FORTRESS EUROPE- SURVIVING AND DROWNING IN THE MEDITERRANEAN – Poems by Mohamed Malih and Pina Piccolo

First English publication in the journal Silk Road

Refugees

By: Mohamed Malih

Translated by: Donald Stang, Pina Piccolo, and Helen Wickes

In the saddle of our best years

we defy the ocean

investigating routes

of a thousand other destinies adrift

the landing is hazardous

at Lampedusa’s gates

PINA PICCOLO

MEDITERRANEAN 2011: THIRD ARTICLE OF THE INDICTMENT

8 April 2011

To honor the 16,000 specimens of homo migrans drowned in the Mediterranean since the beginning of the second millennium of the common era.
For us no helicopters with clacking propellers
moved to drop a silver cord,
nor invisible pilotless airplanes
to drop us Jacob’s ladder.
The Buraq, with its great white wings and soft saddle of velvet,
did not extend itself for us.
For us no whales arrived with spacious bellies,
saviors of slothful puppets or of prophets
little inclined to announce catastrophes.
Sinbad’s elegant and aerodynamic carpet
did not unroll over the waves for us.
Swans did not unite in flocks,
forming a net for us to grab.
The hippogriff certainly did not interrupt its voyage to the moon
to rescue the brains of knights,
nor did the yachts of bronzed politicians
race to catch up with us—
hardly the longed for prey of electoral campaigns.

For us there were neither saints nor djinns,
no Triton stretched his trident to us.
No Superman for us braved
the billows climbing softly over the foam,
nor did any messiah begin to walk across the waters.

For us no Colapesce surfaced from the depths of the Sicilian Sea,
disappointed by love and tired of hearing the nonsense of humans.
For us no one launched speedboats at wild speeds
nor patrol boats to zealously plow that spit of ocean.
No siren grasped us in her soft arms
to carry us to a happy island,
nor did any prophet dividing the waves with his staff
create a corridor of safety.
No guardian angel grabbed us by the hair,
nor did the devil approach us to tempt us with deals.

No dolphin, friend of humans, smiled at us
carrying us on its back to Luna Park.
No swordfish stayed faithfully at our flank
while we were harpooned by Wall Street.
No Olympic swim champion
offered himself as a testimonial to our plight
nor journalists hold a press conference.
For us there were no daring deeds
nor rescue squads nor heroic frenzies.

The sharks of the Red Sea with their drumbeat in the water
informed their cousins in the Mediterranean
that a succulent banquet was on its way.
And the tuna were pleased that on this day
they would not be massacred.

Of us no griot will eulogize
either the pedigree or the lineage.

For our bodies there was no flatline
of the encephalogram to signal
the end of the struggle, the end of the road.

Only silent on the waves slid the Mesektet,
Egyptian vessel of the night
“of the glorious garments
its colors of amethyst and emerald,
of jasper lapis lazuli and the sheen of gold,”¹
sacred to the god Ra who gathered us up
to pursue the journey.
¹ From the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead.

MEDITERRANEO 2011: TERZO CAPO D’ACCUSA

Pina Piccolo

Per onorare i 16.000 esemplari di homo migrans annegati nel Mediterraneo dall’inizio del secondo millennio dell’epoca comune

8 aprile 2011

Per noi non si mossero elicotteri dalle eliche schiamazzanti
a lanciarci una fune d’argento,
né invisibili aerei senza pilota
a calarci la scala di Giacobbe
Per noi non si scomodò il Buraq
dalle grandi ali bianche e la morbida sella di velluto
Per noi non arrivarono balene dal ventre capiente
salvatrici di burattini infingardi o di profeti
poco propensi a proclamar sventure
Per noi non decollò il tappeto di Sindbad
elegante e aerodinamico a rapirci ai cavalloni
I cigni non si unirono in stormo
formando un’aerea rete in cui impigliarci
L’ippogrifo certo non interruppe il suo viaggio verso la luna
a recuperare cervelli smarriti di cavalieri
Né gli yacht di politici abbronzati
si affannarono a raggiungerci
poco ambita preda di campagne elettorali

Per noi non ci furono né santi né jin
nessun Tritone ci allungò il suo tridente
Nessun Superman per noi sfidò
i marosi arrampicandosi leggero sulla schiuma
né alcun messia si mise a camminare sulle acque
Per noi non emerse Colapesce inabissatosi nel Mare Nostrum
deluso d’amore e stanco di sentire le sragioni degli umani
Per noi non si lanciarono a velocità folli motoscafi
né motovedette che solcano solerti quello sputo di mare
Nessuna sirena ci avvinghiò tra le morbide braccia
per portarci a un’isola felice
né alcun profeta separando col bastone le onde
creò un corridoio di salvezza
Non ci acciuffò dai capelli l’angelo custode
né ci avvicinò il diavolo per proporci patti

