Archives | Authors | Claudio Pozzani

Claudio Pozzani: Poetry     PWF 2020

   

SHADOW MARCH

    

Ropes are falling from the sky

and frozen chains dance round you

It's a world of knots to be unraveled in the dark 

between a bolt of phosphorus and one of cries 

It's a tangle of ropes that defy the scissors' hands 

A comb that gets caught in an unthinking mane

Shadow... shadow

Another blink of the eye and then it's...

I look around myself and all I see is walls.

Even my mirror has become a wall.

On your breasts a skin of wall has grown

My heart, my senses reincarnated in walls

And prayers and curses keep on raining down 

Evaporating as soon as they touch the sand.

And adverbs, adjectives and words without a sound 

Slither away in a poisonous silence

Shadow... shadow

Another blink of the eye and then it's...

Of the sun I see only its reflection

In iridescent puddles of rainwater

Of the moon I perceive its presence in the dark 

In the faraway barking of chained dogs.

My peace is not the lack of war

My peace is the absence of the concept of war.

Shadow... shadow

Another blink of the eye and then it's...

   

    

THE WOMAN OF THE SWEET TEARS

    

You are the woman of the sweet tears

Every single gesture is a light flame

You are the shadow, you are the cat that flees and then returns 

You are the impact of the train against the overhanging branches

      

An alembic full of mercury and sulphur 

boils at night between your perfect breasts 

How many alchemists have lost their lungs 

pursuing the fumes of your sweaty body!

You are the woman that dictates the rhythm of the seasons,

that halves the lapse between one of my heartbeats and the next 

You are Venus rising from a lava flow

You are Psyche holding the lamp aglow

You trample the earth without even realizing

that at every step you take, a garden springs forth 

For your hair the wind thanks God

for having given it a reason to live

      

       

I AM

    

I am the Apostle

left out from the Last Supper 

One of Garibaldi's men

too late to the rock of Quarto

I am the Messiah

of a religion with no believers

I am the excluded, the outsider, the damned who won't surrender.

I am the main character

who dies on the first page

The stray and mangy cat

no old lady wants to pet

I am the rabid beast

that bites the hand that feeds it

       

I am the excluded, the outsider, the damned in eternity

      

I am the unexpected wave

stealing towels and radios

The misunderstanding

making couples fight

I am the devil

dodging Luther's inkpot

The reel of film that snaps

Before the final scene.

     

I am the excluded, the outsider, a hammer in the brain

     

I am the pinball that's swallowed

one point shy of the record

The goal scored against myself

before the clock runs out

The kid making faces

at his mother's slaps

I am the fear of the grass

about to be cut

I am the excluded the outsider, this page torn out...

   

    

I DANCE

    

I dance the dance of brilliant ideas

hoping that you will tell me something new

I dance the dance of the losers and the lost

knowing that my steps will be in vain 

I dance the dance of the happy naive

thinking that my sweat will help somebody 

I dance the dance of the profiteers

and I will dance until you'll pay me

     

And I dance I dance I dance 

to overcome my arrogance

I dance I dance I dance

the why has no importance

I dance the dance of the damned

because the spleen reaches my thorax

I dance the dance of the presumptuous

Because you too are one of them if you think you're in my league 

I dance the dance of the undesired

I've trained myself a lot in front of closed doors

I dance the dance of the intolerants

Can you move over a little, please?

          

And I dance I dance I dance until

I'll remain standing

I dance I dance I dance

because it's you who are asking

   

   

SEEK IN YOURSELF THE VOICE THAT YOU CAN'T HEAR

(INVOCATIONFOR VOICE, THORACIC CAGE AND SOLITUDE)

   

Seek in yourself the voice that you can't hear

Swallow the universe if you just don't get it

      

Low houses with leaking, weeping

rooves of rain, of hailstones by now gone 

Scent of the earth, and leaves, and puddles 

and sinister landscapes of snow-white marble.

     

Seek in yourself the voice that you can't hear. 

Swallow the universe if you just don't get it

      

Worms that lie beneath the muddy bed

rats that swim in streams of steel 

Smoke of fog, speeding cars

that quickly graze on asphalt tagliatelle

     

Seek in yourself the voice that you can't hear.

Swallow the universe if you just don't get it

     

Chalky shadows take their tired steps

Shaking low their cone-shaped heads 

Slanty ghosts printed on the wall

recall flights and Frisian horses

      

Seek in yourself the voice that you can't hear.

Swallow the universe if you just don't get it

    

   

CARNAL GEARS

   

Quickly, quickly

the green door opens

allowing multi-colored squiggles to filter through 

Shiny gears roll around

your made-up face

while points of indefinite colors

circle over our heads.

