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.