My Old German Piano

As far as I can I can remember, I always wanted to play the piano. Even more than singing and acting, my childhood dream was to be able to play the piano. Not that I wanted to make a living as a piano player. What made me want to play the piano was the pleasure I had listening to the sounds of it, a personal pleasure that was almost a true need.

When I was about nine years old I began a real campaign to get a piano from my parents. I employed all the resources I could, from spreading notes around the house and on their personal belongings and clothes, to crying, having temper tantruns and doing psychological blackmail. But everything was to no avail -- all my arguments were ignored, and to my surprise what I got for my birthday was a guitar. According to my parents a guitar was easier to get rid of, when I’d put aside this childish passing fad of mine. A piano would be too expensive and too cumbersome just to satisfy a mere spoiled little girl’s whim. But as I unpacked the guitar, which was small enough to fit my small hands, instead of feeling devastated, I fell in love with it. I’d finally be able to learn music, and so be prepared for the time when I’d get my piano.

For several years during my childhood I learned how to play the guitar, and played it until I was a teenager. I’m not bragging when I say I played it divinely well.

My teacher was a very shy individual, and even after years of teaching me, he’d come into the house with his head down, speaking very little, and very seldon accepting the cookies and juice my mother offered him. His name was Sergio, and he was an average person neither handsome nor ugly, neither fat nor thin, bald, and I have no idea if he was tall or if I saw him as being tall because I was only a child.

Sergio loved to teach, and had a deep affection towards his guitar, which was somehow contagious and impossible to be forgotten, like the time when he was so happy because I announced I wanted to learn classical guitar!

I even think I’ve chosen to play classical guitar because it was a greater challenge than those easy cyphers without appeal, and sometime after that I felt a private teacher was not enough to satisfy my musical curiosity.

When I was 13 my parents realized the childish fad hadn’t passed, and they enrolled me in my first musical school, which was one of the best schools in Rio de Janeiro: Villa Lobos Institute. I loved it, I simply loved it . . . not only because I was learning something I really liked, but because this gave me the kind of independence I’ve never had. I could take the subway all by myself, after my father took me to the station, and this was a real challenge, because most of the time my parents didn’t allow me to be alone. I’d get off at Carioca Station, cross the park, and walk towards the school, which was very near, almost in front of the well-known musical store “The Golden Guitar." I’d always run to this store after my class was finished, to watch the end of the piano lessons they had right there on the middle of the store. I stared at its window, and pried into every nook and corner looking for newly arrived music sheets.

AfterI graduated from Musical Theory, and had learned all I thought was enough about playing the guitar, I made music my chosen profession. As a matter of fact, I’d had this idea since I was thirteen, and was already playing in some night spots, always chaperoned by my parents, who proudly sat in the audience. In fact, my father not only took me there, but he also helped setting the stage, checking on the light and sound system, participating on the scripts, and taking care of my agenda, and also of everything else a father-hero would.

At sixteen I went through the tests to enter the Order of Brazilian Musicians and was approved. This made me a professional singer, something I’d been learning since before I entered the music Institute. My singing teacher was an ex-Diva named Déa Scobar who wanted to make me an opera prodigy, due to my exquisite contralto voice. I never told her that what I really wanted was to play the piano.

In that same year, I diversified my artistic studies, I think due to this Aries -Gemini thing which never allowed me get to get settled into any exclusive interest.

Involved in College,where I was studying Architecture, I divided my time between several projects, rehersals for shows, and the production of my first record by the Continental Recording Company, who later on closed its doors to my work, because I got furious and yelled at the director when he began sexually harassing me. By this time, I had also decided to buy my piano come what may, so I had the brilliant idea of looking for a job, in order to make my dream come true.

I attended classes in Santa Ursula College for two reasons: first, because I was too young when I began college at fifteen, and my parents thought a girl of fifteen would be safer studying near home; second, because Santa Ursula was a very good Architecture School. But it was also a very expensive college, and I didn’t feel right pestering my parents again about the piano idea and another course to attend. That’s why I entered the public college a year later, which was very far from home, but was even better than Santa Ursula, the best you could get, but at the same time was also the most sought after and the most difficult to get in, since it was free, so I couldn’t get transferred. It would take me years to get this, I'd have to do the exams for I wanted all with urgency, as usual . . .