     

I am walking on a fluorescent sphere

I am walking on a fluorescent sphere

Through the purple fog

I look at your empty body

An ethereal music is getting closer

like light from under a door

My hand runs down your thighs 

the room is spinning full of flies 

my fingers are

coming slowly

     

I am walking on a fluorescent sphere

I am walking on a fluorescent sphere

      

Ball bearings and burned valves

slide silently next to the tangle

and from the ceiling hangs a neon nightmare

I hear the door open wide again

while I listen to your wild breathing

Slanted figures armed with leather

are waiting for their moment...

      

I am walking on a fluorescent sphere

I am walking on a fluorescent sphere

The intense scent of your skin

is sliced by a white fan

and in your eyelashes

thousands of miniscule insects

are building their castles

Monochromatic screens

spit scenes of expired evening news

while I bring my hearing closer

to your wet chest

adjusting the volume to hear you scream

       

I am walking on a fluorescent sphere

I am walking on a fluorescent sphere

   

    

I THREW UP MY SOUL

    

I threw up my soul yesterday

and now I feel lighter 

I can swim freely

without the dead weight of remorse and malice 

I threw up my soul

yesterday

and got the crap hole dirty

I don't know what exited my body

it looked like iron filings

mixed with bloody cotton

maybe it had sawed through the bars

to be able to escape 

maybe it got hurt 

maybe infected

I threw up my soul 

yesterday

but it wasn't like I thought

I thought it was waiting

for the trumpets of Judgment Day

Charon's boat

or at least the toll of diaphanous bells

Nothing.

It couldn't take it any more, staying inside of me 

It kicked

it screamed

it was suffocating 

and I forced myself 

to put up with it

because I thought it was indispensable

to have a soul

and it too thought

it needed a body

It slithered out of my mouth

its tail was long and prickly

and it wriggled looking around itself

I threw up my soul 

yesterday

and who knows where it went

It looked like it was made of mercury

it couldn't be stopped 

like when I had it inside

and they turned me inside out, like a glove 

dazed before my smooth walls

I threw up my soul

yesterday

and today Henry More's Nullibists

want me already 

as their leader

in the upcoming elections

As soon as you are empty

you get chosen

to represent the others

A trash can that can contain

as much garbage as possible

Paper garbage 

Meat garbage 

Garbage created to be garbage

Garbage made not to be garbage

I threw up my soul 

yesterday

and maybe I miss it already

I don't know who I can lie to anymore

when I am alone 

when I dream alone

The bed sometimes swallows me up

it welcomes me smiling

and then it folds itself in half

like a pizza eaten with your hands

and I feel digested in dreams

well digested when I don't remember them 

badly digested when my eyes

upon waking suddenly open wide

and spit me out

I threw up my soul 

yesterday

and maybe it's hiding

in the drain pipe

it's arranging clumps of hair

microbes and soap

black encrustations of who knows what

What is it saying about me?

If it speaks badly

every morning the sink will get clogged

and go on strike

And even you, People of the Drain

had faith in the chin

you caught a glimpse of from the hole

Don't let yourselves be corrupted, not you too 

like me:

now it is your leader

as it was for me

It will make you smell good, white 

and clean

A People of the Drain without identity 

You, used to looking up your hose 

and enjoying it

Like when I was a baby I looked up 

and saw the March clouds

get tangled in my father's mustache 

or my mother's hand

that hung like a vine

that I could cling to safely

I threw up my soul

yesterday

and maybe it was a baby's spit up 

milk and zwieback

warmed by my little belly

To have a soul with zwieback

with napalm, with plankton, with klaxon 

To have a soul and bring it up

and to bring to life that vomit

It's not my fault if again tonight

I am forced to make up stories

that no one will ever tell me

And it's not even a question

of being an eternal baby,

because the others didn't grow up,

they are only already dead

and in the Cemetery, yes, I go there to play 

but the boredom soon transforms

into dark mosquitos

I eat dead beasts, sliced

I imagine a dying man

on my bed

I have studied and loved the works of 

dead men

Dead things have always fed my 

body and soul

And the former is damned alive and kicking 

And the latter has had the nerve to run away 

I threw up my soul

yesterday

and who gives a damn

At the first frost it will come back on its own 

like a cat run out onto a roof

that comes back sneezing and ruffled 

Maybe it got into a scuffle

with the cats from the various periods

that stood by me

and that throughout their life

loved most of all my hands

when they became bowls full of milk

or warm bony brushes

I threw up my soul 

yesterday

but you were left inside me

You were in the same cell

but it left without saying anything to you

or it's you who wanted to stay:

you don't have much more time to do,

why escape, then?

No, you stayed inside me

inside as always. Everything left my body

Moods, curses, dreams, colds

baby teeth

Now even my soul. Everything left, I was saying,

except you

except me

I threw up my soul 

yesterday

it looked like a bouquet of roses on the floor

like one of those

that made me blush at the restaurant

because I didn't know what to do

and it would have kept your hands busy

on the way home

Those hands, alas, only two,

that I would have liked as draining bloodsuckers 

on me

ten, twenty soft warm suction cups on

my back

taking out the humidity, emptiness and bitterness. 

I threw up my soul

yesterday