Translated into English by Maurizio Brancaleoni
From “Intimità delle lontananze” (“Intimate Distances”) (2004)
49
Deadly feedstuff
deserts of rules
multiple misdeeds
mocking snoots.
I descend the stairs of a splendid atelier
eaten up by the sun’s comedies
cats get flat out of slack
the shadowless gallows of cicadas,
a few meters away the new cemetery
(serving the
soul of future)
dishes out gendarmes sharp with bolt cutters.
From “Vigilia di sorpasso” (“Eve of Overtaking”) (2010)
39.
at the back of the job of resisting
the wind is called a swinging of blasphemous
sphynxes riding a broomstick.
rust soaring above the nape of the neck
forerunning confetti of death
I am. long face I shall not have your
love, but you’ll see I know how to resist
the partisan anecdote in the crag
of the eventide. choppy sea in the soul to see you
from under the case that approaches me dead.
From “Il cantiere delle parvenze” (“The Workshop of Semblances”) (2010)
42.
my theatre shortens I ride on others’ coat tails
in the havoc of the index by the hour,
other snake-like cases of heartache
when they announce that boredom lives
close to break-even with ash.
actually the angel’s play
babbles the impossible to the stones
the lyre stained with axe sewage.
to die of boredom like a tortoise
like the little girls in the hollow dunes
transported by the furies of the waves.
the crash of the virgins is a reddish
tide, demented the trip
with dizziness. in a wrinkled jacket I stand
and see you leave without engaged scratches.
I like to die holding a lantern
with a stash of iris overwhelming me
feeding my discontent by my side. what happened was
that I slit my wrists tomorrow, take off my clothes
I walk naked amid the cypresses that exalt
the dead by denouncing the nape of the neck of charity
fainted.
From “Cantico di stasi” (“Canticle of Stasis”) (2012)
6.
The window of discontent
along the courses of my sacrificing
the throng of the marsh. inside
the diamond I see the basket
of useless stigmata. I am long in suffering
this Martian of anxiety.
bootless the notes do not explain
the misfortune of moves without respect
the guiles containing the arrival
on the substitutions of the wind always against
the benefit of the all-standing lighthouse.
in competition with the winning swallow
may boredom withdraw which gives the cinereous staff
of the burden inside a reason to cry.
here one immolates the greed of contending
only downpours with vising drops.
in the hands of the surf’s mercy
the scoriae in one’s hands are the affection
of people who died in the garden of marvels
so they say in the tales of vanquished nuptial beds.
the soldier’s fear is the dynamiting
fence. here if you run away in a hurry
may luck open the wind and to hell with stinginess.
From “La cena del verbo” (“The Supper of the Word”) (2014)
31.
The struggle of dawn will cause my breasts to die
Torture gerund waiting at the world
To ask for peace without stealing anything
Neither the commas of the time passed
Nor the full stop ending a child conversation.
I train you as if you were an Olympic woman
Satiated panic without an affront
Nowadays there’s a Hercules driving the sin
I use up my coma on speakerphone
And clean out with the chorus of the fibs about
Gazing at God the beloved Jesus.
61.
Sluggish swamp the sea by now
It flirts with the lighthouse the last game
When children come to the sands
And strokes, locked up adrift, rot.
I shall be my construct in vain
The livid dawn of the one who often dies
Under the sindons of fingerprints.
A dream of you will be my eventide
The naked syllabary of the meek lighthouse
And the holy gazelles’ irenic messenger.
Sinister love the raft aches
This harrowing fate of dying
In the seesaw of the shadow or of the pitch dark.
Easter backpack to gaze at your face
To have a raft in the name of service
Refuge as the bad habit of running after each other.
Marina Pizzi is a contemporary Italian poet. She was born in Rome, where she still lives, on 5-5-55. In her literary career she has published over fifty books of poetry both on paper and in electronic format. Her poems have also appeared in various journals and anthologies.
Maurizio Brancaleoni is a writer and translator. He received his master’s degree in Language and Translation Studies from Sapienza University of Rome in 2018, but he has been translating at least since 2012. In recent years he localized the prose and poetry of manifold authors, among which Thomas Wolfe, Adrian C. Louis, Justin Phillip Reed, Jean Toomer, Dylan Thomas, Herman Melville, Scipione/Gino Bonichi and Amelia Rosselli. More poems by Marina Pizzi in English translation can be found here.