stop.start.

i'm so tired of looking for you
of walking around you in circles
while you just turn your head
to make sure i don't surprise you

what the hell are you afraid of
i'll never understand
you said you'd miss me if were not to call you
so i called you
now fast forward 4 months
we've had a handful of times
where we really together. one thing.
shake your head and say you didn't feel it, if you're brave enough
but you're not.

you made sure to let everything cool off
in indifference and disappearance

what are you looking for s. l.
and, even considering you know
why haven't you told me to fuck off?

it's pretty clear i'm in love with you
the reasons why are not important
(must i write them?)
i've made steps towards you
i've done enough. it wouldn't be respectful for me
or for you to keep hope alive
for something you so feebly feel

i might be wrong about us
(but i don't think i am)
nevertheless there's a bigger problem:
you have no idea of what you're doing
and that's because you've never made a fucking
conscious decision in your life.

start.

for s.l.

whip, cage or sword

when you're ready
to do or say
what you need to forget
then it means that you're ready to give up what you love

all men kill what's dear
but how hard it is to just let it go and hope no one else
runs on by whip, cage or sword

Overheard in a bar outside my body

"...And I'm handsome.
You're handsome.
You're very handsome."

"So why don't you love me?!"
"Why? Do you love me?"

"Well, yes, yeah I think I do."
"Oh..damn, and and why?"

"Why?"(hesitates)

–She lowers her eyes and expects the same she's heard tens of times from lovers that had been turned down. The last flip of a fin of a dying caught fish on the banks of a river. She consoles herself with the fact that the agony will be shortlived.

"Because it's easy. Because your beautiful, you're smart and you're righteous. I love how we talk, I love how we meet, I love when you smile and look away and I love how you're strong and stubborn and lazy. I love being the person that you rely on for wisdom or for things you know but you just need repeated. I love making you laugh and I love how your eyes light up when you're surprised. I love how you plan: that wacky confused way of tackling problems you have. I love your dark side, I love how you let yourself be dominated by it with no fear of succombing. I love when you're drunk and I love when you're groggy and critical. I love that you're so easily offended. I love your hair and how you move. There's a certain encompassing movement you do when you reach around to hug your legs. I love little, diametrical things about you: the childish innocent nail painting and the womanly stares you sometimes give when you don't agree with me. I love going places with you while we drink coffee. I love how you're determined, but I love how you more than once relied on me to confirm it. I love how I feel important and needed when I'm around you. I love how we would be the best couple, but still lead our own lives. I love how we once closed our eyes next to each other on an October bench and with the blessing of a dying sun you said: "I wanna stay here forever." And I said: "me too."

You're the color yellow, you're a rhyme, you're the dark gray after a fire and the turn of November.

But thinking about it, I really don't know why I love you."

for S.L.

One Dawn

Having been woken up by someone else's alarm clock, I laid in bed staring up for a while. I went through all the usual worries of lying in the dark--will I get my work done, will I escape the monster from under my bed, what will I be when I grow up--I decided to sit cross legged on a chest of drawers aimlessly looking at daybreak from my window.

I had seen cats do it in movies, in grandpa houses and especially I had seen them from the outside. This was my best impression of a cat, and after some time I finally understood that it wasn't about looking out, or even staring out. No matter how concentrated they looked, cats were really focused on listening.

From my position I could not see much anyways. The thermometer had been slowly, but steadily descending back were one would expect for these northern latitudes. Two in three leaves on the tall birches lining my street were going yellow, making streaks against the tough remaining green. Either way, they'd only diffuse the light from the opposite building; I imagined them projecting their shape on my building's wall.

But as soon as I stopped concentrating on image, far away muffled sounds started to paint an infinitely detailed blind picture. There were planes flying, taking dads away from their sleepy eyed sons that awoke in turn to banging sounds of heating pipes. Someone on the floor above was rushing out; she lived alone and and was going to work. I could hear her somber heels as she stormed from one end of the house to the other. She wasn't afraid of waking anyone up and she never closed a door. The pipes kept banging hinting at the inside air warming up. The covers pulled a squeaky bed on the other side of the wall, while the week changes a Sunday doze to Monday strain.

The heating flares, bubbling the water lukewarm before it flowed. Clumsy pre-breakfast hands undressed, and dropped the shower-head on the cheap tin shellac bathtub. I thought I heard a man's voice, but maybe it wasn't true. Opposite to what one might think, far away sounds are easier, clearer; as if they shed any uncertainties while they travel the distance between their origin to my ear.

The highway churned and hummed in the distance to the south and east, where the grey of the sky turned into a pinkish diffuse glow before fading once again into light blue. The cars trumpeted their repetition loop into the metal side rails as if to send a sonar signal to know where they are. They might as well ring endlessly around the city, around the buildings and the houses, encircling everyone's hopes for the day, leaving everyone's mistakes in the past and levigating people's preoccupations for the week to come.

There were radio hisses from downstairs and kitchen utensils tingling on tables, there were baby cries and parents' sighs. I remembered when this time, these (and other) sounds, meant school and meant small problems seeming large. I imagined the blond boy across the hall, as he stared at the wall in silence while his mom put a sock on, then the other. How bigger and weirder and unknown must all these noises sound to him. But, they are indefinably a part of his world, a part of the whole. He was born there, born into it, born into the clanging and the rushing on the stairs, born into the rain ticks and door clicks, the ringing and the humming, the brushing and the flowing.

All around him is the life of the city waking up and gaining consciousness of a new week, or a routine week. But as in every awakening and every gain, there is a loss slow and dark of what has passed. We remember it in silence.

for S.L.

Songs

great sad-eyed song of the everglades
to wish someone had stayed
to warn life, however it may go you'll still cash your ticket
so let's sing all to that dawn that was supposed to
shine, but never did

for b.h.

starting again from zero

the night fell
secretly summery air
still as an invisible blanket
kept my thoughts in as they floated on a roof
relentlessly those digits looking
for you making mystery out
of silence

the idea is to run away
never look back and sit down
next to the ghost i so tremblingly fear
the idea is for you to miss me
it's for you to fight at least once
for what is only my love
and your magniloquent
absence.

for b.h.

on your birthday

on birthdays we are reminded
of how small and quick
is our mark here

365 days, sometimes 366
fall like slow leaves
but only on one
we know the difference
between hind and foresight.

today you were born:
what a stupid thing to celebrate
–as if it was a conscious thing.

what an unbalanced world made you
what a tipped iceberg brought us here
but still. we are.
and it doesn't have to happen only once a year.

for b.h.

what i wait for

what i wait for
is a green line
a go--
a way out
a new old
a perfect tense
round two places
two doors
one life, two paths
what i wait for
is for you
tojours
what i wait for
can never become
an easy ticket, an arrow
to an action
but it can easily fail
as we're both in this together
and we've been known to make mistakes before
what i wait for

for b.h.

three floors up

dragging in time
i expose the weakness of
seeing you here and now

the shadow hit your eyes
as i was compelled to turn around
it's morning when we surrender
to each other's lips

it's morning again
when the sun's angle matches my eyes
with wires and cloth
left in remnants of time
chalk lines leading maybe
to a seamstress's pattern.

for b.h.

