You are like a cloud on the land that is sand to me
and on the shape (that I anxiously seek)
I cast a glance at myself
and my own feet
enmeshing our limbs
and the edge of this mattress
that remains a space of fullness in the world
of our lives
: because I shall make you roots of glass
to touch the earth
and I will lift you
to the pavement of a new path
p. 20
3.
I don’t know where all this silence comes from
and this sweetness seems to appear out of spite
erasing years of anger and months
of restless survival
to your absence
I was so good at turning the page
that on the new page I can’t help but draw that
first smile of yours
in the journey to the volcanic
island
and like it, we too went dormant
and like it too, we surrounded ourselves with jellyfish
after lowering our ancient love into the sea
p. 29
7
You come floating in my dreams
wandering about you take the contours of the people
with that beaten dog look the grey fur
and that inconvenient way of doing of who those who are inconvenient in the world
not victim but sacrificial lamb of himself
driven to the darkest corners of the body by his own
thoughts
to set you free one would have to enter the lion’s cage
and uproot the bars
to get you out of that prison of bones
one would need to devour your heart
p. 32
10
We scatter lives and existences sins
and failed acts
we are ourselves when we are another
when we are the full wave that abates
and raises a summer wind in the middle of winter
we change to stay the same
we change to survive ourselves
p. 35
14.
Bitten by a tangle of snakes,
each more poisonous than the next,
I have erased dunes deserts and ancient towers,
cities that bloomed from sand, skyscrapers and valleys drowned in
pagodas,
I have erased entire maps so as not to feel the pain
the betrayal you have
raised inside me
and sown within my
bared heart
: because you never loved me
if not of a sickly kind of love
p.40
A wolf away this is the way we are hand in hand
on a Seattle street warmed by your gaze
and too soon frozen by the Alaskan winds
that have taught you distance
and the lost horizon of tribes that go north
to become acquainted with the cold of history
the same cold that you sought while holding me
tight and promising me what you
didn’t know how to give
I remain here suspended with two wolves in my heart
and another mark on the body
more ink to convey a howl that I write
so I can lock it in the ocean that shall separate us
once more
p. 47 *
you shall not find ties
and you shall not find weights to weld the action
you will find attention in my gaze just above the nape
to hold a light love from behind
2.
we will then be two stray dogs in the wind
we will taste each other’s tongue on the street
erasing useless glances
from a private silence
and what if our lives were nothing else but this?
: but kissing on the streets of the world and […]
[…] and possessing each other would no longer be necessary
[…] and belonging would even be this
p. 54
3.
so strangers to one another we mark our skin
dwelling in the same body
divided only by a hasty judgment
a ring lost at sea a curse to be loved
because love is a bygone time
: it is a bitch
gifted to the partner
, another ring
slipped on the finger
4.
A Maenad not a monad is your essence
that as a trawl catches me among the people
you surround yourself with for a loneliness that is not mine
[this is the way I shall learn your kisses from peoples’ lips]
you escape spaces by measuring the precise distance from your
own self
for you are the space that
you cannot escape
and that will be enough for your universe
as you invade galaxies and constellations
that are not me
pp. 55-6
I feared that the pain had lost the way for me
that the snake. had swallowed its tail
tearing to shreds
every new impossible step
all it took was a bachata
a beat drummed on your teeth
a motionless step
trusting was all it took
embedding two hearts in one chest
and feeling how fear kills
before being able to tie the sea together again
p.94
Tearing each other apart
like beasts in the temple
and thinking each time that the hunt is endless
to lose the throat quit looking for the vein
lay down your bow and arrows drive away the roles
and in the end scatter the prey and the mirror
that gives it its name
: then smell you
and understand that the war is over
Alessandro Brusa was born in Imola in 1972 and has been living in Bologna (Italy) since 1976. He made his literary debut with the novel Il cobra e la farfalla (Pendragon – Bologna 2004), which was followed by two collections of poetry La raccolta del sale (Perrone – Rome 2013, Orlando prize) and In tagli ripidi (nel corpo che abitiamo in punta) (Perrone – Rome 2017) and the novel L’Essenza Stessa (L’Erudita – Rome 2019). In 2015, together with Martina Campi and Valerio Grutt, he promoted a project on the Bolognese poetry scene that led to the publication of Centrale di Transito (ceci n’est pas une anthologie) (Perrone – Rome 2016). His latest work is the poetry collection L’Amore dei Lupi (Perrone-Rome 2021).
His poetry and prose texts have appeared in anthologies and magazines, both in print and online, both in Italy and, in translation, in the United States, France, Belgium, Romania, Spain and Latin America.
He accompanies the work of writing with that of translating from English with texts published in online and print magazines (Testo a Fronte, Le Voci della Luna, La Macchina Sognante, Poetarum silva, Nazione Indiana). With rare exceptions, he chooses young poets he discovers through his own library research rather than official academic channels, especially local libraries, those in the United States, Great Britain and India. Among the authors he has translated: Brian Borland, Jericho Brown, Kayo Chingonyi, Kamala Das, Safia Elhillo, Jemima Foxtrot, Colin Herd, William Letford, Stephen Mills, Seth Pennington.
Since its first 2013 edition, he has been part of the organizing committee for the Bologna In Lettere Literary Festival with a focus on poetry. Since 2020, he has been on the editorial board of LitBlogi www.crackerspoesia.it
