From “Sussulti oculari” (unpublished, 2012)
CROCUS 2
Flow back into the veins, History:
’68, Pedro Alvarado,
the face of serfs,
the Indipendence of African states,
the Peloponnesian Wars.
To hear so many voices
of this ample History
whispering under your skin
and then turn into flesh
chomping at the bit and pressing
along your wrists and arteries,
engorging your carotid
gushing with stories.
But how can all this be told anew?
How can I act in every clear
day I run through?
How, dear friends of mine,
my dear plants, stones
and invisible beings
of the entire cosmos
I certainly don’t know.
And yet the crocus
appears in the kindergartens,
in every block
of colorless tenements
on the breathless benches
of foggy harbors.
For each woman, each man
a new crocus between the palms
and if tomorrow another were born
the world would be more humane
at the feet of itself.
CROCUS 2
Rifluisci nelle vene, Storia:
il Sessantotto, Pedro Alvarado,
il volto di servi della gleba,
le indipendenze africane,
le guerre del Peloponneso.
Sentire sottopelle
di quest’ampia Storia
le tante voci bisbigliare
e prendere poi corpo,
scalpitare e premere
lungo polsi ed arterie,
far ingrossare la carotide
di zampillanti storie.
Ma come ridire tutto questo?
Come agire in ogni chiaro
giorno per cui io corro?
Come, miei cari amici,
mie care piante, pietre
ed entità invisibili
di tutto il cosmo,
io bene non so.
Eppure spuntano
crochi negli asili,
ad ogni isolato,
in scialbe palazzine,
su panchine ansanti
di porti brumosi.
Per ogni donna, ogni uomo
un croco nuovo tra i palmi
e se domani un altro ne nascesse,
più umano sarebbe il mondo
ai piedi di se stesso.
Other unpublished poems (2017)
EVACUATE ANY DREAM
A nocturnal arrow the flight of the fox
at the rifle a hunter planted for her
lost in the buzzing of night
she seeks a corner of the world
that if not peaceful, at least has fewer cracks.
You too were fleeing traps
your eyes icy and your body shaken
like the torn off roots of an olive tree,
little a Sumerian goddess on the earth,
Inanna with a freckled countenance
fair hair all gathered
the emanating hands of a shaman.
Even over your head hung the urgency
of another world,
a humanity without arsenic in the heart.
You flee and the rifle is already at your temple.
Whether they call you beast or whore
it’s all the same,
running is your fate
evacuating any dream
looking all around you.
In the deep of night you are a gazelle
in every cowardice of ours.
SBARACCARE OGNI SOGNO
Saetta notturna scappa la volpe
al fucile piantatole dal cacciatore,
persa nel brusio della notte
cerca un angolo di mondo
se non in pace, con meno crepe.
Anche tu scappavi all’insidie
con gli occhi di ghiaccio e scossa
come le radici divelte di un ulivo,
piccola dea sumera sulla terra,
Inanna dal volto di lentiggini
la chioma chiara e raccolta,
le mani emanatrici di sciamana.
Anche sul tuo capo pendeva
l’urgenza di un altro mondo,
un’umanità senz’arsenico nel cuore.
Fuggi e il fucile è già alle tempie.
Ti dicano bestia o puttana
fa lo stesso,
il destino è correre,
sbaraccare ogni sogno
guardarti attorno.
Sei una gazzella nella notte
fonda di ogni nostra viltà.
I AM THOSE HEINOUS WALLS
My quartered body still warm
with that life that is now fleeing me
my mutilated breasts
my eyes full of his sperm
my sex opened
with barbed wire.
Look at me in that ditch
staring with a lost gaze
look at me in the favelas
look at me in the desert
look at me in the Mediterranean
look at me afloat on the river
look at my blood feeding the forest
look in the patio behind your house
there I am, there we are, will you be there?
I am the woman looking for a job
I am the girl with five children
the hand they cut off of me
I am the one who trusted the coyote
because no other story was available
I am the domestic worker who just ironed your clothes
I am from Lima Caracas Aleppo
Juba Dhaka, Mosul, the West Bank
Port-au-Prince Ouagadougou
from a remote area in the Amazon
from all the places you don’t know
but will read about in the newspapers for the first time
I am the man who died of suffocation
in a van used as improvised prison
I am the tianguis seller whom you find disgusting
I am the dirty kid in the subway
I am the neighborhoods you’ll never set foot in
I am the whore who is freezing to death
I am the activist who walks up the stage
I am the woods cut off like those breasts
I am the crucified elk who wanted to go on migrating
I am the cubs of that animal trapped in the fence
I am those four seconds between a kiss and death
I am the smell of home and the stench of the forgotten
I am the hunger relieved by the Las Patronas’ bag
I am either the Saturday that didn’t make it or the Tuesday
I am your mother your father your cousin your son
I am the scar across the world
I am those heinous walls
SONO QUEI MURI INFAMI[1]
Il mio corpo squartato caldo ancora
di quella vita che fugge da me
i seni mutilati
gli occhi pieni del suo sperma
il sesso aperto
con filo spinato.
