My heart is a fixed red

bankruptcy

between debts of love never repaid

and interest on defaults

to be paid on the nail.

To the bearer.

 

.   .   .

 

I am last in line

at the pawnshop counter

and I hope the small fellow will do right by me,

grant me at least two centimes

I have to pay a bill

for all the hours

I invested in the market in those shares

that were then lost.  Fucked.

Failured.

The principle partner

was seen on a tropical island

sun always

wearing a suit

made with my hide.  Completely hand stitched.

He wore it divinely, just the way

I loved him

but knowing the slipshodness

he used with all my time

he will remain naked, before it gets dark.

And cold.

translated from Italian by Adria Bernardi

He was a very important man, he was,

no two ways about it.  Walking tall, slim,

and he always ushered me around by the arm

provided I didn’t talk too much

or too little.  I was permitted to pee but only if

I hadn’t exaggerated

satiating thirst.  And love

on the fingernails. And I could kiss him

only if I dried my mouth

very well with silences

breathing appropriately

without exaggerating, like having the soul

in fetters—tongue cinched

with cinched grip.  Not even a plea was allowed.

Not even a plea.  He was a very important man. Really

and truly.  Really he was. He would comb his hair

in the latest crazy craze, for hour upon hour upon hour.

And then, one good thing, two, actually

one evening, he did this, when he went away,

he was a good man,

who had other cunts to let rot

without forgetting to leave me

the sonloveofmylife and take the shampoo.

translated from Italian by Adria Bernardi

I didn’t know that storms

were always and only surrounded

by storms. I did not understand that.

And in this way even the minutes follow

one right after the other

in a rush

ass-biting people

with entartared teeth.

And I know of someone

who even invented

a new game

something like a parenthesis that opened up

and inside there was a ragdoll

which had a ragdoll baby that was part him.

However they cried true tears

from their eyes.

Then, when it got late

he closed the parentheses

and returned to spinning the void within

the void of all of the nothings of nothings

that were.

translated from Italian by Adria Bernardi

Some glance at their wristwatch

gyrating the wrist

at all angles.

Others don’t know whether it’s night

or day, but all expect

something—as if the sky

might decide not to rain

again.

.

We are planets

with personality flaws.

They would never dream

of doing what they want.

All they need is a universe

eternaltime

and light—if it’s not dark.

As for us, it’s those legs that move

history and root of every fear.

After all, we are bricks of conscience

and fate.

translated from Italian by Adria Bernardi

Sometimes a bit of sweat

off us affixes itself onto glass panes

as we’re going hither and thither

and we make babies and carry them

behind us, caravans in the desert

of high dunes

attached by mouth to breath.

And they shiver from the cold, they do

the truth of winter running from their noses

like ovulations of ripe cunts

and a pill on the bedstand

so as to not forget that

time has run out.

That this is not the time.

There’s bread to get

before the sky shuts.

translated from Italian by Adria Bernardi

In my world

the bread crumbs start wars

in order to get to the first open

mouth.

And the male crumb

is always the most ruthless one with the rifle.

This is why when I see

commercials with singing snacks

I am thinking science fiction is for those

with time and money to spare.

 

 

translated from Italian by Adria Bernardi