Ah, Venezia

ah venezia, a place where both the architecture–enclosed little squares and putrescent alleys–and the geographical location allow for nothing else other than death or love, whichever appears first. as a symptom of a sort of static malady, time laps gently on the moss walls, as days and years go by; unperturbed by seasons, weather or camera flashes.

no one is really from venice: silence is the only real local inhabitant among those canals. once there, you can't help but feel the gloomy temporariness of existence, or of your money. burdened with a feeling of waiting, one can only wallow with the idea of meeting someone while effortlessly falling in love. of course that someone will inevitably be a traveler, a ghost, or a blond Polish teenager in a sailor suit. often, all of the above.

there's nothing dynamic about venice, it stands fast and holds ground, motionless and redundant.
and cloaks you as the fog cloaks her.

farewell

so i drop you
from a branch arm that remembered
more than gravity
pulls you wind far from me
because i did nothing to keep you once
you can never think
i'll stick through winter this time

so i'm just left here
bare, reflected in hurt
and forever regretting what i did
and what i could've not done.

for n.s.

the snow

when i was younger the snow was just a dream. i think it snowed once in 1986. supposedly that was an El Niño year or, more simply put, a year of exceptional cold. I was almost amazed at the possibility of ice falling from the sky. But even more so I was amazed at the possibility of ice going all the way from the sky to the ground, touching it, bringing it to it's own listless temperature and finally sticking and laying on the ground. It made me think of the world as a giant hourglass that would slowly begin to fill all white and silent.
So that was it, that was the attractive, the sky, in some places, and at certain times, tried to reach to the surface of the earth making the world just one substance: in unison, whole, still and white.

a recurring dream

if no rain's any truer than rain
if distance is is in anyway
a proxy for emptiness
then me giving up myself
plays as a canopy under which
i can hide from
dreaming.

by endlessly falling again
and again
and again
into you.

if meaning mimics doubt
you hop south then west then east
if time catches up with you
will it shift the way you see ahead?
the question is when, the question is
whether i'll resist lying again without being completely empty.

for b.j.

a reply to silence

what will all this mean
when all the intentions
have been filed
and all the regrets ran their course
circumnavigating circumstances?

to see what lies behind the cape
at sunset
we take the biggest of risks.
and the image reveals for what it is;
far more dangerous is what we might have had
just a handful of thoughts
good only to tire our eyes

for b.j.

a sign

i was waiting for a sign
for something to shake this tree
of yellowish leaves
born in shreds and mended by wind

i am someone else tonight
and tomorrow night
but don't you come lecturing
me on how to be
what i'm supposed to be
when all you accumulate is doubts
you can't claim to have a plan

silence stays heavy
under shelf clouds
it's true. it occupies space
but negates any resolution
any rendering
shoving outcomes realistic or not
under another dusty rug of it-takes-time's

for b.j.

the list of awkward

· we start from a pretty weird situation already
· theater, no theater, come there, meet there, go together, meet here, meet there.
· see you lying down on ground and think "ireallywannalaydownnexttoherandsayhi,butibetternot"

i usually do what i feel, and i don't know why i don't with you.––[editor's note]

· we find a bar. we can't get in.
· then we go to a nice place, but i can't even order a spoon.
· we go to the theater i get your name wrong. i start hating myself for the rest of the night or eternity, whichever ends first.
· we ride on the subway. i'm scared shitless that there'd be a control, we'd get fined and you'd associate me with getting harassed in german and minus €40.
· i'm supposed to help you with your bike and i don't.
· we get to my house. i leave you waiting outside. again.
· we ride to neukölln or to bayern, whichever came first, i want to keep chatting while riding because i think it's a usually a beautiful thing–you know, air and city landscape at speed, while you hear a familiar voice, it's like being in a movie and it would've been great to be there with you. i can't because there's traffic and this asshole honks at you and you have to tell me: i don't like riding in the middle of the street, as if i didn't know.
· we get to the bar, i get the feeling you're waiting for someone who doesn't show up. i'm afraid to ask.
· i go and get beers, but an annoying person keeps hitting on this german guy at the bar. i leave you waiting. again.
· i ask you why you keep folding the volksbühne flyer wrong because i want to know if it's what you do when you think about books you make, like new ways of binding books and origami books and whatnot. it all comes out wrong, as a reproach.
· i find €50. i assume they were yours because i only notice them when you get up from your usual crossedleggedness. when you come back i wrapped them and immediately i realize it looks like i'm giving you €50. i feel so stupid i just want to dissolve into my beer and fizz away within microseconds. i try to explain, but there's nothing to do.
· you say you're tired, i am basically mute. i realize you're saying goodbye. i start thinking about writing this.

only moment when i felt alright: sitting on that 1900's bench-couch, our legs drawing a triangle, looking at how round and curved the hall was and how sparkling were the crystals in the chandelier and in your eyes. your voice was soft and i was relaxed, smoking a cuban cigar. i we both dressed elegantly; i had a mustache and an iron car parked outside. we were high-society members, well respected among the artistic elites, conspiring against a blackshirt regime, we patronized opposition theater. but the time had come, we would've been arrested come morning. sitting on the couch, away from inquiring eyes, i asked you to elope with me to switzerland, and start a new life there. you obviously said yes.

for k-n

i just wanted to say goodbye
from far away i wave
to you
and your back
"but you've not said hi"
and i know, but i feel i don't need to

so goodbye and so long
to all the difficult things
whoever said they were exciting
it's just smoke in our eyes
and wishes of coming true

the red lantern

or so i see
from above.

the light shines warm yellow from inside.
i waited till darkness made its way
noses red, wool and quick steps
embraced with wide black arms

i waited till all around were
lists of city silences preparing for country secrets

from above the light bled through the glass windows
for everyone to see, but there was no one there
no one there except the trees
and the rooftops leaning down

and you i waited for
to come smile quiet
legs crossed on the chair, under the table

i waited till there was nothing more to wait for
and i thought that, in the end, since i didn't know what i was waiting for,
i was just waiting for you.

for k-n

fog on the river

sometimes, as the passing of days
the slow change of perspective
takes place as angles roll slowly west
you and i, a definite direction
and a recurrence of quick snaps
like ticks on windows

but as the pane thickens with water
the outside blurs, sometimes distorted
sometimes magnified
as i keep steadily on the outside
signaling on each passing season
the you from the fall
and the you from the spring

for Z.D.

straight line

he walks in that direction
he definitely shouldn't stray

he walks straight, keeps from gusts and faster cars
impassible to time and times.

a blade

where, after the winter long
layers of earth lay, where can't sisters and brothers
rush the grain?
but still land lies fallow, under the glow of
an unborn winter. we had rugs to sit on
and eyes to fill.
still a single blade of grass shoots to the light
leaving me with a non-parallel antonym
to forgive-and-forget.

for b.j.

