Whispers of September
in this city that will always be mine
built with walls made of stories
bringing present in myself
then
From visions through the windows
like a flower waiting to bloom
I feel the morning breeze
that loves the desires of my soul
I recall glances
on the streets where I have lived
In alleys without name
that touched my lives
replacing emptiness and solitude
with horizons yet to be loved
These are my postcards
from a thousand dreams
of a city forever belonging to kings
the castle of all my memories
Lisboa Antigua
Author notes
Whispers of September in Lisbon Portugal from a Texas girl
In a list
- A Critical Circle group list • next in list
A contest entry
- Culture Shock by SizzyFid.
800 points, ended May 31, 11 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - Prompt contest—four choices by CrystalLizard.
1050 points, ended May 28, 14 entries
Bronze trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - PRWRITE CONTEST FOR ALL by serenity silvermoon.
900 points, ended August 2, 1023 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - Give Me Your Best Prewrite! by FluorescentFixation.
1200 points, ended August 4, 68 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
What did you think
Comments
1 - 22 of 22
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Outstanding
I thought this was artistic and endearing. You capture something of the city in your words and yet you don't forget your own roots and where you are from. The second stanza was my favourite - I liked the image of the flowers suggesting new horizons. Congratulations on the trophy.
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"These are my postcards
from a thousand dreams
of a city forever belonging to kings
the castle of all my memories"
Pure inspiration there. Thank you. -
Great stuff!!!
Endearing, soft & touching with a yearning & tenderness of times past colliding with the present in dreams trancending the here & now...
Keep up the good work...
Well done!!!
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the images transported me to this city ... excellent last stanza.
congrats on the bronze.
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Thank you so very much!
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This is a really beautiful poem. I particularly liked the line "horizons yet to be loved". So full of hope, and an optimism.
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Thank you so much for reading and for your wonderful comment, they've made me so very happy, as this was a piece of my soul....love and light, Dixie
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Lovely, indeed! And congrats on a well deserved trophy! I have heard some say Lisbon is the most beautiful city in the world! Your verses are certainly evocative!
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Thank you so my dear Bruce! It is indeed, to me, the most beautiful city in the world, such passion, on so many levels. I am returning there this September again for a visit, I can hardly wait! It was after this first trip that I was able to start writing! Thanks so much again! Love and Light, Dixie
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a pleasant surprise indeed
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I love the way you've taken the prompt and tied it to memory. I love the lines "built with walls made of stories" and "with horizons yet to be loved." The whole third stanza is my favorite, actually. Thank you for entering, and good luck!
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Sweet remembrances.... it is so beautifully expressed.... i loved it especially since I have had to change cities once that was when i was little but I have my own memories .... so well expressed this one is that i can hardly put words to what I felt reading this
I recall glances
on the streets where I have lived
In alleys without name
that touched my lives
replacing emptiness and solitude
with horizons yet to be loved
remembering all the small things about where I used to live the tree blossming in welcome when i returned from school the streets and stairs of the apartment... all those thing which i never cared about when i was there ....
exceptionally penned
I love it
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please know that I am truly humbled by your words and your heart. I completely understand what you mean, about the memories, you feel as I do...and I can see you have such a beautiful nostalgic soul...its a precious gift....and having you feel this as you did, is truly the best reward for it was meant to touch...THANK YOU SO!
LOVE AND LIGHT ALWAYS
DAWN
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Wondefully expressed and perfectly penned.
I can feel the memories and thoughts you've spilled into this piece of writing, and it pleases me.
The poem flows beautifully and uses some very deep description to get your point across.
The last stanza is particularly effective, almost like a young child's fairytale dreams, with castles and kings, etc. Certainly, a dream-like quality. I also like how you tied in post-cards. Post cards from a past time, what lovely memories.
"In alleys without name"
Makes me think you know the places, you remember the look, the feel... Yet you can't "put a name to a face" if that makes sense?
