THE NIGHT IS ELSEWHERE (ten silences and an Act of Contriction) -traduzione a cura di Roberta Dammern-

1.

The night is elsewhere
frayed in internment cells
waxed moon mirroring
at the invisible step of a mask.

The night is the underground risk
of consciousness,
it’s the guilty innocence of madness.

2.

I became crazy six years ago
but not now,
I cannot go back to the world.

The order of things
are body and soul they cannot communicate,
quick and untidy pulsations
without synchronous,
can’t recognize other fibres, they seem
distant fragments of meat, it seems
passions don’t beat any more
no more affection
no more arms
nor blood,
nor
hair more.

3.

I don’t like people.
I don’t trust them.

I don’t like the people who move,
people,
here,
people should stay quite,
if people move
I am forced to check them
for me
it becomes difficult,
they create disorder,
they create deaf background.

4.

I’m not going out home
since 1983.
People were coming out of the corners
continuously.
I could not check them.

5.

Saint nun
Support
Sustain
Sipping.

Socks
Soup
Small bell
Scoring.

White light
White sheets

Weep
in
silence.

6.

On Sunday they come here to find us little than eleven,
on Sunday the cakes can come in,
the colours of flowers can
the perfumes, on Sunday

7.

"Four hundred and forty-six cases
a hundred and fifty-one for alive mind emotions
fifty-two for hereditary disposition
twenty-eight for masturbation

three for syphilis virus
twelve for Venus pleasure abuses
twelve for intellectual faculties abuses
two for the presence of worms in the intestine
one for reabsorption of scabies
five for reabsorption of herpes
twenty-nine for milky metastasis
two for insolation… “ * (1)

8.

Maria lies down seated
Maria nightdressed daydreams a fashion show
Maria tortured in her wrists veins
pressed by knots
Maimed Maria
between insults of the senseless ones.

9.

“The imprisoned people for insanity
will be questioned by the judges
according to the forms in use
for three months from the day onward
the publication of the present decree
under the power of judges’s dispositions
they will be visited by the doctors whom will clarify
the patients' real situation so that
they will be released
or curated in the suitable hospitals at such purpose.” * (2)

10.

Camellias through gratings,
miss the iron
miss
Maria through gratings
in this silence
which every tension appeases
- today didn’t shout anyone
today, not yet.

11.

Act of Contriction
my God
I regret and regret
my God
give me the licence to walk
give me a new dressing gown
and some water
please give me flowers that grow
daily
and then
(if you can)
invent, o Lord
brace brackets,
invent for me scratches and pictures and immense white lakes
where I can fill my glances
to breathe in peace.

(1) Giraudy, report to the Minister of the Interiors on the situation of the Charenton mental hospital in 1804.
(2) art. IX decree of Declaration of the man’s rights’ chart–1790.

THE RED FISH'S THEORY (Traduzione a cura di Roberta Dammern)

As a robin
I tap the distance from your eyelash
Unable to observe
The silence to the bitter end of a red fish, maybe
For the simple reason
That the red fish’s theory
It’s sly as
Light signs of deceits
I have learned to admit.

This evening I’ve picked up 16 brilliant ideas
And two violets.
To say them to you
I should survey the morning hatred
with the necessary solitude.
To give them to you
I would need to bend me on tin water
And throw bread crumb
Smiling
For the mess done
By red fishes which run to squad because
Red fish’s theory
It’s wood against wood,
Water and soot in the harbour dumps,
It’s feeling inside a sharp extended noise,
An undefended empty space,
remaining a flag in the fog
remaining
A swinging on spider’s web
Blind bug.

Well.

By now I know everything on the febrile beating of your eyelids,
about the safe touch of daily things.
Know about the way you move as who comes to give an order
And leave.

You’re shadows on the walls.
The smoke of the torchs.

I look at you with a blackbird on my shoulder and the profile of a coin.

You stare at me
With the conscience and the certainty of who knows
What could happen.

Rolled up in a corner I order the blackbird
Time of calm or at least

A false mourning.

And you begin.

Saying that every time we are together I say few words.

“I know it. I’m special.”

You need to hear me saying something that comforts you but I answer with words of five letters.

Because.

“I’m special, I’m sorry.”

You say that I don’t want to do anything, I don’t want to go out so you throw an old thirteen year thing in my face, that fifth year’s school trip I’ve never done.

“I’m special, I just told you.”

You claim that I should stop telling you that story about blackbird, I should stop singing to you every time that song about blackbird and imitating all the pigeons we meet.

“Special.”

And you never tell me the things you write. I must read them. It’s absurd.

“Special, don’t insist my darling, I’m really special.”

Come now, seriously.

“Do you know what I was thinking on?”

Please tell me.

“Wouldn’t be necessary to write what is thought.”

That is to say?

“Saying what you think you’ll always end up with writing obvious sentences. Think when you are in love. If you try to write something you will find between hands only pathetic and obvious sentences again.”.

I don’t think so.

“Yes I think.”

Please, allow me to pointing out that...

“I cannot. Do you remember? I’m special…”

Right. I forgot it. But listen, my Special being, what would it be necessary to write?

“I imagine what you would like to think. What you would like to say. Think about love. How you manage to rebuilt it once ended. Think to the angles that you’ll get back. To the shades. Think to the thoroughness you can say about an ended thing. You can say and write things you have never thought to.”

You laugh.

I love the way you laugh.

You are as ears broken for fun
In August nights.

Beyond every morning awakening
Ours is a slow wind of won
wich preserves and protects us
Beating on the soft creacking of woods
tapping in the night
a tiny and continuous noise,
they tap
the red fish’s theory that,

like rainwater
persistent and plentiful,
increases canals and swells rivers.

You and I, we're really red fishes under the rain.

Under the rain we are  in a raising of waters without peace
In a icy night that drips us
Water holes around and digs
In our misery and measure
The astonishment of the differences,
The sharpness of their sides.

I have 16 theories, this evening
and a big wish to take you
on a wood hut above a poplar
In Madagascar
Covered by a roof of banana leaves
With the rain that drips us
Gush on the nek.

I want to take you above a poplar in Madagascar
And hear you reading something of Bufalino

Or Consolo
And tell you you’re special too
And every sighted buoy is nothing else
Than a lukewarm earth marks where to rest.

Grow your distance from the things, my love,
make it lasting,
don’t let that becomes familiar to someone.

Should be for you a baptismal source
That contains up til now
The last chapters for your abandonment.

Never betray your distance from the things,
Learn to recognize it in its lightest signs:
The piling up of leaves to the sides of the road,
The soot in the suburbs,
The opening of a white flower in the middle of the night,
My clothes untidy,
Neither I was blind,
The hatred of going however.

Don’t stir your distance from the things
With daily episodes.

Plait it as lonely lasting matter.

And if you have five free minutes,
count four,
one keep it for you.

Gli incisivi di Violetta

Violetta linea piramidale

feroce. sorvegli

dei muri bianchi la schiena,

sentinella discreta al calar della sera.

Violetta spessa parete di gesso

fissa sull’uscio a mostrar gli incisivi

calamita di persone confuse

son poche le rose che sopportano l’ombra.

Calci di tacco, mature le arance,

cadute per terra con pioggia e con vento,

caduti per terra, c'è pioggia e ora sento,

tarassaco a folate volarsene via.

Violetta stella stellina stelletta

che brilli, anima mia.

Stellina stelletta, se al cuor metti fretta,

il cuor si raffredda, si spegne 

e scivola via.