Steve Bucknell's favorite articles

To my opinion a lot of photographs get better with diminished detail, call it abstraction if you like. The art of reduction is very interesting. Try for yourself: look for images that you like where reduction or abstraction is an essential part of the image. And then imagine how they would have looked without it. No distraction, no irrelevant details, no deviation, straight ahead. The only problem is the fact that the art of reduction has a steep learning curve ........... You c…

[Un poème de Raymond Queneau (1903-1976)] Un jour on démolira ces beaux immeubles si modernes on en cassera les carreaux de plexiglas ou d'ultravitre on démontera les fourneaux construits à polytechnique on sectionnera les antennes collectives de télévision on dévissera les ascenseurs on anéantira les vide-ordures on broiera les chauffoses on pulvérisera les frigidons quand ces immeubles vieilliront du poids infini de la tristesse des choses [ interpretation in English…

I am a writer of little writing just not to bore you with repetitions. Days occur equal and also nights and tides we look to the full moon or the sunlight to the dark night or the tide's mark on the beach surf as it was for the first time. If the world does not get tired why do we get annoyed? Sou escritor de pouca escrita para não vos cansar com repetições. Os dias sucedem-se iguais e também as noites e as marés olhamos para a lua cheia ou a luz do sol a noite escu…

Super short, short stories. Mosty exactly 50 words.

Since a long time now I don't remember my memories I think they are winged without weight nor shape pieces watching me abyss where I fall asleep. Now I find them again the puzzle becomes Portugal without promises gains shape and weight under the abyss of light there is an uncertain sea where I wake up. Memórias não vos recordo há muito penso-vos aladas sem peso nem forma pedaços a vigiar-me abismo onde adormeço. Agora reencontro-vos o puzzl…

Suddenly by mid-morning I imagine and want you irremediably. The space separating us is from memory falling asleep to forget you by mid-morning. Coming up light into concentric circles egocentric of sun vibrate lubricious specters into my eyes. To dawn on you to draw on you to grow dark on you clandestine destiny of me at the top of the slope I climb. It is under moderate joy I face the daily life and its transfiguration. Mainly by mid-morning I imagine and want you i…

I fight against the entropy of life and world but sooner or later all collapses inside and outside me - from each piece of rubble I dream and through it I continue my aimless trip into nothing /// Combato a entropia da vida e do mundo mas cedo ou tarde tudo colapsa dentro e fora de mim - faço de cada escombro um sonho e nele continuo minha viagem sem rumo pelo nada by Armando TABORDA, 2013 (post 1st edition, 2015; 2nd edition, 2017; 3rd edition, 2020)

First, I'm sitting up here on top of the world, North Pole, Alaska, looking down at the KungFlu fiasco, Minneapolis riots, California scheming, screaming, etc. and none of that has had much, if any, real effect today, on my day to day life. It all, from here, of course seems unreal. I do allow that, just as a butterfly wing flap in Malaysia may predicate and progress to a snow storm in my back yard that, as I'm at the far end of a long supply chain, the giving up living to keep from dying in…

Existence is this living while everything fades away joy pain unexpected air or poison we breathe. Friends artificially laugh and stray from crying with us. Existence is this living all moments whatever they are they are ours egoistically ours either the friends turn up o…

Light leaves weak shadows badly drawn on the walls rain falls poorly but there will be a heavy shower by mid-afternoon workers on the scaffolding of the opposite building gather at the works dockyard cars slow down the avenue windshield wipers oscillating no pedestrians on sidewalks just open umbrellas that hurry in my living room comfort I'm electrocuted by a mettalic gray sky that doesn't kill but blinds stunned I blink the melancholy of the day and record in this petty t…

I assume the responsibility of watching a dreams' parade just now that the whole conquested liberties guarantee to me the right of indifference and the nocturnal breeze over the quay-bridge on River Geba provides me comfort enough. There are lights in the Ilhéu do Rei and Cumeré and in the boats navigating far away giving significance to the obscure space where I find myself illuminated on the cement breakwater that whispering b…

In the long night veins nerves muscles scars and other tissues throb on me spontaneous sperm like a water spring drop by drop oozed on a stone's abdomen. Petrified in granite I shine quartz crystals will-o'-the-wisp over the sleep tomb where I bury myself. Adequately I get older through the mineral mutation to the ether where I float serene in a ship of light' smile as if the slow mineralization of my body was etern…

He came at last from insomnia and stomach heartburn wasn't foreseen he was a dream to dream forget and fall asleep. Por último veio era de insónia e azia no estômago nada faria prever que fosse um sonho para sonhar esquecer e adormecer. by Armando TABORDA, i n "PALAVRAS, MÚSICAS E BLASFÉMIAS QUE ENVELHEÇO NA CIDADE", Ulmeiro Editores, 1996 (post 1st edition, 2011; 2nd edition, 2017; 3rd edition, 2019)

I came from the time when there were water lilies in the ponds of the Tapada de Mafra and brides and grooms were photographed at flower beds while anxious guests waited for the banquet under shadows of the August trees and from the external consultation to several valencies of the Hospital da Estrela and the ambulatory control of a tenosynovitis where I became delighted with the order and cleaning of corridors cabinets and infirmaries and inebriated by the detergent scent around doctors nurse…

To sleep like a stone even if the stone is cold hard and doesn't dream and awake as it was the first day even if the life's light is the dream you didn't get Dormir como uma pedra mesmo que a pedra seja fria dura e não sonhe e acordar como no primeiro dia mesmo que a luz da vida seja o sonho que não tiveste by Armando TABORDA, 2019 (photograph taken from Internet; edited by Armando TABORDA)

The day runs away from me as if it was the night that invades me I don't demand anything from it not even the last light rays kissing my cold face of December in farewell my hands touch the buch of keys while my feet corsetted by shoes leave me at the house door for my escape of the night that invades me O dia foge de mim como se fosse a noite que me invade não lhe exijo nada nem sequer os últimos raios de luz a beijarem-me o rosto frio de Dezembro em despedida min…

Everything starts in the mouth the weeping the speech the nourishment the love the hatred the pain and also the last breath. (to read the original Portuguese version please click on the picture) by Armando TABORDA, in "SINFONIA EM DOR MENOR", Edição Escola de Mar, 2007 Illustration by Carlos ALEX…

In some poets I read redundant and no-meaning metaphors they want to lie more than usually pretend. For me the clarity of the text is the one of clean running water through the municipal distribution network that just washes the bodies out of bed and kills the thirst of night-owls and dreamers. Em alguns poetas leio metáforas redundantes e gratuitas querem mentir ainda mais do que habitualmente fingem. Para mim a clareza do texto é a da água limpa que…

No land in sight I hear the rain falling on the roof but cause I didn't foresee the overflows plaguing the world my solitude is singing like a canary in a cage waiting for the Deluge /// Sem terra à vista ouço a chuva a cair no telhado mas porque não previ as inundações que assolam o mundo a minha solidão canta como um canário na gaiola à espera do Dilúvio by Armando TABORDA, 2014 (1st edition, 2014; 2nd edition 2018)

An ashes halo around my eyes crowns the insomnia I get up from bed. Alone. I hesitate on the matter I am and I ask what is left for the explanation of my night's astonishment. Until when I look for the first smile at the day after and other smiles engraved on a stone's grimace frieze. From me to the posterity I bequeath a portrait of thin li ps rough at the perimeter of my mouth and one another ten…