This is really quite stunning,
Thank you for sharing! x -
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I am so humbled with your words, truly. Infact I'm at a loss for words. I was only writing that which I felt in my heart and soul, however I wanted to do it in such a way, that it touched someone...THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH, you have made me so happy knowing that it did indeed, touch you. That is the greatest reward! Bless You Always! Dawn
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Superb
A very excellent write. You expressed your thoughts quite well. Thanks for sharing this one with us. Again, well done.
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Thank you so very much, you did lift my spirits today!
Love and Light
Dawn
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Just beautiful and very much touching to great extent..a poet's heart is very much alive inthe words of great poetry..well stated piece..
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Thank you so much for your wonderful kind words, I am deeply honored by them...today, you warmed my heart, Bless you always!
Love and Light
Dawn
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This is amazing. Your memories are so strong here, and you show them so well. The colours and the photo make the effect even more stunning. I loved the phrase, “this city that will always be mine”, and of course the last line, they were incredible. A truly beautiful poem.
btw, this is the second time today I have read the word “saudade” – I have no idea what it means but if I read it a third time I will have to go and look it up
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Thank you so much, for coming and reading and sharing this with me, its truly part of my soul. Now let me help
I have a short blog on Saudade on myspace so here it is and you'll now...and then we can do lots of things with it 
)
Saudade is a Portuguese word that appears here and there in English writings. Usually the writer will give brief explanation, something along the lines of "The Portuguese word for the presence of absence'" It is often be touted as 'untranslatable'. The result is that saudade is seen as a type of bittersweet super-nostalgia, bigger and better than anything that the English speaking world can truly understand. How poetic!
Well, I have no poetry in my soul, but I do have a Portuguese dictionary. And it turns out that the definition of saudade translates very neatly into English.
And here's the translation. No translation is 100 percent indisputable, but in this case, it's a pretty straightforward and bland task.
Saudade feminine noun. A memory sad, but sweet, of persons or things that are distant or lost, accompanied by the desire to see or have them again; To feel grief over the absence of a person whom you love; nostalgia; (Bot.) The common name of various plants of the family Dipsacaceae (the teasels), and their flowers; (in the plural; saudades) Affectionate remembrances of those who have died; (in the plural; saudades) may be used as a greeting.
Well, that sucked the romance right out, didn't it? But as you might expect, the themes of missing those you love and homesickness are a major component of poetry and songs, including the famous Portuguese fado. When English speakers have tried to translate these songs they came upon the problem that the writer/singer is filling the piece with strong emotion and, hopefully, beauty. In English the phrases "I have longing", "I am with longing" sound awkward and wrong, with a distinct lack of beauty. If you simply replaced saudade with the word 'nostalgia' you would usually have a good translation, but it would sound clumsy. Faced with the difficulty of translating a word that just doesn't fit grammatically into English, the English-speaking world decided to give up. Just use the Portuguese word that fills the grammatical position so well, and pretend that we couldn't translate it if we tried.
Longing, nostalgia, and missing someone who is not there are all well developed ideas in English, and there's no need to pretend that saudade is anything that we don't speak about in our everyday lives. We tend to emphasize the feeling as a verb (I long for you, I miss you), and avoid using it as a noun (I have longing, I feel nostalgia for you). But the idea is the same.
Having said all that, there is the idea of Saudosismo, an artistic and philosophical idea that appears in the early 1900s. This is a highly poignant nostalgia for the way things used to be. The longing for the old folkways, the idealization of the life that once was, the desire to escape the modern world and live as the noble Portuguese one did.
This movement has added an extra dimension to the word saudade. Sometimes it is used in the context of glorifying lost ways of life, reaffirming the Portuguese cultural identity, and bringing the nostalgia for Portuguese history to an almost religious plane. But this is not really a sense that English speakers really have any reason to use. The English mythology of saudade doesn't really have any Portuguese counterpart. -
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How many stars can I give this reply? It deserves way more than five! That was absolutely fascinating – yes, the other poet was saying it was almost impossible to translate, but you did an amazing job. Thanks for going to the trouble of finding that for me, I really appreciate it
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