Some plants
It is the hierarchy of organs
that creates the idea of command
suggesting disparity between various body parts
but for plants there is no delegating
it’s the organism in its entirety
that establish what’s best for itself
equality being the only law.
Augite
Like augite my placement is
between lava stones and obsidian,
son of magma and brimstones
son of fire and air,
and even if a volcano
acts by explosion
sowing shattered mountains
devastation and warbling,
it is in the wisdom of nature
to create
where once was pain.
The physics of water
Demonstrations follow
the physics of water;
they arises from misery,
from unanswered demands,
and between folds of indifference
they collect and swell.
Every drop echoes
and becomes a chorus
of only one voice
and starts flowing
along the city’s levies.
And when you try to plug
with a cork or a dam
that torrential stream of questions
the container warps and splits
in a deafening uprising
that sweeps everything away.
It’s the physics of silence
that calls for an explosion.
Suspending the Schengen treaty
A single cough
has taken away
the whole of Europe.
Lesbos is in flames,
shrouded in hatred.
Nothing but shreds
of the world are left,
even tomorrow
has shortness of breath.
On the deck of the Sea Watch 3
for Carola Rackete
All this standing still, planted
in pain is pure injustice.
You caress the throbbing coast
with your glance
a desire for peace
pulses in the air filled with uncertainty
and fear; then, all of a sudden
the captain takes the floor
and speaks to us on behalf of the sea.
The ring of Saturn
All around me is suspended
all so light and precarious
that you can scarcely
perceive a breath, there, in the distance,
at the point where things happen
and, at times, their opposite occurs
In the accretion disk
Our ego remembers
the motion of a black hole;
it feeds on dust
invisible to movement,
it finds the beginning and the end
in the rotation of its own circumstance,
it is a motionless substance
that shapes its cosmos.
The accretion disk
contains the wisdom of the ego
and the art of recreating
where once was destruction.
Achille Pignatelli was born in Naples in 1988. A poet, philosopher and writer, he is the artistic director of the Mosse di Seppia Literary Magazine, as well as an activist in the Scugnizzo Liberato and Nadir collectives. In 2019 he published his collection of poems I ritorni – Orientarsi tra il suono dello spazio e la forma del tempo( Returns -How to orient yourself between the sound of space and the shape of time) , published by Homo Scrivens press. In June 2020, the collection received the critics’ mention for the L’Iguana Award. His poems have been published in the daily La Repubblica Napoli, anthologies, literary magazines and blogs. Since January 202,1 he is responsible for the column Anteprima Poetica (Poetic Preview) for the Homo Scrivens press and, again in April 2021 he published a short novel, in the form of a free ebook, Cronache dall’anno zero (Chronicles of the year 0) with the same press. In 2021, he also became the editorial director for the Arti-Poesia series, of Homo Scrivens press. He is the the Campania regional coordinator for the Rinascimento Poetico literary movement.