Guardami in quel fossato
guardare con sguardo perso
guardami nelle favelas
guardami nel deserto
guardami nel Mediterraneo
guardami affiorare nel fiume
guarda il mio sangue alimentare la selva
guardami nel patio dietro casa
sono lì siamo lì, ci sarai?
Sono la donna alla ricerca di lavoro
sono la ragazza con cinque figli
alla mano che mi hanno tagliato
sono chi si è fidata del coyote[2]
perché non c’era altra storia
sono la domestica che ha appena stirato i tuoi vestiti
sono di Lima Caracas Aleppo
Giuba Dacca Mosul West Bank
Port-au-Prince Ouagadougou
di un remoto luogo amazzonico
di tutti i posti che non conosci
e di cui leggerai sui giornali per la prima volta
sono l’uomo morto per asfissia
in un furgoncino in un’improvvisata carcere
sono il venditore del tianguis[3]che ti fa schifo
sono il bambino sudicio nella metro
sono i quartieri in cui non metterai mai piede
sono la puttana morendo di freddo
sono l’attivista che sale sul palco
sono il bosco reciso come quei seni
sono l’alce in croce che voleva continuare a migrare
sono i cuccioli di quell’animale intrappolato nella palizzata
sono i quattro secondi tra il bacio e la morte
sono l’odore di casa il fetore dell’obliato
sono la fame alleviata dalla busta delle patronas[4]
[1] Poem written in Spanish and translated into Italian by the author. It was first published in a poetry action against walls: http://circulodepoesia.com/2017/02/poesiacontraelmuro-poetryvsthewall-poesievsmur-poetas-del-mundo-tercera-parte/ The poem was included in Ximena Soza’s exhibition “Under the soles” at La Peña Cultural Center, Berkeley and will be included in an Italian poetry anthology in 2018.
[2] Name given in Mexico to smugglers of migrants.
[3] Traditional Meso American market. In Mexico it is still called by that name.
[4] A group oof women volunteers formed in Veracruz that offers food and support to migrants traveling towards the US in trains such as La Bestia.
LUCIA CUPERTINO (Polignano a Mare, 1986) is a cultural anthropologist, poet (in Italian and Spanish) and translator. Currently living in Colombia where she is experimenting with traditional indigenous agricultural techniques and sustainable lifestyles. In 2010 she undertook field work among the Wichì people in the Argentinian Chaco (in collaboration with the University of Bologna). She collaborates as poet, critic and translator with Italian literary journals Nuovi Argomenti, Fili d’aquilone and Iris di Kolibris. She is a founding member of La Macchina Sognante and a current editor focusing especially on South and Central America, indigenous people, traditional plants and agriculture, as well as migration. Her first chapbook is titled Mar di Tasman (Collana Isola, Bologna, 2014) with drawings by Paolo Cattaneo, other works appeared in the anthology Poeti contemporanei 179 (Pagine, Roma, 2013) and the magazines Fili d’aquilone, Sagarana, Poeti e poesia, La Macchina Sognante. Some of her poems in Spanish have been published in La otra, Círculo de poesía and Vallejo &Co. She is the editor of 43 Poeti per Ayotzinapa (Arcoiris 2016), a multilingual collection of poems with Italian translation, about the 43 disappeared Normalistas in Mexico, which includes poems written in indigenous languages, as well as the work of Spanish-speaking poets from s Mexico and from other Central and South American countries. Her first full collection of poetry Non ha tetto la mia casa/No tiene techo mi casa was published in a biligual Spanish and Italian edition in 2016 by Casa de poesia, San Jose. Her latest publication is the origami-book Cinco Poemas de Lucia Cupertino, published by Los ablucionistas, Mexico City, 2017. She is currently experimenting with short story writing, and some of her work can be found in La Macchina Sognante.
Cover image: Collage by Basseck Mankabu.