I chose the Niterói’s public College (Fluminese Federeal University) , because the campus had a grove that went all the way to the shore, with a kind of bucolic air that the other one lacked, especially with its huge rumbling house from the 19th century.

I had a whole year of school behind me, which put me in advantage with the other students, specially in some specific tests, and just as I expected, I got in. Now it was easier to discuss with my parents about piano lessons, since I’d gotten rid of at least this one financial "dependência"

I wrote my resumé, and went to the Antonio Adolfo School of Music. I was very clear: “I want to have popular music singing classes, and become a teacher here." I remember my graduation, when I gave Antonio Adolfo a singing course program I’d elaborated, and he let me have a classroom, a schedule and the job. The course was successful, and I went to another music school called Cenario, which belonged to Tomas Improta, and offered myself to teach there. I now had classes in two different music schools, went to college, participated in shows, and everything fitted into a nice schedule, and I remember getting up at five in the morning, taking a bus to the ferry boat, crossing the bay, taking another bus to go to campus -- my classes began at seven in the morning -- without ever getting tired, ever getting bored, ever thinking anything was a problem, even when sometimes I made the same route twice or more, because I had to go back to Rio to teach.

After a year had gone by, I was able to buy my piano. It was an old German closet piano with metal base and three pedals. I had to search the entire city to find it, because I wanted more than a piano, and even now I don’t know why, but I wanted an old piano, an antique, with carved wood and ivory keys, and mine even had a brass crest in it, because its owner had won third place in a quality contest on 19th century. The piano was in perfect condition, and had an unique sound, like something from the past. I paid a small fortune for it, because apart from being a very good instrument, I bought it in an antique store.

I can’t even begin to describe my happiness in changing my entire room to fit the piano, but it was a sweet feeling, as all happy feelings are in tender moments.

My passion made it easy to learn quickly. On my first week I missed all of my classes, and re-scheduled all of my student’s lessons, so because I couldn’t get off my piano seat, nor get my fingers off its ivory keyboard. Nobody in my house or in the entire neighborhood could have possibly ignored the repetitive sounds of a beginner coming from my German piano, but they didn’t complain, at least not at home, but even kept asking for more, encouraging me, “Wow, you’re getting so much better!”, and since nobody in the neighborhood complained either, I kept on playing.

With the piano at home I could give private singing lessons, and since I had my own unique method, my course made the news, and my home was so full of students, I had to stop giving classes at the music schools.

I interviewed a young man called Paulo once. He wanted classes, and after the phonoterapist’s approval, and all the other necessary tests, we began our lessons. He not only was a singer and a poet, but also a writer and an artist, and worked in a bank, Banco do Brasil to afford his art. All of those coincidences brought us together, and we became more than teacher and student, we became friends. Like myself, Paulo dreamed about learning to play the piano, but it was very much later that we came to know he was an HIV positive. At that time there was very little to be done about it but pray for a little longer life and a less painful death. When he received the test results, he called me, and neither one of us knew what to think or do. A few months later he left his job, and stopped coming to classes, because he couldn’t leave home anymore.

He came to visit me once, to sing a duet, something we both loved to do, but he wasn’t able to, since he couldn’t force his diaphragm. Before he left, I asked him to go to the street corner to call a guy who used to park his van there with a sign announcing, “we haul anything to anywhere." I asked the guy to load my German piano in his van and sent it to Paulo’s home.

The last news I had of Paulo came several years ago, stating that he spent hours playing the ivory keys, which had gotten out of tune in the move, but this never bothered him, since he still thought the sound was beautiful.

I never heard anything else about Paulo or my German piano, and even though I was never able to buy another piano, since life goes round and round, and it’s in constant change, I always felt good thinking about my student’s happiness on his last days, playing the out-of-tune keys. I feel so good that I don’t mind postponing my own dream of again sitting at the piano, re-learning the songs I’ve never played again, not even in my guitar, since I put the guitar aside when I changed my entire room to fit my German piano.

Patrícia Evans, janeiro de 2003.