North|wishtanding the loneliness

sometimes you have a way out
and sometimes you don't
sometimes it's easier to look back in anger
than kick it in the gutter

as if cradling what's broken
might mend it again.
so you want to erase
and give yourself an excuse

but it'll only throw you in a loop
and leave you out in the cold
where all is left is empty bottles
and leaves that crack brown.

pronouns

there is a word to indicate "you"&"me"
that word is "us"
but it's too heavy and sultry
as the August air it resonates in
glare is undiscerning
it coats things and tired hearts,
i don't say what i say
i don't say why
the way glare does

i've been doing this too long, i've accepted
the system's flawed and that nothing
ever turns the way i want it
to be surprised at you not wanting us

glare surprises everyone, and surprises me
thinking i'll ever be immune, i'll ever stop hoping
to be stolen from this air

for b.j.

a tale of summer gone

the summer here vanished in a matter of hours
everyone kept staring right and left
trying to spot it as it rushed east, west or,
most probably,
south. And there as such, darkening without notice
clouds urged their way through
kicking each and everyone into the 5th season
which is like a trailer of what will come
brooding with the new.

it was indeed a parenthesis,
and in a more fatalistic, pagan way
we could say; for every Berliner's complaint
–about past July heat–
a raindrop fell on the city, on its streets
and in its canals. filling straight lines with concentric circles.

for b.j.

presences

she is there
in my livingroom
strange place for a bike
though she's metal and rubber
people attribute more to that
than to a handshake or a kiss

she resonates in my mind
a silent connection with what can only
be imagined and wished for.
she impersonates, comes to silent steel life,
represents, and–if you won't believe me–
she ultimately, fills some square meters
around me at night at day and every day.

but she cannot decide
she has a mute power
to set her limits certain:
where she should go and how much she should wait
before becoming an object again. inanimate, motionless and material.

for b.j.

i tried

and i am rested on
a canal bed
looking up through the murky depths reversed
to a sky rebounding you
as if the course of the waterway
was deviated to make space
for all the words
that had been written and said along its banks
and what of the miles that rest
from here to that other hemisphere?

distances built with tracks, to go far, to accept
that, maybe, this voyage would be our last
happily ended after
i had wrestled from the before. i couldn't overcome
the grassroots of the equator.
an imaginary line couldn't free you, how could i.

for b.j.

The country of the dead

These are difficult days. It is neither the time or the place to explain to you why our country is in arguably the most difficult socio-economic situation since the end of WWII. [...]

From outside, we see the world and wish it was ours. Our generation is learning to hide from its inherited stereotypes. From amusing antics they have transfigured into monsters precluding any pride, or unity. Their long shadows from centuries of immigration thrash every step we make towards a collective conscience as a country. Italians in 2010 are a pack of toothless wolves, left behind and out in the grassland with no shade or cover. Avoiding to point fingers in any direction, it's useless to find the culpable or the runaway. We carry the heaviest burden, and if the world might have no future, Italy has no present. We live in an interminable parenthesis where the dead hold the strings to an invisible yoke. The dead have taken away any chance of redemption in our lifetime, and most of us know they'll never be able to live their lives on the shores of the peninsula as we live them abroad.

For a brief time in the summer of 2006, football brought back hope. And everyone can argue on its meaninglessness, but for a brief period it was a signal that we, the people who still believe in that land, could regain control and lift our heads. For the enlightened few who have to carry the burden and shame of a tyranny settling in, and that of a stifling recession crippling all chances of starting enterprise without nepotism, 2006 was pure distilled confidence.

But this year, the country of the dead has made sure to shut yet another crack of light. Conservatism poisons every aspect of Italian society, so why we expect it not to invade football? As funny as it may sound, our team is the mirror of our country. 9 out of 14 players are there because they were there four years ago, the rest are there because they follow orders exactly as they are told. Check out the names in the political party(ies) and you will find the same proportions. In a paradoxical inversion of the metaphor, the best footballers have been left home, while the mediocre represent all of us.

We live abroad. We are confronted with ridicule everyday. We have no chance of rebelling against this, because it would mean excluding ourselves from what is ours.

But I won't be playing the "un-patriotic" role that the country of the dead has drawn out for us. So forward Italy.

We are headed for sure disaster, and we will surely sink, but not with our eyes closed. We know what's happening yet we still choose to stand behind our flag.

canal song

in between isles of a's,
the coordination of coordinators
the collaboration of collaborators
while looking for importance
under unbuilt ikea furniture,
stove-top disasters, alaskan pixelated monsters
learning to play the clumsy chords of
my sleep,
my wake becomes one
with another 1000 canal drifters
at night in a parenthetical summer

pausing for air, at every end
at every friday and with every new eyes that meet mine

day | night / day

why did he keep to himself
rolling out of the house
after a nights of sleep?
why did he not react to warehouses,
and post-meridians

were those nights harder than the days
his processing of the whole thing
satan in red slippers
"i'd lost all hope, but still had words"
now THEY betray him
stuck like frozen windowpanes
in the deep Artic summer air
settling, at night, when ghosts lay less
dormant than the dreams.

we catch fire

a midnight wood catches fire
putting out a cigarette / too late to lie
on rolling kilometers: you have seen more than just the soles of our shoes
regrets, rips, diluting rain, and one nights for stands or simple revenge
like the one that inevitably goes west and comes back at an angle

we
catch fire
almost spontaneously, in a circle
it's too late to lie.

a morning comes

a morning
through the shutters and the bus wakes
his stomach as empty as light through the room
outlining a knife cut and no knife
no newness,
but no regards either
to what once was but was never meant to be.

shutters at dark

an emergency emerged
surfacing pluralled by single malt
whisked out like a cat on its cushions
nothing ever turned out exactly as we planned it
when we decided not to plan it
as it got too late, we were reconciled
with ideas of impedance and hindrance.
what a soil: fertile and arid at the same time.
the limitless scared us
creeping from behind
beating down in frothier fourths
and the years on our hands.

