...
Crazy! Crazy! Crazy!
She's crazy and so am I.

References:
1. Clown picture: http://www.fotosearch.com/DSN020/1804923/
2. Poem by Bilgere: http://www.commondreams.org/further/only-14-you-out-there-who-remain-ambivalent-about-incessant-place-cell-phones-our-lives-need
3. Lyrics by Ferrer: http://www.planet-tango.com/lyrics/bal-loco.htm