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Overview
Culled from his entire career, the poems in Traces of Time cover numerous themes, most prominently the poet's relationship to history and how poetry can exist outside of it. "Tiananmen, 20 Years Later," "Protocols of War," and "Checkmate" (about 9/11) all illustrate Lucio Mariani's concerns "through images both dense and porous, lines both cadenced and spasmodic," and confirm his place in contemporary poetry.
"Protocols of War"
(Baghdad is not far)
Of this time you'll gather no memories for your eternal hunger.
Can't you see the slags in the weave that enfolds the flesh of the living?
Can't you see that the boxes and drawers where the silver of bygone days abounds have no room for trinkets or seashells of a present founded on plaster markets,
lost facing a mirror seeking itself in the halls of the world?
Don't you see that for the first time every man erects ruins for his heirs enacting inane protocols of war while the future slams its shutters tight so as to celebrate on statistical altars the glory of mindless marionettes maneuvered by nothingness,
sprung in the bitter fields of oblivion?
Of this time you'll gather no memories.
Lucio Mariani is the author of eight volumes of poetry, including Echoes of Memory (available in English from UPNE), as well as a volume of essays, a collection of short stories, and translations of works by César Vallejo, Tristan Corbière, and Yves Bonnefoy.
Anthony Molino is a translator from the Italian, an anthropologist, and a psychoanalyst. In addition to Lucio Mariani's two volumes, he has also translated works by Valerio Magrelli and Antonio Porta, among others.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781940953144 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Open Letter |
| Publication date: | 07/14/2015 |
| Edition description: | Bilingual |
| Pages: | 130 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d) |
About the Author
Anthony Molino is a translator from the Italian, an anthropologist, and a psychoanalyst. His translations include Lucio Mariani's Echoes of Memory and works by Valerio Magrelli and Antonio Porta, among others.
Read an Excerpt
Traces of Time
New and Selected Poems
By Lucio Mariani, Anthony Molino
OPEN LETTER
Copyright © 2012 Lucio MarianiAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-940953-14-4
CHAPTER 1
AGONE
Domandavi se mai mi sentissi in ritardo.
È un problema di chi si mette fra la seconda
e l'ultima corsia.
Io rincorro da solo.
Che sia quindi in anticipo o tardivo
tutto dipende dal disamore che sto ruminando.
Per la giusta cadenza ho battuto le mani due o tre volte
e mi sono premiato schizzandomi sul viso
fresche parcelle di felicità. Nel buio.
CONTEST
You'd ask if I were ever late.
That's a problem for people stuck
between the second and last lanes.
Me, I'm in lone pursuit.
So that whether I'm early or late
depends solely on the day's disaffection.
To catch the beat I clapped my hands once or twice,
before splashing my face with particles
of happiness. For getting it right. In the dark.
MI DIRAI
Come amore soltanto ti vivo assente
amore mio
deposta nella trama
e nella corda un filo indistinguibile,
continuato fremòre del silenzio.
Mi dirai non è amore, così non è
dolore il non patito, il temuto dolore
tu che non sai cominciata la morte
e che cerchi le affiches sopra ogni bottiglia.
YOU'LL SAY
I live your love only in your absence
my love
stitched in the woof
and weft of an invisible thread
endless throb of silence.
That's not love, you'll say, the way pain
not suffered, though dreaded,
isn't pain. You, who ignore that death has set in
and trust the label on every bottle.
DOVE
Dove il rumore della tua memoria
stagna forte, sottile, inconsumato
ubique lune e stelle differenti
dicono quanto passo della notte
di quante notti ancora sto passando
per trovare rarissime finzioni
da versare sul petto e sull'attesa
della piccola morte che m'hai dato.
WHERE
Where the din of your memory
stagnates strong subtle unconsumed
everywhere moons and disparate stars
tell how much of the night I pass
how many nights I still pass looking
to find the rarest of pretences
to pour over my chest and the wait
for the little death you handed me.
L'AMORE TALVOLTA
Chiama l'usanza un minimo di appello,
s'apre la stanza e avvio secondo norma
i giochi che non voglio interamente
che come me non vuole interamente
la conosciuta mia.
E pure si converge e pure si conviene
per un curioso, banale istinto di compattamento.
Eppure avviene.
LOVE SOMETIMES
Habit makes for a roll call of sorts
the room opens and I begin as usual
the games I really don't want to play
the same games she's not keen on.
And still we meet, still we converge
by way of some odd, banal inclination to conjoin.
The pact, you know,
just happens.
L'ALTRO
Mi chiedi d'esser l'altro che comprendi,
quello che parla lentamente, chiaro,
che descrive le piazze partendo dai negozi
che del mare
discute il salino, il rischio, la grandezza
che lasci la sera
ritrovi il mattino inalterato.
Mi chiedi d'esser l'altro
che cadenza la cura
dell'orto e del tuo frutto
acqua per l'acqua
fronte per la fronte
che morde con i denti
e il giorno divide dalla notte,
non cerca indizi di luna.