my night with the letter a

the first bit that touches my mouth is jam on bread
no wait no bread
cold and fridgey against a corner-eyed white smoothie chocolate sky
on my left accountants go astray to come back and talk of listings
life is a balloon losing water from its holes and patches are actions
i'm putting the last short clocked hand into making my figure work on stage, the cracks through the boards reveal lights,
unused threes and one-time breaths.
a night with bar wit and chord fences. it's hard to get over those eyes
–and up there from the angles bounce curves and niche lips like every other day in summer
or the first cry of timelines that you've had, that everyone had.
the question is what have you been wasting.
how you've been doing is much more interesting, i say
looking for splits to pull and wedge, like a mole into pirate wood
saltwater inside to display its knowledge of death
it's the only subject we didn't get to for episode two or special zones and ways out inside a tarmac filled, frilly washout from last nights drink.
trains ride diameters with remainders, cameras upside down under the river. deep where silence sleeps unattended, spliced and boneless ready to ingest bearing the fruits of cradled revenge. the songs have been sung, the flowers have passed their heyday like a belt of mirror beads. remembering rum from a bottle cap in the portuguese tent, where i felt alone for the first time.
there are hints of overwhelming blue helmets to the rescue
but i'd need an i.v. of shhhhhhh in my veins to recover if you only but dared to put a foot on the battle ground.
1, 2, and seventeen counting listless on an excuse mission
to get close or closer to the steps never knowing
if the first one is up or down
pre-intro-chapter: all easy, all flowing, all done
but not done all innate all again
you have a word for unintentional grace but no description is needed, it's braille for the blind and knocks ahead or behind.
when you are you're not but still effortlessly anyways
this was the only uncontemplated option
a final hidden crease on the canvas finale
shown rounded cut and folded. flooding again with the flare of tomorrow's coffee and today's regrets
math plus listening what else i've gained in your eyes if not three and twenty and one and thirty?
again i sidetrack a sideshow and i can't help reciting my own verselets with a savor for bible stories and sexy half smiles. exclamation marks stare at your mixing straight hops
or potato skin with photograph paper.
some (more) questions lay on my chest like military medals. a play and loose pages at the park on a not-so-very sunny day with earthworms, northern lights street fights
and blurry kindergarten summer vacation stories
all about the story, all behind the curtain, all physical, sophistical, more stoic than broken wood, more highlighted than police cars. rgb's and garden trees–we count on our fingers up until twenty then we move on to someone else. with more hands than two you make it possible, and i follow like a water trickle reversing mountain and valley.
an easy finding for basslines and failures alike; translating into fridge letters and black on black. spinning speaking for momentum angular and still in its own way.

longing freezes either north or southwest. no interest.

long walk home alone recollecting floats and chinese dragons yellow and tinged red gold, curled up like waves towards shore. i'm still unpacking boxes taken with me open on freight bay closed off by mainstay bar lights and corrugated cardboard. what speaks after the sound has diffused to you, to me and back to you?
does this end with the jam in my mouth, does the alphabet start and end tonight with the letter a.

a brief pause

we can only keep busy. distract ourselves, get sidetracked–intentionally or not. laughter is a way of extending the illusion, but it doesn't work on sundays or at night.

imagine on sunday nights.

and maybe it's the secret of society living, a subconscious feeling to belong, to be validated by foreign eyes. but we can only keep busy; and forget that

yeah

you die, but you also live alone.

mariners will promise, clamped hands will wait

young swedes tired of their perfect old boyfriends fight in a filthy thief-ridden alley with their tattooed ugly dirty south american imperfect new boyfriends arguing on:

"we was drunk baby"

"don't call me baby"

"sory"

"she (was) my best friend"

so a voice echoes through their neck up to their watery eyes stuck to the ground:

"before you choose your wish you better take a look at its backpack".

they never realized that you can't run away and be caught at the same time. millennia have taught south european women how to stop a moment in time, and be prepared when it'll vanish.

unstylish bearded spanish rest on their ex-colonial presumptuousness as their puny history tells them they're better than others, meanwhile centuries pass by, and somehow they always find themselves in the last place.

with those years, emigrate italians play yarn and twine. foreign lands remain so, homesickness does too. while the clothes change, the faces and dreams don't. and never will.

it's the devil's bargain, you can have what you want, but never where you want it.

that was the night. i slept in a bed of clothes, knowing i'd be in winter when day would come again.

2

you have me wondering why
around syllables and consonants and half-days.
with my nose 3000 miles or two parallels up,
i ask myself questions around puzzles i'll never figure out,
like a chinese box, they hide more riddles.
but neither do i want to get rid of complexity or lay them flat on their back.

i come clean with memories and reverberations
that so closely take their flight with the midweek working night street
and surrender to a simple explanation.
there is some magic in the number 2

for k.j.

notes of a cartographer

how i dragged you in the thick brackish waters of our uncertain times. and what a shame–not sadness, nor regret–what a shame, that the world must go unconscious of our fight. how i teared you, because i knew you'd rend me, my every move. misfortune had our legs, our arms and throats–it brought the world to endure another much unneeded blow. with what was left we could build castles made of cards, resting on mud wet wings of glory days bygones and mighthavebeens. as void would turn into vegetation–the life could drain the plains, the parachutes we had to open and didn't. what a condolence of black ribbons, ripped velvets of deciduos logic. how i heaved the slow processes of need, into hindrance of rocks and details of a forgotten smile.

obviously for Z.D.

wishes

if only i could make my mailbox

fill itself

speak

instead of this

white on white starvation

and endless circling

kilometers

as we left the forest plains
made of kilometers and segmented by our hearts,
we lost ourselves–intentionally–
between gray silent peaks and our forgotten houses.
the rest was lighter breakfasts
to shake away from slumber, northern eyes, short blonde hair and all of julys past
and to call out the places that hosted us
as hostile, or fake hostile.

keeping a secret well hidden, and enjoying
the mitteleuropean summer
in its brief butterfly life.

Il decalogo dell'attendere

il decalogo dell'attendere:

se è questo che vogliamo,

sarà questo che otterremo.

primo. chiudi gli occhi prima di toccare terra e prima di affondare nel cuscino.

secondo. "è così che s'inseguono certe specie di libellule

terzo. risolvere non è mai tanto difficile come chiedere.

quarto. anche se rispondi non so se poi è vero.

quinto. sono seduto, sono in piedi, sono seduto sotto la tua finestra.

sesto. è notte è giorno, è notte è giorno.

settimo. conto macchine nere, conto rondini e sfere concentriche.

ottavo. è perché qualcosa mi riporta a te prima che riesca a disfarmi.

nono. forse non è vero che non riusciamo a capire, forse è solo vero che non vogliamo farlo.

decimo. in un gesto di danza, allungo un tempo di un quarto, do il dò.

il decalogo del silenzio.

an elevator life

taken from scratch

turned into you

–and how many of these i've heard, don't think you're any original.

anyways, you were then left alone to wonder

wonderfully

rudderless and half-sunk

you were the perfect double-sided

switchblade

as long as no one knew how to handle you

but how long until you lose the last string

that pulls your stitches together?

opening up a world of blank sheets

and impossible inks, of wasted years and crooked consonants

you hope for the latest, knowingly fearing the soon.

in a way you freed me with your

inconsistency. still, it's sad you have to live like that

and it's still sad you have grown to be a waste of your time and everyone else's.

for z.d.

you will not get hurt here. in this town.

i work here

i print here

i play here

i sleep alone

and dream with crowds

of 31 years in the making

i try to run

and away i remain

always here

there never again.