Nessun delfino, amico dell’uomo, ci sorrise
portandoci in groppa al Luna Park
Nessun pescespada restò fedele al nostro fianco
mentre venivamo arpionati da Wall Street
Nessun campione olimpionico di nuoto
venne a farci il testimonial
né giornalisti a tenere conferenze stampa
Per noi non ci furono rocambolesche gesta
né squadre di salvataggio né eroici furori

Gli squali del Mar Rosso con il tam tam dell’acqua
fecero sapere ai loro cugini del Mediterraneo
che era in arrivo un succulento banchetto
E i tonni si rallegrarono che quel giorno
non ci sarebbe stata una loro matanza

Di noi nessun griot decanterà
né il lignaggio né la discendenza

Per il nostro corpo non ci fu la linea piatta
dell’encefalogramma a segnare
la fine della lotta, il termine della rotta

Solo silenziosa sulle onde scivolò la Mesektet
imbarcazione della notte
“dai gloriosi rivestimenti
i suoi colori d’ametista e di smeraldo
di diaspro lapis lazuli e il lustro dell’oro”¹
sacra al dio Ra che ci raccolse
per proseguire il viaggio

¹ Da ‘Il Libro dei Morti’, Antico Egitto.

NOW THAT YOU KNOW

Poetry by Pina Piccolo

Translated by Donald Stang and Pina Piccolo

Visions of ruins
With their hardly heroic accompaniment of tourists
(Italians who push to the front of the line)
Perhaps they will become debris
Like the wake
From the hurricane of temples
Now that you know
That they were polychromatic
That they did not choose
A colorless dullness
To distinguish themselves
From the gods of all the other kitschy peoples
With their boisterous colors
And that the inspiration
of well bred women
Of the Seventies
To match their beige pants suits
with the unhappy, deceptive song
Of the siren of classic good taste
was senseless

Now that you know that perhaps
A mysterious people from the seas
Had taught them magnetic technologies
To move cyclopic boulders
Enclosing the citadel of the Atreides
And that the same techniques were
Carried out at Macchu Picchu
Now that you know that the word democracy
Was empty then as it is now
Now that you know
That from the Phoenicians the Greeks had learned
To recognize the stars
And that in Egypt their gods had been born
Now that you know that the monkey
Ceased to be such descending from the trees
And traversing the continents on two legs
Mixing his blood with whoever was already there,
Learned to recognize the fruits
And began to speak
Perhaps because struck
In his DNA by a viral sequence

Now that you know these things
Are you ready to cut the cord that ties you
To the dead weight of a past etched
By Byron on that Doric column
That for centuries has been casting
An imploring gaze toward the sea?

ORA CHE SAI

Pina Piccolo

Settembre 2010

Visioni di ruderi
Con poco eroico contorno di turisti
(Italians che s’intrufolano avanti nella coda)
Forse diventano macerie
Non dissimili alla scia
Lasciata dall’uragano dei tempi
Ora che sai
Che erano policromatici
Che non avevano eletto
Lo scialbo beigeolino
Per distinguersi dai colori
Chiassosi
Di tutti gli altri popoli kitsch
E che invano i tailleurs delle signore bene
Anni settanta
Si erano intonati all’infelice canzone fallace
Della sirena del buon gusto classico
Ora che sai che forse
Un misterioso popolo dei mari
Gli aveva insegnato delle tecniche
Magnetiche
Per spostare i massi ciclopici
Che racchiudevano
La cittadella degli Atridi
E che le stesse tecniche erano state eseguite
A Macchu Picchu
Ora che sai che la parola democrazia
Era vuota allora come lo è ora
Ora che sai
Che dai Fenici avevano imparato
A riconoscere le stelle
E che in Egitto erano nati i loro dei
Ora che sai che la scimmia
Cessò di essere tale scendendo dall’albero
E attraversando su due piedi i continenti
Mischiando il sangue
Con chi già v’era
Imparò a riconoscere i frutti
E si mise a parlare
Forse perchè colpita
Nel DNA da una sequenza virale
Ora che queste cose le sai
Sei pronta a spezzare
La fune che ti lega
Alla zavorra di un passato
Graffito da Byron sulla colonna dorica
Che da secoli lancia
lo sguardo implorante verso il mare?

The poet, Pina Piccolo, raised in Italy and the US, presently living in Italy, has a Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley. in Italian Literature. A poet, teacher, translator, she is the principal coordinator and one of the originators of La macchina sognante. Taking a transnational approach, that journal’s focus, and Piccolo’s, is on works in translation, frequently treating issues of migration, racism, history, ecosystems, indigenous cultures, as well as encouraging new literary voices. Her first collection of poetry “I canti dell’Interregno”, comprising 40 years of poetry produced in Italian is forthcoming mid-December 2017, and her manuscript with parallel production in English eagerly awaits to follow suit.

Featured image: photo of a painting by Italian painter Giacomo Cuttone, 2016 Effetto Morgana, acrylic on canvass 50×50. For more information visit Giacomo Cuttone’s website