A Poem by Álvaro de Campos

Ah, how refreshing it is when we fail to do our duty!
It’s like being in the countryside!
Unreliability becomes a refuge!
I breathe more easily now that I’ve missed all my appointments.
Yes, I missed them all, with the deliberateness of neglect,
I waited to feel the desire to go there, a desire I knew wouldn’t come.
I am free, the enemy of organized, clothed society.
I am naked, and I plunge into the waters of my imagination.
It’s too late for me to be in either of the two places where I should be at this hour,
Deliberately arranged for the same hour…
It’s fine, I’ll stay here dreaming poems and smiling in italics.
It’s so amusing this bystanding part of life!
I can’t even manage to light my next cigarette… That would be a gesture,
And it can stay there with the others that await me in the missed meeting that is life.