Arthur Powers first moved to Brazil in 1969 with the Peace Corps.  
From 1985 to 1992, he and his wife worked with the Franciscans in
the Amazon, organizing community groups and rural workers unions
in an area of violent land conflicts.  They have also lived in Bahia,
Recife, & Rio de Janeiro.  Mr. Powers' poetry has appeared in
America, Americas Review, Anthology of Magazine Verse &
Yearbook of American Poetry, Hiram Poetry Review, Kansas
Quarterly, New Blackfriars, Rattapallax, Roanoke Review, Southern
Poetry Review, Southwest Review, Texas Quarterly, & many others.  
He also writes fiction & essays.





Sketches/Rio de Janeiro


(The House Painter)

White paint speckling
dark blue pants and shirt,
dark brown skin,

his head capped
with a tall paper bag,

he stands
silent as a chieftain,
proud.


(The Peanut Girl)

Her eleven-year-old face
delicate blonde,
her one dress
always pressed,
she walks neatly
up and down
among the
open air restaurants

never smiling.


(The Beggar Woman)

She sits
on the black and white patterned
mosaic sidewalk in Copacabana,
her old legs like sticks
straight in front,

disdaining the crowd
that moves around her,

counting her money,
licking her thumb.                                                      


(The Housemaid)

Short and compact,
spilling energy like milk,
she scrubs and scrubs the morning,
singing the kitchen clean.


(The Retired Judicial Clerk)

His old, feminine lips
sensuously form
meaningless whispers
behind his veined hands.


(The Pigeon Feeder)

He walks the plaza slowly,
haloed in white birds and bright daylight,
pouring gold grain from his bucket
into the sun.


(The Corporal)

His handsome face
notched and lined
as fine wood
from the forests
near his home
in the country,
he argues his point
steadily, steadily,
his hand moving
up and down
like an ax.


(The Country Couple)

The city
whistling their thin clothes,
the man dazed,
pale mustache
brushed dusty wheat,
and the woman,
pale eyes lost,
her back hooked
in a question mark.                                         


(The Magazine Vendor)

On the ferry
where he is not supposed
to sell, he flits
from seat to seat,
lounging nonchalantly
as a crew member passes,
then rises up
and chirps his sales,
fluttering orange magazines
at the tips
of his wings.


(The Tambourine Player)

He sits at night
at the back of the ferry,
black and thin,

drumming rhythm
into his fingers
while a group of men

gathers around him
chanting Africa
across dark water.


(The Madman)

His bushy hair,
his laughing beard,
his dancing pagan eyes
watch the ferry passengers

while he talks
to himself
(nodding his head)
of important
nothing.                                                           



(The Boat Guard)

Her dark brown face
the color of her uniform,
she stands lazy, bored,
her power
packed into a night stick.



(The Flower Carrier)

The pot of orchids
balanced on his head,
leafing high
- orange purple white
red - strange
cockscomb for
a bird of paradise.



(The Water Carrier)

Halfway up the hill
he pauses underneath a palm,
his two metal buckets
and wooden yoke
resting on green grass
while behind him
the bay
gleams bright blue.



(The Drummers)

At the back of the bus
seven men
beat out cuica,

panels, drums,
alive to the sun,
the blue sky,

rising hills
of rebellion
in the heart.

                                           


(The Chief Clerk)

His gold face beaming
holiness,
he tells
how he bought
a hut on the hill
and will be
living in the
slums.



(The Servant Girl)

She calmly wheels the baby carriage
through the plaza in Ipanema,
proud mulata, erect, her delicate
features beautiful as a lady,
while her dumpy mistress flusters
around her like a satellite.



(The Hunchback Beggar)

Proud of his pain,
he sits on the sidewalk,
his bare chest twisted
to slap the eyes
of people walking by.



(The Accounting Clerk At Lunch)

Sitting
hooked over his desk,
his left hand
holds a sandwich,

his right
taps a samba
into American music
on the radio.                                                    




(The Consulate Guard)

Far from home,
hair clipped,
he guards
a lonely boy
in shining
red white black
uniform.



(The Street Vendor Selling Pens)

Four feet high,
his torso straight and strong,
his legs gnarled and strong
as the stump of an oak,
he stands, feet apart,
eyes challenging,
fist thrust forward
radiating pens between his fingers
like the blessing
of an ancient saint.

Motor Scooter Girl

(Rio de Janeiro)


…beep, beep, beeping
the motor scooter boy
whisks, speeding
in thick traffic,

cars on each side
– a  wrist twitch away
from crashing pain,
metal searing death –

his girl behind him
with blue helmet
but bare legs,
bare brown arms

clinging his waist,
trusting,
so easily
slashed, maimed,

killed – oh
my God, so
vulnerable.





The Man With No Legs

(Rio de Janeiro)


The man with no legs
rides a black wooden box
with small steel wheels.
He moves with long arms,
pushing the pavement.
His face is the face
of a dignitary;
his arms are the strong
arms of a chimpanzee.
Even taxi drivers
stop to let him cross,
braked in holy superstition.





The Beggar Woman
(The Mosaic Sidewalks of Rio)


Her legs broken and deformed,
useless bones no bigger than a child's,
she crawls the street, her hands
pushing in front of her a small bag
and a tin pan half filled with cheap coins.

All who walk around her are giants.
Her brown, vulnerable eyes
look up from the bright, patterned sidewalk,
caught like a crippled dog
in its design.






The Crazy Woman
At The Ferry Dock

(Rio de Janeiro)


Thin.  Hard bodied.
She faces the lines
of people, her eyes glazed,
fists clenched, mouth
shouting a tide of
curses.
Suddenly
she stops.  The air
stands still and hot.
The crowd waits,
then starts to taunt her,
lazily, to pass time.
She sweats, and then
her muscles tense,
her wild eyes
look into the people
and
Oh Lord!
wring her like a rag
and out flows hate.







--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Arthur Powers