TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN BY PATRICK WILLIAMSON

From Pas de chance (unpublished, 2022)

dispossessed of the hammer of the pickaxe
the impossibility of digging the
hole confuses saliva with
sperm by deviating its
trajectory.
but sperm is slimy and acidulous
its usefulness always has to be proved
except that
the place is mobile
passes through its own fractures
retains liquids and fluids so
not to flood the crack

expels solids, yes

but why?

the hinge yields the door
collapses disintegrates nuts and
bolts the shaft topples
dispensing
dissolved steel

the picture is well delimited
beyond the randomness
with which the brush falls to
mortify the canvas
thwarting the picture
of the whole
(but that’s another story)

here it’s
:
sometimes mixtures
dissolved steel
with aniseed and tamarind

so, to enrich the palate

From Fate attenzione a non calpestare il testo (unpublished, 2015/2023)

Before any utopian resolution, before the blink of
an eye that persists in beating the rhythm of the immediate,
before the boulder is hurled at the unwary
wayfarer, before suffering the sadism of the labyrinth,
before we pause on the wisdom threshold we will touch
observe that grain of tasty madness that is born and
shows itself as a pearl and always rolls from head to tail
digging, under the skin, a burrow. Before the fact,
before the spasm that moves and upsets the knots,
before all this dissemination declares itself
useless and infertile, before the chorus renews the ritual
of punishment, before the drum announces the advent
of consummation we will touch spit on that
perfidious light that still persists in scattering around
vacuous meteors deprived of all salvific function.

*
and
also
proceeds
spreading in
rays, it does not
claim puny
fathers nor
magnificent mothers,
buries amulets and
renews the ritual
spitting on the
silt multiple
time intervals punctuated
like steps barely
hinted at if ever
taken in
backwards
riding saddleless
the urgency
atavistic urgency of
return

*
Enough of the long and short, the chorus
recited loudly. And all the fetishes laughed
with gusto as they formed a circle around the
tasty wayfarer. A little longer than the
short would be the right size, replied
the wayfarer in petto. But history, you know,
must exhaust itself repeating the course and
recurrence of its cruelties. Such the wayfarer
led towards the place where he could bite
the body on duty until it bleeds. Another squandered
sacrifice, many thought, without taking
account of the weights and counterbalances that
always invigorate and exhaust the nerve centres

**

From Orge a canne mozze (unpublished, 2021)

and then rises if well tied
anchored to what
was loads or orgy
indistinct vocal din
rhythmic sex voice
minutes voice hours
there’s something or
someone some one or two or three
footsteps marked by
strokes of the glottis
naked voice minute voice
naked body or just useless minuteness
a seditious assemblage
but the chorus squawks
in true delight
and despairs if abulic surges
upright on the prow of the
roadstead of voices minimal minute
meticulous silenced

but no

the film resists
corrodes the dermis

minute stigmata voices
needle nail chisel
evidence and
proclaim the abortion
returned to mockery
of the call to order

Also, read Forgetting is Not Really a Decision by Jaishree Roy, translated from the Hindi by Rituparna Mukherjee and published in the Antonym:

Follow The Antonym’s Facebook page and Instagram account for more content and exciting updates.