Mudanças
Changes

Toma emprestado
Borrow from me
este livro
this book
cuja história eu conheço
which story I know
como me conhece a história
like knows me its story
Leia, releia
Read, re-read
e depois o faça de novo
and then, do it all over again
Se acaso a cada leitura
If it happens that at each reading
o livro lhe parecer diferente
the book seems different and new
não se engane
do not fool yourself
nunca a história muda
The story never changes
nunca mudam os personagens
the characters never change
o leitor, entretanto
The reader, however,
ainda que seja único
yet he will be the same
jamais será o mesmo.
he will be the same never.

Patrícia Evans
dezembro, 2002

Hercúlea
Hercules

A palavra ouvida
The word that we hear
é cachoeira
is the waterfall
que alimenta usina
that feeds the mill,
patada de leão
the lion's pawing,
que segura a presa
holding the prey,
explosão que cria sóis
an explosion that creates suns,
prazer que gera orgasmo
a pleasure that generates orgasms,
força igual e contrária
a strengh -- equal and contrary
à força foice que ceifa vida
to the strengh -- scythe that scythes life --
da palavra nunca dita.
of the word never spoken.

Patrícia Evans
12.12.02

Madness

My only one madness
was that I took too long
to accept your mistakes
your imperfections
your feet dirty with mud
which maybe, it is possible,
does not even bother the others
but that, helplessness,
makes me sick.

Patrícia Evans
11.22.02

Thank you

Thank you for leaving
for I won't have to send you away
or tell you
I am sorry,
I was wrong.

Patrícia Evans
11.22.02

Loneliness Is Something That Doesn't Exist.

There's no loneliness here, friend
Finally the solitude's gone
I walked alone
yes, I did
but only while I believed
in passions I should have never
But not now
Not anymore
I' ve set my soul free from the lonely slavery
of this lonely love of mine.
My eyes won't see anymore
the terrible empty space between us
for "us" does not exist
has never
. . . and to dream about what does not exist,
dear, this is the real solitude
It is over
Finally I've found
the friendly existence
of the true love
and its dead loneliness.

Patrícia Evans
11.22.02

Impossible

How to do a love poem
If I can't stop loving you?

Patrícia Evans
August, 2002

A Hard Thing to Do

Ask me and do it quickly
because I've decided to leave soon
I am in a hurry,
don't have much time
but I'd love you to know.
Ask me whatever you want
what is my favorite color
what I understand by happiness
or if I have a pet.
What time I wake up
what are my hobbies
who I love
who I don't
if I like to drive
to travel
where have I been all these years
and why do I think
the world is the infinite itself.
What movie I like most
what book
what have I done
and chosen
gained
and lost.
If I like ice cream
if I think I am pretty
or if you are.
Ask about my hopes
my plans
and if you are a part of them
what goes in my heart
or mind.
Ask me
everything you have always wanted to
but have never had the courage
I know it is hard
because we know
I will tell you nothing
but the truth
and I know you know
I am in a hurry,
and I don't have much time
this time
to change my truth
but do it anyway.

Patrícia Evans
August, 2002

Pocket

I am happy at home
at work
at the beach
in the parking lot
in the street
at the movie
in church
at Coffeedrome
at the theater
at the circus
In Manhattan
In Rio
On the stage
On the bed.
I take happiness
wherever I go

Patrícia Evans
7.3.02

Corruption

They ask me if I do poetry,
I write about what there is to be seen
and we see,
and what there is to be felt
and we feel,
what I live
or you tell me you have lived.
I am a plagiarizer of the world.
Poetry is already done