to sum it up

a lot more scars&wounds

but always in the same spots

maybe a bit more to the left

and a bit more to the north

happiness is a cool thing

i tend to find it every saturday night

to then leave it in a dark corner outside of the bar

or maybe on a sunday morning

with the birds and the hung-over, overwritten

heartbreaks.

a.m. confidentials

maybe six months ago, if i remember right

i saw you standing outside of a door smoking marlboro light

and i was so nervous that i slurred a question to your enquiring eyes

and you went on to let me in the door

that was the start of it all, that was the start of never

i never thought you could stay, or be amazed at an airport

on a runway to your final destiny

i neglected chance form or function

to dream of being to your side

maybe four months ago, if i remember right

the words were flowing from our pens

and we couldn't wait for our mailbox to light up

our voices to ring over the air of blocs away

and that was when i should've just took you in my arms

held you strong and tight. and called all demons of hope.

because i couldn't change what was too close to me

maybe two months ago, if i remember right

you had the most complete take on all my sight

it would be difficult for me to wake up

without having either you or your smell

on my mind from the night before

and that was when i was so sure

that i should've said you were all that mattered and all that was needed

but i was dumb and laid out wrong, but who the hell doesn't make mistakes

lost at sea

when we gathered all our ropes

and knots

we set sail for thirty years

trying hard to steer against the oblique wind

and looking over the coast to see what was left behind

constantly routining for change, we dreamt of hopes and nostalgia of stillness

then we came to meet

what we always knew would come,

it's to say: sea monsters with blond or reddish hair

mermaids of loneliness that sing the lonely song.

air subtle and humid. thick with salt and fish scales

and if only we'd read the book

and watched for ripples long before

we'd got to this, maybe we'd be younger now.

like those two separated twins

on a journey long, much longer than ours.

still-pictures and stenographic letters

divide us from the keel

and we forget that all along we're surrounded

by the bluest of seas

that reaches the deepest of depths

and only occasionally forms a hole to look into,

for our curious eyes to flashback in anger,

conflict,

desire,

genuine deception

or general lack of decision.

but–looking over our shoulders–have we ever sailed smoothly?

and–most importantly–have we ever thought about having a chance to?

we rocked slowly with new moons

knowingly scared of fortnights

knowingly terrified of limestone sediments

that slip your fist, like crowds of vapor sand grains

but one day of the year, we stop and rest on the masts

broken and chipped from alloftheabove,

we reach and rest on the tropic of cancer, our heads light

and our firm arms around a bottle and a memory.

–oh, no– please erase that, no memories this time.

it's July the 17th.

moonday

the city burns
in silence.

traffic lights all play in unison
an unreal silence
of a sleeping ghost
giant
the city sleeps and dreams
and breathes
it's impossible

but it's true. far far away
wooden floor squeaks
less-than-perfect radios
and blue television shadows

make up for a humming white noise
and a collective diaphragm
that lifts and rests till the first one wakes
and then it's all too loud.

it's impossible
it's perfect. and perfectly true.

mortar

my conscience says

that i have–in the course of 48h,

endless nights,

and countless drops of ink–

built an awesome weapon

that'll punch through steel like butter or Superman's finger.

were it a bomb, you could try and throw it away. but it's not.

so you'll resist its boom, and shelter yourself

between the fronds of your conviction.

you'll even cut wire red with wire green

intersect them and hope, it'll go for (what you believe) the best.

let us define it an attack of faith, i have a €2.70 receipt as a saint

and a desert of palindrome devils trying their hardest

i have voices of wasteful friendly fires

and nothing else.

all i do is stand here–with rain of stainless shrapnel.

the switch

there's nothing i do better than destroying

and making mistakes

i'm a natural

talent full of certainties

on how to attain the hugest disdain from the smallest

effort

watch out all around me.

a postcard from here / ugly verses for a beautiful cause

when i said
that i'd do anything for you
it meant that if you asked i would try and stay away to give you time you need for yourself.
now that, for me, was almost impossible.
and still, for you, i was able to do it.

now, when you reverted your words
it all became too difficult
and i knew in the back of my head that you said yeses that could've been nooos.
but i couldn't hold on to them and show you how much
i wanted us to continue. not to pass time, but because
you are indispensable in my life, and i want to be the same in yours.

if anything in our last may meant even the slightest for you
i'm not going to let you go that easy
i'm not going to let your life be that easy
because you're still at the bottom of my heart.

America

i agree

and you agree

that, if by Hegel

everything standing needs a context

then love that sits

needs two.

i agree

and you agree

that love must be unconditional

so–whatever this may account for–why would you keep repeating

questions about a green card?

would you ever think that my love

would be so weak

to bend at a feeble breeze?

would you ever think

that i'd ever leave this town without you?

again–whatever this may account for now–would you ever have

needed this to be written?

my dagger heart of magic and a handful of extraordinary daily routines

there are always two sides to things.

and always just one dice to throw in order to claim

at least seven points

seven full moons

seven glassfuls

and seven shattered desires

so you go and play your hand, count your chances

say goodbyes you don't wanna say

recite a backward salute

and seclude

in a space where no light enters,

no remedy works, and no past is found

in this you float, knowingly;

every time you lift a heel

what once held your weight disappears

in that lonely saturday dawn embrace

every step repeating

the endless gesture of deleting

so you're conscious

you're not only leaving behind

you're missing a chance

of that one dice showing only one dot

you're leaving me, my dagger heart of magic

our chance to make it through

whatever world we may have inherited

with beautiful, bright-morning-light-intensity

and a handful of extraordinary daily routines

the 96hr friday. wake up, curse the light. it's monday

i pressed so many steps from north to south, from sea to hill and from river to river–from bar to bar and from bartender to bartender, until the night sky changed color and until calendars registered the change. distilled cereals and fruits camped out underneath the stars like a napoleonic regiment–ready, of course, but to conquer nothing. i played concrete, grass, wet dirt, cheap tin, recycled glass and two string instruments. i went to Teenager St. but came back early. when i found myself close to home i closed my eyes and my blinds, hoping that the incoming week would shift north like some storms, leaving us in one, unending sunday.

/

he caminado tantos pasos de norte a sur, de mar a montaña y de río a río–siempre de bar en bar y de barra en barra, hasta que cambiara el color del cielo de la noche y hasta que los calendarios registraran el cambio. destilados de cereales y de frutos se acamparon bajo las estrellas como un regimiento napoleónico–listo sí, pero para conquistar nada. he tocado asfalto, césped, tierra mojada, aluminio barato, vidrio reciclado, y dos instrumentos de cuerda. me he ido en calle Quince Años pero volví pronto. cuando me encontré cerca de casa cerré los ojos y las persianas, esperando que la semana desviara hacía el norte como ciertas perturbaciones y nos dejara en un único, larguísimo domingo.

silence. it's both ways.

