Walser (A Possession)
Ismar Tirelli Neto

I go out on the street to pick up some noise. Everyone speaks my language
for my love is without limit. I smear sunscreen all over my face,

gently put my face to a cloth to remove excess. The face
of Christ! The face of Christ! No, one shouldn’t

muck about with such things. In all my travels I’ve seen moths.
I’m not a well-travelled man. Shall I tell you how summers sear

back where I come from? After the man at the ice cream stand asks what do
you do, I’m a poet, moderno?, then comes the dizzy spell, faint, bashed

nose against the edge of a fountain. But this is years later.

Ismar Tirelli Neto is a Brazilian poet, occasional fictionist, and translator. He has been publishing steadily since 2008. His more recent output tends to center on a critique of the "confessional," a basic distrust of language's communicative powers that does not fail to take into account the oppressed subject's overpowering need to communicate. The poem featured here was written directly in English during a stay in Switzerland as a Pro Helvetia fellow in 2024.