Linh Dinh

Seven Contemporary Italian Poets (7/7)

Alessandro Broggi, translated by Linh Dinh:
Field of Action
Giulio proposes a toast. Everyone drinks. Berta laughs and receives a slap from Carlo, who reacts immediately. The woman who owns the café doesn’t react, Berta laughs and Carlo gives her a kiss. Bernarda plants herself before Carlo, raises her underskirt with one hand and extends an open hand to him. She sits down. The owner brings her a cold würstel and slams it on the table. Samantha skips over to Carlo. Carlo shoves one hand between her thighs and spits at Berta’s extended hand. Gustavo observes with boredom Samantha’s lower belly, then gives her a coin. Carlo stands up and grins fiercely. The owner goes towards Carlo and without saying a word gives him a slap. Berta laughs and receives a slap also. Carlo takes Berta by the hair and drags her to Gustavo, holding her face before Gustavo’s fly. Berta nods in agreement and Carlo lets go. Gustavo stands up, says nothing and bites violently a piece of bread. The owner heads towards Carlo. The handsome man, meanwhile, fixes his gaze on the beautiful woman, without looking he slips a hand into a pant pocket and without looking extends a large bill towards Samantha. Carlo wants to grab the money but the owner is quicker. Carlo sits down, panting. Berta wants to console him but he moves away. The owner heads towards the table of the beautiful couple with their hands by their sides. Gustavo eats with increasing voracity. The handsome man makes a gesture of refusal with his hand, without averting his gaze from the beautiful woman. The owner sits herself at Giulio’s and Bernarda’s table. Gustavo begins to move, kisses Giulio on the mouth, the owner on the forehead and Carlo on the mouth and on the forehead. Carlo disgusted wipes his lips to clean them. Gustavo walks towards the table of the beautiful couple and punches him awkwardly, hitting him on the shoulder. The handsome man makes a gesture of refusal with his hand, without averting his gaze from the beautiful woman. As the man gestures, Gustavo grabs his hand and places it between his legs. The handsome man observes coldly and without particular interest how Gustavo excites himself with his hand. Samantha covers her mouth with her hands and leaps up hysterically. Carlo moves closer and administers a slap to the beautiful woman. The owner yanks the handsome man’s hand from Gustavo and places it between her legs. Bernarda sneaks forward, gives the handsome man a slap in passing and places Carlo’s hand between her legs. Giulio reaches them and kneeling before the group in action begs them to stop. Berta on her feet watches the scene coldy, making an enormous bubble with the gum she’s chewing, which finally explodes on her face. The beautiful couple are dragged to the ground and brutally undressed. Carlo indicates he wants to rape the beautiful woman. Gustavo removes the handsome man’s pants while guffawing. The owner lifts her apron and sits on the handsome man’s face. Bernarda positions herself behind Giulio and waits for his erection so she could exploit it for herself. By now the beautiful couple are completely buried beneath the others’ bodies. Finally blood begins to splash. Berta is still standing at the same spot and continues to make bubbles with the gum she’s chewing. The beautiful couple are eaten. Gustavo gives Carlo a blow to the head with a piece of meat. The owner then hits him with a thighbone. Giulio remains seated, distracted, playing with the remains of the cadavers. The owner strikes Carlo with a rib. Carlo reacts immediately. Berta removes her shoes and socks and wedges a toe into Carlo’s mouth. Carlo sucks and cries. One after another follows his example, while Gustavo observes the scene with irritation. Bernarda gives Gustavo a slap, who then licks Berta’s foot while whining. Samantha kisses Berta’s ass. Berta gives one of the skeletons a kick, sits at the table where the beautiful couple were and drinks their spumante. Giulio goes to Berta and hides his face in her lap. She pours on his head a glass of spumante. He slips to the ground wearily and lies there for a moment. Samantha reaches him and gives his hand a kiss, as if in reverence. Bernarda takes off a shoe and a sock, goes towards Giuolo and gives him a kick in the ass. Seeing him offended, she wedges a foot in his mouth. Berta lifts a bone to hit Gustavo, then suddenly stops herself and slowly lowers her arm. She falls on Bernarda and shoves her head into one of the cadavers. Berta lets go of Bernarda and straightens her own hair. Bernarda hides beneath a table and nuzzles up to Samantha. Berta and Gustavo follow suit, murmurring.

01.11.09 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (4)

Linh Dinh

Seven Contemporary Italian Poets (6/7)

Michele Zaffarano, translated by Linh Dinh:

01.10.09 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (4)

Linh Dinh

Seven Contemporary Italian Poets (5/7)

Florinda Fusco, translated by Laura Modigliani:

0.1
I count the bones           now that you are almost close enough
           behind the glass pane           the hand pushes but does not reach
the body bent over  to embroider a forest            with pins
                     steady, so as not to prick oneself
           wrinkles grow on the skin    like roots, trees

little by little I chop off my fingers
my tongue           the other tongue

                      covered with moss
                         all the way to the throat

01.09.09 PERMALINK | NO COMMENTS

Linh Dinh

Seven Contemporary Italian Poets (4/7)

Vanni Santoni, translated by Linh Dinh:

Precarious Characters

Magdalene
“Five thousand years of history, an entire planet, and the nastiest things of all time happened a few miles from here, not even seventy years ago. Now, tell me why shouldn’t I fear the future?”
Elmo (July’s oldie goldie)
“Can we make love like we did at twenty-years-old?”
“That’s impossible, my treasure, not only because we’re 58, but also because at the time of our first intercourse we were twenty-two and not twenty. I remember it very well, that moment when I was twenty and dating a dear girl from Lucca.”
Vanni
Is in Stockholm.
Teodoro
Teodoro is timid and fragile, but is adapting well to life in the high-security C. Lombroso correctional institute: he keeps to himself, doesn’t draw attention, yet notices everything. Recently he heard strange sounds coming from under the mess hall, but hasn’t worked up enough courage to go down and investigate.
Penelope
Penelope sleeps more and more. When she was small, she already slept nine or ten hours a night. During adolescence, it rose to thirteen hours then appeared to stabilize when she was nineteen-years-old.
Instead, now that she is twenty-nine and lives alone, maintaining herself on profit from some real estate, she has become accustomed, within a few months, to sleeping eighteen, nineteen or even twenty hours a day. When she wakes up, Penelope is always in a great mood.

01.08.09 PERMALINK | NO COMMENTS

Linh Dinh

Seven Contemporary Italian Poets (3/7)

Marina Pizzi, translated by Laura Modigliani:

Four Poems
the hours excised, eroded
one day I’ll go from one thing to another
or with handkerchief on wrist
with vermilion forefinger to ask you again
pardon for the mile just gone
*
awful rag the farewell
in grape must that boils without intoxication
the elevator of solitude that ascends
to a deaf landing, an incomplete floor,
to what’s funny for those still without
care givers, living dead.
vast tax vast this arrogance
of the die cast of the veto against the neck
fit for a collar without being walked.
*
the elastic forehead for watching God
from this shield of harangue.
insolence of action the nativity of the sea
backwashes under the arcades
nervous tic of lovers, love to be remade

01.07.09 PERMALINK | NO COMMENTS