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

e. e. cummings

not enough, but again, then. (finishing fishing) [different times of a month-long day or a day-long month]. reflections

before knowing what time your alarm clock will display
when you'll believe
to be finally fluttering eyelids

and finding your way to the center of storms / peripheral vision;

when you'll have exploited
all the options
or chosen the option not to feel–
equally as unfathomable, but different in context:

i wish you to have my name on an orange strip in an empty house
full of other things.

not necessarily a winner–
but forcefully silent, while running
the track&field of straight lines in curved spaces–.

when flying through the hurricane you'll notice having no problem
ripping off my roof, void of weight, or welding
while you decide what part of yourself,
or which of your past behaviors
you hate the most.

and even if, i might sometimes substitute my o's for zeros
i guess i can recognize to be biggest flake
of snow to fall in june.
but, hey, not necessarily lost, you'll understand

that i'd never be just an umbrella for a sunny day;

you'll have a shot at matching squares with squares,
when my butterfly hands will have nothing to do with your centrifugal winds.

but, hey, too soon or later.
maybe no later's too late / up to you.

of course it's written for Z.D., who'd you ever think it'd be for? and Blanchot can fuck right off, this pen's alive.

stomp

yes i am a kid.
and fuck all of you.

the opposite of where he is, that's where he's going.

harry put it simple: "i'll repair the keel"
and continued, "the effort and time it needs are all related–
to your miles at sea, and your time on land".

so i guess i should believe harry,
he's experienced
in these kind of things, although never successful (i add).

the problem is–my trust nestles in nothing
and is shackled to possibility (and some slow verses, maybe).
south south of the equator, east in the Atlantic, you can't sail with no stars
but i better get used to it if that's the way i'm heading.
i can take this, i've charted the doldrums and the horse latitudes enough, to captain this ship.

the only thing i ask is not to linger in a state
where every time is–can be–the last. but beautiful 7 year wood
needs just that to avoid curses and steer clear of sandbanks
that every other route can lead to port, or an equally secure, ship cemetery.

I almost drowned / I wanted to drown

as i was tumbling,

rumbling through the thick winter

water, whether

by intensity or curiosity or chance

and in this way,

still and still–

in immobile rotation

i lay vanished

from sense, air, 

or gravity excused

contrasted twitch

made me swim ungracefully

to hold on water under water

in the frail hand 
 hand of my heart's content

but as i grasped

–the silence all around–

my motion came to an improbable

surprise

all was water

all was white and gray

and longing for skies and swimming for 

air

i touched sand.

Spark Plugs –two–

my eyes can't look at you
in any other way
Ben Bridwell

nür nicht.
Erich Fried

Spark Plugs –one–

maybe not nothing
without [...]
but not much [...] else, either.
erich fried

I don't think I will sing
any more just now;
ever. I must start
to sit with a blind brow [...]
john berryman

defiance |diˈfīəns|
noun
open resistance; bold disobedience: he proceeded in defiance of official warnings.

from top to bottom

black-pause-black
then it's white hues over non-piano red
a bay of oliveish cloudy pink
and an arch of cotton black
down to where it's imagination pitch dark
yellow for slaps
lovely tip toe round and light red tread again.

you know you're really lost when you don't actually remember where you started from and where else you should look for an exit. nor do you care.

An Unflagged Airman Foresees His Death

I know my eyes shall be filled at last
by flames; and my nostrils
heavy with smoke, as weight will make
its course–bringing me down.

What crosses my path I may destroy
but those that I fear are those afraid themselves,
immaterial, glowing, floating and bloating.

I will now state my intentions,
because nothing made me flare my engines
or flee from fight: nor the semblance of death,
nor the delusion of victory;
nothing made my mind clearer as those same apparitions.

Time will take heed of its difficult task
of flashing in between the cloudy routes
to either remember the reminded or to save us from
our own redundant ghosts.

a word

i guess there is some kind of dualism
between the perception and the perceived
between the bettor and the post.

in that way, it's only small stuff that holds our name
that simulates us the way we simulate ourselves.
it's only arrivals and departures
split seconds that hinge
the huge doors of our lives.

the little remonstrances
like: "you're not coming home again", or,
"you never got to say".

sway fragments of information on how to fill that initial gap;
playful squirms of backwardness,
they work in tunnels ahead of our thoughts
so we may then call them zero points.

more puzzle pieces of what to find
behind the corners.
arrays of blue, chemical fading and time.
tired eyes of tired days
limbs heavy with inconsistencies,
and seven year long years.

and finally we collect what we sowed:
independent of fallow land,
dry spells, barren soil and unmerciful weather.

a crop that's neither edible, nor venomous
the gap between what's credible and what's not.
in one word, trust.

a somewhat novice peddler at the county fair

"there's always something to learn,
when around for the first time.
there's always someone to scare
when looking to make a dime"

"so you go from dusk to dawn till dusk again
and lose the midday time with singing wrens"

"but you need to learn to howl before you bark"
"but you need to learn to walk before you run"
"but you need to learn to sail before you sink"

and so the wheel turns on and on
and even if the bends will shield no hit
you have ideas how to cover, bow or sit
samely to sell hack, cow, or tit.

"but you need to learn to read before you write"
"and you need to learn to write before you rhyme"
"you need to learn to read before you write"

because if it's not one then it's another,
when the main topic is "the minutes passing".
the minutes similarly pass, they're strangely different in a different way
and i have the feeling, you don't want to correct their skew.

"so why don't you learn to wake, before you sleep, dear?"
"why don't you learn to help before you save?
"and how can you sing before you cry?

written for Z.D.

neither of these hands will do

truth be told. i can't do this.
i start from the right, the hidden side, and scratch the paper slowly arching the line towards your silent breath.
but i start again.
so i begin with the left, where little light contrasts ruby with white, soft skin. but then i realize that it's all too fictitious, it does not conform to what i have seen.

the top–way too hard. the pencil stops the minute i lay it down and i sway further away with every inch of graphite. you float every word; you say is luck, repetition and newness.

it leaves me
with the bottom. but neither of these hands will do.
but all i can do is wait for a time when i'll be close enough to mimic it with my lips.

written for Z.D.

Fragments from a long overdue drink run

after little introductions
of bark wood and night salt air
it hit me. fragments from a long overdue drink run.

"i guess this wouldn't be convenient"
"no, but mistakes are what i do best"

it all came down like an asphalt overture
"tell me more, stop being you"
"it's because of intense [...]"

last things are remembered. first happenings are etched into your mind.
red lips with hair pressing hard on previous nights
i could still draw them, and it still hurts to know to have been there.

"i like you just one bit"
"it's ok, because i can put in the rest of it for both of us".

but i couldn't have sung that song. too soon, too much.

written for Z.D.

arrivals, departures, strange weather and marine birds.

pushing slowly, unsteadily and off-key
to get rid of a wanted surprise
that vanished as it came

taking heed from coincidences:
arrivals, departures, strange weather and marine birds.

maybe it'll all make sense one day
it'll all come easy, as to say
"we stuck at open sea
never could get out easy
of easy deeds"

but for now it just feels
as one lonely day conceals
another more rigid
winter hymn

written for Z.D.

tints

"Once at sea always at sea".

"Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean".

S. Coleridge–Rime of the Ancient Mariner

"East".

"Ovest".

park bench

love's more dangerous when it rests.
when, on a bench, spring air; not quite warm yet,
it lingers by saying:
"don't wait for me, it's going to be long".
but still you do. that's where the danger lies.

in the non-option.

i did not choose, it's the intrinsic definition of lies.
they repeat in time and feed on one another. and only palely
come up, as watermarks on a forgotten bible

when they are repeated on and on.
as if they wanted to say:
"rest assured in cradled arms, summer will be cool, beds will become suddenly larger from now on".

written for Z.D.

Words given and left

I usually believe brown whiskey,
find wind stripes you shot, as to say:

trust voices,
know ice,
and cross water

i knew there was something missing

when all else fails:
pledge and promise
to keep away from what
you can't win, and still you can't lose.

when i gave you my right eye,
i knew there was something missing.

as in any board game, it's seen from above.

written for Z.D.

The Crossing of Panama

Legend has it that Rodrigo de Bastidas, nobleman and direct descendant of the king, was awoken at night by the shiniest of lights in his native Triana. There stood in dream Penelope, his beautiful angel mother pointing west with three fingers surrounded by a luminous aura. Bastidas, scared that it might be a warning of death as punishment for the dissolute life he conducted, fasted ten days and ten nights wondering alone through the torrid Sevillan summer. But upon arriving in the port town of Cádiz he suddenly realized what his defunct parent had meant. There sailed a ship west, headed for what was then, and what is now known as the New World. Rodrigo de Bastidas, was going to be the man who would discover and explore and exploit Panama–the unfathomable isthmus limb of Central America. [...] To this day, adventurers go in search of his "path of gold"; a fabled trail immersed deep in the jungle paved entirely with gold that the very Bastidas had ordered built before the mutiny that took his life. [...] His intense existence never seemed to walk astray from that apparition on a summer night. Many facts remain unknown, but perhaps the most haunting is the way with which the number three recurred in his deeds as a joust between by God and the Devil. Only upon death did he compel his troubled soul to come to terms with his destiny.

Reads his elegy in the Caribbean island of Cuba:

Three were the cities that bore my name,
and each one sat on a bed of gold.

Three were my ships by the shipworm sunk,
three times mutiny, scurvy and malady

Three were my poor mother's blessings
Plagued three times by the Devil's claws

But as long as my gold trail under the jungle rests,
my condemned soul will torment he who charts the uncharted.

written for Z.D.

there are things I see in the darkness

I might be crucified for my actions
exemplified by simple recurrences
and boxed in the tightest of ribbons
but I remain undoubtably the easiest of misses
and catches

I understand no less, the need to intensify
relate and test
a leg that's standing and another flexing

But nevertheless one contradiction remains:
once anticipated the horrid shipwreck–even before my tired eyes
I still had to process, intensify, relate and test it.

And in the darkness, there are things I see. Goodnight and hold hands.

written against Z.D.

solstices

there are distinct times of the year
when two or more conditions meet
cross lines between orbits
of planets, green leaves, potential heartbreaks
and other celestial objects

thus you might have a early-spring solstice
diagonal enough
to close in on the mid spring solstice
unfathered, ridiculous to the eyes of
anyone out of its ellipsis

but what really draws attention
on those days and nights
is the ease with which
shrapnel flies from your eyes
to be received with sparks and speechless
awe by unwary telescopes
pointed to the sky.

written for Z.D.

Come back from coming back

come back from when
you came back
and you remembered what was
a plus
and what wasn't even a mathematical sign

come back from rights, wrongs, wills, wigs, dresses and yes's
from when you thought that it wasn't at all useful
to keep green eyes at bay
and exchange them for my poor heart's of mystery

come back, set yourself at risk
deny you've been cured, reject who says
that you can settle and still close your eyes at night
and not dream of descent

come back from the place you came back before.

written for Z.D.

the unusual and troublesome concealing of

everything in life has a solution
just some things, you know,
they delay to appear as problems.
regarding what is real
it is of useless debate
when it's mingled with what is really.

it is a closed-off, one shot deal
that everyone's invited to play
but it still worries anyone who's left
on one side
or on the other.

we are united by our fears
and saved by our motionless lack of guts
but steadily, the intelligent man
keeps asking why keep all at bay
when we can sail astray.

written for Z.D.

Maydays

i ran spring air
along canals of mud,
peat and mystery

the loud voices of meridian hours,
and meridian years of our parents
would keep us safe:

at a distance past the dog fence,
in the circle pool and,
along the sphagnum canals.

i loved each and everyone of those places,
but it was only in the canals where i magnified.

there i was a frog, leaping towards
evenings of water choirs.
i was the setting sun
still eager to run towards june,
the equinox.

there i was a leech, that transformed
horror into healing,
lowness into relief
and doubts into summer.

the wonderful stumble of

as i approached the tender old age of 25, my university years were coming to an end. all of the festive, joyous carefree years were suddenly fading, although neither i nor anyone close to me was even faintly noticing. what had been an enclosed vault of sleep and dream, a pigeonholed happiness had started slicing itself in half since the very beginning. every common gesture, every ritual and tradition, even every new occurrence were numbered from the very start. and this freezing, but starry 20th of march was the very finish. nothing would've been the same ever again. and from this moment on, the present became remembrance. life was kicking me out of childhood, into another childhood, but not without a trauma.

i had procrastinated this for at least a month and a half. i always did the same: if i smelled that something had gone wrong i would wait as much as possible to get confirmation, be it going to the doctor, going to check my scores or...going to confront my (ex)girlfriend. march very much still winter in northern italy, the white lilies and spring bulbs mislead only behind heated window panes. outside it was cold, rigid, and unforgiving. i know that this would've not been easy, because no matter what common sense said, and no matter what other people said i had always (and i mean always) been able to tell situations. v. didn't want me anymore and this was as clear as mountain skies. everyone just kept repeating that i should talk to her, that i should try to straighten things out that things weren't always as we thought.

but inevitably, time and this time again, things were exactly as i thought.

i got there after dinner, with pat on the shoulders and grappa shots in the stomach. unfortunately, alcohol it wasn't the only thing that churned in there. i hated the fact that this was a gran finale when in my mind it should've been the bombastic passing through the curtains. strings and winds and percussions would cure my transition from the first to the second act. but again, this wasn't the plot that was layed out that night.

