The Act
The act starts
absurd
and impotent.
It moves slowly
slow to perpetuate.
And having dared
it recomposes.
Of absurd acts,
tired, is life made.
December 1976
I Won’t Hurt You
I won’t hurt you in forms
like commonly used deceit
from which the world
receives assurance and consoled
damnation, and death.
I leave you intact
palpable truth,
clear mystery
of kisses and caresses. And,
if you are able not to,
don’t steal secrets
from a sun crystal.
July 1977
I Saw You Crossing
I saw you crossing
the city light
of your young years
and clear in the busy
morning
crossing me once again
you must have seen me
differently since
I was going round tired and drunk
of my young years
you had confident eyes,
sure and fugitive,
you said, “It’s time, now that it’s spring…
to lose oneself, to expand…”
and you were stunning and pure
in your forms
I thought – here is
a Lent of tears
and expectations…
amazed that in another season
in your eyes you wanted to be me
and now I imitated you
I trembled
as a current
in stagnant water
rouses a dry
and naked branch…
end of March 1980
Oh, How Beautiful is the City
Oh, how beautiful is the city
behind the windows of a bar
like a pyramid of flights
of horns and cars on the asphalt
and of lights in the air
and music in your ears
pop music
that we have to learn
so as not to remain still
and to keep flying
driving and honking
horns in the city that speeds
in the windows of a bar
with its colors yellow and red
in the air gone crazy with
Moroccan cosmopolitan frenzy
in the global village
like a pyramid of flights
the bird of peace
brings good news
leafing through the newspaper
varying the themes
drinking afternoon
cocktails…
losing track
like a hooligan of life
who rests through the day
at a table by the window
inside a pyramid of flights
listening to pop music
only a moment of slam.
March 25, 1991
Spot
Spot spot spot
Alfa Citroën computer
IBM Adidas
orange down jacket
speeds on a motor scooter
in traffic (well-built
and strong)
Acqua Boario young
liver with salt and pepper
hair passion
for soccer to meet
again on Sunday
smell of gasoline
from headlines
and opaque magazines
morning
musical photoflashes
in Alfa Citroen
the wipers
clean the rain
off the windshield
(it hardly falls)
April 5, 1991
Open the Windows
Open the windows
to the sun: it’s spring.
And men wear
new clothes, they move forward
in the April streets.
What does it matter if you don’t have
a look
that implores.
Days pass, they advance
majestic and perfumed
toward the final
revelation.
May 12, 1991
The 60s
The 60s rolled by
on a train
the little American boy
with his nose turned up in the air
night fell mythological
of stars in the sky
… yeah-yeah songs…
The “Knowledge” Encyclopedia
taught Geography and History
Total expectation.
frisbees circled round
in the air like UFOs
asphalt of highways
and countryside, on the outskirts
of the cities.
May 1991
Tea Ceremony
And I persist in searching
the effort that repays
of perky music
and feminine archetypes.
In the suppressed yawn as
in the knotted tie
I await my reward.
The tea ceremony
must be flawless
and only then will it reveal
its secrets.
January 1, 1992
Daylight Saving Time
Daylight saving time runs wild
and spring makes you fade
like a stray watercolor.
Oh, but how distant
the time to step out,
to run a hand through your hair!
March 30, 1992
Violet Porsche Chinese
the little Japanese blonde
from the castle overlooks
the great street: dark is the evening,
like a string of pearls,
behind the white porsche,
livid the cloudy sky,
yellow status of this
century, which charms
and makes turbid still…
September 28, 1992
Betty Boop
Betty Boop we are not heroes
we are men in line
and outside it rains anonymous gray
shop windows sales for all
Betty Boop we wait
often in a clumsy but
oh so clumsy way!
for our turn to come
Betty Boop sweet
ageless maiden
we are with you we are like you
with that tired but
patient smile, the street teems
and we Betty Boop
how many ants in the street Betty Boop
with bizarre pyjamas and striped raincoats
like yours!
How sweet Betty Boop:
You work you eat and you
diet, sometimes you worry
and sometimes you go to the cinema.
You are too distracted Betty Boop,
always have been. It is just that signs
fascinate you, cars
with their headlights, horns
and the perfume of premium gasoline.
Your little footsteps! Hesitant, shy, then
determined. We are with you, we are
like you Betty Boop, paper
dolls cut out just like that,
with fondness, and our story
is a very sweet cartoon.
We are not heroes, Betty Boop,
but men in line:
Je t’aime.
October 10, 1992
Cuban Sunday
Sunday in a hammock
among bananas and television
Cuban Sunday
sunk in the sun
even if it’s raining outside
Sunday among TV hostesses
auctions and cookery
(grate grate
eggplant),
and the sweet “Corriere…”,
Sunday in the pleasure
of idleness, without planning,
Sunday after the hot bath,
and shaving your beard
with nothing more to do
with nothing more to say…
Sunday with the telephone call
to a friend about this
and that
Sunday without thoughts
and without love.
October 11, 1992
Morality
The moral act is the child
of choice. And you do not know
how much it costs. There is a time
in life when options
are offered to you as a greedy
sum, and you just want to
gorge yourself. But as the portraits
of Moroni, Ingres and Tiepolo
suggest, the gaze has to
focus, concentrate, and man
must elect. In little there is
good or, better, all.
And I wish I’d already chosen…
December 13, 1992
Mirror on the Wall
Mirror mirror on the wall
who is the fairest
of them all?
Mirror of music
and tin, mirror
of moon and blades,
of white laces,
mirror of Argentinian
viados, of black night
and red lips on microphones
gone crazy, mirror of music
and disconsolate prima donnas
posed little statues,
varied notes among Martinis
and abandoned crowded stations,
night you suddenly are
cold of wind that blows
slowly, mirror on the wall
who is the fairest of them all?
February 23, 1993
Darkness
I descend from the valley
towards home, in the dark
of the night. The headlights of the cars
intercept the air
like fireflies. In my pilgrimage,
now that night looms,
presage of the destination,
solace at intervals.
November 15, 1993