English translation by Pina Piccolo.
I
In this the moon resembles us
Crescents plucked from its fullness
Growing sorrowful if night bags it in slices
And the sac of time swallows it
Always more astute and cross
And still I love you
Lingering at the window
Even if peak by peak
Only a nail of it is left
In the sky in its lonesome climb
And then ignites
A quarter is left in the water of courtyards
A quarter on the stained-glass windows exhausted
By light drying up and the time
You said is the moonlight has been put out
Perhaps it did exist
And we are already dead
Because we resemble
The moon that disappears
And takes us away.
II
Oh father how you are chaff that the wind selects
You were bread bran and food beyond hunger
Here at home where you shouted
Inside the night and beyond the dark
Broken by anger and obsessed by flour. You were
A servant and you spoke to your son
Of a body thin with the growth of it’s soul
With pity at every shameful fault of yours.
What hard truth is your wisdom
Son of a servant and of the Rose
You taught me not to spit at the table
To look squarely in the eyes of a friend
With tenderness at the breasts of a bride
What harsh and lively flower without escape
You have come this far shouting
In the sign of your father and he of his father in you
So that a voice would grow in he who is seated and writes
Meek and ferocious our new history. Oh father
How you are chaff that the wind selects
How like you am I
As death labors to distance us.
III
I would like to sleep mother of mine
In this room tapped by the wind
And by the lucid sounds of wrought gates
Protected while it is your eyes
Your blue eyes
That hold my forehead
And my lips as cheerful petals
Among the cold dragnet of leaves
That speak blow (do you still hear them?)
And take the thoughts for a stroll
In the dead and desert corners of the alleys
And finally say: I fear I so fear
The werewolf who causes the ultimate fear.
IV
I love you with the same inhuman green
Of eyes that know not how to close
Or like the water that carries the living wave
In the silver mirror the brown of your hair
Shines loose
Upon our respite. You
Look at me again and again
And always: one can never lose sight
Of that which has never left.
Come rest
Like the rose in the king’s garden
In this house more humble
That sails without heft
Escaping the storm of the light switch.
V
to my kids
Ode to the merry song of Alissa
Fanfaring along with happy notes in her head
Dancing, forgetting the anxiety of Latin
Making herself beautiful for us every morning
Ode to the suave irony of Michael
Nocturnal pianist casted as the tender
Morning in yellow garb
Who I spy and admire on the terrace
Ode to the astonishing drawings of Adrian
With his sacred meridian of pity for the little bird
Fallen and then resurrected
Like the pages of humanity’s chorus
Ode
And gratitude for these children of mine.
VI
Take the future as it comes
(dear Witkiewicz ) kicking it and cursing you
Your still being here
Among us enragedly repeating for the love of words
The daily switching on and infecting the net
Evermore and completely driven by excess of goodwill
Then, as you know, the system collapses in a puddle
Of vexation and blood.
Flying low
From file to file faster than light – slicing
Horny
The void that (as you know) has no lips enters
Your message sideways
Taking away its sense and then: they are all comet bubbles
Belly-up
Vowels on the mines of the heart
A mirage with a shear dropping screen each portal or
Point of anchor.
Of the whole brood of baby eagle
Tsoott… tsoott… tsoott don’t spare
Even a piece of smooth eggshell, not even a
Feather
While the tragicomic virus belly flops circulating on his own
From the transmitter like a comic book on the screen
Of pain
On the Pentium 3 or in those who with their hurricaning
Circular hands
Wishing for death and already enjoying it: divine
Telecommunicative pity
I know it the bloody texts are like wire
And your black hair like precise
Warnings of demise
Keys
Oudible howling in the steel of the snare the wails
Of a computer
In the newborn century ever untamed.
VII
How about
Eating, for example, some fish and chips
Or a couple of cherries this morning
So as to break the fast
Or transgress our penance
By the seaside
The fasting of lips
And getting lost in the infinity of roaring shouts
Beyond the cliffs
With the anatomy of an infinitive verb
Upon us.
Alexandretta
Inappropriate love poem
You are a keyboard with excited nipples
Blessed blaze of musical curls
Under the asphalt of turned off cellphone
You are Cassandra’s shadow and then Alexandretta
Stoic city with an unattainable mouth
The blade of refusal that cut the Sun god’s loins
You’re the pink sex on the mole’s nose
Restlessly digging to reach your little breasts
And more than butter the back of your violin
An eel of fragrant waters in the dimple of your thighs
You’re Paganini, Mozart, Dionysus ‘ear in the cave
While you scratch my breath with your solo pieces
You’re the shadow of a volcano with its stony leaves
Smiling in your airy bareness in my barren room
Paper and light like a scorpion with a tiger’s teeth.
To an unhypocritical English reader
It sets sail visibly
Decimated defeated as
The page is turned or burned
This short collection (this anthology)
Of fragile ravings: here to you I dedicate
Gentle unhypocritical reader because in the madness
You always kept a lamp
Burning with lucid irony.
Here is the small tribute due to you
Where I got wrapped up.
A useful waste that shifts away
From the unscathed figure: you do with it
Whatever you will.
Some of these poems were published in Italian in La Macchina Sognante N. 5 and N. 6 .
Walter Valeri is a published poet, playwright, and scholar. His collection of poetry Canzone dell’amante infelice was awarded Italy’s national literary prize, the Mondello. Most recent poetry collections Ora settima (Societa’ Editrice “Il Ponte Vecchio”, 2013) My Name/Il mio nome (qudu, 2015) Parodie del buio (Societa’ Editrice “Il Ponte Vecchio”, 2017). Valeri has also translated several dramatic, fiction, screen, and poetry texts into Italian, including Which Side Are You On? by Ken Loach, Carlino by Stuart Hood, Les Aveugles by Maurice Maeterlinck, The Memory of War by James Fenton, Knepp and Krinsky by Jorge Goldenberg, Adramelech by Valère Novarina, Nobody Dies on Friday by Robert Brustein, Eight Poems by Sam Cornish, The Dear Remote Nearness of You by Danielle Legros Georges (in collaboration with Pina Piccolo), and Mistero Buffo by Dario Fo (as a new American translation, in collaboration with Robert Scanlan). He is one of the editors of Italian online literature and culture journal www.lamacchinasognante.com.
Featured image: Photo by Melina Piccolo