Mi chiedi d'esser l'altro
che conosce per nome
i suoi nemici e il giusto
che non lima un dubbio rotondo
che sputa le spine del ventre
che lo scriccio di foglia calpestata
chiama rumore.
Mi chiedi d'esser biondo.
THE OTHER
You ask me to be the other you comprehend,
the one who speaks slowly, clearly,
who describes a piazza from its shops
and discusses the sea's
salinity, its risk and grandeur
whom at night you leave
to find in the morning, unchanged.
You ask me to be the other
who cadences the care
of your garden and fruit
water for water
brow for brow
who bites with his teeth
to divide night from day,
indifferent to the moods of the moon.
You ask me to be the other
who knows what's right
and his enemies by name,
who smooths the edges of doubt
and spits up the thorns in his gut,
who calls the crackle of a leaf underfoot
noise.
You ask me to be blond.
L'ETERNITÀ
a Luca
Mentre l'eternità figlio,
l'eternità è quel modo di te
che ho potuto donarti stabilmente,
un tralcio sotterrato
nel parco dei tuoi umori
che riaffiora nel sorriso improvviso
nell'inabilità della mano a sfabbricare
nella curiosità che ti dà il mare
forte e continua più della paura
nel rispettare il misero antropino
nell'amore del vino e delle poppe.
Eterna figlio è la tua parte
eterno quel milligrammo mio
che domani ed insieme ingombreranno
il gesto della scimmia tua devota
qualunque sia
per sangue o suggestione. E così via.
ETERNITY
for Luca
Whereas eternity, my son,
eternity is that way of yours
I managed indelibly to bestow,
a brier hidden
in the garden of your moods
that sprouts in your sudden smile
in your hand's inability to craft
in the curiosity the sea inspires
stronger and steadier than any fear
in your respect for the lowly little man
in your love for wine and tits.
Eternal, my son, is the part of you
eternal that milligram of mine
that tomorrow together will burden
the gesture
of any and every monkey devoted to you
whether by blood or influence. And so on.
Y ENTONCES
a César Vallejo
Salve infinito Vallejo
sproposito umano
salve cuore capace del tuo corpo
dei mille amati e d'oltre
salve voce che hai detto
quello che il tempo ancora tace
salve unico mastro nell'impresa
di restare tradito post mortem
salve luce della candela malintesa
liquidato con quattro righe
nel dictionnaire di Van Tieghem
contro le ventitré per Alberti il corista
salve spada emotiva della guerra
combattuta da solo
sudando inchiostro d'anima e di sale.
Sulle ciglia
raccolgo i resti della devozione
e t'accarezzo
felice che di te abbiano fatto
un mio segreto
César Vallejo, miniera generale
di quozienti estricabili nonché
di chiavi di cappelli y entonces.
1974
Y ENTONCES
for César Vallejo
Hail, infinite Vallejo
human blunder
hail, heart worthy of your body
of the thousands loved and more
hail, voice that spoke
what time still hushes
hail, lone master adept
at staying betrayed post-mortem
hail, light of a misguided candle
dismissed in but four lines
by Van Tieghem in his dictionnaire
while Alberti the chorister counts twenty-three
hail, emotive sword of the war
you fought alone
sweating ink of soul and salt.
From my eyes I wipe
the remains of my devotion
and I embrace you
happy they have made of you
my own personal secret.
César Vallejo, universal mine
of all that can be extracted from words,
of keys of hats y entonces.
1974
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Traces of Time by Lucio Mariani, Anthony Molino. Copyright © 2012 Lucio Mariani. Excerpted by permission of OPEN LETTER.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Preface Rosanna Warren ix
Translator's Note xiii
Contest 3
You'll Say 5
Where 7
Love Sometimes 9
The Other 11
Eternity 13
Y entonces 15
Letter 17
Try 21
The Only Dead 23
Coincidences 27
In the Grass 29
On the Tongue 31
Whims of Water 33
Ephesus 35
Crèche 39
The Slightest of Winds 41
Hyperbole 43
It's Necessary 45
The Envy of the Gods 49
De Moraes 51
Lethe 53
Sicily in June 55
The Prophet's Precept 57
Question 59
Desert 61
Botched Plans 63
Talking to Themselves 65
Of Time 67
So Says the Merchant 69
Piazza Navona 71
L'esprit de la lot 73
The Moral Issue 75
The Bollard 77
Checkmate 79
New Myths 81
Protocols of War 83
The Moon and the Wave 85
The Short-Lived Butterfly 87
Like the Daisies 89
My Birth 91
Oration 97
Operation Medici 103
The Gesture 107
A New Freedom 109
Scapegoat of Silence 111
The Knaves of Commerce 113
What Barbarians 117
Guests 121
Letter Never Sent 125
To a Translator 127
Against All Daggers 129
A Frequent Question 131
To a Friend 133
Curtain Call 135
Ineptia 137
Identities in Transit 141
Tiananmen Square, 20 Years Larer 143
Pietas 145
Lady 147
Afterword Lucio Mariani 149