Hurto

Guardava quella casa, davanti a sé, e pensava alla misteriosa permanenza delle cose nella corrente mai ferma della vita. Stava pensando che ogni volta, vivendo con loro, si finisce per lasciare su di loro come una mano leggera di vernice, la tinta di certe emozioni destinate a scolorare, sotto il sole, in ricordi. 

- Tre volte all'alba, Alessandro Baricco

Sunset shines
A gift
ineffable
and bright

One must watch it almost
with devotion
for it won't last long

It's colors will become pale
and fade
diminishing
into the growing darkness

'Tis true

Living beside a tree top, as I do, I can say that it's true what they say about spring: birds are chasing each other, in pairs, showing otherwise hidden red and terracotta colors in their feathers, widening their wings out, or narrowing them up; some forcing others to bear their weight and stand still. Bees have begun visiting too, but, alas! No flowers have sprung yet.

En busca del tiempo perdido XVII

Algunas veces se busca en el cielo, en los símbolos que se estiman perennes o en las fotografías póstumas que antecedieron a la devastación. Para constatar que ya no existe.

Otras es preferible remover la tierra, lanzarle los corazones roídos de las manzanas y celebrar la lluvia.

Oxytocin

Or, all that is felt and lived and said is just both too complex and unpretentious to be spelled out.

To help us comprehend the magnitude of absence

What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee; 
What thou lov’st well is thy true heritage.        
          Ezra Pound

You’ll find labels describing what is gone:

an empress’s bones, a stolen painting

of a man in a feathered helmet

holding a flag-draped spear.

A vellum gospel, hidden somewhere long ago

forgotten, would have sat on that pedestal;

this glass cabinet could have kept the first

salts carried back from the Levant.

To help us comprehend the magnitude

of absence, huge rooms

lie empty of their wonders—the Colossus,

Babylon’s Hanging Gardens and

in this gallery, empty shelves enough to hold

all the scrolls of Alexandria.

My love, I’ve petitioned the curator

who has acquired an empty chest

representing all the poems you will

now never write. It will be kept with others

in the poet’s gallery. Next door,

a vacant room echoes with the spill

of jewels buried by a pirate who died

before disclosing their whereabouts.

I hope you don’t mind, but I have kept

a few of your pieces

for my private collection. I think

you know the ones I mean.

"In the Museum of Lost Objects" by Rebecca Lindenberg

Prologue, and epilogue, to a moment

The cinema is a specific language.

           — Christian Metz

What the body might guess,

what the hand requests,

what language assumes

becomes amulet,

which is to say

I am carrying your face

in a locket in a box

to a virtual location

guarded by kestrels,

suggesting the scene’s

geography of love and dirt,

trees ripe with darkness

and bones’ white luster.

In the moonlit blue house,

where snow won’t fall

unless called upon,

grace enters as requested,

lands next to you, grasped,

as if love were a reflex

simple as weather.

Scene, by Maxine Chernoff

Night walking

Above all things
your voice
which I struggle to remember

or one of its vehicles
your lips
the kiss you placed
on my head

an unexpected gift
wishing
to speak for you

True Love III - Non è detto

Se è tanto bello perché non vivi lì?
Ecco, adesso ripartiamo con l'interrogatorio. Tu faresti strada nella polizia, lo sai?
Dimmi ancora soltanto questo. Perché non vivi lì, se lui è... se lì è così bello?
E una storia da grandi, lascia perdere.
Dimmi soltanto l'inizio.
L'inizio? Quale inizio?
Come inizia la storia?
Ma guarda che sei un bel tipo.
Per favore.
Ma niente, è la solita storia, è l'uomo della mia vita e io sono la donna della sua vita, tutto lì, solo che non siamo mai riusciti a vivere insieme, contento?
Grazie.
Non è neanche detto che se ami davvero qualcuno, ma tanto, la cosa migliore che puoi farci insieme sia vivere.
No?
Non è detto.
Ah.


Tre volte all'alba, Alessandro Baricco

A jewel hung

                                                          

                                                              ... my soul's imaginary sight                 

                                                              Presents thy shadow to my sightless view 
                                                              Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,
                                                              Makes black night beauteous and her old face new.    

                                                                     - Shakespeare, Sonnet XXVII

I've dreamt again

Now these dreams of mine
(of you)
of anything but ours
have become funny

funny little tragedies
which are no tragedies at all
but just the imaginary of distance

ancient
archetypical

                                  and true

as true as art
or literature
or music
             
                                 or any other such fiction

truer
indeed
than we both are

The realm of chance

I bet it was an r
I'm pretty sure it began with an r

R as in too many requests
R as in rather reticent replies
R as in reporter, or the realm of chance

or

R as in rather not

A resonant initial R
with (maybe) a melodious d in the middle
but never as sweet as a sweet liquid l
either in between... or at the end

Then the bureocracy of the private industry
and time wasting itself away
or being denied

A problem of incompetence
let's say
even though we both tried
not to blush

Elegía VIII

A las tangentes