Patrícia Evans
6.28.02

Como Qualquer Um
Like Anyone

 Posso voar, se quiser
I can fly, if I want,
e posso planar sobre as nuvens
and I can glide above the clouds
enquanto as formigas trabalham
while the ants work
Posso mergulhar de cabeça
I can dive deep
e ser mais um peixe
 and be any fish
 num oceano qualquer
in any ocean
ou ser ar
or I can be air
ou ser terra
or ground
ou ser fogueira
or fire.
Homem ou mulher.
Man or woman.
 Eu posso ser estrela
 I can be a star
posso ser planta
or a plant
trepadeira
ivy
grama verde
 green grass
 rasteira
or weed.
 Talvez um gato,
Maybe a cat
um jacaré.
even an alligator.
E posso subir montanhas
 I can climb mountains
ou descer colinas
or slide down them,
Dormir sem telhado,
sleep without a roof
sob o céu escancarado
under an open sky
ou sob o agasalho grosso
or under the heavy blanket
de minha cama confortável
of my comfortable bed.
Cruzar fronteiras, continentes
I can cross frontiers, continents.
ser triste ou ser contente
I can feel sad or content
contar piadas, sorrir
tell jokes,  smile,
cerrar os olhos, chorar
close my eyes and cry
Posso gozar de prazer
I can live in joy
ou ser casta, imaculada
or like a celibate, immaculate.
Bailarina, escritora
Dancer, writer
 rainha, mendiga
queen, drifter
aprendiz, professora
student, teacher.
Posso engolir em seco
I can swallow it
 ou cuspir pro alto
or spit it out.
Andar descalça
I can walk barefoot   
ou sobre saltos altos
or wear high heels
Cortar os pulsos
 I can slash my wrists
e sangrar até morrer
 and bleed until I die.
Deixar que me matem
 I can let them kill me
ou até matar.
 or even murder them all.
Eu posso . . . tudo.
I can . . . anything

Patrícia Evans
6.25.02

Happy Birthday, Beloved

I have never come here
because I was sure I wouldn't find you,
but now that I have arrived
this silent autumn's garden
makes me feel you may be around
I don't hear your steps
like a lost tired ghost
or see your shining transparence
or listen to a whispered voice.
No, I can't feel hot or cold
or any creeping sensation.
It is just that when I read your name
in this clean and clear marble
and saw your black and white picture
where you appear so young, so healthy,
(I had chosen it myself)
when this silence invaded my soul
and the image of this garden
brought me the memories
of your happy and strong steps
through the grass of our house,
and these memories came so alive
I knew you were at my side
Well, what to do?
I sit in this nearby grave
and lay down on your lap
waiting for the old peace to come.
Dad, is it true
that you have talked to my brother
and that you have helped him?
Is it true that he has asked
and that you have answered?
I was the one who used to believe
in such unbelievable things, remember?
And yet I hadn't come here before today
for I was sure I wouldn't find you.
As you can see dad, I changed my mind.
I changed my faith and so did my way
two seconds after your leaving.
I was supposed to be the strongest
I am ashamed of my weakness
Would you forgive me, my father?
Could you?
I felt lost, dear
I felt angry, and I felt alone
I hated God, I hated to be alive.
Now that I have come
and that you are here . . .
I can see my wasted life

Not anymore, my love
Not anymore, heavenly God

Eat this marshmallow pie I brought
and let's enjoy your birthday.
Thank you for bringing me back
to the good old times
and o.k., Mr. Silly
for next year, strawberry pie.

Patrícia Evans

The Day Love Slept on the Asphalt

The city is in chaos
these days that Love
has felt tired of walking
and has decided to take a nap
on its asphalt
The sidewalks are full of people
who came to see what is going on,
and since no one takes the risk
of stepping on so strange a visitor,
streets are not being crossed,
traffic has stopped existing
no car dares to move
or to pass through, the crowd
has become almost impossible.
No one can get anywhere.

So, a pact has been made
unanimous and silent:
thieves cannot run
so they don't steal,
sick people are being carried
by the nearest group of policemen,
we stop fires using buckets
we fill with water
and pass hand to hand.
We are helping our neighbors
because we know we need them strong,
we are working together
for food and confort
of this frontierless community
that has arisen.
As long as we don't get to our offices.
we don't get any money
and we are exchanging everything
Priorities by now have changed
and all the rest with them

Oh my God!
The city is in chaos
unrecognizable these days when
Love has lain down on its asphalt.

Patrícia Evans

6.8.02

Life

A circle closes
and a new one is opened
from the first.

Two circles
matched this way
are the Infinite
they say.

Does that mean
there won't be a third circle?

Patrícia Evans

5.27.02

Creeping

I can't see your face
as it must be
or even guess
the tone of your voice
or distinguish your perfume in the crowd.
The memory of you
has become a faded black and white
with no scent or sound.
From us
none of the five senses has survived.

