Translated from Italian by Don Stang and Helen Wickes. The Italian original was published in the anthology Invecchiare amando, Serenella Gatti Linares, editor, Terra d’Ulivi 2018. The Italian version was set to dissonant music by Paulo Changas.
I would have liked to be
patti smith.
Locks of rebellious
gray hair.
Indomitable
gaunt visage.
The jacket:
the worn-out one
from Horses
that dangles
carelessly
from a shoulder.
And to continue marking time,
that innate dissonance,
with the slim foot.
But the metamorphosis
which struck me
was another.
Not the one that strikes
twelve-year-olds:
the healthy stage
of the pupa
swelling up
full of life.
At a certain age
of common mortals
the cocoon
splits open,
prolapsing organs,
and the neck,
tired of holding up
the burden of the neurons,
gives way.
The lip has no fear
to pronounce
blades.
The protean race
of the cells
to pigeonhole themselves
in time
unites me with Daphne
in the roulette wheel
of the smoothness of skin
which, as it peels, alters
the lapis lazuli
veining
on the leg;
it catches me
unprepared,
not to say
frightened.
But in this shape-shifting time,
one must trust that nothing —
not the shrewd hand
of the market
nor the horrified
view of the comparison —
will be able to prevent
the reawakening
of that hidden sense
which, with age,
lurks quietly within,
perceiving the music
of distant spheres.
Not respecting
earthly aesthetics,
the seventh sense,
is subject only
to the truth
that we are a single energy
emanating from distant galaxies
awaiting confidently
that in some dimension
parallel to mine,
I will not be denied
the joy of being able
to become patti smith.
Avrei voluto essere patti smith
Avrei voluto essere
patti smith
Ciocche di grigio
ribelle
Indomito
viso scarno
La giacca
quella strapazzata
di Horses
che penzola
noncurante
da una spalla
E continuare a marcare
con il piede smilzo
quell’innata dissonanza
Ma la metamorfosi
che mi colpì
fu altra
Non quella che si abbatte
sulle dodicenni:
lo stadio della pupa
prosperosa
che si rigonfia
turgida di vita
Nell’età certa
delle comuni mortali
si crepa
il bozzolo
prolassando organi
facendo cedere di collo
stanco di reggere
il fardello dei neuroni
E il labbro non teme
di pronunciare
lame
La proteiforme gara
delle cellule
a incasellarsi
al tempo
mi assorella a Dafne
nella ventura
del glabro della pelle
che in scorza si tramuta
la venatura
del lapis lazuli
sulla gamba
mi coglie
impreparata
per non dire
spaventata
Ma del tempo mutaforma
bisognerà fidarsi
nulla potranno
né la scaltra mano
del mercato
né l’esterrefatto
sguardo del confronto
al risvegliarsi
di quel recondito senso
che nell’età
si annida torporoso
sensibile alla musica
di distanti sfere
Settimo senso irrispettoso
delle estetiche terrestri
suddito solo
alla verità
che siamo un’unica energia
sprigionata da galassie lontane
attendo fiduciosa
che in una qualche dimensione
al mio io parallela
non mi sia negata
la gioia di poter ancora
diventare patti smith
di Pina Piccolo, 5 novembre 2017
Author
Pina Piccolo is a bilingual poet, writer, translator and sole editor of The Dreaming Machine. Her work is published both in print and online, both in Italian and English. Her favorite topics are language, politics, migration and resistance. Her musings can be found in her personal blog Pina Piccolo’s blog / Il blog di Pina Piccolo.
Translators:
Donald Stang is a long-time student of the Italian language. His translations of Italian poetry, with Helen Wickes and/or Pina Piccolo, have appeared in Carrying the Branch: Poets in Search of Peace (Glass Lyre Press, 2017); Catamaran; Silk Road; Pirene’s Fountain; Ghost Town; Apple Valley Review; America, We Call Your Name: Poems of Resistance and Resilience (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2018); and thedreamingmachine. com. An interview about translating Monteiro Martins and a translated short story were published in The Antonym International. Other poems have appeared in Newfound and Pirene’s Fountain. Originally from New York, Stang worked as an attorney, then as a professional landscaper. He lives in Oakland, California.
Helen Wickes has studied Italian for many years and enjoys reading Italian novels and poetry. Four books of her poetry have been published, and several of her poems, translated into Italian by Pina Piccolo, appeared on sagarana.net and lamacchinasognante.com. Many of her poems, including those from her unpublished manuscript Transit of Mercury, are found on thedreamingmachine.com. She has worked with Donald Stang and Pina Piccolo on many of their translations of Italian poetry. Wickes is a long-time member of Sixteen Rivers Press, a publishing collective in Northern California. She grew up on a horse farm in Pennsylvania, worked as a psychotherapist, and lives in Oakland, California.
