We are planets
with personality flaws

Francesca_Pellegrino_foto_@paola_aloisio_-1Six poems by Francesca Pellegrino, translated from the Italian by Adria Bernardi.

Francesca Pellegrino, by profession and training, is a geometra, which could be described as something similar to engineer-architect-and site foreman, not exactly one of these, but one whose work corresponds with the work of each, a designer-constructor of buildings and go-between to the real world of permits and codes — in her case with a specialization of roadways and bridges.  

Adria_Bernardi__photo_credit_Tammy_Gentuso--April2013--10The velocity of these poems, from her collection, Chernobylove—il giorno dopo il vento (The Day After the Wind) divert the eye and the mind from a kind of mathematical logic with which they are constructed; it’s the logic of a poet who is always unconsciously measuring spatial relationships in a kind of rigorous echoing of that evaporates when you try to apply a formula. Her poems follow the course of a glamorous heyday of love-and-prosperity to the train-wreck of Italy’s economic collapse and the rupturing of institutions after the big party: “The principle partner / was seen on a tropical island / sun always / wearing a suit / made with my hide. Completely hand stitched.”  (“My bank is different”)  These poems also represent particular poetic inheritances: the lyric poet engaged in the searing, relentless, self-examination and the exploration of Bitter-Love becoming something else.  In addition to Chernobylove—il giorno dopo il vento (Kimerik 2010), Francesca Pellegrino has published Dimentico sempre di dare l’acqua ai sogni (Kimerik 2009), Niente di personale (Samizdat 2009); and a chapbook, L’Enunciato (Libraria Padovana 2008).  Francesca Pellegrino is a coordinator of the literary magazine LibrAria.  These poems appear in Chernobylove—The Day After the Wind Selected Poems 2008-2010 Selected, Edited, and Translated by Adria Bernardi (Chelsea Editions).  Born in 1974, Pellegrino lives in Taranto.

– Adria Bernardi

La mia banca è differente

by Francesca Pellegrino

Il mio cuore è un rosso fisso

fallimentare

tra crediti mai risarciti d’amore

ed interessi di mora

da pagare sull’unghia.

Al portatore.

 

. . .

 

Sono l’ultima della fila

al banco dei pegni.

Spero che l’omino sia buono con me

che mi dia almeno due centesimi

ho da pagare una bolletta

per tutte le ore

che ho nella borsa

investite in quelle azioni

che sono poi andate.  Fottute.

Fallite.

Il socio capogruppo

lo hanno visto su un’isola tropicale

sempre il sole

che portava un vestito fatto

con la mia pelle.  Tutto cucito a mano.

Gli stava da Dio, così come

l’ho amato

ma sapendo la poca cura

che ha avuto di tutto il tempo mio

resterà nudo, prima che faccia notte.

E freddo.

My bank is different

by Francesca Pellegrino

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
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Il diavolo azzurro, di famiglia nobile

by Francesca Pellegrino

Era un grand’uomo, lui

c’è da dirlo.  Impettito di tutto spillo e

mi portava a spasso al braccio

sempre che io non parlassi troppo

o troppo poco.  Potevo fare pipì

ma solo se non avevo esagerato

a saziare la sete. E l’amore sulle unghie.

E potevo baciarlo

solo se asciugavo bene bene

la bocca coi silenzi

respirando il giusto, senza

esagerare, come stare con l’anima

in mezzo ai ferri—stretta di morsa stretta

la lingua.  Che neanche una preghiera

si poteva.  Neanche una preghiera.

Era un grand’uomo.  Davvero davvero

lui, che si pettinava i capelli

all’ultimo grido mio, per ore e ore e ore.

E poi, una cosa buona, anzi due,

la fece una sera, quando andò via,

brav’uomo, lui

che aveva altre fiche da marcire

senza dimenticare lasciarmi il figlioamoremio

e prendere lo shampoo.

PrinceHarming, of noble origins

by Francesca Pellegrino

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
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Nella pentola non c’era il sugo
e neanche il coperchio

by Francesca Pellegrino

Non sapevo che le tempeste

intorno avessero sempre e solo

tempeste. Non lo sapevo.

E così vanno anche i minuti

uno dietro l’altro

di fretta

a mozzicare i culi delle persone

coi denti intartarati.

E so di qualcuno

che si era pure inventato

un gioco nuovo

qualcosa come una parentesi che apriva

e dentro c’era una bambola

che aveva un figlio di pezza pure lui.

Ma facevano le lacrime vere

con gli occhi.

Poi, quando si era fatta una certa

chiudeva la parentesi

e tornava a girare il vuoto

nel vuoto, di tutto il niente del niente

che era.

 

 

Nothing in the pot,
Not even a lid

by Francesca Pellegrino

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
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