By Bernardo Filipe / October 14, 2025
I’ve added a link to a page with my love poems to the top of The Stillest. I also wrote a new, perhaps final, poem, titled O Teu Cheiro.
As regards this last poem, I am happy with the result. It rhymes a lot, not only on the final words of each verse, but also internally. It is a more dramatic and less humorous poem, compared with some of my previous ones, but I think it’s my best.
I was told the verses with the end rhyme “ilusão” and “desilusão” should be changed because they look forced. But I like this rhyme. The words are similar but their meanings are significantly different and even though the prefix “des” implies the negation of the word “ilusão”, in reality the meaning of “desilusão” is not an opposite of “ilusão”, i.e. it’s not its antonym. I.e. orthographically these words are similar, but semantically they are very different. The point is that my love was an illusion, it was all in my head, and it got nowhere and I became disappointed (to feel “desilusão” in Portuguese is to feel desiludido=desapontado=disappointed).
So I decided to keep this rhyme in this poem. That these two words are orthographically similar but semantically very different is a cool touch, in my view.
By the way, the plan with this “Life Updates” page is to give some sporadic updates about my life and what I’m up to. I don’t plan, however, to update this page very often. Maybe once every three months, or maybe even once every six months. My book is finished and this is merely a page where I will be writing about myself, perhaps drop a few more cool thoughts, too, but always spaced between a few months. That’s the plan at least. If I keep this going for several years, maybe I will have another book to my name, we’ll see
The Stillest 