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.