«you don't understand». this was the phrase that was most repeated on each side. i got to her house, just a few meters from mine right on my way to the center: on my way to work, to school, to play, to dance, to mourn. it had always been a creepy house, even when we were there as the happiest people on the planet (at least i was). it was her friend's grandmother's house, so they weren't allowed to put posters up nor paint it, nor change the billion year old furniture. everything smelled like years gone and it was almost as the house waited patiently to be empty and lonely. we decided not to stay inside and walk around, which is pretty much the only thing we agreed on that night. every word that came out of her was angular, fraudolent and yet engraved in the bluntest metal. there was no convincing her, and what i believed to be reality was completely different in her eyes. the battle was over to begin with, but what was worse was that the war was over too, and both our companies had drawn out bayonettes with white flags. it made no sense trying to convince someone to love me back. if i knew something about love and life was that, even if there'll be a certain point where you believe to have them mapped out, they'll prove you wrong in the end, and there's nothing you can do about it.

we walked a total distance of a few hundred meters, in the cutting wind, with the slowest pace possible. i knew it was the end of something greater than just a relationship, but i couldn't quite put my finger on it. but in those moments, the words rebounded in my ears like tiny basketballs, trying to spell out a form, a function, but i just couldn't understand. i just wouldn't understand.
as i slowed my feet, i could only grasp that i wasn't just holding on to a lost relationship, i was also trying to get one last breath of the sweet air of the certainty that my life had had up until that moment. again, the events were kicking me out like a drunk in a pub, i managed to stay up for a few steps out only to fall on the ground. the times that would've come next would be a metaphorical straightening of the jacket, a reassuring "fuck you" and an aftershock burp to bring back internal peace.

we sometimes attribute human characteristics to entire situations. even worse, this time i had condensed everything beautiful, inspiring and soothing there ever was about that dry old northeastern town life into one person. that person was v. and i guess, to continue on, would've meant to marry a town for life. i wasn't born for that, and it was more than clear. so i had to leave, again, i had to pack and head for the border the only difference was this time i hadn't made the call.
what was so special about living in a seaside swamp with a three churches and ten senior-citizen trips a year? why was i–but so was everyone i knew–so attached to that medieval maze of pavement and flaxen walls.


i was born in a small 90º angle town, just south of the capital. no one spoke of mentality because anyone that had one had moved at 18 just as a i did. i guess the beauty of it was the absence of tradition in a nation made up of unspoken ritualistic pagan rules.

The Dream

If I could link two functions,
two forms
and push west to parallel my past–your present;
I would mathematically describe
where the zero of our time
starts and where it dies.
Love,

//

Se potessi unire due funzioni
e due forme
per spingere verso Ovest, in parallelo col mio passato, il tuo presente
Descriverei matematicamente
dove lo zero del nostro tempo inizia e dove muore
Con amore,

for Z.D.

The Wake

In the presence of death, the air floated below.
Darkness lingered, respectful of the festivities.
It proved the joy of lightness, for one final meal.
Then all turned white
cold as ceramics and known, familiar,
expected and circular.

//

in presenza della morte, l'aria galleggiava sotto
il buio stanziava, rispettoso delle festività
provò la gioia della leggerezza, per l'ultimo pasto.
poi tutto diventò bianco
freddo come la ceramica, conosciuto, familiare
atteso e circolare.

è questo il natale

regali, pacchetti, traffico, librerie, centro commerciale, luci per le strade, noci, baccalà, pesce, frittelle di baccalà, salmone affumicato, anguilla marinata, toast di Calda con le salsette, servizio buono, centrotavola che non serve a un cazzo, tavolo dei negri, "è pronto?", rutti, scoppole, barzellette sporche, inveite sulla sinistra, cazzate della destra, canzoni degli anni '60, strufoli, mousse, vino passito, "Matteo non bere", rumori di regali dentro le scatole, alberi di natale con palle ancora nuove che risalgono al '92, presepi allestiti in posti impensabili, "ma non è ancora mezzanotte!", pigiami, calze, mutande, libri, cappelli, vestiti, 50,000 lire (purtroppo non più), tortellini, lotterie della noce moscata (purtroppo non più), Allegri Mattacchioni, storie interminabili del Venezuela (purtroppo non più), stronzate mostruose di pinocchietti assortiti, bulle, rudi, agnelli scottanti, patate croccanti, cellulari che non prendono, camini ardenti, avanzi del 25, avanzi del 26 mattina quando torni dai pub pieni di gente che conosci ma della quale non ti ricordi il nome, mercanti in fiera, birre coi Manoli, luci nei vecchi licei, pandori al microonde, incertezze sulla fine del nuovo anno e incertezze sul nuovo anno, neve sulle montagne, sole in città, "ma quando rinevicherà?", natale, natale e natale.

Central Saint Sylvester

Settle up. Take a minute, find a center, radially look to where you've been and where you are. This time don't shake your fears and admit to them. The year is over.

Mettevi comodi, prendetevi del tempo. Trovate un centro e pensate intorno a dove siete stati e dove siete. Non liberatevi della vostra paura, e ammettete. L'anno è finito.

Open letter to the unevenness of wanting

there is a line
between what you can ask
and what you can get

but it's never there
when you try to divide
what can
and what cannot be said.

grey grey

light
rooms
of grey grey
light
will dagger
their way into smoky
silences and hypocritical lines
from the best actors you'll
see off stage

then, you get insecurity
masked as companionship
and thievery masked as seduction

in the end you're a ghost
dressed in black and yellow.
and it's the happiest thing,
you hover motionless yet moving
silently, incredibly making the most imperceptible noise
while
your limbs glide over the washed streets
and leave no prints

then you're between 5 walls
with a repeating song,
fallow
and overgrown
undecided and
left alone
because too pertinent
too sensitive and way
way
way
way
too
delusional.

blank lines

we are like blank lines
waiting forever to be a pause
in a speech
at least we'd be complete, in being what we are
and we wouldn't have to wait
for someone, something else to fill
the tallest x height
with characters we don't really understand
but we appreciate
for what they are
black
on
white
or white on black

Dear ____________. (Please fill your name)

Hello.
I saw you last Saturday last
And again for a while, tonight.

And there's many ways and many eyes
that have touched your life.
But I only have this, please don't think more
of what it is.

Just letters all together celebrating
the underwater red of your lips
the angle of your eyes, of your fingers
while I wait for many more planets and cosmic objects
to line up.

smsms– that's a fake palindrome.

when grass reaches from the roots to the air
its symmetry reveals
between steady brown and little green
-
then it's clear because 1221, isn't as boring as twelve and twenty
when the origin of pleasures stands still
so do our desires.
whether we understand them
or not.

Rules of conduct

one) keep a steady pace
two) ignore anyone
three) fall in love with sidewalk cracks and mercury lights
four) wake up with the birds
five) sleep at three pm, afternoons are a lot more boring than mornings
six) go to bed knowing, that any choices you didn't choose now don't exist.

forever, the eternal concept of human interaction fused with perspective.

a book is forever. maybe it's the only thing that's forever.

Walk through open thoughts

Helen. Or Everybody I've ever known

Scenes from a rooftop explosion

If a drop seeps through

We are this tall,
we are ticking away at half an inch
yet there's limits

there's barges and ruins
around which to flow

what we underestimate
usually seeps through,
unseen and unknown
until
the barrier falls.

Run with fire