Patrícia Evans

5.31.02

Arrepiante

Não posso ver seu rosto
como ele de fato deve ser
nem adivinhar o tom da sua voz
ou distinguir seu perfume na multidão
As lembranças de você
se tornaram um desbotado preto e branco
sem cheiro ou som
De nós
nenhum dos cinco sentidos restou.

Patrícia Evans

31.05.02

Swallow It

And at your banquet
while they serve you
you stay silent.

The flint glass cup
shines in front of your plate
blood-red for the sweet poison
whose scent hypnotizes
and you stare at
the reflection of your face
in this dark fluid mirror.

Swallow this drink
before it evaporates
or spills on the towel
spotting forever this linen
like a never-forgotten blot
from a recent ripped hymen

Take this cup, man
delicate
but strong and confident
It is dark, deep
but yet it's transparent
if you look at it through the light

What if it can kill?
No ambrosia has its taste.
To have it -- is to die happy,
to not  -- is to be dead alive.

Enjoy it and feel fine.
It is your banquet
and at your banquet
you will always see yourself on my face
for I will always be the sweetest wine.

Patrícia Evans

5.31.02

Fall

I lay down in my garden
waiting for the sunset
I was watching the gentle breeze
touching the gentle leaves

Summer was leaving
and it was a cold sunset

My thoughts were so far
I remembered a poem I had read
so beautiful and so wise
about leaves falling down,
and the necessary strength to fall
(There is power in letting go)

And it was fall
Leaves were becoming brown
soon they would be on the ground

Nature -- see the picture:
The cold sunset
the summer that was leaving
and the first leaf that suddenly had fallen

It made no noise
But in front of this vision
I ran away scared

I didn't look back
I didn't say a word
I knew there was power
I was there -- lying down
I myself had fallen!
But I could feel
what was to come

The leaf on the ground
decomposing
feeding the land
raising another tree

The poet was right
There is strengh and power in letting go
But it doesn't mean it doesn't hurt

I ran away
I ran away alarmed
I ran away from you,
refused to nourish you,
didn't accept to start it all over again
not so soon

I am not going to rot, love,
I will be burned by the first sunbeam
of tomorrow's morning

We are the metaphor
not nature, my dear

I changed destiny this time
I broke the circle and
You will stay hungry

I am sorry that you are going to pay
for the mysteries of life
while I lay down in my garden
in this begining of fall.

Patrícia Evans

5.27.02

Fim
The End

Eu  tenho nenhuma razão
I have no reason
nenhuma resposta
no answer
e também nenhuma pergunta
and no question either

Eu não tenho uma idéia
I don't have any idea
de como fazer
of how to make it
e nem mesmo
not even
o que fazer
what to do

estou perdida
I am lost
na falta de assunto
in a missing subject
na falta de propósito
in a missing purpose
e vontade
and wish

e nem mesmo consigo distinguir nas sombras
and I can't even distinguish in the shadows
as sombras da pena que sinto de mim mesma
the shadows from the pity I feel for myself

Talvez este seja o fim da estrada
Maybe that's the end
Não quando a estrada termina
Not when the road finishes
mas quando não existem estradas
but when there are no roads
que queiramos seguir.
we want to follow.

Patrícia Evans
5.22.02

Emptiness

All the cardinal points
The Equator line
the metaphors
all the comics
the myths
souls
subtractions
additions
all the abstractions
are human creations
in vain hope
of fulfilling the infinite empitness
including
hope and infinity

Patrícia Evans

5.22.02

Right and Wrong

I went there as usual to see the news
and I read his poetry.
I could feel all the solitude he felt,
all the right emotions.
I could understand everything he meant,
all his right words.
I could almost touch him on his right arm
I could see his tears in his right eye
I could invade his right feelings
and his right petrifying,
but I could not shake him
or make him move
He will stay there forever
like he is right now.
He won't do anything
but the right thing,
and although I was shouting
he couldn't listen to me,saying he is wrong . . .
Oh, Lord., he is so wrong . . .
right is always to take the left side.

4.4.02